Dodgers Now Can Only Wait : They Beat Braves, 6-1, to Stay on Top by Five

Enos Cabell was reminiscing about the first players’ strike in 1972, when he was a newly married rookie with the Baltimore Orioles and borrowed $100 from teammate Don Baylor to take his wife, Kathy, to dinner and a show.

“I owed him $100 for three years,” Cabell said, laughing. “He told me, ‘Don’t pay me back until you have plenty of money.’ ”

Cabell, like most of his Dodger teammates, can afford a strike now. But that doesn’t mean he wants one.

“I hope there isn’t one,” Cabell said Monday night, just hours before the prospect of another walkout. “I haven’t had this much fun in a while, and I’ve never been in a World Series.”

If this were a normal season, the Dodgers would be staying right on track toward a possible Series appearance with a 6-1 beating of the Atlanta Braves Monday night before a crowd of 24,536.

And for two and a half hours, if you tried as hard as Jerry Reuss, it was possible to believe that all was well in the world cut on a diamond.

“It was nice to go out there and not even think about it (a strike),” said Reuss, who won his ninth game with help from Tom Niedenfuer, who retired the last four batters.

“The only strike I had to worry about was the first one I threw each hitter.”

But in the world outside the lines in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Dodgers had to face the possibility that at 10:11 p.m. EST, when Steve Sax fielded Ken Oberkfell’s grounder, threw to Greg Brock and umpire Joe West thrust his fist up in the air, it was their final out for 1985.

Dodger player representative Mike Scioscia said he expects to hear from the Major League Players Assn. this morning, on the day the players set as a deadline for negotiations, whether there will be a settlement. If not, Scioscia will instruct his teammates not to go to the ballpark this afternoon.

Most Dodgers already had made alternate arrangements. Pedro Guerrero, who finished what may be an 104-game season with three hits Monday to raise his average to .331, said he’ll fly to Miami, then return home to the Dominican Republic. Fernando Valenzuela said he’ll go home to Mexico. Sax has a camping trip planned to Lake Tahoe.

Niedenfuer figures he’ll go home to L.A., then to Seattle to visit family and work out with Bill Caudill, the Toronto Blue Jays’ reliever. Bobby Castillo said he had some gardening to do back home in Albuquerque. R.J. Reynolds said he’ll go home to L.A., do nothing for a couple of days, then go to work for an insurance company. Reuss said he might go to New York to sit in on the negotiations.

A banner hanging from the upper deck here made a prediction. “You’ll Be Back,” it said, adding, “Will We?”

If history is an accurate barometer, the fans surely will be back as well. But the question was when, and many players expressed fears that a strike would be a long one.

“With us in first place, I don’t want to lose the playoffs,” said Orel Hershiser, who is scheduled to pitch tonight in a game that may never be played.

“That would be a sad asterisk to look at in the record book.”

For the record, the Dodgers are 61-43, five games ahead of the Cincinnati Reds in the National League West. In 1981’s season that was split by the last strike, the Dodgers played 110 games, six more than they’ve played so far, and were 63-47.

If this were the end of the regular season but the playoffs were salvaged, Manager Tom Lasorda was asked, did he think the Dodgers were deserving of being division champions?

“We’re better than anybody else at this particular time,” Lasorda said. “I don’t know how else you’re going to judge it.”

Lasorda said he still hoped a strike would be avoided. But he’d wagered a dinner with one reporter that the players would walk, and after Monday’s game held a meeting with the players.

“I told them that I was extremely proud of them, and me and the coaches wanted to give them a round of applause,” Lasorda said.

A farewell address?

“No,” he said, “I just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Dodger Vice President Al Campanis also spoke to the team after the game and had Lasorda read them a Xeroxed statement from the commissioner’s office on the status of negotiations.

“The players chanted, ‘No bleeping strike, no bleeping strike,’ ” Campanis said. “They all want to play, that’s all I can tell you.”

Asked about Campanis’ account of the chant, Reuss raised an eyebrow. “The guys were laughing, mocking the crowd,” referring to a half-hearted demonstration against the strike that took place in the stands in the seventh inning Monday.

“Maybe Al heard it wrong.”

In a lot of ways, no one stands to lose more in a strike than Guerrero, who is having the season of his life. For one thing, Guerrero would lose more than $7,000 a day.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers’ highest-paid player said he was behind the union, although admittedly ill-informed about the issues.

“There’s a lot of things I don’t understand, but I’ll do whatever they (the union) say,” Guerrero said. “I don’t want a strike, no way.

“But I’m a player, and I have to agree with the players, even if I don’t know what’s going on. They’re defending the players’ best interests.

“I just hope they can settle. Not only because of the way I’m going, but because a lot of people would be hurt--the fans will be real hurt and we’re going to lose money.

“I have a big family to support, but I don’t think I’m going to have to work anywhere.”

So, like the 25 other big league teams, the Dodgers prepared to pick up their bats and balls and go home.

“Don’t forget to tip the clubhouse guys,” Niedenfuer yelled, mindful that tonight the clubhouse would stand empty.

“I’ve got a gut feeling that they’re going to settle it,” Bill Russell said. “They’ve still got time.

“But you still have to prepare for the worst. Baseball couldn’t take another long one (strike), though. Not again.”

Dodger Notes After Ken Landreaux’s first-inning solo home run off Braves starter Len Barker, Landreaux’s ninth home run of the season and third in six games, the Dodgers scored two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings. Steve Sax drove in three runs with a single through Barker’s legs and a bloop double over the head of Braves shortstop Rafael Ramirez. . . . Pedro Guerrero singled in the first, doubled and scored in the sixth and doubled home a run in the eighth. He remained tied for the league lead in home runs with 27 with Atlanta’s Dale Murphy, who went hitless in four trips but made a great running catch of Greg Brock’s bid for extra bases in the fourth. Murphy on the strike: “The whole thing is ridiculous. I can’t understand why they can’t work this out. It just gives me a sick feeling.” . . . Guerrero, who also had homered in four straight games, missed a chance to tie Roy Campanella’s record for most consecutive games hitting a home run, five. Campanella set the record June 11-17, 1950.