Sheffield Drops Appeal, and He’s Just Sick About It

Gary Sheffield, ailing from flu anyway, decided this was a perfect opportunity to serve the five-game suspension that has been hanging over him for more than three months.

So the Dodger left fielder, who has already hit 40 home runs to tie the Los Angeles Dodger record, announced through the club Wednesday that he was dropping his appeal of the suspension and would begin serving it immediately with Wednesday’s game.

Because the Dodgers are scheduled to play a doubleheader Friday in Chicago, the result of a rainout earlier this season, the five games will be played over a four-day period.

Sheffield will be eligible to return Sunday.

Figuring that Sheffield, who missed Tuesday’s game, was already out of Wednesday’s as well and probably would not have been fit enough upon his return to play in both games of the doubleheader, the Dodgers are getting off cheaply enough.

Asked how much Sheffield might have been able to play anyway over the four days, General Manager Kevin Malone replied, “I’m not a doctor. I can’t comment on that.”

Sheffield had been suspended for joining his teammates in a confrontation with fans in the stands in Chicago on May 16.

Sheffield, angry that his suspension had not been reduced along with those of several teammates when the commissioner’s office heard a Dodger appeal, had been planning on appealing again Monday in Milwaukee.

It was a risky move. If the Dodgers are to have any hope, slim though it may now appear to be, of getting off the floor and back into the wild-card race in the stretch run in September, they will desperately need Sheffield in the lineup.

“He wants to get this behind him,” Malone said, “and move on with his life.”

Malone stressed that, though Sheffield is accepting the suspension, neither he nor the Dodgers are admitting that it was justified.

“It [the suspension] most definitely should have been reduced or overturned,” Malone said. “It was just a good time to do this, although there is no good time to not have Gary Sheffield in the lineup.”

*

The Dodgers put shortstop Kevin Elster, suffering from a strained left hamstring, on the 15-day disabled list and will have to do the same today with outfielder/infielder F.P. Santangelo.

It was learned late Wednesday that Santangelo, who had hurt his left hand in Tuesday night’s game diving for a ball, has a torn ligament in his thumb.

Santangelo, who will go on the disabled list retroactive to Wednesday, is expected to be out three weeks. He will be in a cast for two weeks and then require another week of rehabilitation.

Right-hander Mike Judd was called up from triple-A Albuquerque to replace Elster. Still to be decided upon is a replacement for Santangelo.

TODAY

DODGERS’

CHAN HO PARK

(12-8, 3.81)

vs.

EXPOS’

JAVIER VAZQUEZ

(8-5, 4.01)

Dodger Stadium, 1 p.m.

TV--Fox Sports Net 2. Radio--KXTA (1150), KWKW (1330)

* Update--Park has given up three or fewer earned runs in 20 of his last 26 starts, including the last eight. Park has struggled against the Expos, going 3-2 with a 4.21 earned-run average in 11 outings. The last time Vazquez started at Dodger Stadium, back on Sept. 14 of last season, he pitched a one-hitter and struck out a career-high 10 in a 3-0 Montreal victory.