It would not be a stretch to say that a flash on the transaction wire or a blurb on an Instagram page announcing the retirement of a player most fans could not identify without assistance would likely pass with little fanfare.
If I am allowed to indulge for just a moment, let us reach and take a moment to reflect on the formal goodbye of an old friend, Sheldon Neuse (pronounced Noisy, not Noose). Last week, Neuse announced his retirement by announcing the creation of a roofing company on Instagram.
If this news seems like a bit of a reach, one might need to grasp for an explanation. However, people do need roofs.
Neuse was a journeyman infielder who was on the Dodgers’ 2021 roster. In 33 games, he had a slash line of .169/.182/.323 with 3 HR and 4 RBI before spending the rest of the year in Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Neuse’s main claim to fame in a Dodgers uniform is more from what he didn’t do during the 2021 campaign. The 2021 San Francisco Giants were only able to win the division and break the Dodgers’ consecutive division-title streak thanks to a myriad of decisions and outcomes spread throughout the campaign.
From Mike Tauchman to Cody Bellinger to, yes, Sheldon Neuse.
On July 22, 2021, Kenley Jansen blew a save against the Giants, “aided” in no small part by Neuse, who had a statuesque posture on receiving what would have been the final out from then-shortstop Chris Taylor.
The game continued; the Dodgers lost, and no one was happy, especially after a checked-swing call that wasn’t, resulting in Dave Roberts being ejected. Good thing there wasn’t any further checked-swing drama between the Dodgers and Giants in 2021.
Generally, Roberts is not one to call out players when talking to reporters after the game, but he said what we all were likely thinking that night, after witnessing the Dodgers pick defeat from the waiting glove of victory:
“Sheldon is a heck of a ballplayer, heck of a defensive player,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “But I think right there, in that situation, if we stretch, we get the guy. But that’s part of baseball.”
[Emphasis added.]
A journeyman infielder had a poor moment that most, if not all, but the most hardcore, die-hard fans have forgotten. Why spill the ink? After all, the Dodgers likely were not going to defend their 2020 championship, mostly due to injuries and poor signings (see: Bauer, Trevor).
Oddly enough, Neuse’s career had a parallel to the recently completed 2026 All-Star voting.
Who’s an All-Star, now?!?
Over the past few years, I have learned to ignore the All-Star Game. I had the opportunity to attend the past three of them, and ultimately I decided the money was best spent elsewhere. Why pay premium prices in airfare, hotel, and tickets for what is essentially a glorified exhibition game?
When the initial results listed Shohei Ohtani and the Blue Jays’ Ernie Clement as the automatic starters in the All-Star Game, I was moderately surprised as to Clement. Why? The 2026 Blue Jays have had the hangover to end all hangovers and generally underachieved. Arguably, there has been no greater poster boy for this mediocrity than Clement.
Yes, he had an excellent postseason campaign, setting a record for hits in the tournament. Yes, in his final at-bat of 2025, if he had hit the ball even 5-10 feet farther, he would have been a national hero for Canada. He didn’t, and the eventual Pages/Hernandez “The Catch” bobblehead will scratch an itch most people do not realize that they have.
As Aaron Judge is hurt, one would expect AL fans to gravitate towards AL WAR leader and Kansas City Royals’ superstar Bobby Witt, Jr., or feel-good story Chicago White Sox infielder and old friend Miguel Vargas to be the automatic selection, but the fans picked Clement, who has a slash line of .293/.316/.429 with 1 fWAR/rWAR and a 102 OPS+.
It’s nothing to sneeze at, but clearly a sign that Canadians stuffed the ballot box.
With the above in mind, the fact that six Dodgers (Andy Pages, Max Muncy, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Will Smith, and Mookie Betts) and seven Blue Jays (Kazuma Okamoto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Dalton Varsho, Jesús Sánchez, Alejandro Kirk, Andrés Giménez, and George Springer) were announced as All-Star finalists shows that folks in both fanbases stuffed the ballot box. It seems a little silly to get bent out of shape, especially when Dodgers fans are living in a glass house re: Betts, Smith, and Teoscar in 2026, who have been either hurt or trying to regain past form this season.
Ultimately, sanity mostly prevailed. Pages, Muncy, Freeman, Okamoto, and Vlad made it in. Vlad will not play, allowing the Sacramento Athletics’ Nick Kurtz to start instead. Would reform have been sparked had fans essentially voted a quasi-exhibition rematch of the 2025 World Series through the All-Star Game? I suppose we will never know.
What does all of the above have to do with Sheldon Neuse? After spending a year with the Athletics organization in 2022, Neuse went on to play for the Hanshin Tigers in NPB in 2023.
Ballot stuffing for All-Star Games is not uniquely an American phenomenon. In 2023, the Hanshin faithful stuffed the ballot box to get 8 of 9 Hanshin Tigers elected as starters for the Central League All-Stars, including Sheldon Neuse. Ultimately, the lineup and roster were adjusted to include other teams in the league. Coincidentally enough, Okamoto and Roki Sasaki participated in this series.
There was only one slight issue with Neuse’s selection: at the time, he was last in NPB for WAR. Truly, NPB fans have much to teach us; whether that lesson is worth learning is another question.
One Night in Anaheim in May 2021
I promised myself that when Neuse retired, I would confess the time I publicly threw him under the figurative bus, well before any stretching issues. Back in April/May 2021, well before I started writing professionally for True Blue LA, I was just a wandering fan on a baseball trip.
I might have mentioned it from time to time over the years. The final stop was Anaheim, and it was generally a miserable experience. First, COVID protocols were loosely followed at best. Second, the Dodgers were playing some of their worst baseball in recent memory, rolling over with frightening alacrity after three backbreaking games in Chicago.
I was sitting in an overpriced seat in left field, overlooking the bullpen. Some of the Anaheim faithful were screaming obscenities at me all night for the crime of attending a Dodgers/Angels game wearing a Dodgers cap.
Security was no help whatsoever; as with most things at Angel Stadium, it was a colossal waste of time. The fights in the stands that kept breaking out throughout the ballpark did not help.
I did what I normally do when someone is trying to get a rise out of me: I ignored them completely, which infuriated them further until they got bored and stopped.
Eventually, AJ Pollock was injured, and Neuse entered the game as DH before entering the game to play in left field. The folks who were screaming at me started screaming at Neuse but badly mispronouncing his name.
I got annoyed at the mispronunciation, which was my weakness — being pedantic. So I corrected them, which served as an icebreaker. I talked about my trip for a little bit, and then they proceeded to properly scream unprintable things at Neuse, this time while saying his name properly.
I suggested that they should stop, but they didn’t. And I always felt bad for my minor role in this behavior because I don’t think it clicked to Neuse that these folks were shouting at him until they started saying his name correctly.
I promised myself that when Neuse retired, I would publicly apologize, even if he didn’t remember. I felt bad about it, and I should have tried contacting security again. For my part, even though it’s late and likely has been forgotten, I apologize, Mr. Neuse.
The curse of a chicken man
To give this update a somewhat sunnier conclusion, it is important to remember why the Hanshin Tigers were so resurgent in 2023, while Neuse was on the team.
The Tigers had one of the longest championship droughts in NPB, not winning a title since 1985. Why? Some blamed a curse from Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. The story feels too bizarre to be real, but I assure you, it is very real.
In 1985, the Tigers won their first-ever championship thanks in large part to foreign player Randy Bass, a journeyman. During celebrations near the Dōtonbori River, fans picked look-alikes who resembled the team to jump into the river.
Not having anyone nearby who was Caucasian, the fans stole a nearby Colonel Sanders statue and tossed it into the river. In 2023, the Tigers had not won a title since, with some claiming a Colonel Sanders curse, as a result of the fans’ transgression, was on the Hanshin Tigers.
During the 2023 campaign, Neuse ended up with a slash line of .240/.295/.328 with 9 HR and 56 RBI. He also had two 2 HR in the Japan Series against the Orix Buffaloes, Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s old team.
The Tigers prevailed in seven games, which ultimately served as Yamamoto’s final NPB action before being posted and joining the Dodgers in 2024. Oddly enough, Yamamoto got rocked in Game 1 of the Series before rebounding in Game 6 with a bravura complete-game, 14-strikeout performance.
The person who caught the final out of the 2023 Japan Series? Sheldon Neuse.
How the journeyman infielder became a left fielder seems like a bit of a stretch, but stranger things have happened, including what fans did after the Tigers’ 2023 title. Fans tossed a man dressed as Colonel Sanders into the same river. Why? I honestly grasp for an explanation, but rather than stretch this essay to its breaking point, we shall merely wish Sheldon Neuse farewell into his new adventures.
