Even Tobacco Juice Wouldn’t Put Dodgers in Spitting Distance

“If it’s possible, it can be done.”

--Tom Lasorda, Aug. 17, discussing the possibility of the Dodgers coming back to win the NL West title this season.

Now it is impossible. Now, for the Dodgers, it’s all over but the pouting.

What was wrong with the Dodgers this year?

That’s easy. Tom Lasorda doesn’t chew tobacco.

Maybe I should explain.

Lasorda was leaning on the batting cage Monday night at Dodger Stadium, talking about injuries.

“We had one guy, Dave Anderson, out 67 days with a little finger !” Lasorda said. “Sixty-seven days! I was talking to Leo Durocher the other day. He told me about the time he took a bad hop off his throwing hand, sliced his hand right here (between the thumb and index finger). It was cut wide open and bleeding like hell.

“He went into the dugout and showed it to (Cardinal Manager Frankie) Frisch. Told Frisch, ‘Look at this !’ Frisch spit tobacco juice on it and told Leo to get back out there and play.”

Lasorda doesn’t chew tobacco. He doesn’t have time. Between eating and talking, his mouth is completely booked. Too bad. Conventional medicine hasn’t done the job for the Dodgers this season, and who knows? Maybe a few well placed squirts of tobacco juice would have cured Pedro Guerrero’s knee, and Mike Marshall’s back, and Greg Brock’s knee, and Mariano Duncan’s foot . . .

Is Lasorda saying his players are babies? Are they afraid to play hurt?

Lasorda tells a story about when he was pitching for Brooklyn and got his right leg carved up while covering home plate after a wild pitch. Between innings, the team doctor told Lasorda he had to leave the game or risk never walking again.

“(Bleep) you, I’m going out there,” Lasorda barked.

Jackie Robinson took a look at the wound and got sick. Lasorda says it took six or seven players to forcibly restrain him from going back out to pitch.

“When I managed in the minors, we had one trainer,” Lasorda said. “All he carried was a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and by the fifth inning he’d drank half of that. When I was at Ogden, a kid comes to me before the game and tells me his knee hurts.

“ ‘Go put it in the whirlpool,’ I told him. He tells me, ‘But we don’t have a whirlpool.’ I tell him, ‘Go stick it in the toilet and flush it!’ ”

Does Lasorda think the injured Dodgers are jaking? He doesn’t know what to think. He’s just depressed.

Personally, I think the multiple injury excuse has been overused. I think one injury killed the Dodgers this year.

When Pedro Guerrero went down in spring training, the Dodgers buried their hearts at wounded knee.

Maybe it’s not fair to blame a whole season on one player, but Pedro isn’t just one player. He is possibly the greatest hitter in baseball. Even with all the Dodger injuries this season, they were in the race until three weeks ago. You add Pedro’s could-have-been 35 homers and 100 RBIs and you’ve got a pennant, and Pedro’s got an MVP award.

But Pedro nonchalanted spring training, which may or may not have led to the injury, and the Dodgers became a lesser club. They battled gamely but finally died down the stretch.

Lasorda won’t lay it all on Pedro, but he won’t deny the impact of Guerrero’s injury.

“We’re like BBD&O;,” Lasorda says, referring to the giant ad agency--Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, Inc. “When Chrysler left ‘em, they had to lay a lot of people off. Pedro means to us what Chrysler meant to BBD&O.; You lose an account like that, you feel the effects. Pedro hits 33 homers, that’s a pretty big account.”

So what about Pedro now?

“I’ll just go back home and try to get my knee 100%,” Guerrero said Monday night.

He’ll work out at his home, or at a local gym?

“I can look for something,” Guerrero said, vaguely.

Will he play winter ball?

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll go back to spring training and work hard. I’m not worried about my timing. As long as I’m healthy, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Exactly.

But there is history to worry about. Guerrero has a history of less than gung-ho rehab work during the off-season. Will the Dodgers monitor Pedro’s rehabilitation?

“Oh, absolutely! No question!” Lasorda said.

Will the Dodgers be tougher on Pedro next spring, steer him into a less casual approach to spring training?

“I think Pedro knows that he has to do those things, and he’s gonna do ‘em,” Lasorda said. “I think Pete’s gonna work awfully hard.”

We’ll see. If he does, the Dodgers will have Chrysler back, and the also-ran ballclub will become a contender again. There are a couple of other problems to iron out, of course, such as the bullpen and first base, but Pedro’s bat would cover up a lot of shortcomings.

So the Dodgers will wait ‘till next year. Everything that could go wrong this season has already gone wrong. That’s what Lasorda was telling me over the phone Tuesday morning. In the background, I heard the doorbell ring.

“That’s the exterminator,” Lasorda said. “We’ve got termites.”

Yeah, but at least they were healthy termites.