It’s Too Late for Scioscia in L.A. : His departure is no footnote to direction of the Dodgers, even if it is treated that way.

I heard about it the same way many others did, while on the freeway late Monday night, as Ross Porter was closing the regular portion of the Dodger broadcast.

“Before we go, I have a couple of organizational notes here . . . “ Porter said.

The first note was about pitcher Jeff Kubenka.

The second was about somebody named Mike Scioscia.

A postscript, as if somebody was hoping folks would be too distracted to notice or too tired to care.

An afterthought, tossed out there with all the importance of a minor league score.

As quickly and suddenly as a certain home run had left Shea Stadium on a wonderful New York night in 1988, it was announced that Mike Scioscia had left the Dodgers.

An organizational note.

Just as, last year, the death of Al Campanis was a “peripheral event.”

I think not.

Scioscia was more than just a triple-A manager at Albuquerque, just another instructor, just another former player who has left to pursue opportunities with other teams.

Questions about him Tuesday were eventually directed to the minor league department, but he was about as minor league as a Dodger Dog.

Mike Scioscia was a messenger.

The Dodger greatness has been based on messengers, players who carried the lessons from one championship era to the next.

Long after “The Boys of Summer” had turned old and gray, Roy Campanella could be found behind a Dodger backstop.

For years after Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale had led the Dodgers to glory, their reliever, Ron Perranoski, was teaching the next generation of pitchers.

From the legendary infield of the 1970s emerged Bill Russell, who helped guide the team to its last championship taste in 1988.

From then until now?

That guy was Scioscia.

“I think this is a good time to explore other opportunities in the game,” he said Tuesday. “It was my choice, and I’m excited about it. The Dodgers are set right now in the direction the organization is going, so it’s a good time for me to see what else is out there.”

Despite whispers from here to New Mexico, that is as juicy as it got.

Scioscia was not going to rip the Dodgers, not after spending most of the last 23 years as the organization’s model for dignity and class.

Others felt no such mandate.

“Mike is such a consummate pro, these new people just didn’t appeal to him,” one source said. But not Scioscia.

“The Dodgers weren’t listening to him anymore,” said another. But not Scioscia.

Kevin Malone, the Dodger general manager who counseled Scioscia on his decision with farm boss Bill Geivett, explained it as a matter of opportunity.

“We respect what Mike Scioscia has done for the organization, but he wanted the opportunity to see what else is out there, and those opportunities are limited here,” Malone said.

Which prompts the question, how can opportunities be “limited” for a guy who spent most of the last two decades devoting himself to the Dodgers in an unlimited fashion?

After all those years spent blocking the plate for them, it doesn’t make sense that the Dodgers are now doing exactly that to Scioscia.

Scioscia said he wants to become a big league manager, a position about which other teams have contacted him in the past.

He knows that is impossible for him here right now.

He said he is willing to keep working and learning.

He wasn’t asking the Dodgers for the moon, just a chance.

He apparently felt he wasn’t going to get one.

“If I have to go take another triple-A managing job somewhere else, that would be fine, as long as I knew I fit in with the direction of that organization,” he said.

Because, although he won’t say it, apparently he doesn’t think he fits in here anymore.

Which, like many other things that have happened around Chavez Ravine in the last 18 months, is too bad.

A Dodger catcher for 13 years, Scioscia had spent the last six years as a Dodger teacher.

He had been the organization’s catching coordinator. He had served as bench coach. This year, he somehow kept one of baseball’s most wretched triple-A rosters out of last place at Albuquerque.

There are other players from that 1988 team who are still around--John Shelby, Rick Dempsey, Mickey Hatcher--but none who had been around the organization long enough to understand it as Scioscia does.

He was the one who could teach the Dodger kids the quiet resolve of Orel Hershiser, the serious work ethic of Kirk Gibson, the enthusiasm of Steve Sax and Alfredo Griffin.

He was the one who could teach them what it is like to stare down Dwight Gooden in New York in the ninth inning of a playoff game with your team trailing by two runs and on the brink of falling behind, three games to one.

Scioscia had only three home runs during the regular season in 1988. But some believe that his two-run, game-tying homer off Gooden that night was the biggest hit of the season.

Without it, there probably is no World Series. And without a World Series, there is no limping jog by Gibson. Without Scioscia for all those years, the Dodger pitchers would not have been as solid, their defense not as good, their belief not as strong.

“I was just happy to be part of such a unique group,” Scioscia said. “We were unselfish, we had one goal in mind. We didn’t care about anything but wins and losses. Lots of guys on that team didn’t even know their batting averages.”

Important lessons that now will be passed on to the youngsters on some other team, in some other city, where Mike Scioscia cannot possibly be more valuable than he would have been here.

“Hey, things change,” Scioscia said. “True Dodger fans should see the club through these rough times. A new tradition will begin.”

Nice words. Dodger words. Lost amid the growl of the bulldozer and thud of the wrecking ball.

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