Rose Figures It Out: ‘Rollie Coaster’ Ride Is Over for Dodgers

The Dodgers are playing baseball these days in their own private twilight zone, where every ball they hit falls mysteriously just out of reach of opposing fielders, where every Dodger pitcher looms on the mound like a Godzilla heaving fastballs.

Sure, a good team makes its own breaks, but this is ridiculous.

The Dodgers are some kind of team of destiny, propelled along by forces beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, or even sportswriters.

Is that Rod Serling lurking next to the hot dog stand?

What can the rest of the league do? Call in scientists? Exorcists? The National Guard?

Midst the general panic, however, is one cool customer named Pete Rose. Pete, manager and part-time first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, has reduced the National League West pennant race to simple mathematics.

“I’ve got it all figured out,” Rose says Sunday, ripping the skin off a piece of chicken, the most aggressive action on this side of the field in three days. “We’ve gotta gain a game a week on ‘em, and we’ll win by one game.”

I checked Rose’s math. The Reds trail the Dodgers by seven games, with six weeks to go.

Rose is a thinking manager. He even hustles in his head. Asked what he did during the two days of the recent strike, Rose gives that silly-question look and says, “I was at the ballpark.”

Working out?

“No, just keeping up on what’s going on.”

What was going on at the ballpark, of course, was that Pete Rose was keeping a lonely vigil. As a player-manager, he was in a tough spot.

“Get back to work, you greedy bum,” management’s Mr. Rose must have told Player Pete, while shaving.

“Give me a decent pension fund and I will, you cheapskate,” Player Pete must have replied.

Now the strike is over, and Rose’s Reds are sinking. Pete takes off his game jersey to reveal a T-shirt featuring a cartoon likeness of Pete Rose, with dirt on the front of his uniform, and the words “Pete Rose, hustling toward the record.”

The record, of course, is Ty Cobb’s 4,191 lifetime hits. But the only hustling Rose does Sunday is toward the mound, to jerk eds’ pitchers.

And the only record he threatens is Sparky Anderson’s major league mark for double negatives.

“I can guarantee you it’s not gonna be no rollie coaster for the Dodgers,” Rose says.

Rose is learning. Sparky woulda said, “It ain’t gonna be no rollie coaster for no bleepin’ Dodgers, ain’t no bleepin’ way.”

Loosely translated, Rose is warning the Dodgers not to get cocky.

“Believe it or not, they’re gonna lose some games later on,” Rose said. “This is a game of streaks. It can change. Who knows, they might think they got it made, and the worst thing they can do is start coasting.” Like on a rollie coaster?

“They’re a good team,” Rose adds, not wanting to sound like a sour-grapes guy. “They create a lot of that (good luck). They got a lot of momentum going right now. Every team goes through phases, they’re just in it longer. They have to cool off.”

Rose is sitting in his private manager’s quarters. Immediately behind him, in a small shower room, the Dodger Stadium plumbing gurgles mysteriously.

“What the hell’s going on in there?” Rose asks. “What is that in there? The fountain of youth?”

No, that’s in the Dodgers’ clubhouse.

Which would help explain such unnatural phenomena as Enos Cabell, a supposedly over-the-hill type who hasn’t played much third base in three seasons but puts on a Dodger uniform and turns into a young Brooks Robinson.

Or maybe it’s the lucky hammer. When the Dodgers were in Atlanta last week, someone, a carpenter probably, left a hammer at Cabell’s dressing stall. The Dodger equipment handlers figured the hammer belonged to Cabell and packed it in his bag.

So Cabell keeps the hammer at his Dodger Stadium locker. Occasionally he pounds it on the locker.

“I know it’s crazy, but I am superstitious,” Cabell says. “Why break up a good thing?”

And Lord knows this is a good thing the Dodgers have going. Cabell is just one of the folks trying to figure it all out.

“I’ve never been on a team like this,” he says. “I got here and I said, ‘What’s going on here? Nobody hates anybody.’ They’re trying to breed love here. Over here you can’t hate nobody because everyone’s laughing at everyone.”

Cabell mentions that he’s tired. Someone asks why.

“Because he’s an old bleeper,” interjects Tom Niedenfuer.

Picture it: An old bleeper, dripping wet from the fountain of youth, waving a hammer, sitting in the front car of the Dodgers rollie coaster, clanking slowly up the steep tracks.

What’s in store at the top? Ain’t no way to tell, and ain’t no way to get off.