Say, That’s Not Mays; Dodgers Win It, 2-0

Just like old times, there were nearly 50,000 people packed into Candlestick Park Sunday afternoon, and there was Willie Mays, coming through in the clutch with a game-winning base hit.

Say hey? Not quite. Mays’ hit came in an old-timers’ game in which the clock was turned back to 1954 and the youngest player on the field was 52-year-old Joe Amalfitano, the Dodgers’ third base coach.

So, instead of Mays at the plate for the ’86 Giants in the ninth inning with two runners on and the Dodgers clinging to a 2-0 lead, it was Candy Maldonado.

Sunday, that meant say no more. Dodger reliever Tom Niedenfuer saw to that, inducing Maldonado to ground into a game-ending double play to save Rick Honeycutt’s shutout, as well as some face for the Dodgers, who return home with consecutive wins after losing just about everything but their uniforms in Cincinnati and Houston.

The Dodgers, who left Los Angeles 10 days ago in third place, 5 1/2 games behind the Astros, return in third, but nine games behind first-place Houston in the National League West.

Even another homestand like the last one, in which the Dodgers went 8-1, might not have the effect of putting them back in the race.

“It could be done,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “If it’s possible, then it can be done.”

The Giants, meanwhile, remained six games behind the Astros, after dropping two of three here to the Dodgers and six of their last seven to the team that inspires almost as many nasty T-shirts in this city as Warren Burger.

They couldn’t score even after the Dodgers had made two errors two batters into the Giant first inning, with first baseman Enos Cabell dropping a throw and catcher Alex Trevino uncorking a throw into center field.

Honeycutt held them without a hit until Bob Brenly’s double in the fifth, and Trevino hit a home run off Vida Blue after Cabell forced the Giant pitcher to change his pants.

“He puts pine tar on his left leg,” said Cabell, who complained to plate umpire Bruce Froemming in the first inning. “The second pitch he threw me dropped about two feet, so I figured it was pine tar.

“I played with Vida. He uses pine tar to get a better grip on his breaking ball.”

Blue maintained his innocence, though he went through an elaborate charade before delivering another pitch to Cabell, touching both legs, the bill of his cap, behind his ear, etc.

Cabell watched his act, then lined a single to left field.

To avoid prolonging the sticky situation, Blue went into the clubhouse to change pants between innings.

“Just wanted to keep everybody happy,” Blue said.

The left-hander didn’t make the Dodgers any happier by pitching out of constant trouble until the eighth, when first baseman Will Clark dropped a throw on Mariano Duncan’s two-out grounder and Reggie Williams followed with an RBI single, the Dodgers’ 11th hit of the game.

Honeycutt, meanwhile, got out of his first-inning jam when Dan Gladden was trapped off third base on Chili Davis’ grounder to Bill Madlock. He retired 13 in a row until Brenly’s double in the fifth, then gave up another double to Gladden in the sixth.

Gladden became the only Giant runner to reach third when Thompson bunted him over, but Honeycutt retired Davis on a foul fly, and Clark flied out to end the inning.

With two out in the eighth, Honeycutt issued his first walk, losing Gladden on a full count. That brought out pitching coach Ron Perranoski.

“He left me in by mutual agreement,” Honeycutt said. “I talked him into letting me pitch to the second baseman. I was a little tired, and the wind had stiffened me up.”

Honeycutt stiffened even more when Thompson drove a ball that was headed into the left-field corner. But Bill Russell made a nice running catch just inside the line, one of five putouts by the Dodgers’ newest left-fielder.

“Russell gets on me a lot, so I told him I was going to make him work a lot,” Honeycutt said.

And Russell wasn’t through teasing Honeycutt, especially after the pitcher was thrown out at the plate on Russell’s seventh-inning double.

“I asked him if he blew a tire while he was running,” Russell said. “The oil was leaking coming around second, he blew the tire coming around third, and look what happened--he was out by 60 feet.”

Not true, Honeycutt said. “It was more like 30--and I missed third base, too,” he said.

But Honeycutt was only following the instructions of Amalfitano, who was already blushing about the two errors he made in the old-timers’ game, and was looking for a place to hide after sending home Honeycutt.

“I was hoping you guys wouldn’t be coming in here and ask what did you do,” Amalfitano said to reporters. “What a dumb play. God, I get so mad at myself. I got overly aggressive, but I shouldn’t. That double play in the ninth looked real good to me.”

As it did to Niedenfuer, who picked up saves in the last two games here. He gave up one-out singles to Clark and Chris Brown, the league’s leading hitter, before retiring ex-Dodger Maldonado, one of the Giants’ top clutch hitters.

“We salvaged a little something,” Niedenfuer said, “but we still have a long way to go.”

But after a 4-7 trip, at least the Dodgers were going home.

Dodger Notes

Alex Trevino’s second-inning home run was his fourth of the season and first in nearly two months. Trevino, a former Giant until traded to the Dodgers for Candy Maldonado, shook his head when asked if it would be hard for him to see the Giants win the NL West. “Of course not,” he said. “I still have a lot of good friends on that ballclub. First I want to win, but after that they can win.” . . . Dodger pitcher Rick Honeycutt said he threw more knuckleballs than he has thrown all season, retiring all three batters in the fourth with the knuckler. . . . Manager Tom Lasorda pitched in the old-timers’ game between the ’54 Giants the and ’54 Indians, making a guest appearance for the Indians. He hit Bill Taylor with a pitch, but Taylor remained at the plate and grounded out. The only other batter to face Lasorda was Joe Amalfitano, the Dodger third base coach, and he popped out. “I was so tempted to strike Amalfitano out,” Lasorda said. “Two strikes on him, I wanted to nail his butt. I knew if I threw him a curve, even if it was in the dirt, he’d swing at it. But then he’d be crying the rest of the year.” The good-natured Amalfitano, a 20-year-old bonus baby on the ’54 Giants, took it all in stride. “One of the nicest things that happened to me,” he said, “was that all those guys (on the ’54 team) came up and told me how proud of me they were, at what I’d done, making a career out of this game. That was special to me.”