Boos, blues don’t get Phillies’ Shane Victorino down

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As baseball players go, Philadelphia’s Shane Victorino is one of the nicest guys you’ll never meet.

Polite. Cooperative. Gracious with his time and thoughts.

Here’s an example: Moments after learning his grandmother Irene, with whom he was close, had died in Hawaii, Victorino sat shirtless in front of his locker in the Phillies clubhouse, staring at the floor as several teammates came by and wrapped him in a hug.

Through a team spokesman, Victorino said he didn’t want to speak to the media even though he’d had a fabulous night, knocking in four runs and saving two others in an 8-5 win over the Dodgers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Still, more than a dozen reporters huddled near his locker, conflicted over whether to leave Victorino alone in his grief or to press the issue in the hopes of getting a great quote.

Eventually Victorino stood and called us over.

‘It’s definitely an emotional time,’ he said, trying to smile, though his eyes were red. ‘But it’s all about baseball right now.’

Victorino went on to thank us, the vultures, for our handshakes and our questions of concern for him and his family.

Then two days later, Victorino watched a Hiroki Kuroda fastball sail a foot behind his head.

Victorino said he knew someone on his team would be thrown at, even hinting that the Dodgers were justified in doing so after Dodgers catcher Russell Martin had been hit. But when he motioned angrily at Kuroda to throw at his ribs, not his head (Martin, after all, had been hit in the knee), it touched off a bench-clearing incident, and now Victorino is Public Enemy No. 1 at Dodger Stadium, where the mere mention of his name inspires 50,000 people to boo.

‘You hear them,’ Victorino said Tuesday. ‘I don’t feed off it. I try to stay focused. [But] you definitely hear it. When I walk out to the outfield, I hear it all the time: ‘You suck!’ ‘

The catcalls figure to be uglier tonight, because Victorino’s last at-bat at Dodger Stadium produced a game-tying two-run home run on Monday, sparking the Phillies to a 7-5 win that left the Dodgers a loss from postseason elimination.

‘They’re going to take him as the bad guy now,’ teammate Geoff Jenkins said. ‘So he’s Godzilla now.’

Asked if the fans are at least creative with their put-downs, Victorino said yes -- but when pressed for a favorite epithet he demurred, suggesting it wasn’t suitable to repeat.

‘I can’t really put it on paper,’ he said with a smile.

-- Kevin Baxter