After the last out of the 1988 World Series, when Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser struck out Oakland’s Tony Phillips as catcher Rick Dempsey squeezed the pitch in his mitt, Dempsey tucked the ball into his back pocket until he reached the locker room.

That’s when Dempsey handed the ball to Fred Claire.

“Rick said ‘This belongs to you’,” remembers Claire, the part-time Bermuda Dunes resident who was in his second year as general manager of the Dodgers in 1988.

Since the day Claire held that ball in the locker room of the Oakland Coliseum on Oct. 20, 1988, the Dodgers haven’t played in another World Series game. That ends Tuesday as the National League champion Dodgers host the American League champion Houston Astros in Game 1 of the 2017 Series, a fact that makes Claire quite happy.

“All is good right now,” Claire said from his Pasadena home. “I’m very happy. I’m happy for the team, and (manager) Dave Roberts, who I have gotten to know and who I have great respect for, and also really happy for the fans and the excitement they show. You know, the loyalty and support of the Dodger fans has been well documented through the years.”

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Claire, 82, worked for the Dodgers for 30 years, leaving a job as a newspaper sportswriter to join the team’s public relations department in 1969. He later spent 12 years as the team’s vice president of public relations, then in 1987 was promoted to general manager when Al Campanis was fired after controversial remarks about African Americans managing in the major leagues.

While he hasn’t worked officially for the team since being fired by new ownership in the middle of the 1998 season, Claire feels a strong connection to the Dodgers organization.

“It is an important point for the Dodgers organization,” Claire said of the 2017 season. “As I view the Dodgers, even though there have been three ownership changes, from the O’Malleys to Fox to Frank McCourt to the Guggenheim Partners, the legacy is not separated. It is the Dodgers. It is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“It doesn’t matter who the manager is, who the players were. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work for the Dodgers, we are just caretakers for the legacy.”

The connection from present to the past with the Dodgers is evident in talking to Claire. He can start talking about Dave Roberts and Clayton Kershaw and Yasel Puig, but he’ll quickly mention players like Orel Hershiser, Mike Scioscia and Dusty Baker from the 1980s, then slip back to Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey from the 1970s. Before long Claire is talking about the talent, character and integrity of the team’s stars in Brooklyn, like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese and Gil Hodges.

“It is one organization, and for those of us who were fortunate to be able to play a role, I just feel good,” Claire said.

While others in and around the Dodgers have talked about how surprising it is the team has not been in a World Series in 29 years, Claire is more philosophical about the dry spell.

“What it shows is the difficulty of getting there and the even greater difficulty of winning it,” Claire said. “When you really think about it, in the history of the L.A. Dodgers going back to 1958, there have only been five world champions. And we are talking about some of the greatest players, Hall of Famers, in the history of the game.”

The 1988 champion Dodgers surprised many fans and baseball experts, since the Dodgers had finished just 73-89 in both 1986 and 1987. Even after a 94-67 regular season, the 1988 Dodgers still had to win the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets, a team that beat the Dodgers 10 times in 11 meetings in the regular season.

But the Dodgers, managed by Tommy Lasorda, won the NLCS four games to three. Los Angeles then beat Oakland four games to one in the World Series, remembered most for Gibson's dramatic game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning in the first game off reliever Dennis Eckersley.

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Claire says the 1988 team wasn’t as much of a surprising winner as many people think, pointing to the record-setting year of pitching ace Hershiser, a staff that included Tim Leary and Tim Belcher and everyday players like Mike Scioscia, Steve Sax, Mike Marshall and World Series hero Gibson. Additions to the team during the off-season like Gibson, shortstop Alfredo Griffin, relief pitchers Jay Howell and Jesse Orosco and a mid-season trade for starting pitcher John Tudor helped Claire earn the 1988 Baseball Executive of the Year award from The Sporting News.

The 1988 team also had a quality Claire sees in the 2017 edition, a dedication to the team concept.

“The togetherness and the spirit of the team, I see this team having that,” Claire said. “I see it in their play, hear it in their interviews. And we had that in 1988.”

Like the 1988 team, Claire also sees changes to the team’s roster through the year as some of the keys to the team winning the National League pennant. Those changes included bringing Cody Bellinger up from the minor leagues and trading for starting pitcher Yu Darvish.

Claire also likes the way manager Roberts has handled the team through the season, benching a player like the talented but mercurial Puig when needed and supporting struggling reliever Pedro Baez when fans howled for Baez not to be used.

As the Dodgers have struggled to get back to the World Series in recent years, Claire has faced his own battles. In October 2016 Claire was diagnosed with jaw cancer. Treatment at the City of Hope in Duarte, including 33 radiation sessions and seven chemotherapy treatments, has kept Claire and his wife Sheryl in the Pasadena area and away from their home at Bermuda Dunes Country Club.

Recently, Claire revealed the cancer has returned with a tumor in his neck. But he remains active, serving on the board of the Rose Bowl, hosting a fund-raising golf tournament in August for the City of Hope at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale that drew more than a dozen former Dodger players, and “playing a few holes of golf every once in a while,” he said. He continues immunotherapy at the City of Hope, which he calls a blessing to him and his family.

As for his beloved Dodgers, Claire believes the success of 2017 is the start of a long run of greatness for the team.

“This is not a one-time stop. I truly believe with the talent they have, this ownership group, the financial strength of the team, the farm system, this has a chance to be the beginning of a new era of success,” Claire said.

And that baseball from back in 1988? Claire said it sat on a bookshelf in his home for years until he read sometime in the mid-2000s that only one World Series-ending ball was in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Claire called the Hall and said he had such a ball.

“They said ‘Do you know how much that ball is worth?’ ” Claire said. “I said you don’t have that much money. They said they would be on a plane the next day.”

So the 1988 championship ball rests in Cooperstown. Claire hopes that ball might be joined by another Dodgers' World Series ball in just a few days.