A Scout’s Honor

The white Panama hat is tilted back. The cigar is in the pocket. The radar gun is in the car.

Mike Brito carefully removes three World Series rings, picks up a bottle of lotion, lathers his giant hands.

“Watch this,” he says. “He likes it when I do this.”

Slowly, gently, he massages legs that will never walk. He kneads arms that will never extend. He rubs fingers that will never touch.

For long minutes, he works the withered skin as if it were something exquisite, pausing to whisper into the face of one who will never quite understand.

“Oh, my chiquito bonito, my chiquito bonito. Como esta, my chiquito bonito?”

One day after another of scout Mike Brito’s discoveries brought another Dodger Stadium crowd to its feet, leave it to others to celebrate Dennis Reyes and the memories of Fernando Valenzuela.

Brito is busy celebrating his beautiful little boy, 20-year-old Miguel, brain damaged at birth, sentenced to life in a silent, helpless purgatory.

“Look at his eyes, you can tell that he knows I’m here,” he says. “Sure you can tell.”

Such is the irony of baseball’s most recognizable scout, standing behind home plate at Dodger Stadium with the hat and the gun, signing crowd favorites from Valenzuela to Ismael Valdes to Reyes.

A man who has brought this town so much hope quietly devotes much of his life to a place where there is none.

Every day he is home, Brito drives to the Frank D. Lanterman Center for the developmentally disabled in Pomona.

Once there, in hallways and rooms where many are dumped by families and forgotten, he spends his afternoons with Miguel, whispering to him and stroking him and feeding him Snapple out of an eyedropper.

He was there again Monday, one day after Reyes became another of Brito’s tall tales with a victory over the San Francisco Giants in the Dodgers’ most important game of the season.

Finding a left-hander out of Higuera de Zaragoza is one thing.

Finding a smile on the face of a son who has never spoken to you is quite another.

Even if others can’t see it, Brito does.

“Can’t you tell that my son loves life, loves living?” he says, pointing to a vacant stare. “Can’t you tell?”

*

He has 25 Panama hats. He has 40 suits. He is never seen without the hat, and only on Sunday afternoons will he show up without the suit.

He has countless cigars, with one footnote. He hasn’t actually smoked on the job in a few years, since fans sitting behind home plate complained about the stench. He just chews them.

He began standing behind the plate in 1978, when then-General Manager Al Campanis asked him to chart pitches for Bob Welch. It worked so well, Campanis asked him to record speed and pitch type for everyone whenever Brito was in town.

To this day, he is not paid extra for the duty. The Dodgers don’t even provide him with a seat. If the chair next to his position is occupied by a fan, for three hours he stands.

Of all of these facts about the Dodgers’ most visible but unknown celebrity, none surprises like the existence of Miguel.

The big blustery baseball guy, rattling on about the importance of toughness in his young pitchers, sticking that radar gun down the throats of opponents . . . spending hours before every game cuddling and cooing to a motionless boy who eats and breathes through a tube.

For all of Brito’s importance to the organization in his 20 years there, his son is rarely discussed among team officials--and never publicly--because Brito rarely brings him up.

“I don’t want to burden my bosses with my problems,” he said. “They are trying to win ballgames, they don’t need to be hearing about my personal life.”

It is a trial shared only by Brito, his wife Rosa Marie, and their two grown daughters. When Brito is away on a scouting mission, which is often, his wife visits the boy.

Even if their son may not understand, may not appreciate, will probably never be able to return the affection, Mike Brito makes one thing clear.

He is still their son.

“The kid is an angel,” he says, stroking the hair of a clear, handsome face attached to a diseased body. “You cannot imagine how much we love him. You just cannot imagine.”

Miguel was actually walking when he was brought to the center at age 7, but his condition has worsened with age.

He was not expected to live much past his 15th birthday. There were times when Brito and his wife wondered if he wouldn’t be better off dead.

Brito used to weep on the solitary drives back to Dodger Stadium. He could spot unknown talent in every father’s son, why couldn’t he help his own?

“I used to wonder, why can’t he be driving back with me?” he says. “Why couldn’t he be playing like other boys?”

He no longer wonders. With each year of his son’s survival, he celebrates. Every twitch, ever seemingly mindless swat of a thin arm. Ever smile, no matter how imagined.

On Sunday, 20-year-old Dennis Reyes won a game. On Monday, Brito’s other 20-year-old did even better. He batted his eyes. He recognized his dad.

The old scout spots it. The old scout beams, peppers his son’s forehead with little kisses.

“Oh, my chiquito bonito, my chiquito bonito. Como esta, my chiquito bonito?”