Davey Lopes

David Earl Lopes was born on 3 May 1945 in East Providence, Rhode Island. He was one of the ten children of Mary Rose Sylvia and, according to his family, the oldest boy, which gave him a role as a protector and leader long before baseball. He was of Cape Verdean and Irish descent. His father died or left when he was a toddler (accounts differ), a stepfather also left the family, and the household lived in a tenement on relief and on his mother's small wages as a domestic worker.

Lopes later said he had only one glove until high school and admitted that he "confiscated more than a few bats and balls" as a boy. A youth coach, Michael Sarkesian, became his father figure. "Whatever I missed by having not really had a father, Sarkesian provided," Lopes said. "The drive, the determination, not to give in to the ghetto, to make something of my life, stems from my relations with him."

For many years baseball references listed his birth year as 1946. Later sources, including his family's obituary, give 3 May 1945.

Lopes was an all-state baseball and basketball player at La Salle Academy in Providence, graduating in 1963. He went to Iowa Wesleyan in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on a basketball scholarship and earned NAIA All-American honours, then followed Sarkesian to Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where he hit .380 for the Ichabods in 1967 and also played basketball. He declined the San Francisco Giants after they drafted him in the eighth round in June 1967 so he could finish his degree. He earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education, the first in his family to graduate from college, and was later inducted into the Washburn Athletic Hall of Fame. He also served in the U.S. Army Reserves and taught in the Providence public schools.

The Los Angeles Dodgers selected Lopes in the secondary phase of the January 1968 draft. He started at Class A Daytona Beach in 1968, moved to Triple-A Spokane in 1970, where manager Tommy Lasorda switched him from the outfield to second base, and led the Pacific Coast League in steals at Albuquerque in 1972. He made his major league debut at Dodger Stadium on 22 September 1972, at the age of 27.

From 1973 he was the regular second baseman and leadoff hitter. With Steve Garvey at first, Bill Russell at shortstop and Ron Cey at third, he formed an infield that played 833 games together from 1973 to 1981, a major league record according to the Elias Sports Bureau. In 1974 he stole five bases in a game to tie a National League record and hit three home runs in one game at Wrigley Field. In 1975 he led the majors with 77 steals and set a record with 38 consecutive steals without being caught. He led the league again with 63 in 1976.

Lasorda made him the club's fifth official captain ahead of the 1978 season. In 1978 he won the Gold Glove, made the first of four straight All-Star teams, hit .389 in the NLCS and hit three home runs in the World Series, two of them in Game 1. In 1979 he hit 28 home runs, a Dodgers record for a second baseman at the time, and in 1980 he led all players in All-Star voting with 3,862,403 votes. The Dodgers reached the World Series in 1974, 1977 and 1978, losing each time, before winning in 1981, when Lopes stole 10 bases in 10 attempts during the postseason.

In February 1982 the Dodgers traded Lopes to the Oakland Athletics to make room for Steve Sax. In Oakland he and Rickey Henderson combined for 158 steals in 1982, an American League record for teammates. He tied for the team lead with 17 home runs in 1983. Oakland sent him to the Chicago Cubs on 31 August 1984, and in 1985, filling in for injured outfielders, he stole 47 bases at the age of 40. The Cubs traded him to the Houston Astros on 21 July 1986, and he played in the 1986 NLCS before retiring after the 1987 season. Over 16 seasons he hit .263 with 1,671 hits, 155 home runs, 614 runs batted in and 557 stolen bases in 1,812 games.

Lopes began coaching with the Texas Rangers under Bobby Valentine in 1988, then coached first base and baserunning for the Baltimore Orioles from 1992 to 1994 and the San Diego Padres from 1995 to 1999, including their 1998 pennant winners. After many interviews for managing jobs, the Milwaukee Brewers hired him as manager for the 2000 season. "I made no secret about how much I wanted to manage in the big leagues," he said. "I waited. I wasn't always patient, but I waited." The Brewers went 73 and 89 in 2000 and 68 and 94 in 2001, the year Miller Park opened, and he was dismissed after a 3 and 12 start in 2002, finishing 144 and 195.

He returned to the Padres as first base coach from 2003 to 2005, coached for the Washington Nationals in 2006 and joined Charlie Manuel's Philadelphia Phillies from 2007 to 2010, where the club led the majors in stolen base percentage and won the 2008 World Series. He coached first base for the Dodgers from 2011 to 2015 and finished with Dusty Baker's Nationals in 2016 and 2017. Counting his years as a player, coach and manager, he spent 45 straight seasons in the major leagues.

Lopes married Linda Lee Vandover on 12 July 1968, during his first professional season. According to his SABR biography the marriage lasted about seven years, though the two remained close. His family obituary lists three children, Vanessa, James and David Jr., and five grandchildren. He was survived by his siblings Jean, Judith, John, Mary, Nina and Patrick, and was predeceased by his siblings Betty, Vincent and Michael. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer after a routine physical in February 2008 and made a full recovery. In 1988 the City of Providence named a pool and recreation centre in his honour.

Lopes was famously quiet as a young player, and Lasorda said it took two years for him to come out of his shell. He grew into an outspoken clubhouse leader who would confront teammates when standards slipped, as Dusty Baker recalled from his first season with the Dodgers. He believed in playing aggressively on the bases and in the game's unwritten rules, which led to his best known controversy in 2001. As a coach he was known for teaching baserunning as a craft, and his family said he took pride in teaching players "not just how to play the game, but how to think it, respect it, and carry themselves with integrity".

Lopes is widely regarded as one of the best second basemen in Dodgers history and one of the most efficient base stealers of all time. His steals total with the club ranks second in franchise history behind Maury Wills. The Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey infield remains the benchmark for continuity in baseball, and the Dodgers celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. Dusty Baker called him invaluable to the young Trea Turner in Washington, and Jimmy Rollins recalled Lopes teaching him to steal on a 3 and 0 count in 2002 while managing the opposing team.

World Series champion as a player (1981, Los Angeles Dodgers) and as a coach (2008, Philadelphia Phillies). Four-time National League All-Star (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981), and the top vote-getter in 1980. National League Gold Glove Award at second base (1978). National League stolen base leader (1975 and 1976). The Sporting News National League All-Star team (1978). NAIA All-American in college. Washburn Athletic Hall of Fame. Davey Lopes Recreation Center and pool, Providence, named by city council resolution on 28 December 1988.

Lopes's two home runs in Game 1 of the 1978 World Series and his leadoff home run in Game 6 remain staples of MLB's archive footage. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote memorably about him, saying, "Lopes is not a trophy player. He's a victory player." His career is chronicled in a full Society for American Baseball Research biography, and he is a regular subject of retrospectives on the 1970s Dodgers.

In July 2001, while managing the Brewers, Lopes objected when his former teammate Rickey Henderson stole second base with the Padres leading by seven runs, saying Henderson had broken an unwritten rule and that "we were going to drill him." He received a two-game suspension. The Elias Sports Bureau then published a list of seven occasions on which Lopes himself had stolen a base with his team leading by seven or more runs. In the 1981 World Series he also tied a record with three errors in one game and set a record for second basemen with six in the series, even as the Dodgers won the title.

Lopes died in Rhode Island on 8 April 2026, at the age of 80, from complications of Parkinson's disease, as first reported by TMZ and confirmed in subsequent obituaries. The Dodgers said they mourned "one of the finest basestealers in MLB history", and the Brewers, Phillies, Padres, Cubs, Astros, Athletics, Nationals and MLB all issued tributes. Ron Cey spoke publicly about the life and legacy of his longtime infield partner.

Calling hours were held on 14 April 2026 at the Perry-McStay Funeral Home in East Providence, and a Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on 15 April 2026 at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Providence, followed by burial at Swan Point Cemetery. His family wrote that he was "stoic, solid, and honorable" and that "he always remained true to his family and his roots".