No Need to Fret; His Bat Is Only Foam Rubber, Too

Good luck to the Atlanta Braves, bless their pea-picking hearts. If they want to beat the Dodgers this badly, maybe we should let them.

I mean, what are they going to do next?

Sign Henry Aaron?

Since they are taking back Deion (Prime Time) Sanders at this point of the season, then why not Hammerin’ Hank? It’s only for a week or two.

Any team that uses a man who turned his back and ran out on them, well, this is one hard-up bunch of baseballers, and we should take pity on them. Maybe even take up a collection.

The Braves apparently don’t care that Prime Time Sanders abandoned them when they needed him most, and slithered off to play football instead.

Mr. Commitment, they call him.

You notice that Bo Jackson never bolts his baseball team before the season is over, even though his team has no chance to play in the World Series.

Bo plays baseball during baseball season, then football during football season. He’s funny that way.

But Kentucky Fried Sanders, he’s a man for no seasons. You can’t count on him in a pennant race. September comes and Deion goes.

I’m surprised that he didn’t leave Sunday’s Falcon-Raider game in the third quarter because of a previous engagement.

How dedicated was Deion to the Braves? He took a powder on them, then left them holding the bag after Otis Nixon was caught, uh, taking a powder.

Now, here they are, the Falcon and the Snowman. Nixon is gone, and now Sanders is coming back to take his place.

Right on, Deion. Rockin’ good news.

How dedicated is Deion to the Falcons?

“That’s the last time I leave a winner to play for a loser,” he recently said.

This, of course, was before Atlanta’s football team defeated Los Angeles’ football team, which eased the pain of being unable to defeat Los Angeles’ baseball team.

After the football game, Sanders talked about how he and Atlanta’s other cornerback were the greatest cornerbacks since the invention of cornerbacks.

And Deion even promised to play with him again someday, as soon as he gets back from baseball.

If Prime Time had his way, he’d come jingling-jangling-jingling into the baseball club’s clubhouse, wearing his 30 pieces of gold and counting his 30 pieces of silver.

“Hi, guys,” he’d say. “Long time, no see.”

I suppose if Bobby Cox, the Atlanta manager, needs a leadoff man this badly, he was right to take Sanders up on his offer. After all, with three or four more hits, Deion’s batting average could soar over that magic .200 mark.

The Braves will do whatever it takes, I guess. If that means arming their fans with 50,000 foam-rubber tomahawks, fine. If that means arming San Francisco’s fans with 50,000 more foam-rubber tomahawks for next week’s Dodger series, fine.

While the Dodgers are out there butting heads against the San Diego Padres and the Giants, neither of whom would give the Dodgers the time of day with Rolexes on both wrists, the Braves will be playing the Cincinnati Reds and the Houston Astros, both of whom no longer know the time of day.

Cincinnati’s pitchers are more interested in seeing who they can strike with a baseball than in seeing if they can throw a baseball for a strike. This is the team of Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton and Randy Myers, three of the biggest screwballs in baseball.

Houston, meanwhile, is attempting to establish a major league record for Most Anonymous Players in One Lineup. Against the Dodgers the other day, the only Astro name I recognized was Andujar Cedeno. Unfortunately, he was neither the actual Andujar nor the actual Cedeno. He was more of a Milli Vanilli.

Anyway, by the time they play Atlanta, I figure the Astros will also be playing Marichal Clemente and Valenzuela Guerrero.

The Dodgers will confine themselves to the players they have. Although if the Braves do get a morale boost from Deion Sanders, I suppose it wouldn’t kill the Dodgers to bring back Mickey Hatcher for a day or two, if only to sit on the bench and blacken out his teeth.

I think it’s a pity that neither the Braves nor the Dodgers had their best relief pitchers, Juan Berenguer and Jay Howell, available for the biggest series of the season, and that two of their best active relief pitchers, Alejandro Pena and Steve Wilson, will be unavailable for any postseason series.

But since the Braves believe they absolutely have to have Deion (Prime Time) Sanders for the rest of the season, then my feeling is this:

I have seen Deion Sanders play baseball, and he can really help a team win.

The Dodgers.