Turner Is Really Like TNT When It Comes to Dodgers

If you’re a Dodger fan, who is enemy No. 1?

Hint: It’s not Bobby Thomson, Juan Marichal or Jack Clark.

It’s Ted Turner.

First, he spends almost as much money on his Atlanta Braves as he does on his Montana bison.

Then he mobilizes the cable operators to make a stand against archenemy Rupert Murdoch, which means the Dodger opener on Murdoch’s Fox Sports West 2 today will reach the television sets of about 111 people in L.A. and Orange counties.

Turner is not evil. After all, he gave the world Christiane Amanpour and Wolf Blitzer. But Turner is the anti-Dodger.

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Baseball, the Page Two Way:

NATIONAL LEAGUE

West: Los Angeles, if all those rookies of the year play like all-stars. . . .

East: Florida, if Jim Leyland remembers how to manage a good team. . . .

West: St. Louis, if Tony La Russa, like any other lawyer, is as good as his word. . . .

Wild card: Atlanta, if Andruw Jones is as good as the Braves think he is. . . .

Pennant winner: Atlanta. . . .

MVP: Mike Piazza, Dodgers. . . .

Cy Young: Greg Maddux, Atlanta. . . .

Rookie of the year: Jones, Atlanta. . . .

Manager of the year: Bill Russell, Dodgers. . . .

Question mark: Can Houston Manager Larry Dierker, like Joe Torre, go from the broadcast booth to the World Series? . . .

Pleasant surprise: Delino DeShields looks like the former Montreal second baseman, not the former Dodger, in St. Louis. . . .

AMERICAN LEAGUE

West: Seattle, if Randy Johnson pitches like Randy Johnson. . . .

East: Baltimore, if the ghost of Jeffrey Maier doesn’t linger. . . .

Central: Cleveland, if David Justice prevails. . . .

Wild card: Texas, if John Wetteland closes out the Yankees. . . .

Pennant winner: Seattle. . . .

MVP: Ken Griffey Jr., Seattle. . . .

Cy Young: Johnson, Seattle. . . .

Rookie of the year: Nomar Garciaparra, Boston. . . .

Manager of the year: Bob Boone, Kansas City. . . .

Question mark: Will the Bash Brothers’ sequel, reuniting Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco in Oakland, be as dynamic as the original? . . .

Pleasant surprise: DAR-RYL, DAR-RYL. . . .

World Series champion: Atlanta, too bored to win the division title, too much pitching to lose in the playoffs.

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Arizona’s victory was the first in the NCAA final by a Pacific-10 team other than UCLA since California in 1959. The Final Four MVP that year was West Virginia’s Jerry West. . . .

Arizona guard Miles Simon can compare championship rings with his brother-in-law, Darryl Strawberry. . . .

Mike Bibby scored 19 points for Arizona. The most his father, Henry, ever scored for UCLA in three NCAA finals was 18. . . .

“Henry, he’s much better than you were,” John Wooden told the USC coach Sunday. . . .

In retrospect, the Wooden Classic in December was as good a basketball invitational as any in the country. Three Elite Eight teams, Arizona, Utah and Louisville, were at the Pond of Anaheim. If UCLA had been there instead of Louisiana State, there would have been four. . . .

The attendance for the doubleheader was only 8,463, which sponsors attributed to the Bruins’ being in school. They were receiving a lesson that afternoon from Kansas at Pauley Pavilion. . . .

UCLA couldn’t afford to give up a home game to play in Anaheim, but the sponsors are trying to make it more attractive financially for the Bruins. It’s on UCLA’s tentative schedule for next season, “tentative” being the key word. . . .

Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan is favored to win the Wooden Award this week. . . .

Don’t invite them to the same Final Four: Through Sunday, Steve Lavin and Jim Harrick hadn’t spoken to each other in Indianapolis. . . .

To Billy Packer and others advising high school players to stay away from the NBA, Harry Edwards replies: “I have a son, and somebody puts $30 million on a table in front of him. If he didn’t have the smarts to pick up that $30 million, then he isn’t smart enough to go to college.”

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While wondering if anyone will remember it’s April Fool’s Day if I’m as bad at picking winners as Albert Belle, I was thinking: There’s not a better 48 hours in sports than the college basketball closer followed by the baseball openers; Jim Abbott will be back, and I’d like to believe the same about John Daly.