Dodgers Manage to Get a Split With Pirates

There’s nothing like a little baseball mythology to liven up fifth place, as the Dodgers and their new left fielder learned Friday.

Introducing Shoeless Kal Daniels and his field of screams.

In the first game of a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the bases loaded and two out and the Pirates leading, 1-0, a fly ball was hit to Daniels. He lost his shoe in the turf. He lost the ball in the sun. After all three runners had scored, the Dodgers eventually lost the game, 4-1.

Helped by Mike Marshall’s first home run since April 16, the Dodgers won the second game, 7-3, for a split, which seemed only fair since both teams are playing equally lousy. Between the two, they had lost 19 of 26 games entering Friday.

The amazing thing about this doubleheader was that 27,996 came to Three Rivers Stadium to see it.

“We’re not playing very good baseball--I don’t like to watch it and I’m on the team,” said Pittsburgh catcher Mike LaValliere after the Pirates finished with 13 hits and six errors in the two games. “You can’t expect people to come out and watch that junk.”

You can if every play is like the seventh-inning fly ball to Daniels. It came at a rather inopportune time, considering that Tim Belcher had seemingly worked his way out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam caused by the Dodgers’ continually poor defense against the bunt.

Belcher had retired LaValliere on a pop-up. He had struck out Rey Quinones. And then he got Pirate pitcher John Smiley to hit a routine fly to Daniels.

This same Daniels Wednesday had misplayed Mitch Webster’s first-inning fly into a double in the Dodgers’ eventual 4-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs. But Daniels had to charge that ball. This ball was different. It was hit directly at him.

His head turned left, then right. And then he dropped to one knee, losing one shoe, never a good sign.

At that point, the ball was on top of him, then down in front of his stockinged foot, then past him. It rolled all the way to the left-field wall. All three runs scored. Smiley ended up on second base and, much to the amazement of some teammates, the play was ruled a double.

“I was battling the sun, then I slipped, then I popped out of my shoe because I was trying to stop,” Daniels explained. “At that time of day (late afternoon), the sun is terrible out there. It’s really hard to see.

“Nobody felt worse about that than I did. Tim was throwing the ball well.”

Belcher, who at the time of the incident had given up five hits and struck out nine, didn’t feel so wonderful himself. He wound up leaving the game for a pinch-hitter in the top of the eighth and then watched the Dodgers score against Smiley on a couple of Pittsburgh errors.

It had to make Belcher wonder. And so after his record fell to 6-9 and his earned-run average increased to 3.47, he was asked: Tim, what do you think?

“Ask me a question, don’t ask me what I think,” he said. “That leaves me open for too much.”

OK, so what about the double?

“I’m not going to comment on that play . . . but I will say, we’ve had good defense all year,” Belcher said. “The defense has done a lot toward making this a great pitching staff.

“Now, everybody knew from the beginning that our outfield defense may be suspect. Without T-Bone (John Shelby) in center field, with Gibby (Kirk Gibson) forced to play center, and with Daniels not known for his defense, it could be tough going for a while. Obviously, we’re not going to win a lot of Gold Gloves out there. But that’s no excuse. That’s just the way it is.”

Belcher added: “Anybody puts it in there like I’m ripping somebody, I’m not. None of this is a rip. It’s not meant that way.”

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda saw it the way Daniels saw it--that Daniels didn’t see it.

“That is a tough field to play at that time of day, you can’t see the ball, it could have happened to anybody,” Lasorda said.

He preferred to talk about the blown bunt play. Just before Smiley batted, with runners on first and second, Benny Distefano tried to advance them with a bunt between Belcher and third baseman Jeff Hamilton. Belcher charged off the mound, grabbed the ball, spun toward third base to make the throw to Hamilton . . . and nearly collided with him. Hamilton had called Belcher off the ball, but Belcher did not hear him.

“A simple failure to execute,” Lasorda said. “That’s happened a few times. A guy calls the pitcher off, the pitcher should hear him. But then if the pitcher is a good fielder, the third baseman has to know that too, and get back to the bag.”

Said Belcher: “Maybe we can’t rely on voice anymore.”

Between games, at least two Dodgers were shook up when Mickey Hatcher and Alejandro Pena accidently collided in a hallway outside the clubhouse, with Hatcher spilling some soup on Pena.

The rest of the team got a little more aggressive in the game afterward, breaking Fernando Valenzuela’s four-game losing streak with 11 hits and four Pirate errors, three of which led to runs.

Valenzuela (5-9) overcame early wildness that included four walks in one inning to allow four hits over seven innings for his first victory since a 10-3 decision in Cincinnati on June 24. Valenzuela had lost his last four starts, including a 2-0 defeat by the Reds last Saturday.

“This wasn’t one of my best games, I didn’t pitch very good . . . but the last time I pitched pretty good and didn’t win, and that’s the way the game is sometimes,” Valenzuela said. “I just wanted to get (the streak) out of the way and take the win.”

Dodger Notes

Announcer Don Drysdale has been hospitalized in Los Angeles with chest pains. His spot was alternately taken Friday by Pittsburgh announcers Jim Rooker and Lanny Frattare. SportsChannel’s Eddie Doucette will fill in tonight, with Vin Scully due back Sunday from NBC Game of the Week duties. . . . Dodger catcher Rick Dempsey played in his 1,600th career game in the first game Friday. He singled, scored a run and threw out a Pirate trying to steal in the second game. Afterward he said he’s ready to play in many more games--if the Dodgers would let him. “If Bob Boone is 42 (41 actually), why can’t I do that,” said Dempsey, who will be 40 in September. “I can run circles around those guys. Carlton Fisk complains about catching too much. I’d like to send him a telegram. I’m stupid enough to think I can still play every day. I think I should play more. I haven’t complained, but . . . “ Dempsey, who has played in 45 of the Dodgers’ 96 games, is batting .171. . . . Pittsburgh organist Vince Lascheid, known for the appropriate songs he uses to accompany each player to the plate, has a few interesting ones for the Dodgers. For pitcher Tim Belcher, he plays “Classical Gas.” For utility man Franklin Stubbs, he plays “Short People.” And for Mike Marshall, he plays the theme from “Gunsmoke.” . . . The Aug. 1 game with the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium has been shifted from 7:30 pm. to 5:20 p.m. to accomodate an NBC national television broadcast.