It’s Not Difficult to Find Out How Dodgers Are Doing

How are the Dodgers doing?

To learn the answer to that question on any given day, all one has to do is drop in at the office of the team’s manager, Tom Lasorda. Sit back and observe what matters occupy the manager’s concern and attention.

Had you been there two weeks ago, you might have caught Lasorda pouring over stat sheets, trying to find clues as to why his third baseman wasn’t on his way to winning a triple crown, and why his fielders were not fielding.

When I dropped in Monday afternoon, Lasorda was confronting his bullpen coach, Mark Cresse.

“Mark,” Lasorda barked, “can you eat a five-pound burrito?”

When Cresse hedged, Lasorda flew into a fake rage.

“Don’t give me all that bleep! Just tell me, yes or no! Can you eat a bleeping five-pound burrito or not?”

Cresse, his courage and virility clearly under attack, answered that sure, he could eat a five-pound burrito.

“Some guy will give $100 to our favorite charity for every guy on the team that can do it,” Lasorda said.

How did it happen, this shift in worries, from base hits to burritos?

I think I can explain.

It started about two weeks ago, when the team was floundering and Lasorda decided to seek outside assistance. He knew he needed help from someone intelligent, creative, quick-witted and fair-minded.

So he called upon the sportswriters of Los Angeles. He pleaded with the scribes to have mercy.

“Why kick us when we’re down?” he asked. “It’s always easy to make fun of someone who isn’t doing good. Why not present a positive image of the Dodgers?”

Why not eat a 25-pound burrito?

The Dodgers were playing lousy ball at the time, and most sportswriters see themselves as reporters, not cheerleaders or fiction writers.

Besides, how can sportswriters help the Dodgers by writing nice things when ballplayers never read the papers?

Every ballplayer will swear he does not read the papers. He will tell you that he stopped reading the papers once when he was in a slump and the writers were cruelly roasting him.

It usually occurred during the player’s sophomore year of high school.

The player will never tell you: “I stopped reading the papers when I was hitting .385 and the writers were saying such nice things about me that I got embarrassed.”

The next time you see the ballplayer on an airplane or bus, he will be holding a newspaper sports section in front of his face. Using it as a privacy shield, no doubt, to keep away autograph hounds.

Anyway, I asked around a bit Monday, to find out if Lasorda’s plea for positive press, and any resulting positive press, had had a positive effect on the pressing Dodgers.

“I don’t know,” said Pedro Guerrero. “I don’t read the papers.”

I asked Steve Sax.

“I really don’t read the papers,” Sax said. “Only if we’re doing good.”

Can the papers have a negative effect on players?

“Yes,” Sax said. “They did on me in ’83 when I was throwing the ball away. You build up anxiety, and when you go out there (in the field) it has an effect on you.”

In ‘83, Sax went into what might have been the worst throwing slump in major league history. The inner gyroscope that controls his right arm went on tilt, and he couldn’t throw the ball 50 feet to the first baseman.

“I was so down,” Sax said. “I was never that low in my life.”

People wanted to help Sax. Friends and fans recommended hypnosis, prayer, meditation, and extra fielding practice. Nothing worked.

Then Sax stopped reading the papers. Miraculously, as the swallows to Capistrano, his right arm returned.

He’s not sure if canceling his newspaper subscription saved his career, but he’s not taking any chances.

“If you’re negative, or around negative people or thoughts, it has a tendency to build up anxiety,” Sax said. “The mind is a complex thing. If you tamper with it, you can mess up a finely tuned machine.”

This season, Sax has only three errors in 38 games. In ‘83, he could make that many on one play.

Sax isn’t hitting too well right now, though. Maybe he should concentrate on not reading about his hitting, too.

The Dodger currently having the most fielding problems is shortstop Mariano Duncan, with 14 errors in 45 games.

“I told him not to worry,” Sax said. “It’ll pass. I told him I had 26 errors in June of ‘83, and I wound up with 30.”

The big question: Is Duncan reading the newspapers? Pedro Guerrero has taken it upon himself to protect Duncan by chasing reporters away from Duncan’s locker after tough games. But that’s not enough. Is the kid shortstop tying himself in knots by reading harsh reviews in the next morning’s papers?

As much as the local sportswriters have tried to help the Dodgers, the writers can only do so much, for fear of having their noses grow long.

I think the burden now lies with the newspaper delivery boys and girls of our city. If Mariano Duncan has a bad game, for instance, it’s up to the newspaper delivery person who has Duncan on his or her route.

Just skip Duncan’s house the next morning, son. Or chuck the paper onto the roof, or into the storm drain. Pretend you’re Steve Sax in ’83.

This will allow Duncan to eliminate negative vibes. It will also ease Lasorda’s burden and free him to assemble his battalion of burrito busters.