Dodgers Can Definitely Use Cornerstone

They call it the “hot corner.” The ball comes at you like a misguided missile.

Third base is not a position, it’s a sentence. You don’t play it, you serve it.

However, no team without a competent third baseman succeeds very long. Look at the big winners of history. The Baltimore Orioles of the ‘60s and ‘70s had Brooks Robinson, no less. The old Yankees had Red Rolfe and Clete Boyer out there. The Gashouse Gang had Pepper Martin. The Milwaukee Braves had Eddie Mathews. Pittsburgh had Pie Traynor.

The headlines usually went elsewhere. Even the most famous quatrain in the game, “Tinker to Evers to Chance” omitted third baseman Harry Steinfeldt, which later made him the answer to a trivia question.

Third basemen don’t have to be nifty. Pepper Martin boxed the ball like a wrapping clerk and Harmon Killebrew stopped so many ground balls with his chest I once accused him of having the only cauliflowered chest in the American League.

A third baseman can get ground balls any way he can, as long as he can hit. Unlike second base and shortstop, third is a power position. The guy who plays it might not have to hit as many home runs as Mike Schmidt, 548, but he is counted on for some. Even a gold-glover like Brooksie had to line 268 out of there.

The Dodgers have had as much trouble as anybody casting the position. They have had 24 third basemen since 1986. The last guy to stake out the hot corner was “the Penguin,” Ron Cey, who patrolled the bag for L.A. for 10 years. Since then, third base has been a cameo appearance, for the most part.

Until this year.

For this year, the Dodgers signed Todd Zeile. They thought their troubles were over. A new Penguin had waddled in.

Now, Zeile wasn’t born to the position. No one is born to be a third sacker, just as no one is born to defuse bombs. He was a catcher by preference. But he moved over to third in the Cardinal chain.

Todd had been almost more famous for marrying a 1984 gold-medal Olympic gymnast, Julianne McNamara, than for his skill at knocking down line drives. He wasn’t a human vacuum cleaner, a la Brooks Robinson, but he wasn’t overmatched by the shots that came his way either.

He wasn’t a prolific hitter, but he was damaging. They rely on third basemen for that. He had driven in 103 runs one year at St. Louis and had a .277 average. He was at his best in big games and nearly put the Orioles in the World Series last year with three homers and five RBIs in five playoff games against the Yankees.

But when he signed on with the Dodgers and took over third, the front office almost began to have second thoughts. Zeile was making outs around the clock. His average was hovering around “the Mendoza line”--a bit of circumlocution dating back to the old Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop who had trouble getting his average above .200.

But when Todd Zeile burst through with three home runs in two games against the Angels last week, the figure filberts noticed a curious thing: Zeile’s batting average was a limp .233--it had been as low as .217. But by mid-June, of his 57 hits, 15 were home runs. That was the most on the Dodgers at the time, more than hit by Mike Piazza or Eric Karros.

That’s a home run once in every 3.8 hits. Babe Ruth’s lifetime ratio was a home run every 4.02 hits. Of course, Ruth got lots of other hits--his lifetime average was a long way from the Mendoza line, .342. But Zeile has 204 doubles, lifetime. So, 341 of his 1,007 hits have gone for extra bases. He has 124 home runs.

The Pirates’ Traynor is generally held to be the hallmark third baseman. He’s in the Hall of Fame. Old Pie hit .320. But, know how many home runs he hit in his 18 big league seasons? Fifty-eight.

There aren’t many third basemen in Cooperstown. George Kell made it with a .306 batting average in 15 years. He had 78 home runs.

Zeile’s stats are for eight years. He has driven in 558 runs. Kell drove in 870 lifetime, Traynor 1,273.

Todd does the most with the least, a third baseman’s stock in trade. It should have come as no surprise, then, to the Angels that he is one of the most dangerous .229 hitters ever to pick up a bat. They should not have let the angelic face and the clean uniform fool them. They should ask themselves how come this seeming banjo hitter has been walked 492 times in his big league career and leads the team in walks this year.

Zeile hit two home runs in two innings Tuesday night, one the game winner. And he hit an important two-run homer again Wednesday night.

That goes with the territory. That’s what third basemen do. You never judge a third baseman by the decimals. Robinson was a .267 hitter but got into the Hall of Fame with a glove and a record of every 10th hit being a home run.

Zeile may or may not make the Hall, but every pitcher in the league knows better than to let up on him. And knows that it’s a good policy to walk him if the game is tight. When you know a guy’s every eighth hit is a home run, forget the decimals. He’s a classic third baseman.