A Page From the Playbook

When the most fundamentally important Dodger play this summer happened Sunday in Philadelphia, Chico Fernandez was scribbling player evaluations in a San Bernardino hotel room.

Twenty-one years of teaching would-be Dodgers fundamentals, and he never saw it.

“I forgot the game was on TV,” he said Monday morning. “What happened?”

A Phillie on first base, no outs, batter bunts down third-base line, Dodger third baseman charges, throws batter out at first.

“So?” he said.

So the guy on first, he rounds second, tries to surprise the Dodgers by running to third. But when he gets there, the most amazing thing happens. He’s tagged out by--well, you’ll never guess.

“The catcher,” he said.

Stunned pause.

How did you know?

“If they were going by our book, if they were doing what we teach them, it had to be the catcher,” he said.

Imagine that. A Dodger team finally going by the book, doing what it was taught.

Imagine a Dodger team executing a play spectacular enough for a highlight clip, yet simple enough for their long-time minor league infield instructor to see it without turning on the TV.

This is what happened Sunday in a play barely mentioned by anyone, five anonymous seconds of August that could be remembered in October.

Mike Piazza, running in chest protector and shin guards to third base, making a leaping catch of a throw from first baseman Eric Karros, tagging out Kevin Sefcik to end a first-inning threat during an eventual 5-1 victory.

Did anybody else fall out of his chair?

“I thought that was incredible,” said Charlie Blaney, Dodger farm director. “We teach it, but I’ve never seen it happen.”

John Roseboro, considered one of the Dodgers’ best fundamental catchers during his 14-year career, laughed.

“I can never recall seeing it, never recall making it,” he said. “It was crazy.”

John Vukovich, the Phillie third base coach, was so stunned he argued the “out” call beyond limits and was thrown out of the game.

Even Piazza was surprised. Like everyone else, he had neither seen it nor executed it.

“I’m usually not that coordinated,” he said Monday before the Dodgers’ doubleheader in Pittsburgh. “It almost looked like I had athletic ability on that. It’s pretty scary.”

A better word would be “promising.”

It is that kind of smart play that wins division races.

Or have you forgotten Kirk Gibson scoring from second base on a wild pitch in 1988 . . . because he knew Montreal pitcher Joe Hesketh had already been injured in a home-plate collision and would be wary of another?

It is that kind of brave play that wins championships.

Or have you forgotten John Shelby’s diving catch in the 12th inning against the New York Mets that won Game 4 of the 1988 league championship series . . . only five days after he had dropped a diving attempt in an opening-game loss?

Most important, it is that kind of play that can finally separate the Dodgers from the legacy of their recent late-season failures.

Piazza is the same catcher who, in his first major league season in 1992, once walked to the mound without calling time and allowed a run to score.

This is the same team that, earlier this year, suffered because a third baseman forgot the number of outs, and a baserunner ran to a base that was already occupied.

This is the same organization that has displayed average or worse fundamentals for most of the last nine years, hiding behind a reputation forged by guys such as Roseboro, neglecting the fact that they had become sloppy and inattentive.

Fundamentals have cost them championships. Fundamentals might have cost them the services of Tom Lasorda.

Yet there was Roger Cedeno on Saturday in Philadelphia, saving a run by backing up third base from left field.

And here comes Piazza on a sweltering Sunday, covering a base that lazy catchers often ignore, making a 90-foot run, a sprint that is almost never worth the trouble.

It’s all there in the Dodgers’ blue-bound defensive manual, taught by every instructor, stressed to every player, from late spring afternoons in Vero Beach to early summer mornings in Albuquerque:

“Catcher: Field all bunts possible; call the play; cover third base when the third baseman fields the bunt in close to home plate.”

The shortstop, you see, runs to second. And the second baseman backs up first. And pitcher covers home plate.

Piazza, like most big league catchers, practices that play in spring training.

But unlike many others--”The lazy and bad ones,” said Roseboro--Piazza actually runs toward third on those bunts during the season, even though the chances of a runner trying to take that base are slim.

For one thing, the runner will never try to take third on a sacrifice bunt, because he has to hang around first until the bunt is down.

Sunday’s play was not a sacrifice, but a rare bunt-and-run, with Sefcik running on the pitch to Mickey Morandini.

“I usually go up the line, but the runner doesn’t ever come,” Piazza said. “When I saw him this time, I got on my horse.”

Two years ago, Piazza admitted, he probably wouldn’t have made that play. Learning to play catcher as a big league catcher, he didn’t do a lot of things.

“He has come a long way,” said Mike Scioscia, the Dodger coach who has been tutoring him. “I’m starting to see him do the little things it takes to win a championship.”

Piazza’s play spoke of that experience, of that field leadership that has emerged this summer from our favorite shampoo spokesman.

His play spoke for a team that is finally mirroring Manager Bill Russell: quiet, smart, as steady as its expression.

Joe Ferguson was on the phone Monday from his manager’s office at double-A Bowie, Md. Joe Ferguson is always on the phone when somebody makes a great Dodger defensive play in a championship race.

For the umpteenth time, he talked about racing over to center field from right field during the 1974 World Series, taking a fly ball away from sore-armed Jim Wynn, throwing out Sal Bando at home plate.

“Did you know that was all worked out before the game?” he said. “I said, ‘Jimmy, anything near you, I’ll take it.’ Yep, the whole thing was planned.”

In a way, all the great plays are.

Championships don’t just happen. You win them by anticipating the unexpected and sprinting out to meet it. If it doesn’t show, you wait a pitch and do it again.

The Dodgers know that now. Thirty games left, and their bases appear covered.