All-Talk Team Must Prove It

Muhammad Ali turned braggadocio into an art form. Joe Namath made it famous. Deion Sanders commercialized it.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda thrives on it.

Yet, when Lasorda assembles his players today before the season-opener against the Houston Astros at 11:30 (PST) at the Astrodome, he plans to make an appeal:

No trash talking.

No flaunting.

No conceited remarks.

Apparently, if anyone’s going to be telling the world how good the Dodgers are this year, it will be Lasorda, and no one else.

“Don’t get me wrong, I want them to believe they can win,” Lasorda said, “I just don’t want them to brag about it.

“Believe you’re the best players in the world. Believe you’re the best team in the world. Just don’t tell anybody about it.”

It’s ironic that Lasorda finds himself concerned about how the Dodgers are being perceived. He’s the same manager who told Atlanta Brave pitcher Steve Avery before an exhibition game this spring how the Dodgers would tear him apart, only to watch Avery pitch five shutout innings.

“All year long, all I’ll hear about is what two guys said,” Lasorda said, referring to veteran pitchers Todd Worrell and Tom Candiotti. “How about the 23 other guys? They’re not saying anything.”

Worrell and Candiotti said the Dodgers are quite talented, but unless they realize their potential, they’ll be wasting everyone’s time. No more, no less. Yet, the rest of the league pounced upon the comments as if the Dodgers were telling everyone that the National League West race already is over.

“I’m not going to back down from what I said,” Worrell said. “I still have the same opinion of this team. It has the capability of winning a lot of games. We can beat you in so many ways.

“I still think we can play with Atlanta or any team out there. I don’t know how good we are, I know we still have to beat Atlanta, but I know we can do it.

“You can’t say, ‘Maybe we can do it, or maybe we can’t.’ We have to believe we’re the best. This team has enough power, pitching and defense to go as far as we want, and that’s a fact.”

The Dodgers, to a man, are convinced they will win the National League West. Who’s going to beat them? The Colorado Rockies have no pitching. The San Diego Padres have no power. And the San Francisco Giants have no chance.

They have been shrewd enough not to discount the rest of their division publicly, but at the same time, aren’t afraid to tell the world that they have their eye on the Braves, realizing they remain their biggest obstacle.

“On paper, there’s no reason that this team shouldn’t win,” veteran outfielder Milt Thompson said. “I know it’s the best team I’ve played on, and that includes that ’93 Phillie team. This is one of the main reasons I came here. This was my chance to win the World Series.”

Said second baseman Delino DeShields: “The way I look at it is that we finished last in the league in defense, and we still won the division. Now that we’ve improved our defense, there’s no telling how far this team can go. We expect big things from ourselves, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

The leading reason for the confidence is the acquisition of shortstop Greg Gagne and third baseman Mike Blowers. Gagne has become so beloved that the pitching staff collected $200 to pay for Gagne’s kangaroo court fine, and Blowers reminds teammates of a younger, healthier Tim Wallach.

“The feeling I get is that these guys feel that the team is better because I’m at shortstop,” Gagne said. “I don’t know it that’s true or not, I never saw Jose Offerman at shortstop, but I’ll take their word for it.”

The Dodgers can still remember the horrifying 1992 season, going from a championship contender in spring training to 99 losses. They remind themselves of last year when they were supposed to run away with the division, but didn’t clinch until the next-to-last day. They know all too well how an injury to catcher Mike Piazza can make a great team suddenly look mediocre.

“There goes any hope that we’re going to sneak up on people,” Dodger reliever Mark Guthrie said. “Everybody knows how confident we are. I don’t think we forgot to tell anybody.

“But there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and we’ve got to keep that in mind. I would hope now that we can play with confidence, but keep our mouths shut.

“We’ve done enough talking.

“It’s time to show people we’re as good as we think we are.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

TODAY’S DODGER OPENER

OPPONENT: Houston Astros

WHERE: Astrodome

TIME: 11:30 a.m. PST

TELEVISION: None. Story, C10

DODGER STARTER: Ramon Martinez, 17-7, 3.66 ERA in 1995

ASTRO STARTER: Shane Reynolds, 10-11, 3.47 ERA in 1995