Draft and minor leagues Scioscia attended
Springfield High School, a public school located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where he was a catcher for future major leaguer
Bob Gibson (not to be confused with the Hall of Fame pitcher of the
same name). Scioscia was drafted by the
Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round (19th overall pick) of the
1976 amateur draft.
Los Angeles Dodgers (1980–1992) Dodger manager
Tommy Lasorda helped lobby Scioscia to sign with the Dodgers after the team drafted him out of high school. Scioscia debuted for the Dodgers in 1980 (eventually replacing
Steve Yeager as the starting catcher) and went on to play 12 years for the team. Scioscia made himself invaluable to the Dodgers by making the effort to learn Spanish in order to better communicate with
rookie sensation
Fernando Valenzuela in 1981. Scioscia went to the
San Diego Padres in 1993, but suffered a torn
rotator cuff injury during
spring training that year and did not play in any regular season games for the team. He closed out his career with the
Texas Rangers in 1994 after a failed attempt to come back from the injury, again without having played in any regular season games that year. Exclusively a catcher, the 6-foot, 2-inch, 230 pound Scioscia was primarily known for his defense. Former Dodgers vice president
Al Campanis once called Scioscia the best
plate-blocking catcher he had seen in his 46-year baseball career; this sentiment was echoed by other Dodger figures such as LaSorda and broadcaster
Vin Scully. During one notable collision with
St. Louis Cardinals' slugger
Jack Clark in July 1985, Scioscia was knocked unconscious but still held onto the ball. For his part, however, Scioscia has claimed that he had an even harder plate collision the following season. Scioscia's technique for blocking the plate and making a tag varied slightly from the traditional manner employed by most catchers. When applying the tag, most catchers hold the baseball in their bare hand, with that hand then being inside their
catcher's mitt to apply the tag with both hands. Scioscia preferred to hold the ball in his catcher's mitt without making use of his bare hand. Also, Scioscia felt he was less prone to injury in a collision if he positioned his body so that he was kneeling on both knees and turned to the side, whereas most catchers make their tag either standing or on one knee. Indeed, Scioscia was noted for his durability. After missing most of the 1983 season after tearing his rotator cuff, Scioscia played in more than 100 games each season for the remainder of his career with the Dodgers. Offensively, Scioscia was generally unspectacular, but he was known as a solid contact hitter, striking out fewer than once every 14 at-bats over the course of his career. Because of his ability to make contact, he was sometimes used as the second hitter in the batting order—an atypical slot for a player with Scioscia's large-set frame and overall batting average. He had a particularly strong season on offense in 1985, batting .296 and finishing second in the National League in
on-base percentage. Scioscia also hit a dramatic, ninth inning, game-tying
home run off the
New York Mets'
Dwight Gooden in
Game 4 of the 1988 National League Championship Series. With the Dodgers going on to win that game in extra innings, Scioscia's blast (which came after he had hit only three home runs that entire season) proved crucial to the Dodgers' ultimately prevailing in that series. Scioscia was a key player on the Dodgers' 1981 and 1988
World Series champion teams, and is the Dodgers' all-time leader in games caught (1,395). In 1990, Scioscia became the first Dodger catcher to start in an
All-Star Game since Hall of Famer
Roy Campanella.
Alfredo Griffin, Scioscia's teammate from the 1988 Dodger team, served on Scioscia's coaching staff with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from 2000 to 2018. Scioscia earned as much as $2,183,333/year in salary toward the end of his career, and earned the unofficial total sum of $10,109,999 over his career. Scioscia was involved in three no-hitters in his career: he was on the losing end of
Nolan Ryan's fifth no-hitter on September 26, 1981 vs. the
Houston Astros, and on the winning side, he caught Fernando Valenzuela's on June 29, 1990 vs. the
St. Louis Cardinals and
Kevin Gross's on August 17, 1992 vs. the
San Francisco Giants. He caught 136
shutouts during his career, ranking him fourth all-time among major league catchers. Scioscia used the same catcher's mitt for most of his playing career.
Career statistics ==Managerial career==