It’s Time to Start Delivering Again

The Dodgers and Giants open a crucial, critical, vital, urgent, pretty important series tonight at Candlestick Park.

Matt Williams will be there, eager to hit his 62nd homer by Wednesday.

Darryl Strawberry will be there, doing whatever he can, as always, to help the Dodgers beat the Giants.

Barry Bonds will be there, prepared to deliver several clutch hits, this not being October.

But which Dodgers will show up--the hustling ones who dominated their division for half the season or the struggling ones who hope never to visit Montreal again?

The National League West, which turned out to be every bit as embarrassing as the American League West, is in serious jeopardy of being represented in the 1994 playoffs by the Colorado Rockies.

Colorado could become the first playoff team in baseball history on which I can name only one player.

I had been counting on the Dodgers to run away with this season’s division race, then perhaps play the Yankees in the World Series. Instead, we could be looking at that Colorado Rockies-Texas Rangers, uh, Fall Classic that would draw TV ratings right up there with Bulgaria vs. Switzerland.

Yet, let’s not give up on the Dodgers, who still have a chance to win this thing as long as their starting pitchers pitch nothing but complete games over the next 64 dates.

Boy, could we use that Valenzuela kid now, huh?

For a club that has been in first place for months, the Dodgers sure have been unlucky. They’ve had everything go wrong but ceiling tiles falling on the fans.

Unluckiest of all has been Delino DeShields, the Mister Bill doll of second basemen, who has had every conceivable bit of bad luck except falling into the LaBrea tar pits.

And when everything seemed to be calming down for him, DeShields stepped up to home plate Saturday, looked up at the center field scoreboard in Montreal and found out that his wife was pregnant.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I ever have a wife and she ever has a baby, I would rather not find out about it on the scoreboard.

I want her to come up to me and say: “Honey, have I got news for you.” Or say: “Honey, you’ll never guess what the doctor told me.” Or say: “Honey, you know that good-looking mailman we have?”

But DeShields got the news from a full-color jumbo screen before a paid attendance of 35,831, right between the guess-tonight’s-attendance game and the blooper video.

“Guess what?” the scoreboard reported.

DeShields, whose nickname is Bop, must have blinked as though the scoreboard was speaking to him personally, the way those freeway signs did to Steve Martin in “L.A. Story.”

“Another Baby Bop, Love, Tisha.”

Well, I have heard of infield chatter distracting a batter. I’ve heard of “hey, batta, batta” distracting a batter. I’ve heard of “Dar-ryl! Dar-ryl!” distracting a batter. But never baby talk. Never gootchy-gootchy-goo.

Pop Bop got called out on strikes on four pitches.

And let’s face it, the Dodgers need all the hits they can get. They can never get enough runs, because no lead is safe. Going into Sunday’s play, only one pitching staff in baseball, Detroit’s, had fewer saves. Joe Grahe of the Angels has more saves than the Dodgers’ entire active roster.

Being in first place didn’t keep the Dodgers from tinkering with their team. They demoted their starting shortstop and a six-save relief pitcher to the minors. They also let Strawberry go so that Robert Shapiro could concentrate on other clients.

Now, the Giants are closing in.

Not to mention the hated Rockies.

San Diego? No, San Diego is still in the middle of that big turn-of-the-century rebuilding plan.

I still believe the Dodgers have better things to do this season than play spoiler to San Francisco in the season-ending series. I believe we will still have some great nights at Dodger Stadium, as soon as they clean up after those three tenors.

But first, the Dodgers have some important business at Candlestick Park. They should all check in with their wives before the game, ask if anything’s new.