Between pitches, between innings, between workouts, between cities on an eight-month march through a season, downtime is sewed into the fabric of baseball.

You tell stories. You hear others’. You pass them on.

As Dave Roberts greeted Josh Byrnes in the Petco Park dugout with a hello and handshake early in his first season as a bench coach in 2014, it occurred to the Padres’ general manager that Roberts – two decades into his pro career – may not have heard the yarn weaved around his first big break in baseball.

So Byrnes, an intern-turned-scouting director as he climbed the organizational ranks in Cleveland in the mid-‘90s, bent Roberts’ ear with a story.

Before Billy Beane shoehorned analytics into the Athletics’ organizational meetings, before Michael Lewis famously chronicled it all in a best-selling book, before Brad Pitt made sure your mother knew all about Oakland’s meticulous general manager, the Cleveland Indians had already embarked on their own quest to add unique information to their decision-making processes.

They studied bat-to-ball contact rates, swing planes and on-base tendencies. They wanted to know who arrived to the ballpark first. They were curious about who truly loved the game.

Not just in their organization, either.

Cleveland’s push to beef up their pro scouting department sought to discover assets the competition didn’t fully value.

As Byrnes recounted the first fruit of that effort – a 33-year-old Geronimo Berroa to the Tigers for reliever Tim Worrell and Roberts, a 26-year-old minor league outfielder, in June of ’98 – Roberts’ trademark grin stretched from ear to ear as it so often had throughout a lifetime of winning people over, whether he was rehabbing a career-threatening injury, or walking on at UCLA, or refusing to see himself as a 47th-round selection, let alone a career minor leaguer.

The tenacity, grit and pure liveliness that guided Roberts beyond those days and ultimately into the Breitbard Hall of Fame on Feb. 16 served him especially well upon landing an interview to manage baseball’s wealthiest team on the recommendation of Byrnes, now the Dodgers’ senior vice president of baseball operations.

“A lot of people were getting to know Dave for the first time," Byrnes said a day before Roberts was introduced as Los Angeles’ first minority skipper and the next man tasked with leading the storied franchise back to postseason glory. "He had to get a lot of votes in that room."

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View the Video Dave Roberts: Following his heart

The way to be

“He's such a nice guy that some days my sole purpose when I came to the park was to rattle him. I'd say something about a player he liked or something like that just to see if I could unnerve him. When he did get mad at me I considered it an accomplishment. You don't run across too many people like Dave Roberts.” — Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley

Los Angeles Dodgers Dave Roberts is officially introduced as the first minority manager in franchise history at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/NIck Ut) The Associated Press

In another room situated just off the right field line at Chavez Ravine on the first day of December, Waymon Roberts watched intently from the seated rows of onlookers as Magic Johnson slipped a crisp white Dodgers jersey onto the shoulders of his half-black, half-Japanese son.

Don Newcombe, who joined Jackie Robinson as the first African-Americans selected to an All-Star Game , sat to one side of Waymon Roberts, a retired Marine Corps sergeant. Maury Wills and Tommy Lasorda were there, too.

Outside, the No. 42 that once emblazoned Robinson’s Dodgers jersey hangs below the outfield’s pavilion roofing, the sacred number peeled right from a Brooklyn-era jersey that Dave Roberts wears today as a storied franchise’s first minority manager.

“I asked him about that just before he was hired,” Waymon Roberts acknowledged while standing off to the corner following his son’s official introduction. “It initially didn’t register that it was such a big deal.”

In a way, the life Waymon Roberts chose for his family ensured it wouldn’t – at least not in the way race impacted his upbringing as the first African-American at his Houston-area high school.

He’d enlisted in the Marines in the late ‘60s, met his wife, Eiko, while stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and bounced from base to base in the years following Roberts’ berth in 1972.

A few years in Japan. Two more in El Toro. A couple more in South Carolina and Hawaii and then back to the mainland.

In that pack-up-and-go environment, the color of your skin didn’t matter as much as the number of stripes on your dad’s sleeve, Waymon Roberts said. In the Roberts’ household in particular, accountability and disposition ranked even higher.

“We didn’t talk race and we didn’t talk racism, either,” Waymon Roberts said. “We are who we are. … That was one of our philosophies as a family. We have no choice where we’re going, but we have a choice about what we do when we get there.”

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Humble beginnings

“His authenticity, his positive outlook, his determination to grow and improve every day, impact organizations in a profound way. You take that with the ability to connect with people with a deep level of empathy and compassion, those are impact attributes.” — Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro, former general manager of the Cleveland Indians

Dave Roberts (#10) was distinguishable when handling the football for Rancho Buena Vista High. The Longhorns won the CIF championship in 1989 with Roberts handing off or pitching to running backs Markeith Ross and O.J. Hall. — John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune

Given his father's example, Dave Roberts smiled a lot. He related to people. He made friends, though that task was certainly easier by the time the 5-foot-8 sophomore landed at Rancho Buena Vista High School as a three-sport star during his dad’s assignment at Camp Pendleton .

Even as an undersized quarterback on varsity, Waymon Roberts could see teammates gravitating toward his son.

“When he went on the field, he was the littlest guy out there, but you could see the level of play increased with his presence out there,” Waymon Roberts said. “He made everyone play harder. He held everyone accountable.

“The biggest guys on the field, he wasn’t afraid of them.”

Likely because they had a heck of a time getting their hands on the slippery option quarterback.

The practice field at Palomar College proved another obstacle altogether the day Roberts cut against the grain during spring drills.

His knee buckled. After a scope and a rush back to the field later that summer, it blew out completely, wiping his junior year off the board. His athletic career was in jeopardy, too, if Roberts was willing to buy the initial prognosis.

He wasn’t.

“The first doctor said I was done – you’re going to have to find something else to do,” Roberts said. “I was devastated. I went to another doctor and he said, ‘We can do it. We’ll get you back, but it will take a lot of hard work.’

“He was right.”

For a long, long year, Roberts watched games from the sidelines. Away from his teammates, he pushed himself through tedious rehab work and up and down the stairs at RBV on crutches, each step closer to that unlikely return to the field.

That Roberts left Rancho Buena Vista more than a year later with a fairytale sendoff – of course, he led his football team to a CIF title his senior year, avenging the team’s lone loss to Point Loma in the semis ahead of a 21-7 victory over Morse in the finale at Jack Murphy Stadium – wasn’t nearly as defining as the journey.

“I truly believe that’s what got Dave on the path to being the person he is today,” said Steve Hargrave, Roberts’ baseball coach at Rancho Buena Vista. “He had to deal with this adversity. At the time it was terrible, but it has everything to do with the character and the man he is today.”

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Not one to settle

“The one thing that was clear about Dave is he loved the game of baseball. He didn't do it because he didn't know what else to do. He had all-in, I-love-to do it passion. The long bus rides, the crappy food, the early morning games for schools, being passed over for things, misreads on his ability. The players that love the game embrace the “suck” more than anyone else.” - MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd, a former front office executive with the Cleveland Indians

Dave Roberts arrived on the campus of UCLA in 1990. — UCLA

The first time – the only time – Gary Adams has seen tears well up in the corner of Dave Roberts’ eyes is a mile marker in a relationship that spans more than two decades. It began the moment he arrived at the UCLA campus in the summer of 1990, his original baseball coach at Vista High selling Roberts as a fast-as-lightning option to plug into center field and atop the order.

Even with all of his spots filled, Adams was intrigued by the match: He hadn’t recruited speed and wouldn’t really need it until the following year and Roberts, even with a football scholarship to Air Force in hand, figured baseball was a better bet for an option quarterback already standing on one reconstructed knee.

The deal was this – Roberts would have to walk on, wouldn’t play much as a freshman and would have to wait a year to carve out role on the team.

Fine by Roberts.

“I can still remember D.R. and his coach walking up along the top of the concourse at Jackie Robinson Stadium,” said Adams, now 76. “Gosh, when he saw me, he let out this big smile that went up to his eyes and radiated throughout his entire body. He has this infectious smile. … I loved his attitude, his enthusiasm right from the start.”

So it was jarring to see Roberts in tears as he popped his head through Adams’ door the summer following his junior year. He’d swiped 64 bases the previous two years, pushed his on-base percentage past .400 both seasons and developed, in Adams’ eyes, into a prototypical leadoff hitter only to see 1,302 players selected before the Indians called his name in the 47th round of the 1993 draft.

“I knew by the expression on his face,” Adams said, “that this was going to be a serious talk. He said, ‘What do I have to do to get scouts to like me?’ He wanted a serious answer.”

As much as Adams liked Roberts, he had a laundry list for his leadoff hitter:

Strengthen his throwing arm; Use his speed to cut off balls in the gap; Run in quicker on grounders to shorten his throws; Bunt to both sides of the diamond; Hit the ball on the ground more to again utilize that game-changing speed.

Roberts soaked it all in.

Then he put it to use, setting the Bruins’ single-season steals mark with 45 as a senior and pushing batting average (.353), on-base percentage (.445) and slugging percentage (.468) to career-highs.

Later that summer, the Tigers drafted him nearly 20 rounds sooner, a development that Adams foreshadowed with the decision to make Roberts a team captain. The rationale to take that vote away from his players matches the reason he believes the Dodgers will relish the decision to put Roberts in charge of a roster has cost the Guggenheim group more than $780 million over the last three years without securing a World Series trophy.

“The one thing he could show his players is that he’s going to work hard every day,” Adams said. “I think he’s the best manager in America to work with Yasiel Puig . That’s a team that I’ve thought has been a little lackadaisical and the one guy who could add just the right ingredients to that team would be Dave Roberts.”

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An unexpected obstacle

“Everybody enjoys being around him. Everybody loves his energy and passion and the way he showed up every day to play hard. He was a grinder. He grinded out every at-bat, every time he was on the bases. He made all the plays on defense, always hustled very hard and played his heart out. I think he's going to bring that same mentality to the team.” —Former Padres teammate and current Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez

SAN DIEGO, CA, USA -- JANUARY 25, 2016: ..At his home in the north county Dave Roberts spoke with a SD Union-Tribune about his new position where he has become the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2016. ..Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune — Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune

The question fetched a laugh from Tricia Roberts.

“I know Dave to be,” she said, “the same person I’ve always known him to be.”

Which is to say outgoing, of course. Kind and confident, too, as well as determined as anyone she’d ever met. That much was clear even as she carried his books as Roberts, crutches and all, limped to classes in the weeks following a knee reconstruction that threatened to end his athletic career.

“I remember him not wanting to hear that – ‘I’ll show them; I’m not going to let that rule me,’” said Tricia, who’s been with Roberts since they met in sophomore Spanish class at 15 years old. “He’s been that way his whole life, creating his own destiny.”

He’d done just that when the Tigers cast him off to a co-op team in Visalia three years into his pro career, when he pushed his on-base percentage to .351 to earn a big league debut two months after his 27th birthday, when doctors dropped a bombshell on him not long after a 10-year big league career came to an end.

Cancer .

Even as doctors explained that Roberts’ particular malignance – Hodgkin’s lymphoma , Stage 2 – was considered among the most treatable, the C-word jarred Roberts.

“It was emotional,” he said. “When you hear lymphoma and cancer and you’re not educated on it, it’s scary. … We told the kids what was going on, my wife got the diet together and there was such an outpouring of support. What I learned from it, the strength that I got, I wouldn’t change any of it.”

Routines helped. With ballplayers, they usually do.

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A new focus

“When you have to prove a lot your entire life, when you have to keep passing tests, there’s a self-confidence that becomes part of you. When you steal second base down three games to none to the Yankees , you’re down a run in the ninth inning and the game’s essentially over if you’re thrown out, that takes some cojones.” —Former Padres manager Bud Black

Boston’s Dave Roberts slides home to score the tying run against New York Yankees' Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of game 4 of the ALCS Sunday, Oct. 17, 2004 in Boston. Elise Amendola

For Roberts, that meant getting into the swing of the next chapter of a post-playing career that began with a short stint in the Red Sox TV booth, an opportunity born out of the stolen base that helped Boston end its 86-year-old World Series drought in 2004.

Those Red Sox ties to then-Padres General Manager Jed Hoyer led to a lunch with Bud Black and ultimately to a special assistant job focusing on outfield defense, base running and bunting throughout the organization. As much as he honed his craft in the year he spent in television, Roberts never felt quite as home as he had the moment he pulled the uniform back on in the spring of 2010.

“Once I stepped onto the field to coach in Peoria, it was a no-brainer,” Roberts said. “This was where I was supposed to be.”

Cancer wouldn’t keep him from it, either.

He hopped aboard planes bound for places like San Antonio and Fort Wayne between hair-thinning chemotherapy and radiation treatment, regrouped at home when the schedule allowed and then started the cycle again.

“I don’t know that I tried too hard to convince him to take it easy,” Tricia Roberts recalled. “As soon as he was better, he was back on the road. That’s who he is.”

That job gave way to a gig coaching first base with the Padres and later a seat next to Black as his bench coach. Along the way, Roberts not only received a clean bill of health, his demeanor, clubhouse presence and know-how – be it natural instincts or a willingness to explore the sort of analytics that forged his big break – began to churn up talk that Roberts could one day manage a big league team.

“I was a big fan of his from Day 1,” said former Padres outfielder Will Venable , the benefactor of countless positioning direction from Roberts while in San Diego. “I think I have some good instincts, but there were always things that Dave saw that would come to fruition where you’d come back and say, ‘How did you know that was going to happen?’ He’s one of those people who sees the game for what is and is one step ahead in making adjustments that other people aren’t making yet.

“He’s got an ability to see the game from a higher IQ.”

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The fork in the road

“As a manager in Major League Baseball, you have to be a people person. You have to be a psychologist first and a coach second. That along with his baseball knowledge – you look at the core of every successful manager – and Dave’s really the perfect candidate to manage.” —New Padres play-by-play man Don Orsillo, Roberts’ former partner in the Red Sox TV booth

San Diego Padres bench coach Dave Roberts works the Fungo Man machine that shoots fly ball to the outfield during a spring training practice. — K.C. Alfred

Dave Roberts never planned on saying goodbye to San Diego.

When he crossed that bridge – when Padres General Manager A.J. Preller passed him over for Pat Murphy as Bud Black’s interim replacement, when he didn’t get a formal interview for full-time job – his family was in tow as he set aside a weekend afternoon to clear out his Petco Park locker.

Of course, his family was there.

He’d grown up here. He’d met his wife here. They’d made a home for their two children – Cole and Emmerson – in North County before ever even playing for the team that captured his heart as a seventh-grader scheming to get out of class to watch Tony Gwynn and Steve Garvey lead the ’84 Padres past the Cubs.

Developing a friendship with Gywnn later as a player and then coaching a half-hour drive from his Cardiff home only strengthened that bond.

“This has been the best part of my life up until this point,” Roberts said. “Growing up here, being in the community, seeing my kids grow up at the ballpark, playing high school sports here – I’m entrenched in this community.”

So much so that Roberts considered, at least for a moment, staying in some capacity. The olive branch that the Padres front office extended upon naming Andy Green their next manager would have been easy to accept.

Probably too easy.

“I think I could have been the good soldier and made an impact for an organization I had grown to love or I could start thinking about myself and my own growth,” Roberts said. “I think if I wanted to become a major league manager, it wasn’t going to happen if I stayed here. It was a good time for me to move on.”

And so he did.

An interview in Seattle landed Roberts in the runner-up spot behind Scott Servais. Then the Dodgers parted ways with Don Mattingly after a third straight NL West -champion squad fizzled in the playoffs and their think-tank front office set about a search aimed at getting baseball’s biggest spenders over the hump.

In particular, it’s a group intent out figuring out just how to reach the enigmatic Yasiel Puig, constructing a roster around the $35.6 million Clayton Kershaw and blending the next wave of top-shelf prospects with a batch of pricey, aging stars.

A fine line to walk, to be sure, one worthy of a candidate list that stretched at least nine deep.

That roll call included former skippers (Bud Black, Ron Roenicke , Bob Geren ), in-house favorites and holdovers (farm director Gabe Kapler and bench coach Tim Wallach), outside-the-box choices (Darin Erstad) and various others whom the new Dodgers brass had come to know during their time in baseball.

As far as Josh Byrnes’ recommendation as one of the Dodgers’ chief front office executives, Dave Roberts fit the bill when his scouting department unearthed him all those years ago in Cleveland, when his Red Sox bosses traded for him ahead of 2004 postseason, when he inherited him as a coach upon taking charge of the Padres’ baseball operations.

Roberts deserved to be in that room.

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Following his heart

“There was no way Dave walked out of that interview not thinking, ‘I totally nailed that.’ Because that’s the way we all felt about it.” —Dodgers General Manager Farhan Zaidi

Los Angeles Dodgers owner Magic Johnson introduces new manager Dave Roberts and helps him with his new jersey during a press conference today at Dodger Stadium. Jayne Kamin-Oncea

There, he spoke from the heart. He relayed his experiences. He laid out his vision. Before long, Roberts had won over the room.

“When we launched our managerial search, we were looking for someone open to new ideas and open to that exchange,” Dodgers General Manager Farhan Zaidi said. “Dave personifies that. He’s got an intellectual curiosity. He’s been around a lot of front offices with different philosophies. We sensed there’d be a real collaborative process in how we put the team together and how he chose to run the team.”

That left just one question, one the 43-year-old Roberts fielded over the phone in November Dodgers baseball ops chief Andrew Friedman was on the other end of the call:

Are you going to be excited to exchange lineup cards with Andy Green in San Diego on Opening Day?

“I would like to be nowhere else in the world.”

Roberts was beaming.