On Dino Ebel’s long baseball resume, there was one box unchecked.

He was a two-time conference champion at San Bernardino Valley College. He was a national champion at Florida Southern University. He had won league championships as a minor league manager. He was even inducted into the SBVC Hall of Fame in 2012.

But there was still that one ring he had yet to reach: a World Series championship.

Last month, he got to cross that off his list, as Ebel was part of the coaching staff as the Los Angeles Dodgers won their first title since 1988, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series.

It was a long journey for the player who came down to San Bernardino Valley from Barstow to pursue his dreams of playing baseball professionally. But finally reaching that goal was as satisfying as one might think.

“I had over 100-plus, 200-plus messages just congratulations, of being in the game for 32 years,” Ebel said by phone earlier this month. “Winning championships as a player in the minor leagues, winning championship as a coach, winning a championship as a manager in the minor leagues. In my goals that I set, I was missing one ring, and that was a World Series ring. And to see that last strike, and raise my hands and win a World Championship.

“And to have my wife and my boys there, Brady and Trey. My wife Shannon was with me in the bubble the whole time. From once we got on the charter from LA to Dallas, they were with me the whole time. And the grind they go through of me being gone over the course of the season. And being there for the World Series, the division, the championship series, the World Series and celebrating it with us on the field was special that I won’t forget.”

Ebel’s road through baseball has sent him through stops across the baseball spectrum. After being part of a Division 2 National Championship team at Florida Southern, he signed as a free agent with the Dodgers in 1988 – the last time the Dodgers won a World Series. He played six years in the minors, making it to AAA Albuquerque for two games in 1991, as well as winning the Florida State League (High-A) championship in 1990.

He moved into coaching, leading him back to San Bernardino in 1997 as the manager of the San Bernardino Stampede. He again rose through the ranks as a coach in the Dodgers’ organization, before joining the Angels’ organization as the manager of the AAA Salt Lake Bees, before joining Mike Scioscia’s staff as a coach in 2005.

He rejoined the Dodgers in 2019, and immediately was part of a team that had high expectations to win the World Series from both fans and management. It was nothing new.

“I’ve been fortunate to be in both organizations with the Dodgers and Angels, two teams I grew up watching,” Ebel said. “Both organizations are expected to win. Both organizations set goals to win a World Series every single year. My whole career, we were expected to win every time we go out on the field as Dodgers. Everybody wants to beat us. There was times when I was with the Angels that we stepped on the field, every team wanted to beat us. I’m just so used to having that over my head that expectations are to win a World Series, not just to get to the playoffs, but to win it all, that’s my mentality, that’s how I feel, that’s how I think every day - to win a championship. And I’ve been fortunate to be in both organizations who expect that.”

Winning championships, and being focused on the game was nothing new, however. His coach at San Bernardino Valley – recent SBVC Hall of Fame inductee Stan Sanchez – saw that when the kid from Barstow joined his program.

“He came from Barstow and came and walked into our program at San Bernardino Valley College and you could see it right away,” Sanchez said by phone. “You could see his leadership, his skill set, his attention to detail and how just the cerebral part of his game was amazing. And then he moved on. His two years at Valley were incredible. He was our guy, and he led us to championships – a regional championship and a spot in the state championships. And he just flew on to Florida Southern and won a ring there. But he paid his dues, boy. All I can tell you if you look at his body of work, and what it took him to get to the big leagues, I mean, he did paid his dues.”

It was his days at SBVC, he said, that helped him realize that to be a success in baseball, it was more than just swinging the bat or fielding the ball. Especially when he moved from being a player to a coach.

“From leaving Barstow and going into Stan’s program started the foundation of the fundamentals of the game,” Ebel said. “(Things like) paying attention to detail. When you walk on that field, make it your field. Everybody was out to beat us playing for San Bernardino Valley because of the reputation of a winning program, and getting to state tournaments and people signing contracts to go to professional baseball, people going to Division 1, Division 2 schools. Those are the things I look back and that’s where the foundation started, under Stan.

“And then I left Stan’s program to go to Florida Southern and the expectations there were to win a World Series as a Division 2 program. And the year we won in 1988, 10 guys signed a minor league contract, and we were national champions. Throughout my whole career, starting with San Bernardino Valley, that’s where it all started for me under Stan. You would hear stories about people like (Rich) Dauer, or some some other guys, Julio Cruz, when he was there, the goal was to get to the big leagues, get to the next level. That’s what Stan brought to me. I always look back at is that winning attitude and the attention to details. And playing the game right. Playing with respect, that’s what where the foundation started with me.”

It was Rich Dauer’s footsteps that Ebel directly followed in his playing career. Dauer, a fellow SBVC Hall of Famer, and Ebel were both shortstops during their time at SBVC. Dauer won two national championships at the University of Southern California, then a World Series as a player with the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, then as a coach with the Houston Astros in 2017 before retiring.

Being in baseball circles, coaching against one another, the two SBVC Hall of Famers became friends away from the field, and he was one of the many who sent Ebel congratulations after finally winning a World Series.

“He has put in so much time,” Dauer said by phone from his home. “This guy is a tremendous teacher. He has helped so many people. I’ve coached against him for so many years, and I have heard nothing but great things about him. I know that everybody really respected him and really loved him as a coach. For a while there, when Scioscia was still managing, he was thought of as one of the next generation managers.”

The two had one other person in common – Sanchez, who recently retired after coaching at Colorado State University-Pueblo after 26 years. Ebel’s coach at SBVC had grown up playing alongside Dauer while growing up in Colton. He said they both learned and shared the same values when it came to approaching the game.

“The main thing is commitment to your sport,” Sanchez said. “That was the thing – accountability on being inside the lines, outside the lines. Communicating as a player, being a good teammate. The skills, now, that game is hard to play. Baseball is not easy. But when you have two gifted athletes like Dino and Rich, they made the game look easy, because they were so gifted.

“I always thought about earning power in our game, because that game can humble you so fast. You’ve got to have some tough skin in order to get to the levels they got to. But my college teams were very close throughout the years at San Bernardino Valley. We had some great teams. Colorado State University-Pueblo, we had some incredible teams. The message was play shoulder to shoulder and become brothers and learn how to break the game down the right way. Do it with some effort and some energy and learn how to execute the game the right way at a high level. That was the message on a daily basis.”

Those lessons came in handy for Ebel and the Dodgers during the shortened 2020 season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Major League Baseball’s regular season was shortened to 60 games and the playoffs expanded to 16 teams. Compared to the normal 162-game season, the shortened season brought more mental challenges.

“I feel this year was more of a grind because, one, we’re getting tested every other day during the season,” Ebel said. “We’re in this so-called bubble where they don’t want us going out into the public, and kind of go from home to the park, and from the park to home. And going on the road, everything is not the same. It’s not like you got all the meals on the flights you used to, you’re accustomed to. You get a meal before you get on the flight, and as you get to the hotel you get another meal waiting for you.

“The grind, the mental part of knowing that you’re trying to keep yourself in this bubble, you’re trying to not get sick. It was a lot of responsibility on the whole organization. Accountability all that mentally it’s just mentally tough. You had to be tough to get through this, and then getting into the playoffs, it’s not a normal season with the 10 teams, it’s 16 teams. We had the best record in baseball and we’re playing Milwaukee, and just the grind of getting into the playoffs, and now you’re in the bubble. You don’t see your family, in your hotel where nobody can come into. Testing from every other day to every single day. I think that just played a mental part in the grind of keeping everybody committed and focused to one goal which is to win the World Series and we were the last team standing, so it all paid off.”

The celebration that followed the win came with an extra bit of serendipity. The first person Ebel hugged after the final out was Dodgers’ special assistant Jose Vizcaino – who broke in with the Dodgers at the same time as Ebel in 1988.

And he’s still floating, even as time marches on. He hopes that the pandemic will be lift enough for the city of Los Angeles to have a celebration with the team – one with the Lakers would be great, he said. And he said he’ll continue to enjoy it right up until opening day.

“I can’t wait to get that ring on opening day, at our first home game,” he said. “That’s when we usually get them.

“I’ll say this, I’m going to enjoy every day up until opening day. Once it’s opening day, now that 2020 season is gone, and now it is try to repeat and go back-to-back. But I’m going to enjoy this championship all the way up until first game of next year’s season. That’s the goal.”