Fair-Weather Types Get Foul Start

Opening day. Ah, opening day!

America’s tribal rite. Every field is a field of dreams this day. Every team is going to win the pennant. Every lineup is Murderers’ Row. Every pitcher is Cy Young. Every hitter is Ty Cobb. Every rookie is Shoeless Joe.

No more “Wait till next year!” This is next year.

The experts pick your team for fourth place? Hah! What do they know?

The manager is not worried. His larynx is in midseason form. He leads the league in shouting. And in optimism. If his Dodgers have a flaw, you’ll never hear it here. They look like the 1927 Yankees to Tommy Lasorda. They look like fifth place to the league.

Lasorda is insulted. Hey! Did the Dodgers lead the division all the way to Oct. 1 last season and lose by one stinking game to the Braves? What’s one game to make up? A lousy line drive falls in here, a ground ball gets through there, and he’s in what he likes to call the fall classic.

So, they lost Mike Morgan and Tim Belcher? Giddoudahere! Is Ramon Martinez a year older and a year smarter? Is Orel Hershiser’s sinker back? Will this league, which has never seen it, be able to hit that dancer that Tom Candiotti throws?

Da Manager is ready. He has the dream job of the universe. What more could anyone want, he asks you in the tone of voice of a guy calling trains or yelling “‘Fire!” in a crowded theater.

“You ride the buses all those years and you say ‘Please, God, if I can just manage someday in the big leagues.’ And then you become the manager of the Dodgers!”

Lasorda is ready. He won’t permit a negative thought. Can Kal Daniels play first base? Hey! Could Caruso sing? Kelly, dance? Daniels might be the next Lou Gehrig.

Is his outfield the greatest since the Yankees had Mantle, Maris and Berra? Will even the two-base hit become obsolete with Davis, Butler and Strawberry out there?

It’s a lovely force. They all look good in their nice clean uniforms. They have first place written all over them.

Unfortunately, they may be like the old Austro-Hungarian cavalry. They look so good in their fur hats and gold epaulets and scarlet uniforms and silver swords that it’s a shame to send them to war.

The flags flew, the bands played. The balloons soared, the anthem was sung and it was time to play. About 50,000 were ready to dance in the aisles. A lot of them were fair-weather fans, not the real thing. They want the happy endings, the fairy-tale approach, the glass-slipper touch.

And the Dodgers turned into pumpkins. Their Cy Young pitcher, Martinez, lasted a little more than two innings. In that time, he gave up seven hits, three runs. He walked three, hit one, had a passed ball. He threw 87 pitches. That would have been a game and a half for Cy Young.

The Dodger lineup looked less like Murderers’ Row than Death Row. They went to the plate like guys going to the chair. They should have had a priest and a Bible with them.

A pitcher who didn’t start a single game last year and who never pitched a game in this league made their bats look like props. Bill Swift threw so many ground-ball outs he almost wore out the infield grass. The Dodgers led the league in checked swings by game’s end.

Meanwhile, the Giants rattled so many hits around the premises--17--that you half expected them to bring out the batting cage. They treated each of five Dodger pitchers the same--with contempt.

There is nothing longer than a losing home game. There should be a law against losing opening-day home games. It makes the banners droop, followed shortly by the spirits of the fans. Opening-day fans want to smile, not smirk.

On the air, Vin Scully, an old hand at losing opening days, was shortly ignoring the goings-on in the game and spinning yarns of the good old days. Scully doesn’t dally with the dismal and, usually, is at his most entertaining when the home nine is at its least. If you tune in a game and Vin is talking about Dazzy Vance or Koufax’s fourth no-hitter, you can be pretty sure the Dodgers are trailing by 8-0.

Vin was equal to the challenge Monday. Unfortunately, the Dodgers weren’t. They made Bill Swift look like Tom Swift (and his electric sinkerball), or, at least, like an early candidate for the Cy Young. The Dodgers looked like early candidates for the American Assn.

It was the 30th anniversary of the opening of Dodger Stadium, and those of us who were there that day remember the Dodgers lost then, too, 6-2.

But, it was not the opening-day loss that was critical that year, it was the closing day. The Dodgers were in a playoff with the Giants for the pennant and went into the ninth inning of the decisive third game leading San Francisco, 4-2. Unfortunately, Willie Mays came up with the bases loaded. When the smoke cleared, the Giants had won the pennant, 6-4.

So, the Giants are old hands at raining on Dodger parades.

Opening days make up only 1/162nd of a season. You don’t lose a World Series on opening day. Still, it’s one game in the standings. And you have to bear in mind that the Dodgers lost by only one game last season.

On balance, it’s better to lose the second game. There’s nobody there but real fans. And they understand these things.