Now It’s Dodger Fans Who Flip for Smith

So this is what forgiveness looks like.

Ozzie Smith, standing behind home plate at Dodger Stadium, facing fans whose hearts he broke a decade ago.

This time, it is those fans who are exulting.

This time, it is Ozzie Smith who is crying.

The Wizard did the impossible one more time Friday in his last regular-season visit to his hometown before retiring.

He brought back memories of a time when people genuinely liked the players, and genuinely cheered the game.

In 1985, the St. Louis Cardinal shortstop hit a home run in Game 5 of the National League championship series, giving the Cardinals a 3-2 victory over the Dodgers that eventually broke them.

It was his first left-handed home run in 3,009 professional at-bats. It was a home run that Dodger fans could never forget.

But a brief spell in the twilight Friday, they forgot.

During the pregame celebration, fans cheered the gifts of a tape player, computer software and money for the field he is building at his alma mater, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

They oohed at a video showing career highlights interspersed with clips from “The Wizard of Oz.”

They aahed when he hugged a former high school coach from Locke.

By the time Smith spoke, he couldn’t.

“I would like to thank for all of you for being part of my dream,” he finally said after wiping away tears.

Which led to a thought that has echoed throughout baseball since the 5-foot-10 rag doll announced in June he was retiring after 19 seasons of floating, spinning, stunning.

His dream?

*

It’s a ridiculous question for a 41-year-old man wearing a silk suit and carrying a basket of flowers. But it has to be asked.

Uh, Ozzie . . . can you still somersault?

He laughs, a soft laugh that masks the steel will that propelled that tiny body into the mid-air roll before most of the last 19 opening days.

Early April, Smith bounds across the middle of the Busch Stadium diamond, the world is right, baseball is worth watching again.

“If I am healthy, yes, I can still do the somersault,” he said. “But if I’m not, it’s OK. My kids do it for me.”

The pleasures of age. Ozzie Smith enjoys them now on his final tour through a grateful league.

He received red Cowboy boots in Houston, his No. 1 on them, the division rival Astros pausing to applaud. Some thought the boots were tacky. He dutifully wore them to home plate to take out the lineup card.

He received the No. 1 from the scoreboard in Wrigley Field, the hated Cubs giving him a piece of their heart.

And the applause . . . standing ovations in every town, applause after years of surprised silence.

Baseball fans who couldn’t stand to see Ozzie Smith run out to that patch of dirt between second and third base in their town--now they can’t stand to see him leave.

“I had no idea,” he said, and the words were believable. “It’s very hard to put into words. I don’t think anybody in their wildest dreams would expect something like this.”

Of course not. Because baseball players are not liked anymore.

They are cheered and idolized and collected in little books with plastic strips. They are pursued for charities, coveted for interviews, chased by groupies.

But they are not liked, and there’s a difference, and Ozzie Smith has always known that difference.

It’s about more than playing hard, spectacularly, consistently. It’s about doing it with a smile, a flair, in good fun.

It’s about doing something so amazing that fans put their hands over their eyes . . . and when they pull those hands away, all they see is a back turned toward center field, one hand raised into the air, two fingers, two outs.

It’s about showing off . . . but never showing anyone up.

When he leaves, baseball will have lost its most-liked man.

Bad timing, this.

“I think this says a lot about what people appreciate in this game,” Smith said. “I always wanted people to walk away not feeling cheated.”

Cheated? Smith would probably qualify for the Hall of Fame even if he never made a diving stop.

Thirteen Gold Gloves. More hits--2,453 before Friday--than Mickey Mantle. Six fewer steals--580--than Maury Wills.

He learned his acrobatics in a wood factory in South-Central Los Angeles. Earlier this year he drove there to find it, but the factory was gone.

“I still remember all that sawdust,” he said.

He learned his savvy from playing on the Locke High team with Eddie Murray--the basketball team.

And he learned about setting his goals from taking a bus to Dodger Stadium.

“We sat in the bleachers . . . we looked down and always hoped, but . . . “ Smith said.

If only it had always been as pretty as it has looked between second and third.

Smith griped his way off the San Diego Padres after the 1981 season.

Then this spring, his griping nearly split the Cardinals when he was forced to split time with newly acquired Royce Clayton.

Smith angrily called Manager Tony La Russa “a liar and a coward.” La Russa deftly maneuvered around the quote, and has platooned Clayton and Smith such that the Cardinals are probably going to win the National League Central with decent shortstop production.

La Russa deserved better. But for 19 years, Smith has been nothing if not himself.

“I’ve always played bigger than I am, and I think people understand that,” Smith said. “I’ve showed people the human side.”

And humans sometimes change their minds.

He is still playing decently--batting 291 with eight errors in 71 games before Friday. He is obviously needed by a league with no clear successor to his throne of popularity.

Could he play one more year?

“Well, I haven’t changed my mind . . . yet,” he said.

He smiled, turned and clicked his tiny heels across the pavement and into the night, floating and spinning and stunning again.