A Nice Catch by the Padres

Somebody, quick, block the freeway from Los Angeles to San Diego the minute you see him coming. Put a barricade in front of his moving van. Use your body if you must. Whatever you do, don’t let Mike Scioscia get past.

Plant your feet. Gird your loins. Fold your arms across your chest. Leave no lane unprotected. Watch out should he try to swerve to his left. Beware if he fakes left and veers right. Be careful in case he decides to run right over you. What?

Too late? What do you mean, too late? What do you mean, Mike Scioscia already has signed to play baseball with the San Diego Padres? Nahhh. Can’t be. You must be mixing him up with Steve Garvey. Mike Scioscia catches for the Dodgers. Mike Scioscia was born catching for the Dodgers. In the crib, he wore a little blue cap, backward. It had the letters “LA” on it. It didn’t have “SD.”

What?

He cleaned out his Dodger Stadium locker? He packed up his mask, his mitt, his sponge, his chest protector, his shinguards, his so-called “tools of ignorance,” the ones that he used with such intelligence? Don’t hand me this. Padre mia!

Mike Scioscia, out at home?

Well, we all saw this coming, Scioscia included. Scioscia sees everything coming. That is his special skill. Anything coming toward him, he stops it. Screwballs from Fernando. Scoreless innings by Orel. Kite-like knucklers by Candiotti. Radar-busters by Belcher or Welch. Howitzers by Howe and wild-trajectory curves by Howell. You name it, he stopped it.

Scioscia also saw one of Doc Gooden’s deliveries coming on a certain October Sunday in New York, 1988. He stopped that one, too--with his bat. The ball went over the wall, the score of Game 4 was suddenly tied, 4-4, and the Dodgers went on to win that game, win that National League pennant and then win the whole kit and kaboodle, courtesy of Michael Lorri Scioscia.

More than a backstop was he.

Without that one swing, after all, Kirk Gibson’s unforgettable homer in the 1988 World Series might never have happened. Dennis Eckersley might well have been pitching to a New York Met.

So, thanks, Mike. Thanks for the memories, as that golf-tournament Hope guy would say. Nobody blames you for defecting to San Diego. We understand what your motivation is. You’re 34. Nolan Ryan has socks that old. You still have life in that scarred-up, pounded-down yet surprisingly well-preserved carcass of yours. You aren’t ready for a BarcaLounger and a VCR Plus. You can still bend at the knee without a coach squirting you with an oilcan.

The Dodgers are exchanging their blueblood for new blood. They are placing their pitchers in the hands of kindergarten catchers, Carlos Hernandez and Mike Piazza, young up-and-comers. Talk about anti-Scioscia behavior.

After inking (love that baseball lingo) a one-year pact with the Padres, Scioscia said: “Bigger names than me have left the Dodgers. I have no hard feelings. I just wanted not to be projected as a guy who was going to catch 40 games a year.”

Shame on the Dodgers? No. There is method to their meanness. As the club discovered last season with Eric Karros, there are farm boys out there who deserve a chance to play the big city. And Scioscia kept blocking the progress of other Dodger catchers, the same way he impeded bumper-to-bumper basepath traffic. He never stood in any teammate’s way deliberately. He simply dug in. The man was too tough to budge.

Mike Scioscia was more or less Chavez Ravine’s customs officer. Anybody who cared to pass had to get by him first. For a dozen seasons, he stood his post. But, just as the Dodger infield of the ‘70s was disassembled, piece by piece, so, too, must the traffic cop of the ‘80s surrender his weapon and badge.

He was as pokey as Ernie Lombardi or Sherm Lollar, with stolen bases rare and triples rarer. From the dugout, teammates could be merciless, Rick Dempsey once saying, “Mike has stretched many a double into a single.” And Tim Belcher used to shout out: “Hey, Carl Lewis!” Yet they adored him all the same, even if Mike was still hunting for that milestone 10th three-base hit after 4,000 turns at bat.

Furthermore, 68 home runs in nearly 1,400 games is, well, not a lot. Hank Aaron could have hit 68 homers using a Garden Weasel.

But who cares? Who’s counting? Mike Scioscia had other qualities. He led the league in its most important category: children’s hospitals helped. His ABCs--activities, behavior and comments--never embarrassed the Dodgers once in 17 years with the firm. The worst thing Mike Scioscia ever did in a baseball uniform was get it dirty.

It is too late to stop him. It is not too late to thank him.