DODGER WATCH : The First 100 . . .

There have been many milestones in the 100 years since the Dodgers first began playing professional baseball back in Brooklyn. This week their adopted home town commemorates their founding, so congratulations--and nostalgia--are in order.

Los Angeles played a key role in Dodger history even before they came West, of course. When the team broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, they put a young black man from Pasadena and UCLA at second base. Professional sports--indeed, American society--have not been the same since Jackie Robinson took the field.

When they left Brooklyn in 1958, the Dodgers literally expanded the boundaries of the national pastime. Back then, St. Louis was as far West as major league baseball got. From San Diego to Seattle, baseball fans today are glad the move was made.

And for all they meant to Brooklyn, sprawling Los Angeles took the Dodgers to its heart from the very beginning. Nobody who was around then can forget that first championship in 1959, when they beat the White Sox in the World Series. After that the thrills came almost as consistently as Sandy Koufax strikeouts. Go, Maury, Go! Fernandomania. Orel Hershiser pitching 59 consecutive scoreless innings to break Don Drysdale’s record. Kirk Gibson’s home run in the ’88 World Series.

Thanks, guys--and thank you, too, Brooklyn--for sharing part of that history with us. Now if only Tommy Lasorda could get a couple more relief pitchers . . .