5.3.01 CINCINNATI REDS vs LOS ANGELES DODGERS
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Readers from last year are aware that I have not always counted the Rochester Red Wings as my home team and primary rooting interest. In fact, readers from this year who have somehow formed such an impression would do well to go ahead and toss it out the window, for it is a mistaken one. I am, and, at least during those periods of my life when I cared about baseball at all, have always been a Dodger fan.
These last five years have not been particularly pleasant ones for those of my ilk. In fact, given the last five years, it is a wonder there are any of my ilk left. Fox. The Piazza trade. Davey Johnson. Kevin Malone. Incalculably stupid moves begetting even more incalculably stupid moves. I could list them all, but I don’t expect anyone reading this would have the time or inclination to read such a list, and besides, it’s hardly an unfamiliar litany. Ridiculously underachieving teams. Preposterously bad management. Kevin Malone. Kevin Malone. Kevin Malone. That mealymouthed fucking minion of Satan, Kevin Malone. More than anyone or anything else, he alone represented for me everything that had gone wrong with the Los Angeles Dodgers, all that had been lost, and all that would never be right again. Even when new part-owner and organizational figurehead Bob Daly arrived on the scene last year and things started looking up, my budding hopes were frustrated and ultimately defeated by Daly’s outspoken and inexplicable support for his first mate.
This off-season seemed no different. Good moves—re-signing Darren Dreifort, picking up Andy Ashby and Ramon Martinez, naming competent and low-profile Jim Tracy manager, bringing Mets pitching coach Dave Wallace back into the Dodger fold, dumping Devon White—were offset by bad ones—passing on Johnny Damon, releasing Martinez at the end of spring training, replacing White with Marquis Grissom. Adrian Beltre attempted to become the first player in major league history to cleanly field a bunt and throw out the runner at first while simultaneously holding one hand over his stomatized abdomen. And then of course there was that situation involving the misinformed, ill-advised, and none-too-smart Gary Sheffield. Not much for a Dodger fan to do but roll his eyes and dream about the unlikely day when some deus ex machina would come along and deliver us from our misery.
Well, deus works in mysterious ways, don’t he? Sheffield wised up, shut up, and started playing his ass off. Beltre flew back to L.A. and got himself sewed back together. And, astonishingly—miraculously—one Jim Esterbrooks, Padre fan, managed to bait Kevin Malone into the verbal altercation that would quickly accomplish what three years of the latter’s own idiocy and incompetence somehow could not: end his career with the Dodgers. God I love Padre fans.
So here we are a month into the season and the Dodgers, under Tracy’s watchful eye, are doing everything I’ve wanted to see them do all along. Bunting, sacrificing, running, hanging tough in close games, playing respectable if not spectacular defense; winning despite a four-man platoon at third base, zero production from the leadoff spot, and injuries to Ashby and Kevin Brown. They’re in first place in the NL West, for crying out loud!
It was these Dodgers, then, these quick-starting (for once), resilient, and harmonious Dodgers whom I found taking batting practice upon my early evening arrival at what remains of cavernous Riverfront Stadium. Sheffield and Eric Karros chatted amiably around the cage. Dave Hansen and Jeff Reboulet—and holy crap if that guy doesn’t look just like Inspector Clouseau, just like my friend Dave said—clowned while fielding grounders. Hell, Tracy was the guy out there hitting to them. When’s the last time you saw a major league manager hitting grounders to his guys? I stood there, gazing upon this wonderful tableau, feeling the giddiness reach down to my toes as I beheld the sight of my beloved Dodgers here in this strange and foreign place, and it was only then, as out of habit I sought the sobering bit of information that would check my reverie, that I remembered: Malone is gone! He’s gone! The Dodgers have been returned to us! Huzzah!
Singles by Sheffield and Tom Goodwin, doubles by Mark Grudzielanek and Shawn Green, and a sac fly courtesy of Eric Karros staked Dodgers starter Luke Prokopec, surprisingly effective in three starts filling in for Ashby, to a 4–0 lead in the third. Prokopec got himself into a jam in the bottom of the inning, though, loading up the bases for Deion Sanders, who two nights earlier had made the Dodgers his plaything in his characteristically dramatic (3-for-3, home run, bunt single, stolen base, 3 RBIs) return to the major leagues. I guess 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday wasn’t prime time enough for him though, because this time Deion popped out to catcher Angel Pena. Prokopec got out of the inning giving up only one run.
Karros contributed two more RBIs in the fifth and another two innings later, but the Reds touched up Terry Adams in the bottom of the seventh for three runs, and suddenly, with the score 8–6, it was a close ballgame again. Mike Fetters pitched a perfect eighth, and then Cincinnati native and former Red Jeff Shaw came in to close things out. Never one to make it look easy, Shaw loaded up the bases with one out, worked Ruben Rivera to a full count before putting him away, and then struck out Donnie Sadler swinging. Yeesh. The good-natured old Reds-fan guy sitting behind me patted me on the back and said something to the effect of, “Well, you earned that one!”
It was nice to see, though, the Dodgers taking two of three in Cincinnati to begin their road trip, especially considering that they, and I, were off to spend the weekend in Chicago facing the NL-leading (go figure) Cubs.
FINAL SCORE: DODGERS 8, REDS 6
FOOD CONSUMED: A bratwurst, which was okay but no great shakes, some peanuts, and a Diet Coke.