His Field of Dreams Has Fernando on Mound

I first heard the voice as I was riding my bike through Griffith Park. It was a raspy whisper:

If you sign him, he will come.

I looked into the parched chaparral. Nobody there. Maybe it was the wind.

Near the Los Feliz exit to the park, I heard it again, only louder:

If you sign him, he will come.

Then I realized the voice wasn’t coming from the park. I pedaled madly along Riverside Drive through Silver Lake and the Elysian Valley in pursuit of that raspy, disembodied whisper.

If you sign him, he will come.

It was louder than ever. I looked up. The street sign said Stadium Way.

Then it hit me.

If you sign him, he will come means that if the Dodgers make a sincere effort to re-sign him, the great Fernando Valenzuela--who hasn’t really been seen around here since 1986--will come back to Chavez Ravine to pitch in 1990.

Now, I realize that it’ll cost Peter O’Malley a lot of money to sign Valenzuela, but at least he doesn’t have to build him a ballpark.

MIKE EBERTS, Los Angeles