Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — It’s every baseball fan’s dream to one day visit the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Imagine the thrill of running the joint. That’s what’s happened to former Dodgers exec Josh Rawitch this year. Rawitch, a Southern California native, was named the Hall’s new president on June 28, 2021. And, swell guy that he is, Rawitch stopped by the Bleed Los podcast recently to talk about his past with the Dodgers and his future with the Hall.
Coolest gig on earth
“In a lot of ways, it still hasn’t hit me yet,” Rawitch told the Bleed Los boys. “I told my wife this morning, there are moment when I feel like we’re actually on vacation, and we’re going back to Arizona soon, when we’re not, clearly. Just the other day, I met a reporter from Colorado and we wandered through the plaque gallery. It really just boggles my mind where my career has taken me.”
Rawitch, 44, has spent 27 seasons working in baseball, including the last decade with the Arizona Diamondbacks, serving as the team’s Senior Vice President of Content and Communications for the past six years. He joined the Diamondbacks after 15 years as part of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ front office.
Dodger Memories
But it was as a Dodger fan that he grew to love baseball. Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Rawitch remembers growing up cheering for Steve Sax, Mike Marshall, and Pedro Guerrero back in the day. Then, while still a young man, Rawitch was hired to work as an intern for his favorite team. “I remember that my first day of work was the day after Mike Piazza got traded,” he recalled. “My first job was to take down all the stuff with him all over the stadium.”
While he has fond memories of his time with the Dodgers, he did work for the team during a transitional time for the ballclub. He was hired while the team was still owned by the O’Malley family. But then, he lived through the tumultuous Fox to McCourt to Guggenheim transition. If anything, it taught him the value of stability in an organization. Some of his favorite memories with the team included “Think Blue” week when he was tasked with reading letters from Dodger fans who had dreams of being a Dodger employee for a day, “We had Matt Vasgersian do play-by-play for an inning as part of that,” he recalled referencing the ESPN and MLB Network’s personality.
The Future of the Hall
Though he is still getting his feet wet in Cooperstown, he has a big week ahead of him. On September 8, the Hall will have its first induction ceremony in two years. Though there is still a pandemic going on, it will be a welcome sign that normalcy is coming sooner rather than later. In the ceremony this year, Derek Jeter, Ted Simmons, Larry Walker and others will be inducted.
Rawitch also weighed in on whether or not more numbers should be retired on the Dodger stadium wall. He acknowledged that in the end it was a team decision, but that the Dodgers had a policy of only so honoring Dodgers who’d made the Hall of Fame. “In reference to Fernando Valenzuela, if the Veteran’s committee inducts him into the Hall, I’m sure the number would be retired, but until then, it’s been the Dodgers position to make the Hall of Fame the delineation between getting your number retired and not. The only exception that was made was Jim Gilliam, who died during the World Series, and it was a very emotional decision.”
For this and more insights from the incoming Hall of Fame president, check out the Bleed Los podcast, which keeps getting better and better.
