It Was a Day of Dodger Rest, but How Long Will It Last?

Here in Los Angeles, Calif. (a non-National Football League community), some of us went looking for a quiet, pleasant day of baseball Sunday, just in time for Labor Day. Finally, mercifully, we got one.

Normalcy was finally restored to Dodger Stadium, after a long absence. It was one of those things I waited and waited and waited for, like the score of a football game televised on NBC.

Nothing nutty happened. The Dodgers didn’t commit seven errors. Jose Offerman didn’t do his famous impression of the Lincoln Tunnel. (He didn’t play.) Mike Piazza didn’t whiff three times with the bases loaded. (He didn’t play.) Todd Worrell didn’t torch a five-run lead. (He saved a three-run lead.)

Hideo Nomo didn’t break a fingernail, Raul Mondesi didn’t dive headfirst into anybody’s knee, nobody called an emergency meeting, and nobody booed Brett (Grace Under Fire) Butler, who didn’t blame the media for anything, including the water being too hot in the shower.

Thank goodness for a peaceful afternoon. Today, on this workers’ holiday, maybe the Dodgers can go back out to their maximum-wage jobs without having to worry about dodging trouble. They can concentrate on catching the Colorado Rockies and not on what somebody said, did, wrote or threw onto the field.

The last month of the season should be an intriguing--if not wild--one for the Dodgers, who have dealt with everything this season from a boycott to a forfeit to vendors in the aisles selling raw fish rather than peanuts.

This is a team that actually lost one game because of baseballs thrown by the crowd and won one game because of a baseball that a catcher scooped up with his mask. I swear, before this season is over, this team will pitch Hideo Nomo against Fernando Valenzuela and the game will be called on account of mania.

Being a Dodger hasn’t been a job; it has been an adventure.

Every day has created some new turmoil. Tom Lasorda became reluctant to read an out-of-town newspaper, lest he be compared to Jack the Ripper or Bozo the Clown while managing a contending team. Fred Claire found out that he couldn’t call up a third baseman without his players demanding to grant their permission. Mike Busch wondered how he could become both villain and hero, overnight.

Sunday, everybody got a break. Offerman and Piazza even got Labor Day Eve off, and their replacements made the most of it. And the Dodgers kept pace in the race, after tumbling into second place.

They have decisions to make and juggling to do, entering the home stretch. Who’s on third? Who’s in left? Does the shortstop’s job automatically belong to Offerman, even though his batting average is no longer so lofty that it compensates for his defense?

Now that he has been out of the lineup a couple of days, we propose an anti-Cal Ripken streak where we count how many days Offerman is not in the lineup. Let’s hope it reaches 2,000.

Chad Fonville can do everything Offerman can do, and shortstop is his best position. Leave him there. He and Delino DeShields will make a smooth double-play combination, and that .290 average of Fonville’s entitles him to keep Offerman on the bench.

Dave Hansen will have to handle third base, unless Busch starts making contact with his bat. Busch has fanned six times in eight turns.

As for left field, I don’t know where Roberto Kelly stands with the Dodgers these days. It would be nice if Fonville didn’t have to go back out there, if Kelly could play the kind of ball he used to play for other teams. So far, he hasn’t.

I recently wrote that no way would the Dodgers win their division, and they went right out and showed me how wrong I was by falling to second place on their way to fourth. They had better get their act together soon, because if somebody thinks this Dodger season depends on sportswriters telling them how wonderful they are, this team is in deeper trouble than I thought.

Like a lot of people, I thought the Dodgers and Angels might be playing each other in October.

Now I’m thinking April.