On August 15th, Reggie Smith will walk onto the field at Dodger Stadium and take his place as the 10th Legend of Dodger Baseball. The scoreboard will tell you why. Seventeen big-league seasons. A .287 lifetime average, 314 home runs, better than 2,000 hits, 1,092 RBIs. Four World Series and a world championship with the 1981 Dodgers. A seven-time All-Star, a switch-hitter with a cannon for an arm who found a way to win everywhere he ever put on a uniform. And the honors keep coming: next month, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum will recognize him too, as one of its 2026 Hall of Game honorees.

He has earned every bit of it. Every ovation. Every name spoken alongside his that night.

But I want to tell you about a Reggie the numbers can't show you. I want to tell you about the man I've been blessed to stand next to for almost 25 years. Because the legend up on that scoreboard and the man behind it are two different stories, and the second one is the story that changed my life. If you've ever wondered what one great teacher can do for a family, for a game, for a whole community of ballplayers, pull up a chair. I'll tell you how I met mine.

It started on an empty field

My son was nine years old. We had just moved near Encino, and like any baseball dad, I was always hunting for a place to get a workout in. I used to drive past this one complex and wonder what went on inside it. One day we finally pulled in. Nobody was around. Just a few trailers off to the side, one of them with a big red R painted on it, the same red R you'll still find on everything Reggie touches. We walked up and asked a gentleman sitting there if we could use a field. He told us, politely, that the fields were only for the players who trained there. So we thanked him and left.

But something kept pulling us back to that place. We tried again another day, found it quiet and empty, and figured there'd be no harm in taking a few ground balls on our own. There was another man there working with his son, a high schooler, and before long we were shagging for them. That's when Reggie Smith walked out and told us, firm but fair, that we couldn't be on that field without permission. I walked over, apologized, and explained we weren't with anybody. We were just a dad and his boy looking for a place to work. He nodded. "All you need is permission." And we packed up and left, a little shook up, because we had just been run off a ballfield by Reggie Smith.

A week later, we were driving through the same area and my son said, "Dad, he told us we just need to ask." So we went back. This time Reggie was out there in front of a TV crew, working out with a professional athlete. He caught my eye across the field and pointed toward the grass, as if to say, go ahead. We took our ground balls while he kept one eye on us over his shoulder. When the news crew packed up, he strolled over. "You two aren't from around here, are you? Do you mind if I show your son a couple things?"

My boy responded the right way. He listened, he worked, he soaked it up. Reggie liked what he saw. He asked what we were doing that weekend. Nothing, I told him. "Come by around 5:30 in the morning." We had no idea what we were walking into. Turned out they were filming an instructional video for the Little League World Series, hitting, pitching, the whole thing, and my son auditioned on the spot and earned himself a real part in the hitting segment. Just like that, we were part of the Encino family.

He made me earn my way in

Here's the part that tells you everything about the man. Reggie didn't hand me a thing.

Not long after, Reggie's son, RJ, called, introduced himself, and told us to come up and hit. I went to throw batting practice to my own boy, and RJ jumped in the cage and gave him a couple of pointers, nothing more than any coach would. Afterward Reggie came to me and said RJ told him I threw a pretty good BP. Would I be willing to throw for him?

So I did. For a solid year, I threw batting practice on that field. To Reggie. To RJ. To the players who trained there. A year of showing up, doing the work, and asking for nothing. And only after that year did Reggie tell me I could start doing lessons there.

He watched. He waited. He let me earn it.

That's not caution. That's how a real teacher protects the thing he's built. Reggie has spent his life around the game at its highest level, and he understands that what he passes down is precious. He doesn't give it to the loudest person in the room or the one with the fanciest résumé. He gives it to the person who keeps showing up. Twenty-five years later, that field, that family, and that man are woven into who I am as a coach and as a father.

Attitude and Aptitude

The first real lesson Reggie ever taught me is one I still repeat to my own players every single week. He told me that what coaches look for, above almost everything else, is attitude and aptitude. Those two things get graded higher than half the tools a young player walks in the door with. You can find a kid who runs fast and throws hard. What's rare, what's worth everything, is the kid who wants it, who listens, who is coachable, who takes instruction and turns it into work.

That idea reshaped how I see every player I train, from tee-ballers to grown men. Because baseball looks easy from the bleachers, and it is one of the hardest things a human being will ever try to do well. It demands patience. It demands a genuine will to get better. And it demands the humility to be taught. Reggie will pour everything he has into a player who brings those things, and I've watched him do it, over and over, for hundreds of kids who will never make a highlight reel but who walked away better ballplayers and better people.

A failure sport

Reggie also taught me not to be afraid of failure, because baseball is a failure sport. Get a hit three times out of ten and you're a success. Think about that. In this game, you can do your job at the highest level and still walk back to the dugout with your head down seven times out of ten if you let yourself.

So you can't let yourself. That's the mental side, and it's the part most people never learn. You fail, you keep your work ethic, you keep your composure, and you step back in the box. Reggie lived that as a player through seventeen big-league seasons and four World Series, and he taught it as plainly as he taught the swing. Stay humble, stay respectful, and never, no matter how serious it gets, forget to have fun. The players who last in this game are the ones who hold onto all three.

The man the world doesn't see

People see the home runs and the Gold Glove and the World Series ring and assume a man like that would be hard to reach, full of himself, done giving back. Reggie is the exact opposite, and it's why this particular honor fits him so well.

This is a man who once said, "I was a Dodger before I became a Dodger. Growing up here in L.A., this was your favorite team because of Jackie." He grew up in the shadow of Jackie Robinson, and he never forgot what it meant to be given a chance and shown the way. So he spent the back half of his life doing the same for others. He coached under Tommy Lasorda. He became a hitting coach for USA Baseball and helped bring home Olympic gold in Sydney. He built an academy in Encino where a nine-year-old and his dad could stumble in off the street and, if they were willing to earn it, become family. The Negro Leagues Museum isn't honoring his statistics. It's honoring his character, his history, and the way he has carried both.

That's the Reggie I know. Not the legend on the scoreboard, but the man who tested a stranger and his son, made them prove they were serious, and then opened his entire world to them.

Why this honor matters

Reggie Smith could have taken all of it, the swing, the arm, the rings, the mind for hitting that made him one of the game's great teachers, and kept it for himself. Plenty of great players do. Instead, he has spent decades handing it down, one player, one dad, one 5:30 morning at a time.

So on the 15th, when the crowd rises and his name goes up among the Legends of Dodger Baseball, I hope people see more than a stat line. I hope they see a man who gave the game away on purpose, and made everyone around him better for it. I know he made me a better coach and a better father. I know my son carries what Reggie gave him to this day. And I know there are hundreds of us out here, players, parents, and coaches, who are who we are because Reggie Smith took the time.

Congratulations, Reggie. From my family to yours, thank you. For the field, for the lessons, for the patience, for the example. You earned this, and so much more.