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As a baseball player coming up in the late 1970s, Orel Hershiser was never seen as a red-hot prospect. No scouts made the trek to Bowling Green State University in Ohio to check out his arm. As Hershiser describes his entrée
into Major League Baseball, “I was a 17th-round draft pick that signed for a new glove and $10,000.”
Even after he made it all the way to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ bullpen in 1983, Hershiser figured he’d be lucky to stay in the majors for five to seven years. Early on, while nurturing the skills that would lead him to a Cy Young Award, a World Series win and many other accolades, Hershiser had his eye on becoming a sports broadcaster as a second act for his career.
“If you realize you’re not going to pitch forever and play forever, you might want to think about what you are going to do with those years that are greater than your playing days,” Hershiser tells Variety.
Hershiser applied the same commitment, discipline and hard work to learn his way around a microphone as he did in learning how to mow ’em down from the mound. Twenty-five years after he got his start in TV sports as an analyst for ESPN, the beanpole kid who was nicknamed “Bulldog” by legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work as a TV sports analyst and color commentator. The unveiling is set for Aug. 13 at 6755 Hollywood Boulevard.
“The love of baseball has made me dedicated to everything that has come into my life because of baseball,” Hershiser says. He credits that lifelong passion and the humility to appreciate what it has brought him for his success in TV.
“Even if you’re not a second baseman, you study second-base play. Even if you’re not a hitter, you study hitters. Even if you’re not a coach or a manager, you study coaching and managing and broadcasting,” he says. “The love makes you want to know the complete [operation of a team], and that led me to know something and to experience something about every facet of the life of baseball.”
LISTEN to the full interview with Orel Hershiser on Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast
Bob Costas, a longtime sportscaster for NBC and a respected baseball commentator, says Hershiser is that rare breed of player who invested the time and intellectual energy into mastering a new skill. Since 2014, Hershiser has served as color commentator and analyst for the Dodgers through the team’s Spectrum SportsNet L.A. channel. In that role, he’s often tapped to join the booth when Dodger games air on ESPN, NBC or Fox.
“Even if you have great knowledge of the game and you have a good personality and you’re able to tell a good story — you have to take broadcasting seriously. Some [former players] just show up and think that’ll be enough,” Costas tells Variety. “You have to prepare. It can’t be all ‘Well, back in my day.’”
Given Hershiser’s status as a Dodger Legend — he was formally inducted as such by the team in 2023 — he is perfectly situated to bring insight and authority to his color commentary.
“When Orel is on the air, he’s all about this year’s Dodger team but he’s also a significant part of Dodger history. He brings important cachet,” Costas says.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., Hershiser’s family moved frequently during his youth due to his father’s career in sales. He went to high school in Cherry Hill, N.J., and then headed to Bowling Green State in 1976. He was a late bloomer when it came to demonstrating his potential as a baseball player. During the summer after his sophomore year, Hershiser shot up three inches, hitting 6-foot-3, and he gained 20 pounds. He made the school’s varsity team in his junior year and wound up being signed by the Dodgers in 1979.
Hershiser well remembers how overwhelmed he was by his first exposure to the urban sprawl of Los Angeles and the heft of the Dodger organization.
“When I first got to Los Angeles, I was like a Norman Rockwell painting,” Hershiser quips during a sit-down interview in the showroom of Orel Hershiser Chevrolet, a dealership in Chino, about 40 miles east of L.A.
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Like a rock-ribbed Rockwell character, the kid from Bowling Green State made it big in the city of Angels on his own terms. Over his 13 seasons as a player with the Dodgers, Hershiser established a reputation as a consummate teammate, loyal friend and a person of great integrity who is devoted to his Christian faith. He was never a flashy Hollywood type — the Dodgers had a number of high-flyers in that era, including the tragic story of Steve Howe, a pitcher who was banned from baseball for substance abuse. But nor was Hershiser a rube. He consistently cites the grounding influence of his parents, his faith and the role models he had as a twenty-something player in the Dodger organization. “They taught me how to be a Dodger on and off the field,” Hershiser says.
But Hershiser was a slow build after making his Dodger debut on Sept. 1, 1983, 15 days ahead of his 25th birthday. He delivered good but not great stats for the next few seasons until Lasorda, in his inimitable style, charged out to the mound one day and ordered him to get more aggressive, pronto. Lasorda declared that Hershiser would from there on out be nicknamed “Bulldog” to scare batters.
The sobriquet stuck. More important, Hershiser doubled down on working with Dodger coaches to fine-tune his throws. He did so with a determination to excel that helped lead the team to the 1988 World Series win, in an epic 4-1 Fall Classic against the Oakland A’s that is much remembered today in the hearts of Dodger fans. That same year, Hershiser set a major league record that still stands today: he pitched an astounding 59-and-a-half consecutive scoreless innings, from Aug. 30-Sept. 28, 1988.
“Not all Cy Young Awards are created equal,” Costas observes. “That ’88 season for the Dodgers is one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball. And then it was Orel on the mound when the World Series ends.”
Hershiser left the Dodgers in 1995 for three seasons with Cleveland followed by one-year deals with the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets. By 2000, he was back in Dodger blue for a brief
final season.
Hershiser’s experience and reputation for integrity made him a natural for transitioning into a baseball executive or a team manager or an ace pitching coach. After his first stint at ESPN as an analyst, Hershiser figured he should explore those options. He moved to the Texas Rangers in a variety of roles from 2002 to 2005. Ultimately, he decided the work did not suit him.
“I did not feel like that was a good fit for me. I’m not as much of a political animal. I have very few filters when it comes to what I see and what I want to talk about, and that doesn’t fit in a front office very well,” Hershiser says.
“So I called ESPN at the request of my wife [Dana Hershiser]. She said, ‘You did some broadcasting. Maybe you should try that again.’ ”
Hershiser’s friendship with pioneering “SportsCenter” anchor Chris Berman helped connect him with then-ESPN programming executive Norby Williamson, who nabbed Hershiser as a baseball analyst. Williamson signed him to an initial 55-game deal, in a nod to Hershiser’s number in his playing days. In 2014, Hershiser was recruited once again by the Dodgers to be part of the launch team for what was then Time Warner’s SportsNet LA regional sports network. In a deal that signaled the future in media for top teams, SportsNet LA (now owned by Charter Communications) nabbed local TV rights to Dodger games in a landmark 25-year deal struck in 2013.
ESPN was akin to the hustle that players experience in the minor leagues before being called up to the bigs.
“If you’re a broadcaster for ESPN, it’s kind of like a car wash,” Hershiser says. “You’re going to do all the different places there are to appear. You’re going to do ‘SportsCenter.’ You’re going to do ‘Baseball Tonight.’ You’re going to do the [game] broadcast. You’re going to do the Little League World Series. You’re going to do the College World Series. And you know what — it was great, great, great training, but also great experience.”
Hershiser has enjoyed the intellectual challenge of mastering the mechanics of covering baseball for a TV audience. He’s learned to modulate his commentary depending on whether he’s serving a national audience or doing a SportsNet LA telecast for local fans.
“Don’t start a story with one out and a man on first because a double play could end the inning right then, and now your story is segmented by a commercial,” Hershiser says when asked for one of his rules of announcing. “I enjoy the silence sometimes. I enjoy the ‘a-ha’ moments, and then to let the audience see it for themselves [in a replay] and figure out what I said. There’s more studying than people probably think.”
Of course, Hershiser and every other Dodger broadcaster inevitably face comparison to the mellifluous voice that became synonymous with baseball itself. Hershiser sees the legacy forged by Vin Scully, who served 67 seasons with the same franchise, and Jaime Jarrín, who served 64 years as its Spanish-language voice, as an obligation to bring his A-game every night. Scully retired in 2016; Jarrín signed off in 2022.
“The No. 1 lesson in broadcasting I’ve learned from Vin Scully is that the audience doesn’t care about the game until they care about the people playing it. So if you make the people come alive, they will care about the game,” Hershiser observes.
“My job is to take you to a place that you’ve never been. Take you into the dugout. Take you on the team bus. Take you to the team meal. Take you to the trophy ceremony. Take you to the experience of growing up and dreaming of being a big leaguer, and then making it,” Hershiser says. “That’s what I think about — how do I tell them something they don’t know and take them to a place that adds depth to what we’re watching.”
