The Most Valuable Plater

Q. The most important home run hit in L.A. Dodger history was (choose one):

a) Kirk Gibson’s blast that won Game 1 of the 1988 World Series against Oakland, which won the game and, maybe, the whole Series.

b) Rick Monday’s ninth-inning clout at Montreal that won the 1981 league championship series and put the Dodgers in the World Series against the Yankees.

c) Neither of the above.

In this case, c) may be the right answer. It’s just possible that the most important home run hit in L.A. Dodger archives was hit by a lifetime .261 hitter who had hit exactly three home runs the whole season when he faced Dwight Gooden, no less, with the pennant on the line that night in October of 1988 in Shea Stadium.

No one will ever call Mike Scioscia, “Home Run” Scioscia or the Sultan of Swat, or even “Moose.” They’ve never run a seasonal chart on his home runs listing how far behind he is from Ruth and Maris at the moment. No one yells “Outta the lot, Sosh!” when he comes to bat. Mike Scioscia is as easy to overlook as the light bill, but he has a knack of not wasting hits. Some guys get 200 hits a season and no one can ever remember one of them. They go two for four and the team fends for itself.

But if Mike Scioscia hadn’t hit that ninth-inning shot off the Mets’ Gooden, consider what might have happened to baseball lore. Kirk Gibson might never have come to bat in that historic ninth inning of the Series.

The situation was this: The Dodgers were down two games to one in the playoff and 4-2 in the ninth inning of the fourth game. Gooden was pitching a four-hit, nine-strikeout masterpiece and the game looked as good as in the hangar. Dwight walked John Shelby, but he figured Scioscia couldn’t hurt him. He threw what he thought was his double-play ball.

Instead, it was his gopher ball. Scioscia socked it over the right-field fence.

For Gooden, it was like being bitten by his own poodle. Ordinarily, Mike Scioscia is a batter who hits down on the ball. He tomahawks it. Mike just likes to put the ball in play. He put it in play, all right. Conceivably, that pitch cost the Mets the pennant.

Kirk Gibson homered in the 12th to win the game, but again, it was a case where Gibson would never have had that at-bat without Scioscia.

He’ll never get any serious votes for league MVP, but a case could be made for Scioscia as the MID--Most Important Dodger--over the past decade.

Scioscia is also the most-taken-for-granted Dodger. His manager, Tom Lasorda, disagrees. “We know what he means to the Dodgers. That’s why we went all out to keep him. The Dodgers could lose a lot of people to free agency, but Mike Scioscia ain’t one of them and I don’t say that because he’s Italian, I say it because I’m Italian!”

Scioscia is one of those players whose worth cannot be traced through the decimals of baseball. “First of all,” Lasorda says, “There’s that blocking the plate. He’s a tank! Do you realize how many opposition runs Scioscia cut off at the plate! He’s the Dodgers’ dead-end street. He’s got so many cleat marks on him he looks like a zipper!”

Baseball calls it “the pennant line”--an imaginary plotting beginning with the catcher, through the pitcher’s box out to the middle infielders to center field. Few teams have won a pennant without a solid pennant line or a certified craftsman behind the plate. In Scioscia’s tenure, the team has rarely been far from contention.

“I take pride in the team performance, not mine,” Scioscia says. “We got knocked out by a Joe Morgan home run in 1982 in the next-to-last inning. We got down to one pitch in the playoffs in 1985 when Jack Clark hit it out. In the 10 years I played, in seven of them we had a real chance. I rate my performance on the standings, not the top-10 individuals.”

Does it bother him to be passed over for MVP consideration? “I don’t think I’m gifted enough to be called the best player in the league. I don’t think anybody could look at me and say, ‘Hey, this team couldn’t win without him!’ ”

Other people do not find that so hard to picture. “When you look at this team, who’s been here longer?” Lasorda says. “We’ve made changes in every position out there. But not catcher. Scioscia’s like a monument.”

One of the problems is, he runs like one. “I’ve never lost any speed because I never had any to lose,” Scioscia says with a grin. He not only doesn’t beat out any infield hits, he sometimes has to hustle to beat out outfield ones.

Catcher has never been a speed position. Squatting for nine innings a night would probably slow an ocelot.

If the Dodgers had a choice, it would be that Scioscia would become a power threat. Hit ‘em where he can walk if he wants.

Scioscia admits he concentrated on being a contact hitter. He strikes out as little as any player in the league, only 29 times last year and as few as 21 times in 429 times at bat and 23 in 461 at-bats.

Does he work at being a pure contact hitter? “I don’t know about ‘pure,’ ” Scioscia says. “I don’t think I’m a ‘pure’ anything. Nothing comes easy to me. I have to work hard at everything. I try to hit line drives. A home run is a surprise to me.”

It was also a surprise to Doc Gooden and the Mets. In fact, all 45 of Scioscia’s major league home runs were surprises.

Lasorda would like them to become dog-bites-man stuff. “Look at him, he’s big and strong. He’s got the swing. He hit 10 home runs last year. That was about seven over his average. Don’t you think he could hit 20 a year?”

At 20 homers a year, Mike Scioscia could become not only a legit MVP candidate but a $2-million-a-year ballplayer. Wouldn’t Lasorda being doing a disservice to the team budget?

“I already owe it to him!” Lasorda chortles. “When he was a kid out of high school, we gave him a tryout and he didn’t want to sign at our figure. So I pitched against him and I gave him all hooks and sinkers and tricks. When I got through with him he said, ‘Where do I sign?’ ”

Even if he hits 25 a year, Scioscia will probably never hit one with more impact than the one in ’88. In fact, if he was The Mick instead of The Mike, Gooden might never have given him that “Here, hit this” fastball. When it comes to home runs, Scioscia likes quality, not quantity.