LOS ANGELES -- Waymon Roberts was the kind of father everyone would want -- loving and supportive -- but he was the one that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and his sister, Melissa, got to have. And after Waymon died in the spring of 2017, Dave spoke with his mother in the months that followed about ways to remember his father.
An idea stayed with him -- to spread some of his father's ashes at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers won the National League West again that year, swept the Arizona Diamondbacks in the division series and eliminated the Chicago Cubs in five games to reach the World Series for the first time since 1988.
"It just kind of came about where, the more I thought about it, no better time to do it before Game 1," Roberts recalled on Saturday.
Hours before the World Series began, he carried some of his father's ashes to center field, as he first mentioned to the Los Angeles Times last year. On Saturday, Roberts talked about how he also left some ashes adjacent to the Dodgers dugout, right next to the place where he stands in every game.
"Every day when I come to work and look out there," he said, nodding toward center field, "I'll feel close to him. Every day."
Roberts didn't tell anyone in his family until afterward, and when he informed his mother, Eiko, she "was grateful ... emotional. Happy I did it."
Recently, Roberts missed his first day of work in 25 years of professional baseball, to attend the high school graduation of his son, Cole -- on the manager's 47th birthday.