Two of Dave Roberts’ first baseball coaches agree: the Dodgers’ new manager is a born leader.
At least, a teenage Roberts already had the potential to manage a Major League Baseball team by the time he got to Butch Smith at Vista High School or Gary Adams at UCLA.
“He was like a 21-year-old man at 14,” Smith recalled. “He already had his design on life, what he wanted to do, what he wanted to become.”
Roberts was Smith’s first star pupil, the freshman MVP of a Vista junior varsity team that went 19-3.
Rancho Buena Vista High School opened the following year and Roberts was among the students living within its territory.