They Say ESPN Is Giving Bad Tips

The Dodgers are not happy about ESPN highlights from their last game against the San Francisco Giants, which showed baserunner Delino DeShields moving around on second base, implying that he was tipping pitches to Eric Karros at the plate.

The danger, Dodger hitting coach Reggie Smith says, is that opponents may retaliate by intentionally trying to hit DeShields or Karros.

“To report that on ESPN is totally irresponsible,” Karros said. “If we were in fact doing that, I wouldn’t be concerned about that. The fact that they did that, without checking with me or DeShields, that’s upsetting.”

There is nothing illegal about baserunners tipping pitches to their own hitters, but pitchers don’t take kindly to it.

Karros said he doesn’t like to know which pitch is coming. “I have enough information as a hitter, I don’t want somebody else’s,” he said.

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Pitching coach Dave Wallace returned to the team after spending the last two days with his critically ill father, Frank, in Waterbury, Conn. “I needed to be with him, but there’s not much anyone can do right now,” Wallace said. . . . Left-handed pitcher David Yocum, the Dodgers’ first-round pick in the 1995 draft, still battling biceps tendinitis, pitched for the Dodger coaching staff without any problems. He hopes to be strong enough to begin pitching competitively in early May.