George Lombard at Spring Training in 2008 in Vero Beach. (Elsa/Getty Images)

By Cary Osborne

Fifteen minutes into a conversation with Dodgers new first base coach George Lombard, you might think to yourself that this guy should be doing a beer commercial and telling you to stay thirsty.

It’s hard to choose what’s the most interesting thing about him.

Maybe it’s the fact that he is the grandson of Harvard Business School’s former 41-year senior dean and professor of human relations George Francis Fabyan Lombard.

Or his mother, a white woman named Posy, was a civil rights activist who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr.

Or maybe it’s that he’s traced his family tree back to a pilgrim who came to America on the Mayflower.

Lombard is so interesting that in 2005, at the time when he was a 29-year-old outfielder in the Red Sox organization, Peter Gammons mentioned him during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech.

“So I think from John Curtis to Bill Campbell to Jerry Remy, Buckethead Schmidt to Bruce Hurst, Ellis Hurst to George Lombard, I’ve been lucky to know thousands of people who loved the game as much as I do,” said Gammons in Cooperstown. (The Lombard family had a summer home in Cape Cod, across the water from where Gammons lives.)

So it’s easy to see how he can build trust and relationships — the sort of things that the Dodgers are building with a coaching staff that appears to be pairing positivity with analysis, preparation and execution as guiding cornerstones.

“Very, very high energy. He’s a players’ coach. He is high energy every single day. He has a love the game and a love to get better every single day,” said new Dodger assistant hitting coach Tim Hyers, who has known Lombard for two decades and coached with him in the Red Sox organization. “He is going to bring some energy, some passion and the desire to get better that day and go win.”

Lombard is taking on the gig as full-time base coach for the first time.

From 2010 to 2015, he coached in the Red Sox organization — the last three as Minor League outfield and baserunning coordinator after spending the previous two seasons as manager of the Gulf Coast League Red Sox from 2011–12. In those five years, he’d jump in from time to time as a base coach.

“I think I’ll be comfortable with it, but by no means do I think it won’t be a challenge,” Lombard said. “The minute you think you have the game figured out, it will bite you in the butt. I feel I go to work trying to learn something new every day from players, from coaches and other teams the way they go about it.”

Baserunning and speed were Lombard’s best tools as a player.

He might have been a better football player as a youth.

Lou Holtz, Steve Spurrier and Bobby Bowden came to his house trying to recruit him to play running back for their national powerhouse programs. Lombard ended up committing to the University of Georgia, following in the footsteps of another Georgia prep star named Herschel Walker.

But Lombard never suited up for the Bulldogs.

His childhood favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, drafted him in the second round of the 1994 MLB Draft. He signed for $425,000 — more money than his father had earned his entire life. (Lombard’s mother died in a car accident when he was 10.)

He stole 100 bases in the minor leagues before his 20th birthday. He was 22 when he made his Major League debut, pinch running in a game that featured two Hall of Fame players — Tom Glavine and Mike Piazza — a Hall of Fame manager in Bobby Cox and a future Hall of Famer in Chipper Jones.

But no one ever said baseball was easy. Lombard played parts of six seasons in the big leagues — 144 total games played.

Toward the end of his career, baseball people noticed his special qualities.

“(Former Red Sox general manager) Ben Cherington, he said, ‘When you’re done playing I’d love to have you work for us. Call me when you’re done.’ He was one of my first phone calls.”

Lombard left the Red Sox to take a job with the Braves in September as minor league field coordinator, but he let them know that he wanted to leave the door open in case a Major League job opened up.

It did.

“When Dave (Roberts) called me and presented this opportunity it was something I couldn’t pass on,” Lombard said.

Lombard said he’s known Roberts for many years having played against him in the minor leagues.

“We’ve always stayed in touch,” Lombard said. “We’ve always hit it off and stayed in touch.”

Lombard has a Dodger history — albeit brief, but still adding to his Forest Gump-like life.

Lombard was a non-roster invite to Dodger Spring Training camp in 2008 and made the trip with a split squad to play the first-ever Major League games in China.

He became the first American to hit a home run in China. However, he didn’t make the Major League team.

Eight years later he has, sealed by a phone call from Dodger general manger Farhan Zaidi.

Thirty minutes after Zaidi offered Lombard the job and the 40 year old accepted, he received another phone call.

It was the University of Phoenix calling to inform him that his final grades were in — he was now a college graduate and the earner of a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

He’ll be using the degree — just on a baseball field and helping players understand the mental side of the game more.

“I scuffled,” Lombard said of his own playing days. “It was one of the final papers I wrote for school in psychology — life experiences and how difficult the grind is. I really embraced the failure and learning how to overcome the different challenges I had.

“Teaching is the fun part. Dealing with the players and seeing a player progress and being able to put your hands on them and help them progress — that’s the rewarding part. And it’s fun. I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life.”