Former LSU Player/Coach and MLB Exec Mel Didier Passed Away

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Didier served as coach of the LSU freshman football team in 1967 and 1968, leading the squad to two consecutive undefeated seasons. He took over as varsity defensive coach prior to the Tigers' 31-27 victory in the inaugural Peach Bowl over an offensively explosive Florida State team.

He moved from LSU in 1969 to become the director of scouting and player development with the Montreal Expos, beginning a highly successful career with several MLB organizations in the scouting and personnel departments.

Didier is most renowned for his work with the Los Angeles Dodgers, whom he helped win the 1988 World Series over the Oakland Athletics. Didier is credited with giving Dodgers slugger Kirk Gibson detailed scouting information about Oakland reliever Dennis Eckersley that Gibson used to hit his famous home run against Eckersley in Game 1 of the ’88 Series.

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“Padnah, you look for what a young man can do," he said. “Anybody can find things he can't do. When you are talking about a sport where hitting .300 is success, you know there's a lot of failure along the way."

No man would argue with Didier, who passed away on Sunday night at his home in Phoenix. In more than 60 years in professional baseball, from his days as a part-time scout while he was coaching high school and college football, to his emergence as one of the most astute evaluators in baseball, Didier earned the respect of his peers.

And to think, growing up in Louisiana, he not only played baseball at LSU, but also football, and after initially coaching both sports at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge, his alma mater, he became an assistant coach for Charlie McClendon at LSU with speculation being that he would eventually replace McClendon.

Doctors warned him the stress of football was not good for his health, so it was days after LSU beat Wyoming 20-14 on Jan. 1, 1968 that Didier went from part-time baseball scout to full-time baseball executive, becoming the scouting director for the expansion Montreal Expos, the first of three expansion teams he helped create. He also was the original scouting director of the Mariners and original director of development for the D-Backs.

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