LUCKY DOG : Madlock Goes From Pound to Penthouse

The nickname was always Mad Dog, for the way Bill Madlock had barked at umpires throughout his career.

“If you take away Billy Martin, I don’t think anybody’s had more arguments with umpires than I did,” said Madlock, who once was fined $5,000 for shoving his glove in an umpire’s face.

“But over the years, we got to respect each other.”

And this year, the nickname changed, too. On the small chalkboard above Madlock’s cubicle in the visitors’ clubhouse in Atlanta last week, someone had erased Madlock’s name and replaced it with “Lucky Dog.”

Fortune had given Madlock the once-over in July. He had clasped his hands and looked heavenward when someone told him he might be traded from the purgatory of Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, only to find out that the deal had fallen through and the Dodgers had acquired Enos Cabell from Houston instead.

But in the last days of August, the deal was rekindled, and the last-place Pirates let the four-time National League batting champion go for three players who never figured to start for the Dodgers--R.J. Reynolds, Sid Bream and Cecil Espy. What did the deal mean to Madlock?

“I went from 37-something games out to first place,” he said.

Lucky dog.

“When he hit a home run against the Braves, the dugout sounded like a kennel club,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “Everybody was barking like a pack of dogs.”

Madlock’s prayers weren’t the only ones answered. For the first time since Ron Cey was traded to the Cubs after the 1982 season, the Dodgers have a legitimate starting third baseman. German Rivera, R.I.P. The position was a mine field for Pedro Guerrero. Cabell much prefers the sanity of first base, where he can platoon with Greg Brock.

Madlock is at home at third base. And he figures to find a home in Los Angeles, too. Enough real-estate agents are helping him try.

“I’ve been told you can get a real good deal on a house in L.A.,” he said, “because so many people are getting divorces.”

It’s still in the honeymoon stage, but the marriage between the 34-year-old Madlock and the Dodgers may be a lasting one.

“This would be a good team to end my career with,” said Madlock, who had thought he’d play just two more years in Pittsburgh but now figures he could last another four with the Dodgers.

His rejuvenation has been apparent on the field, where he’s batting .347 (25 for 72) for the Dodgers after hitting just .251 for the Pirates. He has also hit two home runs and stolen five bases in six attempts after stealing just three for Pittsburgh.

“I guess I was looking at (Mariano) Duncan and thinking I was 23,” Madlock said with a laugh. “My head told me I was 23, but my body told me I’m 34.”

No one needed to tell Madlock he was in a pennant race.

“He did the same thing for the Pirates in 1979 when he was traded and they won the pennant and World Series,” Atlanta Manager Bobby Wine said. “He’s a great hitter. He’s not a big RBI man, but when there’s a guy in scoring position, you know he’s going to make contact. You can’t fool around with him when he’s at the plate.”

Madlock, who hit .328 for the Pirates in the last three months of the ’79 season after being traded by San Francisco, said the effects of a pennant race are palpable.

“It makes you more aware of everything,” he said. “It’s not like I think I’m going to catch everything or that I’m going to get a hit in every crucial situation, but I’m mentally prepared to do that.”

With a loser, Madlock said, “you seem to drift off. At times, you get in the batter’s box and you’re not mentally prepared. You don’t do it on purpose, but it happens unconsciously.”

Madlock was acutely aware that the situation in Pittsburgh was deteriorating to the point of no return. And when he was told that the Pirates, as part of an overhaul, were committed to rookie Denny Gonzalez at third base next season, Madlock said he asked to be traded.

“The organization was really nice to me,” Madlock said. “But sometimes you can be with an organization too long. The last two years were a disaster--the talk of selling the team, nobody coming to the games . . . everything just got out of hand.”

When someone asked Pirate Manager Chuck Tanner what the team needed to be a contender again, he cited a power hitter. When the same question was posed to Madlock, he said: “We don’t have power, we don’t have speed and our defense is not too good. We’re 0 for 3 in what it takes to win.”

That reportedly angered Tanner, but Madlock said that wasn’t the case and the two men laughed about it afterward. “It wasn’t a negative thing,” Madlock said. “It was just stating the truth.”

The truth is something that Madlock feels has been obscured in Pittsburgh, where his name recently surfaced in the drug-trafficking trial of Curtis Strong, a Philadelphia caterer. Former teammates Dale Berra and Dave Parker both testified that Madlock, along with Willie Stargell, supplied them with amphetamines. Madlock denies the charges.

“First, Lonnie Smith said Pete Rose. Now Dale says Willie and I,” Madlock said. “It doesn’t make any sense. They’re putting guys in the paper who have nothing to do with it.

“I’m glad I’m not there. People are going to believe what they want to. Dale said I gave (greenies) to him in ’79. I was there (Pittsburgh) just two months. Dale wasn’t even playing then.

“What I know about it, people use (drugs) with people who play. Dale didn’t even play. Why waste anything on him?

” . . . It bothers me that he (Berra) would be like that. And it bothers me more that he’d bring a guy like Willie into it more than me.”

The Pirates’ decline wasn’t the only thing affecting Madlock’s performance. In little more than two seasons, he had four major operations. In 1983, he had bone fragments removed from his left knee. He also had phlebitis in his upper left leg and tore his left calf. Last season, he had a bone spur removed from his right elbow, an operation that ended his season in August. He also underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder.

There was considerable speculation this spring that Madlock would be unable to play third for the Pirates. He had a few doubts himself.

“I couldn’t even throw across the infield until just before we left camp,” he said. “There were a few balls I caught that I didn’t even throw. I just gave them back to the pitcher.”

Now, he said, the arm is fine, though he says he’d prefer to be in better condition, both mentally and physically.

Madlock’s assessment of his new team? Well, the only difference he sees between Tanner and his new manager, Lasorda, is that “one is a short, fat guy. And both of ‘em like garlic.

“Let’s put it this way,” Madlock said. “They’re so much alike, they make you believe you’re the greatest player to ever put on a uniform. And I like that.

“I’ve seen the (Dodgers) go from worst to best,” he said. “But I’ll tell you why I’ve always liked this club.

“How many times since I’ve been here has there been an error, a walk, then boom--a home run?

“You’ve got Marshall, he’ll be in the 20 to 40 (home run) range. You’ve got Brock, he’ll be 20 to 40. Pete (Guerrero), he’s going to be in that same range. I’ll be 10 to 20.

“You can score a lot of runs that way, quick runs. And you always knew what kind of pitching staff you had.”

Madlock is the kind of hitter--he started the season with a lifetime average of .312, the highest of any National Leaguer with more than two years’ experience--that comes around just once or twice in a generation.”

“When I first came in, Pete Rose was my idol,” Madlock said. “He said he’d be the first $100,000 singles hitter.

“His son (Pete Rose Jr.) used to call me a Punch-and-Judy hitter. I said, ‘Geez, your father made it famous. I want to be just like him.’ ”

One of Madlock’s hobbies is to collect baseballs autographed by Hall of Famers. He has about 100 of them.

His own place in history?

“I don’t care if baseball says nothing when I leave,” he said, “because the game gave me a lot.”

Madlock is reminded of one of the first big league scouting reports that was filed about him when he was just a young prospect out of Decatur, Ill.

“It said I’d never get out of Double-A,” he said.

Lucky dog.