Offerman: No Bows, Only Boos

At 2:08 Sunday afternoon, an announcement was made on the Mitsubishi Diamond Vision Mark III left-field scoreboard of Dodger Stadium, which was unveiled 15 years ago this week--on July 8, 1980--when the Dodgers were the host club for baseball’s 51st All-Star game.

A shirt-sleeved crowd of 37,354 nudged one another and craned its collective neck as CONGRATULATIONS, DODGER ALL-STAR SELECTIONS flashed across the screen. Mike Piazza was shown stroking a home run. Raul Mondesi was shown making an acrobatic catch. Todd Worrell was shown on the mound, throwing some heat. Hideo Nomo was shown there as well, doing the twist.

For each, the crowd cheered.

Yet when shortstop Jose Offerman, henceforth known as all-star shortstop Jose Offerman, was pictured gloving a hard-hit ball and gunning down the runner, the reaction was lukewarm at best, cruel at worst. The crowd did not cheer. At what should have been Offy’s finest hour, these true-blue fans, appropriate to where they sat, were more foul than fair.

“I guess the Dodger fans were surprised too,” said Colorado outfielder Larry Walker, who himself was omitted from the National League’s team. “They booed when they heard Offerman made the team. Tough fans.”

Jose Offerman, as he has for so long, stood there and took it.

Stood there, hitting .320, and heard himself booed for becoming an all-star.

“Jose hasn’t had a lot of luck,” said Worrell, at a locker opposite the shortstop’s. “In a lot of ways, he hasn’t been treated fairly. It’s an honor to be able to go to an All-Star game, an honor that a guy ought to be able to enjoy. But even then, everyone wanted to jump on him. Why?”

By his own locker, Offerman was as low-key as could be. He was turning no Ozzie Smith cartwheels, that’s for sure.

“A thrill to be named an all-star?” someone asked.

“It is for anybody,” Offerman said. “You have to be proud.”

“Especially after all you’ve been through?”

“Especially because it is my first one,” he said. “And I hope there will be another one after this.”

At around 12:30, before the outside world found out, some of the Dodgers were called into Tom Lasorda’s office, where the manager and Executive Vice President Fred Claire were waiting. Offerman and Mondesi got there first.

The joke Lasorda and Claire pulled might have worked had Offerman arrived alone. Then again, it might not have been funny.

“They tell us, ‘You are traded,’ ” Mondesi said.

Nobody fell for it.

When he was called in on June 27 of last season, Offerman was informed that he was being banished to Albuquerque and the minors. He was despondent. His career was in jeopardy. He was no better than a bush leaguer, same as Michael Jordan. After committing 42 errors in 1992 and 37 more the following season, Offerman was testing management’s patience.

“This is a very proud player,” Claire said in his private box Sunday, after giving his all-star shortstop the good news. “Jose’s been through a lot of very bad times. He’s had to take the good with the bad.

“Needless to say, if we didn’t believe in him, he wouldn’t be here. There was a time, we had Kevin Elster coming along, Jose wasn’t playing very well, and everyone in the world could see us making a change. I didn’t want to do that, and neither did our scouts who had brought Jose along this far. He claimed his position back, and now he’s an all-star. He’s got reason to be proud.”

From midsummer demotion to midsummer classic in 12 months.

Aware that the fans had voted in Smith, Offerman said, “I know that I have good numbers, but there was another player who could make it. There was [Barry] Larkin. And there was [Shawon] Dunston also. I was not sure until Tommy and Fred tell me right before the game.”

Someone asked: “How did you take it?”

Offerman shrugged and said: “I just take it the normal way.”

His teammates were more expansive. Offerman has caused consternation at times, with lackluster effort. He quarreled with a teammate after one recent lapse, and nearly blew a game for Nomo a few days later on a routine double-play ball. Sunday, he nonchalanted a throw to second that a runner beat to the bag.

“No one wants to make an error,” Mondesi said. “I wish people were not on him so.”

Worrell said, “If I could make one constructive criticism, I would like to see him play more aggressively. I think when Offy’s aggressive, he is one heck of a shortstop. He goes into the hole better than 95% of the shortstops I’ve ever seen. But Ozzie Smith plays with 100% confidence, total aggression. If Offy played that way, oh, man, he would be Ozzie Smith.”