Dodger Notebook : Hershiser Ailing After Lifting Load--His Son

To protect their investments, major league teams often prohibit players from engaging in risky endeavors. Sky-diving, for example. Dirt biking. Surfing. Even basketball. Any activity that might result in injury.

Sunday, the Dodgers may have been tempted to add another one to the list: The dangerous task of baby-carrying.

It cost them the services Sunday of their million-dollar baby, Orel Hershiser IV, who came up with a lame back after toting 15-month-old Orel (Quinton) Hershiser V.

“It happened the night before, when Orel came out of a restaurant and it was cold,” trainer Bill Buhler said. “He set the baby on his hip and ran across the street (to their condo).”

The next thing Hershiser knew, he had back spasms that kept him out of Sunday’s workouts and may prevent him from pitching in today’s intrasquad game.

Buhler said Hershiser has a history of back spasms. “He’ll be all right once he learns how to carry a baby,” the trainer said. “Women can do those things. I could never carry our kids.”

More baby talk: Casey Brock, the 13-month-old son of the Dodger first baseman, caught the eye of Dodger Tom Lasorda by wearing a sweat shirt that read: “Play Me or Trade Me.”

Pitcher Jerry Reuss’ workout schedule has been curtailed by sore knees that will keep him out of today’s intrasquad game. Buhler said X-rays showed “arthritic changes” in the knees.

“That’s to be expected for somebody that does as much running and exercising as he has and is his age,” Buhler said of Reuss, who will be 37 on June 19.

Part of the problem, Buhler said, is that Reuss’ foot problems--he underwent surgery on both heels after the ’84 season--have kept him from running as much as he did in the past.

“He came down here this spring feeling good, but the running he did here was on a plane of action that had different areas of roughness, and that gave him some pain.”

For now, Reuss is exercising on a rowing machine and stationary bicycle.

Sharpen that blade: Pedro Guerrero participated in his first workouts Sunday with his goatee intact, despite a team rule that prohibits facial hair.

“It’s coming off,” Lasorda said. “He said he’d shave it today.”

That’s what Guerrero had said the day before, too.