In Sod They Trust, but Dolls Work, Too

Well, we’ve got one baseball team that worships a chunk of sod and another with a voodoo doll. Welcome to California.

Our teams don’t have dugouts. They have covens.

I wouldn’t want to describe the Dodgers and Angels as superstitious cults yet, but if sometime soon they sacrifice a human, rather than a bunt, be afraid for them. Be very afraid.

I’ve seen the Dodger and Angel promotional schedule for the next few weeks. Included are:

July 1--Black Cat Night

July 2--All Fans Dressed Like Charles Manson Get in for Half Price

July 3--Rosemary’s Baby Gift Bag

July 4--Postgame Fireworks and Witchcraft Demonstration

July 5--Satanic Seat Cushions

July 6--David Koresh Pin Set

July 7--Free Spiders to First 10,000 Fans

And so on, depending on how the Dodgers and Angels do in the race for the pennant. If they keep winning, we may be seeing a lot more of them on television, in the World Series and on “Geraldo.”

This all began when the Dodgers developed their grass fetish. Having been trampled into the artificial turf of Houston and elsewhere, the Dodgers returned to the green, green grass of home, where they started treating their opponents like dirt.

Suddenly, they began praying to a sod god instead of to the Big Dodger in the Sky.

Cory Snyder, the club’s new outfielder-landscaper, picked up a nice piece of property for a cheap price--not in California, obviously--and took it on the road. His teammates had heard of green grass, bluegrass, crabgrass, Bermuda grass, Monsanto grass and Maui Wowie grass, but this was their first experience with portable grass.

The Dodgers dropped it onto their dugout floor like a welcome mat and stopped playing like a doormat. They won game after game, always remembering to kneel before their almighty sod to give thanks. They patted it, petted it, sprinkled it, fertilized it and did everything but graze on it.

This was my first encounter with divot-worship, and it was scary.

I wondered what might happen next. I wondered how that grass would last. I wondered if it would become a flea agent. I wondered if someone would sprinkle some on Lasorda’s lasagna like parsley. I wondered if some player, instead of kicking dirt at an umpire, might save a few steps by simply throwing it at an umpire from the dugout.

I thought Andres Galarraga might slide into it and rip it up.

But the grass held up pretty well, as did the Dodgers. If they go all the way, it will be the first time a World Series has ever been won by a bunch of groundskeepers.

As for the Angels, if they retired uniform number 26 because they once considered Gene Autry to be the 26th man in the clubhouse, wait until they retire 27 to honor their new member of the clubhouse. . . .

Mughambi.

Who, you ask, is Mughambi? No, he isn’t that pitcher they got in the Jim Abbott deal. Mughambi is the voodoo doll belonging to Angel outfielder Luis Polonia, a ballplayer whose stadium doesn’t go all the way to an upper deck, if you get my drift.

Made out of wood, Mughambi isn’t for sticking pins in. But he does possess voodoo powers, including the power to punish any writer who ends a sentence with a preposition.

Polonia found Mughambi in that noted bastion of tropical spiritual medicine and cult behavior, Kansas City. Then Polonia immediately went out and did that voodoo that he does so well, ending an 0-for-20 slump. He expressed eternal gratitude to Mughambi, having difficulty only in giving him a high-five.

Personally, I consider Mughambi a welcome addition to the Angel clubhouse, as well as the smallest one there since Fred Patek.

I happen to believe in voodoo myself, and have my own Angel bobbing-head doll on the dashboard of my car. And at home I have a green doll with long arms and legs. I call him My Gumby.

Fact is, this cult stuff is not confined to California.

The Pittsburgh Pirates used to burn their baseball bats in ceremonial bonfires. And the Detroit manager, Sparky Anderson, still refuses to step on a baseline. And the Chicago Cub relief pitcher, Randy Myers, circles the same way around the mound after every pitch.

The well-known third baseman, Wade Boggs, won’t eat anything but chicken on the day of a game. You know Wade’s reputation. Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick-chick.

Our own teams? Hey, if it helps, they can wear garlic garlands instead of gold chains. Or burn chaws of tobacco like incense while chanting the magic words, “Willie, Mickey & the Duke.”

I don’t think baseball has any rules about a tobacco ceremony.