Fans, Players Both Back in the Swing

Like lovers after a nasty spat, baseball and its fans kissed and made up Friday, putting their tempestuous past behind them and pledging their eternal troth.

Hours before the California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers took the field for the start of the 29th Freeway Series, happy and boisterous crowds descended on Anaheim Stadium, discussing such familiar springtime themes as resurrection and fresh starts.

Let the reconciliation commence, fans said. All is forgiven.

But one more walkout, fans growled, one more lockout, one more any-kind-of-out (besides the usual on-field kind) and it’s goodbye national pastime, hello soccer or polo or chess.

“Agh, they can have it!” said season-ticket holder Frances Thompson, disgusted by even the mention of the suggestion of the possibility of another labor dispute.

Two long, unsettling years have passed since major league baseball logged a full season, 162 contests, without a skirmish between its two intransigent millionaire militias.

Fans registered their rage at the game’s repeated self-interruptions last year by staying away in droves, driving attendance down 20%.

But with the new season arriving on schedule, a renewed optimism seemed to take hold Friday.

Maybe it was the perfect sunshiny day. Maybe it was that new Pepsodent politeness for which players seem to be striving. Whatever the reason, both Dodger and Angel squads seemed more intense as they took batting practice, and fans seemed more focused as they took sitting practice.

The field itself seemed like a confectioner’s dream, good enough to eat. The grass was as green as spearmint. The base paths looked like rivers of caramel. The bags were pure, white marshmallows.

“I can’t stay away from baseball,” said 17-year-old Jonathan Pittman of Anaheim. “Gotta play it, gotta love it, gotta watch it.”

“Gotta be it,” said his friend, 16-year-old Jacob Smith. “Gotta be baseball.”

“Dude,” chimed their pal, 17-year-old Doug Ennis. “Baseball.”

And, really, what more could be said?

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Stationed outside Gate 1 like slacker sentinels, Messrs. Pittman, Smith and Ennis were greeting the baseball gods as they arrived, heatedly debating which of the gods are mightiest.

“Brett Butler,” said Ennis. “He was the coolest. He lined everybody up right here and signed autographs for all of them. He set his milkshake down right here.”

For emphasis, Ennis tapped the top of a nearby trash can. Here sat Brett Butler’s milkshake, Mister. Right here.

Adam Grone, 15, of Westminster said he invests so much time waiting for players in the parking lot that he has become an unofficial valet.

“Jim Abbott,” he said, “drives a green Suburban. Chuck Finley drives a white Mercedes. J.T. Snow drives a black Bronco. Jim Edmonds drives a big red Ford F150. Tim Salmon drives a 300ZX, blue and white. . . . “

Some players might consider decorating those cars with a bumper sticker that reads: Warning: I Brake for Fans.

“Players took the fans for granted,” admitted Salmon, who did his part Friday by joining a pregame fan festival at the Catch, a local sports pub.

Sure, the event was the kind of promotion-driven, marketing-oriented nonsense that makes some fans sick. Still, the atmosphere was redolent of the old days, the really old days, when Opening Day was a religious occasion, when players were invincible and owners were invisible.

While Salmon and Dodgers star Eric Karros played baseball video games and signed autographs by the dozen, fans stood three-deep at the bar, arguing about who will win the West. Arguing as if the outcome of the argument actually mattered.

“I’m stoked,” said Jenny Vellegas, a waitress whose tip jar depends on harmony in the national pastime. “I can’t wait for the season to start.”

Despite all the goo-goo eyes players and fans were making at one another, Karros said the media should be cautious about calling the player-fan relationship a total rapprochement.

“The only thing that can heal what happened last year is time,” Karros said. “To think that people will forgive and forget and come back right away is naive.”

But he acknowledged that the healing has at least begun.

“This spring, compared to last spring, it was night and day.”

And his manager wholeheartedly agreed.

“I think the fans are coming back,” said Tommy Lasorda, poised atop his famous parentheses legs in the moments before the game began. “We haven’t got them all back. But all of them will come back eventually.”

By disregarding the fans, Lasorda said, players and owners shamed the game. Now they must atone. Players must go from school to hospital, begging forgiveness, while owners must reexamine their financial priorities.

“You can build the most beautiful ballpark in the world,” the most redoubtable Dodger said, as everyone stopped what they were doing to listen, “and you can have the best team in the world, but if no one goes through the turnstiles, you’ve got nothing.”

* DODGERS CELEBRATE

L.A.’s 6-2 win is sequel to good news on Eric Karros. C4

* TALKS RESUME

On-again, off-again Disney-Anaheim talks on again. B1