Friendship Opens Door for Dopson

Whitey Herzog had his Joe Magrane, Buck Rodgers has his John Dopson. This only seems fair. If Herzog can ring up an old friend and make like Ed McMahon-- Joe Magrane, you have just won $13.3 million! --Rodgers certainly is entitled to his one phone call when Magrane gets his pitching arm sliced open and can’t start the season.

In case of emergency, break out the Rolodex. Dopson and Rodgers did time together in Montreal, nothing worth writing home about, really, but enough to jog Rodgers’ memory as he rummaged through the discard file, looking for anyone with two arms, who could throw a baseball faster than the freeway speed limit, who could throw a baseball in the general direction of home plate.

This was in early February, less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers report. At the time, Dopson wasn’t reporting anywhere. He was out of work and for good reason--an 0-6 record after the 1993 All-Star break, a 6.60 earned-run average in the second half, the eighth-lowest overall winning percentage in the American League.

Among general managers, Dopson was known by his record as Mr. Big Gulp--7-11 in 1992, 7-11 in 1993. He was also known by his record as no Mr. Clutch--in the months of August and September, 1992-93, he was a combined 1-13.

Viewing the situation pragmatically, Dopson says he “kinda figured nobody would be knocking down the door.”

But Dopson received a call from the Angels, not because of what he throws, but who he knows.

“When in doubt, get somebody you know about,” says Rodgers, who managed the Expos from 1985 through early 1991 and now collects them in Anaheim. Dopson is one of five ex-Expos on the Angel roster, joining Mark Langston, Rex Hudler, Spike Owen and Bill Sampen as privileged Orange County FOBs--Friends of Buck.

“I think it’s very common in baseball,” Rodgers says. “Everything else being equal, you like to go with guys you know. There are certain guys you’re comfortable with and when you see one of them out there, you say, ‘Hey, I got a good spot for him.’ ”

In Dopson’s case, Rodgers had that and then some.

“Basically, it was just a matter of nobody being out there,” Rodgers says. “And we weren’t going to go big bucks for him. But we needed someone.

“I knew that if we could get John back to where he was, we could get a pitcher who’d help us.”

Two games into a new season, Dopson already has. Wednesday night inside the Metrodome, for the first time since last July 8, Dopson pitched a winning baseball game. For the first time since who knows when, he pitched seven scoreless innings, yielded no extra-base hits and permitted only two runners to advance as far as second base.

The Angels won, 4-1, and now they’re 2-0 against the Minnesota Twins and undefeated against the world. Rodgers swore the Angels would be better this year, but who’d have known they’d carry it this far into the season?

“That’s the old John Dopson you saw throw tonight,” Rodgers said, delighted in two statistics in particular:

Ground ball outs: 11.

Different pitches thrown: 3.

“He threw a lot of ground balls,” Rodgers said. “That’s when his sinker is going good. And he used three pitches reasonably well . . . “Last year we saw him with Boston, and he was strictly a two-pitch pitcher. You want to be successful up here, you need more than that. Nolan Ryan eventually had to go to a changeup. Koufax used a forkball.

“John had a changeup when he was with me in Montreal, but he wasn’t throwing it much anymore. We emphasized it when he came here. We didn’t teach him anything new, we just told him to show the changeup 10, 12 times a game.”

Any way Dopson looked at it Wednesday night, a change of pace was nice.

“It’s been a long time,” said Dopson, winning pitcher. “I was 7-5 at the All-Star break last year and I don’t think I won another game after that. Some of it was because of bad luck, but I also made a lot of bad pitches. I was worrying about free agency. It just didn’t work out for me.

“After four years in Boston, I felt I really needed to breathe some fresh air. I had a few feelers from Minnesota, but they train right next to Boston in Florida. I wanted to get out of Florida, to get as far away from Boston as I could. Make a clean break.”

Now, he has been tossed into a two-man pitch-off, Dopson vs. Mark Leiter, to see who stays in the rotation when Magrane returns, possibly early next month. In managerial terms, this is known as “creative tension.”

“I can stand here and say I don’t think about it,” Dopson said, “but the truth is everybody does. It’s just a matter of me stepping on the rubber and making the pitches I need to make. If I get caught up in what the other guy’s doing, I won’t do well.”

“If John Dopson continues to pitch well, he’s going to keep pitching,” Rodgers said, dangling the carrot. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

But . . .

“But,” Rodgers went on, “we’re two games into the season. Don’t start making too many assumptions already.”

For now, Dopson is assuming he pitches again on Monday. For now, that’s more than enough.