Everyone’s Back--Well, Very Nearly

When baseball resumed at Dodger Stadium Thursday night, Frank Sinatra, Tom Lasorda’s favorite wall hanging, was there. So was Cary Grant. Peter O’Malley was in his owner’s box, Joey Amalfitano in his third base coach’s box.

Roger (the Dodger) Owen, the trick-shooting peanut man, was there. So was Helen Dell, the organist, and Walter Martin, the press-room chef. Nobe Kawano, the clubhouse man, was there. So was Chris Duca, the groundskeeper.

The TV cameras were there, and so were the fans, 37,479 of them. Pete Rose, the 44-year-old living icon, was there, too.

Everybody was there, it seems. Well, almost.

Pedro Guerrero was not there.

Thursday night, while the first-place Dodgers were playing the second-place Reds, Guerrero was in New York. Or at least that’s where Dodger officials thought he was.

“To our knowledge, he was on the flight to New York,” publicist Steve Brener said.

In the 12th inning Thursday, a reporter confirmed that Guererro was, indeed, in New York. He was registered at the Holiday Inn at Kennedy Airport.

One thing the Dodger officials know for sure is this: Guerrero wasn’t on the flight they had booked for him out of Santo Domingo for the first leg of a trip that was to have taken him from the Dominican Republic to Los Angeles in time for Thursday night’s game.

The Dodgers were afraid that might happen. So, according to Dodger Vice President Al Campanis, Dodger scout Ralph Avila had arranged a charter flight from Santo Domingo to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Guerrero was to have boarded his connecting flight.

Guerrero never made the charter, either. Avila had to cancel it, Campanis said, because Guerrero didn’t get to the airport in time.

Why? The Dodgers say he overslept.

“He missed his wake-up call,” Lasorda said. “Or so he said.”

The Dodgers had no choice but to book Guerrero on a later flight to New York, where he was to spend the night Thursday, then fly to Los Angeles this morning. At least, that was the plan.

Guerrero had headed home to the Dominican Republic Wednesday morning, after the Dodgers had gone on strike with the rest of the big-league players. Guerrero already had arrived in Santo Domingo before receiving word from Avila that a settlement had been reached.

According to a Dodger official, this is what transpired. Guerrero planned to spend the night at his house in San Pedro de Macoris, about a 90-minute drive from the capital, but the air-conditioning did not work. Then he was going to stay in his mother’s house, but it was too hot there, too.

Then he decided to stay at a motel near the airport in Santo Domingo. It was plenty cool there. But the wake-up service apparently left something to be desired.

Lasorda was asked if he thought something like this might happen.

“No,” he said. “I thought the minute he knew the strike was settled he would get back.

“Going down there was fine. The part about getting back is what was important to me.”

Right about then, Bill Russell wandered into Lasorda’s office.

“The terrorists got him,” Russell joked.

Candy Maldonado had a suggestion on how to locate Guerrero.

“Send Rambo,” Maldonado said. “He’ll get him.”

Asked if Guerrero would be fined, both Lasorda and Campanis said they would hold off on making a decision until after they had spoken to Guerrero tonight.

“We’re going to discuss it and see what the situation is,” Campanis said.

Ken Landreaux said that under normal circumstances, a player could expect to be fined for missing a game.

“Automatic,” Landreaux said. “When you miss a game, you’d better have an explanation.”

Asked what would have happened to him if he had been the one to be AWOL Thursday, Landreaux rolled his eyes. “Go ask him (Campanis). Ask him, ‘What if Landreaux or somebody had missed the charter, what would have happened?”

Campanis: “Tell him he can have anything he wants. He’s one of my favorites.”