Brown Learns Joy of Winning Ugly

Cruised down I-.500 to the first game of the SigAlert Series Friday.

Arrived just in time to meet Chance Sanford.

The Dodger leadoff hitter.

That Chance Sanford.

“When I walked into this big stadium today, I felt a little queasy,” said the career minor leaguer.

Him too?

Watching the Dodgers and Angels take the Dodger Stadium field in the first of their six interleague games--won, 5-4, by the Dodgers--was like watching two buddies square off in a parking lot after last call.

One staggers up with his shirt half unbuttoned, the other stumbles in with his tie around his head.

Am not, shouts one.

Am too, shouts the other.

You knew that soon, both would be composed and contrite and you would all share a good laugh.

But for now, you just wanted it to be over.

The Angels lunged first with a last-place team that thinks all this talk about a revolt against Manager Terry Collins is nonsense.

“I’m not going to get into the mudslinging because there is no mud,” Chuck Finley said.

No, just plenty of smoke. When the important player on the team was asked before the game if he would endorse Collins, Mo Vaughn pointedly would not.

“As long as we win, who cares?” Vaughn said.

The Dodgers flailed back with a lineup that included a $105-million pitcher surrounded by, among others, two players with fewer RBIs than him.

(Incidentally, we have just set a new record by lasting 16 paragraphs in a story featuring Kevin Brown before mentioning that number $105 million. So there.)

“We are learning first-hand what happens when you don’t have insurance for your personnel,” said Manager Davey Johnson of a roster that is getting thinner than his patience.

The leadoff batter Sanford had been sitting in Albuquerque Thursday night with 14 big-league games in eight pro seasons when he was summoned into Manager Mike Scioscia’s office.

No average call-up, this.

“I thought I was getting sent down,” he said.

No, son, these are the new Dodgers, where every warm body gets immediately sent to the Big Queasy.

Sanford was taking the roster spot of sore-ribbed Todd Hollandsworth, and the lineup spot of sore-ankled Eric Young.

Jose Vizcaino started opposite him at shortstop, taking the roster spot of sore-knuckled Mark Grudzielanek.

Ribs and ankle, you understand. Knuckles, well, you must first understand these Dodgers.

It seems that about the only thing they have been hitting with men on base is walls. Grudzielanek punched one in Pittsburgh this week after hitting into a double play, broke his hand, and could miss a month.

“I truly did mess up, and nobody feels worse about it than me,” Grudzielanek said. “I went overboard, and it was uncalled for.”

But you have to love that spirit.

“I think a lot of us would like to see more of that,” he acknowledged.

This series could use more of that, seeing as this couldn’t even sell the joint out, with “only” 49,213 fans wandering in and out of Dodger Stadium.

“I don’t really sense the kind of intensity as with the Mets and Yankees,” Johnson said. “In New York, it’s like a feeding frenzy. Here, it’s more like leisurely grazing.”

The game began at 7:11, and immediately began sputtering out like a malfunctioning Slurpee.

Brown gave up three hits and one run to the first five batters, and was booed.

The Angels took the field for the bottom of the first, and were booed.

The Dodgers wore these silly gray bills on their caps for the first time, and those should have been booed, if everyone wasn’t busy scouring the souvenir stands in hopes of buying them.

The Angels took a 3-0 lead against Brown in the fourth when Troy Glaus hit a 1-2 pitch into the left-field pavilion--how many times do you see a kid beating Brown from behind?--and now everybody was booing everybody.

The Dodgers tried to brighten the place by playing a peppy new hit over the loudspeaker. But few moved. Living La Vida Loca, this was not.

Then it happened. Some Dodgers punched another another wall.

With runners on first and third, Angel Pena--one of the starters with no RBIs--clubbed a single up the middle to score one.

One batter later, with runners on second and third, Chance Sanford blooped a ball into center field to score two more runs with his first two RBIS.

Yep, that Chance Sanford.

The next pitch from Omar Olivares was driven into the right-field seats by Vizcaino for an eye-rubbing home run, completing a trio of firsts.

Then Johnson did what he has done for years.

He pieced his patchwork bullpen together like a splendid jigsaw puzzle, unafraid to replace Brown with lefty Pedro Borbon to face Mo Vaughn, replacing Borbon just in time with Alan Mills, then watching Jeff Shaw survive the ninth.

“If we can just get everybody healthy, get our team together, keep it together, we can do some things,” Johnson said.

The Angels are still not so sure.

Their second-to-last batter, Jeff Huson, struck out on a passed ball but forgot to run to an open first base.

The last batter, Darin Erstad, with the tying run on third, plain struck out.

Darn that Terry Collins.

You can reach Bill Plaschke at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.