“I would rather be a backup on a championship team than starting for a last-place club.”

So this is a thing I had the idea literally five minutes before the game started: highlighting a random player from Dodger history every day and recapping their career, both with the Dodgers and overall.

There have been 1,849 players who've batted in a Dodger uniform. I could be doing this for a while.

Ray Hayworth's career with the Dodgers was nothing of note, except for how bad he was in Dodger blue. He spent 4 years of his 15-year career in Brooklyn, notching 53 plate appearances.

Yes, you read that right. 53. In four years.

And really, who could blame Burleigh Grimes or Leo Durocher? During his time with the Dodgers, Hayworth slashed .095/.240/.143. That's good enough for an OPS of 5. That's it.

That might be the worst OPS I've ever seen.

What kept Hayworth on the field throughout his career was his fantastic fielding. Hayworth was constantly above average in fielding metrics across the board. He beat the average in fielding percentage in 13 seasons and range factor/9 (9x(putouts assists)/innings played) in 14 seasons. He didn't commit an error in 57 games over his last six seasons in the majors.

His offensive capabilities during his Dodgers tenure were an aberration. He batted .265/.331/.332 over his entire career for an OPS of 71. Still below average, but not...that bad.

Some other Dodgers with an OPS of 71 include HOFer Tommy McCarthy, Rudy Law and John Grimm.

Hayworth debuted on June 27th, 1926 with the Detroit Tigers, the 5,666th player to appear in a major league game. He spent the next three years splitting time between Nashville, Shreveport and Toledo. He even played for Casey Stengel during his time in Toledo.

The Tigers went with Hayworth as their starting catcher in 1930 (because he happened to be their best option), a position he would hold until 1932. Detroit brought in Muddy Ruel to start at catcher in 1932, but Hayworth took over after Ruel hit .230 to begin the season.

Hayworth promptly set the record for the longest time between errors at catcher; just shy of a year, from September 2, 1932, to August 29, 1933. The record would stand until Yogi Berra broke it.

He settled into a backup role after Mickey Cochrane became the Tiger's player-manager in 1934. Hayworth appeared in 54 games, hitting .293 over 184 PAs. Hayworth also appeared in garbage time in game seven of the World Series, catching the final inning after the Cardinals went up 11-0. Even though the Tigers would make it back to the series the next year, Hayworth himself wouldn't appear.

He became the Tigers' starter once again on June 5, 1936, after Cochrane a nervous breakdown. Cochrane would resign as manager later that season. Hayworth would remain the starter until September 1938 when he was waived by the Tigers. The then-seventh place Dodgers picked him up and he appeared in five games for the Dodgers in 1938.

He remained with the Dodgers to work with several former Tiger pitchers, including Boots Poffenberger (real name Cletus) and Whit Wyatt. Poffenberger was quite the character even before he joined the "Daffiness Boys" and I am very excited to get to him eventually.

But, Poffenberger had retired and been banned from baseball by the end of '39. Wyatt remained on the team for a few more years, but Hayworth didn't. The Dodgers sent him across town to the Giants mid-season. He'd see 14 PA for the Giants before being released in the offseason.

Hayworth didn't a major league field until WWII when the St. Louis Browns brought him in. He had a single at-bat for the Browns, it which he hit a single. It would be the last hit of his career. He signed with the Cardinals after being released, but never saw action.

He signed with the Dodgers at the end of 1943 and saw 9 games in 1944 and 1945. He retired at the end of 1945 and became a coach and scout, scouting for the Cubs, Braves and Expos. When he died in 2002, he was the oldest living major leaguer and the last living teammate of Ty Cobb.