He was struggling to walk, struggling to talk, struggling to think.
But he never forgot the Dodger. He couldn’t forget the Dodgers.
In the early days after surgery to remove two brain tumors, Dodgers team historian Mark Langill was having trouble remembering everything except the legacy that lives permanently in the deepest blue part of his soul.
“The strangest thing,” said Langill. “Ninety percent of my brain was temporarily affected, but the Dodger part never went away.”
While walking down the hallway at Huntington Hospital, a nurse asked him his room number and, thanks to the Dodgers, he remembered it.
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It was Ted SizemoreBradley’s Dodgers rookie number, matched Sizemore’s number when he returned to the Dodgers seven seasons later.
4105
As he continued his recovery, each day turning into the next, the nurses tried to keep him alert by writing each new date on a greased board.
Thanks to the Dodgers, he never lost control.
Someone wrote, on May 1, and Langill immediately said, “Brooklyn Robins vs. Boston Braves, 26 entries in 1920longest game in major league history.”
On May 5 he said: “Russel Martinpremieres in 2006.”
On May 7 he said: “Russell Martin’s first home run against the Milwaukee Brewers in 2006.”
Almost two months later, Langill is out of the hospital and fighting to beat brain cancer with the staunchest of allies.
His sword is Dodger’s memories. His shield is a Dodger highlight. He knows more about Dodger history than any human being alive, and that history is carrying him across rocky terrain where everything else is uncertain.
“The whole dark Dodger thing stuck in my head,” said Langill, 59. “Whatever they cut, they didn’t cut.”
This dependence on Dodger milestones actually began on April 25, the day he was rushed to the hospital after acting erratically at Dodger Stadium.
As I lay in the speeding ambulance, all I could think about was that it was flag day!
“Who can forget that?” he said. “April 25, 1976, the most famous play in Dodger Stadium history was made by an opposing player, Rick Monday saving the American flag.”
Later that day, as he was inserted into the MRI machine, he assured technicians that he was being calmed by the memory of… Andy Etchebarren?
“In the 1966 World Series, he played for the Baltimore Orioles, was the last man to bat Sandy Coufax, and…he got the starting job in the spring because Dick Brown had a brain tumor,” Langill explained. “I survived the MRI by playing brain tumor trivia in baseball.”
And when did you know that your surgeon would be Dr. Celene Mulholland? He never forgot that name because, of course, Terry Mulholland pitched for the Dodgers in 2001 and 2002.
Only Langill, it seems, would remember a celebrated neurosurgeon for a pitcher who graced the Dodgers with a 1-1 record and 6.60 ERA.
“I can’t help it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s who I am.”
That’s what he has been for the last 30 years, a delightful human treasure trove of information that is constantly shared with players and fans. A former sports writer, Langill began working in the team’s publications department before spending the past 22 years as the baseball team’s first official historian, a role that puts him at the forefront of the team’s powerful connection between its present and past.
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“Mark can talk about something that happened in 1965 just as easily as something that happened yesterday,” said Lon Rosen, the Dodgers’ executive vice president and chief operating officer. “He brings great comfort to everyone because you can ask him anything and he always has the right answer.”
If a former player wants to relive the glory days, he calls Langill, who finds joy in helping Dodgers famous and anonymous, from the day of his retirement until his death. He provided memories and memorabilia for many memorial services and even served as an impromptu eulogist at Willie Davis‘ funeral.
“Mark has always been my main asset in continuing to understand the greatness of the Dodgers,” he said. Orel Hershiser, former pitcher and current broadcaster. “He brings another level of knowledge and passion with the details he remembers at any given time.”
If a fan wants to embrace a special memory, they are also directed to Langill, who loves printing old remnants to remind people of their happiest Dodger moments.
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“He is everyone’s brother, father, cousin, a trusted member of the family who remembers everything and is happy to share that knowledge with everyone,” Rosen said.
In fact, in his last game at Dodger Stadium before falling ill, Langill hosted an 80-year-old woman whose first game was at Ebbets Field in 1954 when Don Newcombe was pitching.
Langill surprised her by printing out the score from that real game, handing it to her, so they both basked in their awe at reliving their childhood.
“Suddenly she’s 10 years old again and sitting with her grandfather,” Langill recalls. “She said it was raining that day and talked about what it was like to be 10 years old at her first game and… to actually see her relive it all was priceless.”
A few days later, Langill was telling more great stories to new Dodger employees during a tour of the stadium when he became shaky. He ended up at Huntington Hospital, where, several days later, Mulholland pitched a perfect game by removing two tumors the combined size of a lemon.
Before the surgery, Langill prepared by watching a video on his laptop. Game 2 of the 1974 World Series between the Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics.
“That was the only game in the series that the Dodgers won, and it was won by my first favorite Dodger team with my favorite Dodger of all time. Jimmy Wynn,” said Langill. “I thought, if I’m going to leave, I’m going to go on my way.”
He also recalled that it was in the World Series where the coach Tom Lasorda I wore two different boots because I had two different shoe contracts.
“These are the little stories that make Dodger history so special,” Langill said.
As surgery approached and it was time to seek peace, Langill kept thinking about Gary Cooper’s quote when portraying Lou Gehrig: “All the arguments in the world can’t change the referee’s decision.”
He explained: “Some people in this situation trust the Scriptures. I also trust ‘Pride of the Yankees’.”
Throughout the ordeal, with his recovery buoyed by his longtime partner Patty Hirata and nurse nephew Michael Rayala, Langill quickly bonded with several hospital employees through the Dodgers. He doesn’t remember much of the physical details of his stay, but he does remember discussing Shohei Ohtani with a nurse and then traveling back in time with his first physiotherapist.
“Mark has always been my main asset in continuing to understand the greatness of the Dodgers.”
Orel Hershiser
“He said his first memory of Dodger was when he was 4 years old and his mom took him to LAX and I knew exactly what he was talking about,” Langill said. “October. On September 23, 1957, Red Patterson organized a pep rally to welcome the team to Los Angeles.”
During his rehabilitation, although he initially struggled with everything but his knowledge of Dodger, Langill was strengthened by the way it connected him to the uncomfortable environment.
“It’s like knowing 100 languages,” he said. “You can talk to anyone, any age, if you involve the Dodgers.”
During his many years with the Dodgers, he made many of these unique connections, and his constant outreach made him arguably the franchise’s most important public representative.
There was the longtime Brooklyn Dodgers fan who was on his deathbed and wanted to hear one more Dodgers story before he passed away. His daughter handed the phone to Langill, who took the man on an audio tour of all the Brooklyn Dodger memorabilia scattered around the stadium.
“I told him, ‘We’re here to help you,’” Langill recalled.
Then there’s your annual reminder to Eric Karros every May 23rd.
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“Happy Stan Belinda Day,” he’ll tell him because, on that day in 1992, Karros established himself as a future star when he hit a three-run homer off the Pirates’ Stan Belinda.
You you can search. Langill’s memory of Dodger history is bulletproof.
“With him, we never need a fact-checker,” Rosen said. “He is always right.”
“He basically became the caretaker of Dodger history,” Karros said of Langill. “Anything you want to know, he’s your guy.”
Then there was the story of Roy Gleasona former outfielder who doubled in his only major league appearance for the Dodgers in 1963. After that season, Gleason was sent to Vietnam and never played major league baseball again, ending his career with that hit, always wondering if anyone Dodgers remembered.
Langill remembered. Langill always remembers. And when he knew Gleason was feeling disconnected from an organization who in fact had apparently forgotten him, Langill invited Gleason to Dodger Stadium in the summer of 2003.
Once there, Langill accompanied Gleason to a wall that contains most of the names on the Dodgers’ all-time roster. In a scene that brought both men to the brink of tears, Gleason’s name was there.
“I was surprised that anyone in the organization remembered my name,” Gleason said recently. “But Mark took the time to go into the Dodger archives and research my story.”
Later that season, Gleason threw out the first pitch and was surprised with a 1963 World Series ring.
“The best night of my life… a night I will never forget,” Gleason said. ‘And it all happened because of Mark Langill.
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This season, Dodger history will have a new entry, a new milestone, a new hero, the date of June 17th.
“This is the anniversary of the first regular season game of the ‘Freeway Series’ between the Dodgers and Angels,” Langill recalled. “The Dodgers won on Todd Zeile’s home run against Troy Percival.”
Well, yes, but it’s about something bigger.
June 17th should forever be known as the day Mark Langill not only recorded Dodger history, but made it.
It’s the day he went back to work.
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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
