Ex-Dodger slugger Pedro Guerrero hospitalized after stroke

Former World Series MVP Pedro Guerrero had a massive stroke and is recovering in a hospital in New York, his wife said.

Roxanna Jimenez said her 60-year-old husband was taken to a hospital Monday. She said doctors initially declared him brain dead but a second opinion confirmed he was comatose. He was transferred to Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.

“It was his second massive stroke,” Jimenez said Tuesday by phone from New York to the radio show Grandes en los Deportes in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “He’s recovering. The doctor said he can improve. He opened his eyes and is trying to communicate.”

Guerrero played 15 seasons in the majors with the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals. The slugger was the 1981 World Series co-MVP with the Dodgers and played in five All-Star Games.

Guerrero was a career .300 hitter, with 1,618 hits, 215 home runs and 898 RBIs, and starred for the Dodgers from 1978-88.

In 1981, the Dominican earned a spot in right field when Reggie Smith was out with an arm injury. Guerrero was hitting .325 and the Dodgers were leading their division when a players’ strike stopped the season in June. Play resumed in August and Guerrero’s averaged dipped to .269 in the second half while the team slumped.

But the Dodgers rallied to win playoff series against Houston and Montreal. They advanced to meet the New York Yankees in the World Series for the third time in five years.

Guerrero’s five RBIs in Game 6 led to a 9-2 victory and the team’s first championship in 16 years. He had a triple, home run and bases-loaded single, and shared MVP honors with teammates Ron Cey and Steve Yeager.