Beltre a Child, Not a Culprit

Scott Boras should have been here.

His prize client skipped into the Dodgertown clubhouse Wednesday, smiling wide, a couple of light-brown whiskers above his upper lip.

Big, bad Adrian Beltre apparently is trying to grow a mustache, but can’t.

“Not yet, not yet,” he said with a laugh.

Scott Boras should have seen this.

His prize client took the field for the Dodgers’ first full-squad workout, and promptly began kicking around a tiny beanbag with grinning teammates.

He ran to third base and joyfully pounced on grounders.

He stepped to the plate and giggled while hitting line drives past annoyed pitchers.

After the workout ended four hours later, he was the last player to leave the field, the only player who stayed until he signed every autograph.

When fans dropped their pens, he picked them up. When a little boy leaned over a fence with a disposable camera, he stopped and posed.

“Those are my fans, I cannot turn down my fans,” he said.

Scott Boras should remember this.

The agent who dragged the Dodger third baseman into the middle of a scandal this winter should not forget whose hand he was holding.

Thankfully, wistfully, Adrian Beltre has reminded us.

It is the hand of a child.

He was 21, he is now 20, but still just a child.

He is not some villain who masterminded an extortion scheme. He is not a money-grubbing modern athlete looking to sell out the team that nurtured him.

He is a child, caught in the middle of a very adult battle of ego and greed.

It is hoped at the home opener April 14, Dodger fans remember this.

“If he does get booed, I know it won’t last very long,” Dodger Manager Davey Johnson said. “He’s got too much talent. He plays too good. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like to see that.”

Beltre said Wednesday he hopes he doesn’t get booed at all. He spoke softly, as if trying to rid his mind of monsters under the bed.

“I just want to go there and have things be normal,” he said. “I want everybody to still like me. I want things to be the way they used to be.”

But for now, those monsters are real.

Boras’ attempt to wrest a new contract out of the Dodgers by playing the underage-signing card this winter has not earned Beltre more money, only more grief.

“We sign Shawn Green and everything seemed to be changing . . . then the Beltre thing happened,” Gary Sheffield said. “Everybody starts thinking we have the same old problems again.”

Some are furious at the Dodgers, albeit a past regime, for signing a player when he was 15, then doctoring his birth certificate so it appeared it was 16.

Others are even madder at Boras for raising the issue five years later, coincidentally after Beltre’s first full major league season.

“And there’s Beltre, caught in the middle of it all,” Sheffield said. “He’s just a kid. He does what people tell him. He’s making around minimum, then his agent tells him he can suddenly make millions, so what would you expect him to do?”

While the Dodgers were allowed to keep Beltre after the commissioner’s office decided to punish their Dominican operation instead, Boras filed a grievance that should be heard during spring training.

Boras is in negotiations with the Dodgers over a long-term contract for Beltre that would make that grievance go away.

If the two parties are smart, they would cut that deal quicker than one of those ground balls that Beltre loves to smother.

Beltre’s Wednesday was filled not with delights, but distractions. It was the first day of many.

With opposing pitchers a year wiser, Beltre already faces the stiff challenge of improving last year’s .275 average, 15 home runs and 67 runs batted in. Now add curious teammates, questioning media, possibly harassing fans and career uncertainty.

“Sure, it’s got to be tough for him,” Sheffield said. “To get stuck in something like this?”

Beltre says he will be fine. His voice says otherwise.

“I just hope nobody thinks I was trying to do something bad,” he said. “Hell, yeah, I want to be with Dodgers. I want to put everything in the past. I want to just play the game.”

At least his body looks ready for it. He appears much bigger and stronger than last year. In his first batting practice, even his bat sounded louder.

“Last year I told him I thought he was going to hit .250, and he said .280,” Johnson said. “This year I told him .270, and he said .300.”

Behind the closed door of his office, Johnson told Beltre something else.

“I told him we wanted him, we needed him,” he said. “I told him we were not going to let him get out of here.”

The only way that would happen is if an arbitrator overrules baseball and grants Beltre his free agency before the end of spring training.

Boras would act as if that were a victory. He would be wrong. To move Beltre to another team right now would be like moving a kid before his senior year of high school.

The arbitrator also could rule that the commissioner acted justly, and Beltre would remain just another young Dodger with a one-year contract.

Some Dodgers might act as if that were a victory. They would also be wrong. There is a sense that if Beltre remained here under a series of one-year contracts, any resentment would grow with him.

The only answer here is a compromise, quick and fair, making amends to Beltre without badly punishing a front office that had little to do with the crime.

On Wednesday it became clear this problem began with a child.

Just as clearly, it must now be ended by people acting like adults.

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

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SETTLEMENT?

What’s best for the Dodgers and Beltre might not make other teams happy. Page 8

GOODBYE, MR. CHIP

October surgery on Percival’s shoulder explained a lot about his pain last season. Page 8