Andre Ethier enjoys connecting with Cooperstown

Retired from the game since 2017, having played a dozen seasons in the majors with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the lefty swinging outfielder left the diamond with two All-Star Game nods, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards and eight postseason appearances. The Phoenix native accompanied his 12-year-old son to Cooperstown to compete in a local youth baseball camp.

“I always say I had 12 years longer (in the big leagues) than I ever thought,” Ethier said. “I didn’t even dream about it. I just dreamt of playing there. You don’t dream what’s after that. You maybe dream of being in the Hall of Fame. But you don’t know what the filler is in between that. And I got 12 years in a place that I absolutely loved, playing in Los Angeles and playing for the Dodgers.”

“We came all the way from Phoenix because this seems to now be a rite of passage for 12 year olds in any type of baseball, whether it’s a Little League or club baseball. It seems to be the mecca for summer baseball,” Ethier said. “This was the first year I was ballot-eligible, and I was on the ballot this year. I’m realistic. I know I’m not a top one percenter of the candidates that get (elected), but to be included on the ballot is unbelievable. And to just have something worthy to be here, it’s a pretty neat thing to be a part of.”

With a baseball lineage that includes a grandfather, Pierre “Pete” Ethier, who played eight minor league seasons in the 1950s, reaching Triple-A, a father who played collegiately and a brother who played in the minors, the game has been in his blood forever.

“I have three sons, but I’m only coaching softball right now. I have a six-year-old daughter and it’s my second year coaching softball,” Ethier said. “But I do help my sons a ton. My sons are good ballplayers, but I still make it realistic. Wherever their ability takes them I’m happy.”

While Ethier received no votes in the 2023 Baseball Writers’ Association of America election, he and his wife, in 2014, were honored as the first husband-wife inductees in the Arizona State Sports Hall of Fame.

“She was an unbelievable gymnast at Arizona State. We met there. She’s a gymnast and I was playing baseball,” Ehtier said. “I always joke that I was riding her coattails into the Hall of Fame because I only played two years there. She had a full four-year career there. I was good, but nothing worthy of the long list of names that have played there in the past like Reggie Jackson, Barry Bonds and Sal Bando.”

Ethier remains involved in the game, working community outreach for the Dodgers.

“But honestly, my passion these days is coaching softball,” he said. “I love coaching my daughter and her teams. I love that the little girls are much more adept to paying attention and listening than the boys.

“But I’ll never not be grateful for the life that baseball has given me.”

Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum