Youth Serving Dodgers Well

Behold the Baby Blue Dodgers, the rug rats of Chavez Ravine. At first base, the 1992 National League rookie of the year. Behind the plate, the 1993 NL rookie of the year. In right field, a strong--and we do mean strong--candidate for 1994 NL rookie of the year. Seldom have the Dodger boys of summer seemed so boyish.

There are nights for Tom Lasorda when it doesn’t seem so much a dugout as a day-care center. His team is younger than springtime. Lasorda has socks older than six of his regulars. Some of them probably think Babe Ruth is a candy bar. They wouldn’t know Duke Snider from Duke University. They think Koufax means two people transmitting the same document.

Such young guns. Some mornings, Brett Butler must chuckle and feel as though his sons and nephews surround him. Henry Rodriguez in left, Raul Mondesi in right, with Jose Offerman and Delino DeShields and Mike Piazza plugging the middle, man, I’m telling you, these guys must slide beside Butler or Orel Hershiser or Jim Gott on team bus rides to ask, “Come on, were you really born back in the ‘50s?”

But they can play. Young, yes, but these Baby Blue Dodgers aren’t green.

Mondesi, for instance.

Right field belongs to Raul now. Kid’s only been there a month, but already it seems as though Darryl Strawberry was never there. Mondesi’s numbers by midsummer will top Strawberry’s over two seasons. I went to a game Wednesday night, Mondesi made a one-handed catch, crashed into the fence, then came to bat, broke up a Houston Astro pitcher’s perfect game with a home run, then confessed after the 1-0 victory that he actually told Butler he was going to hit one out.

First pitch, bam, he did.

“I remember him from minor leagues,” Mondesi said of his victim, one Shane Reynolds. “Only he is better now. He got nasty.”

But he remembered that Reynolds had a habit of being careless with a sloppy slider on the first pitch.

“I say to myself, that’s what I am waiting for,” Mondesi said. “I say, he throws me a breaking pitch, I have a good chance to make a home run.”

Reynolds broke one off. Mondesi made a home run.

Teammates marvel at the young Dominican’s strength, at his arm, at his power, even though he is hardly built like Dave Winfield. Talk about compact. Mondesi isn’t even six feet tall.

The homer was Mondesi’s fifth, matching the output of Strawberry for the entire 1993 season, ditto for 1992. The date: May 11. Anything that Mondesi does beyond this is a bonus. On their schedule, the Dodgers still had 128 games left to play. Mondesi would be up there, swinging away. An impatient hitter, he goes up there ripping, almost never taking a walk. Mondesi goes all out. On offense or defense, the kid is a fence-buster.

He amazes Piazza, who has amazed a few people himself.

“The thing of it is, there’s pretty much nothing he can’t do on a baseball field,” is the way the Dodger catcher describes Mondesi.

And everyone knows it, including Mondesi.

Was he nervous, taking over right field this season?

“No,” Mondesi says.

Is he adjusting to major league pitching?

“Not really,” he says. “I know how to hit them.”

Didn’t he feel the first month was important, to prove himself?

“No, because I know if I go 0 for 4, I will still play every day. I know if I go one for 17, they will still say, ‘There’s a good hitter.’ ”

Self-assurance. Ain’t it wonderful? Couple of nights ago, the Dodgers needed a run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Houston had a right-handed pitcher and Lasorda had a book of percentages. He also had the lefty-swinging Rodriguez, seated at his side.

Up went Henry to pinch-hit and back came Mondesi to simmer. The manager had to mollify Mondesi in the dugout. Had to remind him that they were all in this together, which became evident when the Dodgers went on to win the game.

Already at that point, Mondesi had pegged out one runner with his arm, gone wall-banging again to rob an Astro of extra bases and had doubled and singled himself. The crowd standing-O’d him, twice. Last place he wanted to be was on the bench.

“My fault, I get mad,” Mondesi said. “I know we got to do whatever Tommy tells us.”

Tommy knows, too. Yet Lasorda pokes the air with his finger for emphasis and says, “I admire that in a guy. He’s dying to play, this guy. It hurts him to come out. Long as he don’t make a scene, I understand perfectly.

“See, the thing about Mondesi is, he has the ability to be a five-point player. That means he can hit, he can hit with power, he can run, he can field, he can throw. But he’s also got to pay the price. Things have always come easy to this kid. Down there in the Dominican, he was the man. He always took a lot of things for granted. That’s why I’ll keep hollering on him. You think this kid’s good now, wait’ll you see how good he can be if he pushes himself to the limit.”

Rookie of the year?

Lasorda’s arms spread wide. He said, “Hell, my whole team’s rookies of the year.”