This Is Lasorda’s Week, and Possibly Russell’s Year

This is Tom Lasorda’s week, a time to salute the 20-year Dodger manager as he prepares for his induction Sunday into baseball’s Hall of Fame.

It’s also time to give credit to the Dodgers’ one-year manager, Bill Russell.

A year ago Tuesday, he officially became the manager when Lasorda announced his retirement. Since, the Dodgers have a 93-70 record in regular-season games, a .570 winning percentage that, if they keep it up, will keep Russell employed for 19 more years or so.

When the Dodgers were eight games behind San Francisco a month ago today, some questioned whether Russell would last beyond this one. He didn’t listen.

Neither did he blame his players, as Ray Knight did in Cincinnati, or management, as Bobby Valentine is reported to have done in New York.

Russell did start managing, bringing back the Billyball that was so effective when he took over for Lasorda last season.

Fans wondered where that aggressive, hit-and-run, take-the-extra-base, take-no-prisoners approach went during the first half of this season. The Dodgers were passive, playing station-to-station baseball while waiting for a three-run home run. What they usually got was a double play.

For evidence that the Dodgers have changed, you didn’t have to look beyond the first inning of the 3-1 victory Tuesday over Pittsburgh.

The Dodgers scored their first run on a walk and three infield ground balls. The Pirates helped with an error, but second baseman Tony Womack might not have bobbled the ball hit by Roger Cedeno if Brett Butler hadn’t distracted him by stealing second.

If Butler hadn’t been running, Womack would have had plenty of time to field the ball and start a routine double play.

Billyball doesn’t always succeed. Butler was caught stealing second in the third inning, one pitch before Mike Piazza’s double to the left-field wall.

But it succeeds more often than not. Look at the Dodgers’ 19-7 record in July. Look at the Dodgers in the standings.

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Don’t listen to Bill Bavasi. . . .

Unless the player to be determined is Tim Salmon, the Angels stole right-hander Ken Hill from Texas. . . .

The best endorsement of Hill is that the Cleveland Indians wanted him back. He helped enormously when they acquired him for their stretch drive in 1995. . . .

It’s easy for athletes to come out of the closet in fiction, like former Philadelphia Eagle tight end Roberta Muldoon in “The World According to Garp.” . . .

The latest is Mighty Casey. . . .

A Placentia company, SportCard Greetings, is distributing a card with him on the cover in a dress, reading “. . . there is no joy in Mudville, Mighty Casey has come out.” . . .

Figure skater Rudy Galindo did it for real, revealing in Christine Brennan’s 1996 book, “Inside Edge,” that he’s gay. . . .

Apprehensive about a backlash from judges, he instead won his first national singles championship that year and finished third in the world. . . .

Last week, La Raza, a national Latino organization, honored him with its Roberto Clemente Sportsman of the Year award. . . .

USC’s Mexican-American Alumni Assn. will receive proceeds from the sixth annual Mike Garrett Golf Classic Aug. 22 at Brookside in Pasadena. . . .

UCLA assistant basketball coach Jim Saia is in Mexico City to scout Victor Avila, a power forward for the Mexican junior national team. . . .

A team of New York City preps gave the Southern California All-Stars, composed of Dominguez High players, a reality check in the Slam-N-Jam NIT last week in Long Beach with a 25-point victory. . . .

Speculation is Dominguez’s basketball team next season will be without forward Jason Thomas, who might choose to concentrate solely on football. . . .

The highly recruited quarterback appears headed to USC. . . .

The Trojan track team will have to wait for Pasadena Muir quarter-miler Obea Moore, who didn’t receive the Scholastic Assessment Test score required for USC. . . .

He’s leaning toward enrolling at Pasadena City College in the fall while trying to achieve the test score he needs for a USC scholarship next winter. . . .

Al Franken believes his indoor track and field meet will return Feb. 7 at the Sports Arena. He promoted the meet for 37 consecutive years before missing last winter because he couldn’t find a title sponsor.

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While wondering if the Angels did enough, I was thinking: I still wish they had gone for Mark McGwire, the only good thing about losing Jim Leyritz is that Todd Greene can play more, Fred Claire doesn’t seem overly stressed by the trading deadline.