A final (maybe) farewell to Dodgertown

VERO BEACH, Fla. – Carl Erskine played the national anthem on a harmonica. Tommy Lasorda made a speech. And then the Dodgers said what may be their final goodbye to Dodgertown after 61 spring-training seasons today by losing to the Houston Astros, 12-10.

Plans call for the Dodgers to move their spring training base to Glendale, Ariz., next season, although construction problems could delay that and the team could return for a Vero Beach encore in 2009.

Because of the uncertainty, Monday’s festivities were somewhat muted. There were no commemorative T-shirts for sale and tickets were still available at the box office shortly before game time. But that didn’t brighten the day of many of the fans saddened by the Dodgers’ decision to relocate closer to Los Angeles.

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day. I’m Irish. And I’ve never felt so little like celebrating in my life,” said Clifford Bombard, a Dodgers fan from Virginia who was born the same year the Dodgers started training in Vero Beach. “It’s a little bittersweet. I understand why they’re going and all that stuff. But I’m still going to miss the heck out of them.”

The Dodgers play what could be their final spring training game in Florida on Tuesday against the Florida Marlins in Jupiter, then board a team charter for Arizona, where they’ll work out for a week before returning to Los Angeles for several exhibition games and the start of the regular season.

“It is a little sad for the people of Vero because they are losing a lot of history,” said Brandon Smith, a 22-year-old Dodgers fan from Woodland Hills who made the trip to Florida to get a look at Dodgertown. “But I think it’s a good thing. As a fan living in L.A. I’m glad they’re moving to Arizona because it’s so much closer.

“But because this place has so much history,” he said, it’s unfortunate “that it’s going away.”

If today’s game does prove to be the Dodgers’ last at Dodgertown, it was an entertaining adieu, one that included seven home runs, four by the Astros.

The Astros took a 3-1 lead in the third on back-to-back homers by Michael Bourne and Hunter Pence before the Dodgers rallied with four runs in the bottom of the inning, helped in part by Rafael Furcal’s second home run of the spring.

Houston answered with another home run in the fourth – one with an ironic twist given the day’s history because it was hit by second baseman David Newhan, whose father, Hall of Fame baseball writer Ross Newhan, covered numerous spring training games in Vero Beach as the Dodgers beat writer for The Times.

The home run was the third given up allowed by Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley, who allowed five runs and six hits in five innings.

The Astros then put the game away by scoring five times in the sixth, the big blow a two-out, three-run homer by J.R. House.

Andre Ethier finished with four hits, including a triple and a two-run opposite-field homer, and Furcal tripled twice and scored three runs. Preston Mattingly, son of special assignment coach Don Mattingly, hit a pinch-hit homer for the Dodgers in his first major league at-bat of the spring.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com