Which Joker Put This Wild Card in Deck?

Dear Abner Doubleday,

I know you invented baseball. I know you’re dead. I know you must be spinning in your grave like Hideo Nomo in his windup.

A championship game will be played today, but neither team will do whatever it takes to win . . . not if it means using their best players.

After six months of baseball and 161 games, the Dodgers and Padres are dead even.

They play today in L.A., in a game you’ve been waiting for since April 1.

Foolish you.

The Dodgers won’t use their starting pitcher, Ramon Martinez, for more than a few innings. They would rather not use their best player, Mike Piazza, at all, because he can use a day off.

The Padres refuse to use their best available starting pitcher, Joey Hamilton, even if it means losing a division title they have spent 12 years trying to win.

For 181 days since opening day, the Padres have pointed toward this day. And that doesn’t even count spring training, which is funny, because as Piazza put it, “This almost looks like a spring training game now, where you’re mostly hoping nobody gets hurt. It’s weird.”

This is no championship game.

It’s a scrimmage.

Yes, both sides will try to win. Yes, all of these players are professionals.

“It’s not like we’re going to send a team of rookies out there,” Dodger Manager Bill Russell says.

But . . . ?

“But, I’ve also got to think of what’s best for the Los Angeles Dodgers.”

Which means yanking Martinez after three or four innings, and benching Piazza, who volunteered to catch Martinez’s innings but also admitted that, in all honesty, he could use the day off.

It could be the most meaningless championship game in baseball history.

The only people who could possibly benefit from today’s game are the T-shirt sellers, when they print up the ones that say: “1996 NL WEST CHAMPIONS.”

Otherwise, this is a game so awful, one of its participants could actually be tempted to take a dive, should it prefer one opponent over another in the playoffs.

Something like this never could have happened, if Bud Selig were alive today.

(Old joke, new twist.)

They should call this thing off, declare the Dodgers and Padres co-champions, let them pitch Chan Ho Park and Dustin Hermanson or somebody, let Raul Mondesi and Ken Caminiti sit back and chew sunflower seeds, let Piazza and Tony Gwynn rest their tired bones, let Russell relax that neck spasm he suffered in the dugout during Saturday’s 4-2 loss.

Instead, we are going to get a winning team telling us how much today’s game meant to everybody, while their noses grow like Pinocchio’s.

Eric Karros kept trying to say the right thing.

He was frank. He was earnest. The Dodger first baseman called it a baseball purist’s worst nightmare. Karros is a bright guy, which is why everybody enjoys getting his point of view. He said wryly, “If you’re asking me if this is a different setup than baseball had three years ago, I can’t dispute that.”

But he knew what was on everybody’s mind.

If today’s game is for the championship, why wouldn’t the Padres use their best pitcher? Why would they announce that Joey Hamilton was out and Bob Tewksbury was in?

“He’s had some decent starts,” Karros said of Tewksbury.

Yes, but . . . ?

Karros got that look, like: Give me a break.

He finally walked off toward the training room, where teammates were shaving. “I know what they’re doing. They’re trying to get me to say that Tewksbury is . . . “ Karros said, exasperated, because he respects Tewksbury as a pro and a peer.

Most of the Dodgers and Padres respect each other, and would like nothing better than a bang-up, knock-down, all-out fight to the finish in today’s championship game.

Unfortunately, today’s championship game is a dog.

KTLA and ESPN both will televise it, but if I were Channel 5, I would run a rerun with Gilligan trying to get off of that island. If I were ESPN, I would air women’s body-building. Anything but this.

This is no show. It’s a preview of coming attractions.

“I’m not an idiot,” Karros said. “If you’re asking me if I’d rather sit home than be a wild card, of course not. Are you asking what’s more important, if we win the division or if lose [today] but it helps us be in the World Series? That’s no choice. Our goal is to win the World Series.”

So, the Dodgers won’t necessarily use their best players.

And neither will the Padres.

“I know. They should just forfeit,” Karros said, the best idea anybody had all day.