Here’s an unexpected development in Dodgers-Giants rivalry -- respect

All excited are you? Fangs out, gleam in the eye, a hint of madness about you?

Is it the evil Giants and their nauseating Halloween colors, swathed in garlic, wine bar at the ready, world’s most obnoxious fans and a team ready to be pummeled and humbled, and then stomped upon some more?

Maybe for you, possibly for most fans. But there is something different about this great, historic rivalry with the players.

The Dodgers respect the Giants.

Easy now, I realize that’s a difficult one. If you were born in an era when Juan Marichal was bloodying John Roseboro or Tommy Lasorda groomed players to despise the Giants in the minors and then kept the distaste going for 21 years as their manager, this is a foreign concept.

But it’s also true. The Dodgers and their management no longer speak of the Giants with dripping disdain, but great regard.

They not only recognize their success, but the way the Giants have gone about it. They admire how the Giants play hard, play smart, utilize roles, maximize the team concept.

Now there are only 16 games left in the season, six against each other, the Dodgers absolutely clinging to a two-game lead and with a three-game series opening tonight between the two in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, in the 26 years since the Dodgers last won, the Giants have been in the World Series four times – winning two of the last four.

Now this is not to imply the rivalry is dead, just that it’s taken on a different tone among the players, or at least the Dodgers. Any team that wins two World Series in three years deserves respect, even if they are that team that plays in a fog beneath the world’s biggest Coke bottle.

It’s been 10 years since these two historic rivals came down to the final weeks, battling each other for the division lead. And, yeah, the Dodgers won that one and also swept a three-game series the last time in San Francisco to take a lead they have yet to relinquish.

Only perhaps you’ve noticed they also failed to put any significant distance between themselves and San Francisco since. This is a different Giants team from the last one the Dodgers visited. This team has won 12 of its last 15 and nine consecutive at home.

“This series is going to be like a playoff series,” Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said.

Yep, should be great fun. Could likely determine who wins the division and who has to play in that insane one-game playoff for the wild card.

If the Dodgers should somehow sweep again this weekend, they will be feeling very good. But still – best get used to it – very respectful of the Giants.