$50 Good Deed Well Worth It

Roy “Tripp” Cromer hit another homer Sunday. It was not unlike his first one for the Dodgers, back on July 11.

Except this time, Tom Candiotti’s wife didn’t go into the outfield stands to buy the ball.

“How’d you find out about that?” Cromer asked, after knocking home the first run of Candiotti’s 7-1 victory over the Phillies.

Oh, you know. Sources.

Cromer was impressed. Not with the reporting . . . with the Candiottis.

He said, “That cost them $50, you know.”

Donna Candiotti’s good deed really touched Tripp and his own wife, Michele.

The man from Murels Inlet, S.C., was new in town. Cromer hadn’t become a Dodger until mid-June. He was a 29-year-old utility infielder with 18 runs batted in for his career.

As soon as she saw Cromer’s three-run shot against the San Francisco Giants go into the outfield seats, Donna Candiotti did too.

He had won one for the team. She wanted to win one for the Tripper.

“I found the guy who caught the ball, and I said, ‘I’d like to have that back, for the player who hit it,’ ” Donna recalls.

“And the guy said, ‘How much you paying?’ ”

Everything has its price.

In the park Sunday to watch her husband pitch, as well as to oversee an outing for the charity organization they support--known as the Orthopaedic Hospital and Knucklehead Club--the knuckleballer’s wife had the extra treat of seeing Tripp support Tom with another home run.

Candiotti was also the pitcher on July 17, when Cromer cranked two homers against the Florida Marlins.

He definitely deserves to be an honorary member of the Knucklehead Club.

Cromer now has four homers and 19 RBI in a few weeks, after having five homers and 18 RBI lifetime, before joining the Dodgers.

“We knew defensively he was good,” says Bill Russell, the Dodger manager. “Offensively, he keeps getting big hits. What’s he got, 19 RBIs with something like 24 hits?”

No one will ever accuse Cromer of being on steroids. Tripp’s biceps and triceps do not exactly ripple. He is built like the left-field foul pole.

Standing 6 foot 2, the former University of South Carolina athlete weighs 168 pounds. He says once he got up to 180, but felt “too fat.”

Yet on the only team in the majors with four 20-homer men, Cromer is showing unexpected power.

In the third inning of a scoreless game, he ripped one over the left-field fence off a Philadelphia lefty named Matt Beech, who has won one game, lifetime.

This flustered the Phillie manager, Terry Francona, who said, “I’m not trying to take anything away from Tripp Cromer, but if you make good pitches, you can keep him in the park.”

Theoretically.

Cromer was actually in a mild slump. He was two for 21 entering the game. And trade rumors were alive, with the names of infielders (Ryne Sandberg, Mike Lansing, John Valentin, Mariano Duncan) in the morning paper.

But batting second in the order, Cromer homered, then singled next time up, in a five-run sixth inning. He also hit one on the nose in the eighth, with runners on second and third. Too bad it went right at Gregg Jefferies in left.

A couple of months ago, who would have guessed that Cromer might be the Dodger second baseman, or that Candiotti and Chan Ho Park would be the dominant Dodger pitchers?

“I don’t know what the plan is,” Cromer says of the Dodgers, with regard to who will be at second base, Wilton Guerrero, a new acquisition or himself. “If I’ll play against lefties and Wilton against righties or whatever. . . .

“I cheer for Wilton and he pulls for me, that’s what matters.”

With four homers in two weeks, it’s a good thing Cromer doesn’t have to pay $50 to get each one back.

He did autograph a cap for that first guy, but can’t really afford to pay top dollar, the way Tom and Donna Candiotti can.

Cromer says, “The most I’d go is $5.”