A Pleasant Thought Prevails

Opening day began with Tom Lasorda spilling his guts.

Darryl Strawberry’s drug abuse? “First of all,” the fed-up Dodger manager said Tuesday, voice rising steadily in volume, “it’s against the law. No. 2, it’s harmful to your body. No. 3, all it will do is lead you down the path of destruction. How anybody could be dumb enough or weak enough to take (drugs) is something I cannot comprehend. I mean, it’s crazy. There’s a guy that is making a lot of money, he’s got a lot of fame, he’s got a family, and yet he puts something inside him knowingly, knowing that this thing can ruin his career, that it could ruin his entire life. To have the weakness to put it into his body is something I just don’t understand.

“This is not a disease, like leukemia or cancer. It’s a weakness.”

Opening day continued with the Dodgers demonstrating that they can win with the guys they have.

Henry Rodriguez will do just fine in left field. Raul Mondesi is ready to turn right field into Raul World. Jeff Treadway already is helping out. Todd Worrell bears a striking resemblance to an old St. Louis Cardinals pitcher you might remember named Todd Worrell. Jim Gott will have much better days than opening day, don’t worry. The Dodgers don’t have Strawberry? OK. The Dodgers don’t have lemons, either.

They looked sharp in defeating the Florida Marlins, 4-3, despite getting only six hits off the old man of the sea, 2,000-year-old Charlie Hough. Sorry, Charlie. You outhit half of the guys who played behind you. Maybe what the Marlins need are some 46-year-old outfielders.

Best news all day for the Dodgers was a 1-2-3 ninth inning from Worrell, including a swinging strike three on Kurt Abbott that the reliever called “maybe the best pitch I’ve thrown in three or four years.”

If Worrell, Gott, Roger McDowell and rookie Darren Dreifort can close games, it could be a lovely summer. Never mind who plays left field. The Dodgers need the people who come into the game from behind left field.

Worrell felt confident, particularly after humming fastballs from 87 to 93 m.p.h. and sliders around 96. He wants to be Lasorda’s stopper. He wants to return Uncle Tommy to his old jolly self and let him forget all about those wayward players who have gotten off the road to Cooperstown and onto a path to destruction.

Worrell said: “One of the favorite Tommyisms is that we’ve all got to get on the same side of the road. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. Anyway, what it means is that no one can let down, Darryl or no Darryl. We’ve got to give this team a sense of unity. We’ve got to all do our parts so the Dodgers can win games without always waiting for Mike Piazza to come to the plate every time up and hit a home run.

“I feel good. I feel durable. I feel like I can be useful again on an every-other-day basis.”

Lasorda said in spring camp there might be two keys to a successful season--Strawberry and Worrell.

“Good,” Worrell said. “I take that as a compliment from Tommy that he’s depending on me. I want him to depend on me. But forget what two players can do. We got to the seventh game of the World Series one year with the Cardinals without Jack Clark and Terry Pendleton, at a point when we couldn’t afford to lose either one.

“What happened to Darryl, I’m sorry. Life sometimes isn’t fair. Sometimes you get caught up doing the wrong things. We hope and pray Darryl can get his life back in some kind of order. Whatever else we feel about it, we’re not going to divulge. It’s in-house business. But I will tell you this: It doesn’t need to be a distraction. In fact, I don’t believe it will distract this team one bit. This team can win with Darryl Strawberry and it can win without Darryl Strawberry.”

Opening day ended with a pleasant thought.