For those of you old enough to remember it, the popular 1980 Super Bowl commercial featuring former Pittsburgh Steelers great ‘Mean’ Joe Greene limping down a stadium tunnel when a young boy offers him his Coca-Cola and is ultimately rewarded when the ailing superstar tosses the kid his jersey, you witnessed what is still considered one of the greatest commercials in Super Bowl history.

In 1988 a very similar but very real incident occurred involving 1988 Dodger Cy Young award winner and World Series MVP Orel Hershiser, and though the ‘kid’ in this real-life encounter didn’t come away with a trophy like a jersey or anything like that (in fact, the kid was actually rebuked by the normally polite Hershiser – and justifiably so), this encounter eventually ended up being every bit as entertaining as that great Mean Joe Greene commercial.

The ‘kid’ in this Hershiser encounter was none other than former KABC DodgerTalk co-host (and my good friend) Josh Suchon. Suchon pretty much vanished off the face of the earth after the Dodgers changed their radio flagship station from KABC to KLAC this season and he and co-host Joe Block were replaced on DodgerTalk by former MLB manager Kevin Kennedy and David Vassegh. I had sent Josh a couple of emails in an effort to keep in touch with my Bluetopia brother, but they went unanswered.

I was blessed to have been interviewed by Josh Suchon (left) and Ken Levine (center) during a pre-game show when the Dodgers were in Boston for inter-league play against the Red Sox in 2010

Lo and behold while perusing  the L.A. Times blog site yesterday, I noticed a blurb mentioning that Suchon had recently launched a new blog site in which he details his historic Mean Joe Greene-like encounter with Orel Hershiser; and even though Josh has strong childhood ties with the Oakland A’s, his connection with the Dodgers still runs deep and will be a huge part of his résumé for life.

Josh’s new blog site is not a pure Dodger site but rather an all-inclusive sports site covering a wide range of topics throughout the entire sports world. That said, his “You were lucky, Hershiser” article  is very entertaining and a “must read” article for every true Dodger (and Hershiser) fan, and his site worthy of addition to your daily blog surfing. (Note: We have added Josh’s Out of Ink site to our blog roll for ease of access).