Up to Now, the Joke’s Been on Dodgers

Over the years, there have been those who have loved the Dodgers. Really, truly loved them. Bled blue for them. Screamed the names of Jackie, Duke and Fernando. Worshipped Pee Wee, Junior and the Garv. Cheered for Sandy. Cried for Campy. Admired Alston. Stayed tuned to Scully.

There also have been those who have loathed the Dodgers. Really, truly hated them. Came to think of them as Yankees West. Disliked every hitter from Zack Wheat to Pedro Guerrero. Disliked every pitcher from Van Lingle Mungo to Steve Howe. Got sick of hearing about Lasorda’s lasagna, the Big Dodger in the Sky and Vin’s Marching and Chowder Society.

But never before have people acted toward the Dodgers the way they have been acting lately.

They have been laughing at them.

Making jokes of which the Dodgers are the butts. Ridiculing them. Pitying them. Treating them less like Hollywood’s team and more like Burbank’s.

Who would have believed it?

Laughing at the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Oh, sure, Johnny Carson once in a while made fun of their defense. “The answer: ’69 flies.’ The question: ‘How many do the Dodgers catch out of a hundred?’ ” And, sure, people made jokes about their fans leaving to beat the traffic during the seventh inning of a no-hitter.

But it was sort of like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Like finding a gray hair on Audrey Hepburn. It really didn’t make any difference.

After all, there wasn’t much else wrong with the Dodgers. You had to look hard to notice a wart. The organization was sound. The franchise was prosperous. The fans were loyal. The ballpark was beautiful. The weather was warm. The team was usually good.

And if it wasn’t good this year, don’t worry, it will be good next year.

The Dodgers had class, and style, and breeding. They had a pedigree. They had a heritage. Theirs was a perfect world, interrupted only briefly by infielders who threw the ball over the first baseman’s head, or left-handed relievers who threw wild pitches.

The Dodgers, sometimes publicly, sometimes secretively, were the envy of baseball. The kings of diamonds.

Now, a couple of weeks into a new baseball season, people are saying nice things about the Cleveland Indians and making cracks about the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It’s sort of like saying, “I don’t care for the ’87 Porsches too much, but don’t those Plymouths look nice?”

How the heck did this happen? How did something so good get to be so bad and ugly?

In the first place, the Dodgers almost finished in last place. That alone is rare. Second, people blamed their 1986 losses on the loss of one man. Everybody knew Guerrero was good, but nobody knew he was that good.

Came a new season and the Dodgers dropped their first five games. Anti-Dodger types thought that was pretty funny.

They laughed even harder at the screwball comedy on the mound of the Astrodome, where Fernando Valenzuela, after glaring at Houston Manager Hal Lanier, put the baseball in his other hand and, uh . . . changed his grip. Anatomically speaking.

You might say he went low and inside.

While all this was going on, the Dodgers were being roasted, coast to coast, because of their generous donation to the National Association for the Aggravation of Colored People. By the end of a week, blacks in America were outraged, the Dodgers were all offense and no defense, and Joan Rivers was asking audience volunteers on stage to see if they could swim.

It was bad enough to be skewered by commentators and the commonwealth at large, but when “Saturday Night Live” begins its weekly bogus newscast with Hank Aaron asking, “Who you callin’ buoyant?” you know you’re in big trouble.

The Dodgers are not accustomed to being joke butts. That is why they were so relieved in recent days to have distanced themselves somewhat from some of the embarrassing business off the field as well as from their awful start on the field.

After winning their third straight game Monday night, the Dodgers clearly felt better. Pitcher Matt Young was yelling “Tell ‘em about the corked bat!” at third baseman Tracy Woodson, whose heroic homer had attracted a large crowd at his locker, and Ken Howell was hugging bullpen brother Brian Holton and saying, “One for the bullpen--all right! Nobody rip us tonight!”

Meanwhile, in the Tommy Lasorda Memorial Sinatra Museum and Automat, the manager was sitting forward in his chair and feeling a little better.

To a visitor he showed a copy of a letter supporting Al Campanis sent to the New York Times by a reader named Kachadoor V. Kachadoorian. He also showed an autographed photograph from one of his favorite actors with the inscription: “Tommy, I’m ready for any position open on the field or front office. Walter Matthau.”

All through the clubhouse, the Dodgers were feeling less blue. Infielder Steve Sax said: “This could be the start of something very big. I know the energy’s buzzing around this room right now.”

Some of the enthusiasm came from the contributions of third baseman Woodson, long reliever Holton and center fielder Mike Ramsey, none of whom came to spring training with “Forward to Cooperstown” stamps on their envelopes. Woodson, Holton and Ramsey--wasn’t that the firm on “L.A. Law?”

Woodson, whose goal is to turn Bill Madlock into Wally Pipp, gave himself something to tell his grandchildren by getting his first big league home run off the great Nolan Ryan. “This guy’s got 4,000 strikeouts or something and it’s my first at-bat against him,” Woodson said. “I was in amazement.”

Ryan made sure before the evening was over to issue a little memento of the occasion. One of his pitches was so far inside, it not only just missed the batter, it just missed the batter on deck.

“He stalked me a little,” said Woodson, who had been careful not to do a turkey trot around the bases after the home run, just to avoid annoying Ryan any further. “But that’s OK. It was a great honor. Besides, I enjoy the competition. I enjoy the challenge.”

So do the Dodgers, who hope to get on with it now, and put the other nonsense behind them.

Or, as Valenzuela might suggest, put it in front of them.

After all, it’s not nice to make jokes about Dodgers. Some of our best friends are Dodgers.