Dodgers batboy who helped Kirk Gibson calls 1988 World Series homer 'supernatural experience'

LOS ANGELES — Mitch Poole sat in the third-base dugout at Dodger Stadium on Thursday afternoon and pointed toward the right-field bleachers. 

Thirty years after it happened, Poole said, he can see the spot where Kirk Gibson’s home run from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series landed.

“Exactly,’’ he said, peering at the empty seats in right field.

Poole would be a good place to start if the Dodgers, trailing the Boston Red Sox 2-0 heading into Game 3 of the World Series on Friday at Dodger Stadium, hope to generate Gibson-like magic and win their first championship since 1988.

Then a 24-year-old clubhouse attendant and bat boy for the Dodgers, Poole helped Gibson, then a star outfielder, prepare for a moment that propelled the underdogs past the mighty Oakland A’s.

While recounting the story, Poole told Paste BN he was getting goosebumps.

“I think it was a supernatural experience, is what it was,’’ said Poole, who now manages the visitor’s clubhouse and has worked for the club for 33 years. “I really do. I mean, especially the way I feel about it every time I talk about it.’’

One of six bat boys in 1988, Poole drew the short straw and ended up working inside the clubhouse picking up towels and clothes. He said in about the sixth inning he entered the trainer’s room where Gibson was getting treatment for his strained left hamstring and bruised right knee.

“The hamper was right there. It had a few towels in it, so I went to grab them,’’ he said. “And then Vin Scully comes over on the radio on the speaker that’s like right over where (Gibson’s) table that he was being worked on (was) and he said, ‘The Dodgers are going to be without the services of Kirk Gibson.’ And it incensed (Gibson), and he just jumped off the table and he said, ‘Mitch, get my uniform.’

“So I took what I had in my hand, threw it in the washer and went and got his uniform and brought it back to him and he suited up right there.’’

Soon after, Poole said, Gibson instructed him to set up a tee so he could take some practice swings. Poole did as he was told.

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“After a while, I could hear him wincing and everything from swinging, then he goes, ‘All right, I need to see a little movement, so I want you (to) toss (the baseballs) in that direction.’ …

“He stopped all of the sudden and said, ‘Mitch, this could be the script.’ ”

This particular script called for another character: Tommy Lasorda, then the Dodgers manager.

At Gibson’s behest, Poole said, he went to pass on the news about Gibson’s status to Lasorda, who was in the dugout with the Dodgers trailing 4-3. He said he crept up the tunnel leading to the dugout because he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and didn’t think he belonged in the dugout.

“I go, ‘Tommy!’ ‘He goes, ‘What do you want?’ ” Poole recalled. “I said, “Get over here.’ So he comes over there and I go, ‘Look, I got word from Gibson that he wants to hit, he can hit, and he’s up there and he wants to talk to you.’

“And so he ran up there like a bolt of lightning, if you can imagine that.’’

The portly Lasorda, running like a bolt of lightning. Almost as improbable was what happened next.

'I'm getting goosebumps right now'

Poole said he was in the dugout by the time Gibson was introduced as a pinch hitter with the Dodgers trailing 4-3 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Mike Davis on base and A’s closer Dennis Eckersley on the mound.

As Gibson began fouling off pitches — he would foul off four of them before the count was full — Poole said “something came over me right then.’’

“And I looked out to right field out there and I just imagined this ball going out,’’ he said. “And I’m sure we’ve all had that kind of situation in our lives but this was, I’m getting goosebumps right now, which happens most of the time when I even talk about this.’’

On 3-and-2, Gibson got the backdoor slider he was looking for and, with that left-handed swing, sent the ball in flight. The same flight Poole said he imagined it would take.

“Totally same flight, it landed in the same spot and it was just, I couldn’t talk after that,’’ he said. “I just watched. It was just great to watch.’’

Dodgers fans have been watching the video for 30 years, and the lasting images are Gibson circling the bases and Lasorda charging onto the field in celebration. The footage does not include Poole, but he has not been forgotten.

In 2012, Gibson was asked to throw out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium on a Kirk Gibson bobblehead night. Gibson, then manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, surprised Poole after talking to the Dodgers.

“I said, ‘Mitch, he should have the honor,’ and he did,’’ Gibson told Paste BN. Poole threw out the pitch, but only after getting Gibson to touch the ball.

Gibson will get another shot. He's scheduled to throw out the first pitch for Game 5 on Sunday, if the best-of-seven series goes that long.

Shared bond

More recently, the two saw each other when Gibson was sitting with the team’s owners at Dodger Stadium and Poole poked his head into the VIP quarters.

“And Kirk jumped and almost tripped over the couch in there trying to get to me,’’ he said. “…It’s like I should be jumping up for him and he jumps up to talk to me.’’

The home run from the 1988 World Series binds them.

“Mitch and I, we’ve talked about it many, many times,’’ Gibson said. “He’s my boy. For him to be part of that is really cool and really outstanding. It was as big a moment for him as it was for me.’’

Lasorda hasn’t forgotten about Poole either.

“Mitch was a guy who could talk to all the players for you,’’ Lasorda told Paste BN. “Whether you needed something, he could do it. He was very valuable in the clubhouse.”

Without goosebumps but with a big smile, Poole recalled another story from the 1988 season that stars him, Gibson and Lasorda.

During the regular season, Poole said, Gibson instructed him to get a hamburger. When he returned, Poole said, Gibson removed the top bun, squeezed pine tar on the burger, put the bun back on and left it on a water cooler outside Lasorda’s office.

“And it wasn’t two minutes later Tommy came walking through his office,’’ Poole said, “and we’re all standing there and talking and Tommy says, ‘What’s this?’ And Kirk goes, ‘What do you think, Tommy? It’s a burger.’

“So Tommy went and he grabbed it with both hands and he just put his mouth right in the middle of it, put it back down and left. And Gibby says, ‘Oh, my God. I think we just killed him.’ And (Lasorda) never came back to us and said anything about it again.”

More magic.

Contributing: Bob Nightengale and A.J. Perez.

Follow Peter on Twitter @joshlpeter11, Nightengale @BNightengale and Perez @byajperez