Short Sighted

Allow me to awaken you from that Alex Rodriguez dream with four hard shoves:

Maury Wills. Bill Russell. Alfredo Griffin. Dave Anderson.

Rodriguez is the shortstop some believe can bring another World Series championship to our town.

The four others already have.

Rodriguez purportedly will pound home runs into World Series rings.

The four others combined to average .75 homers in each of the Dodgers’ four title seasons at Dodger Stadium. That’s not 75 homers. That’s three-quarters of a homer.

Rodriguez is supposed to drive in the runs that will transport them to October.

Those guys averaged a combined 34 runs batted in in each of those title years.

Rodriguez is supposed to be an important link to a classic fall.

The four other guys did the same thing with no World Series homers and five RBIs.

Alex Rodriguez may indeed redefine the shortstop position. But even at $200 million, he cannot redefine Dodger Stadium. He cannot refute Dodger history.

He cannot turn the Dodgers into something they are not, nor Dodger Stadium into something it will never be.

Dodger championships--this might come as a surprise to those who have moved here in the last decade or so--have always been thickly encased in pitching and defense.

Even if he does fly like a chartered jet and sparkle like a private suite, Rodriguez can’t do both.

The Dodgers should run from him faster then you can say Mo Vaughn.

The next time agent Scott Boras calls about arguably the most celebrated commodity in free-agent history, they should change the subject to another one of his clients who could serve them far better. A catcher like Charles Johnson. A pitcher like Chan Ho Park.

If Boras keeps insisting, they should tell him he can no longer park in their “Employee of the Month” space.

Just kidding. The agent who represents seven Dodgers doesn’t really make club policy during nightly box-seat meetings with Bob Daly and Kevin Malone. Does he?

We’ll find out.

It’s going to be difficult for the Dodgers to walk away from what is perceived as a miracle cure for the mistrust and mistakes that ail them.

Other writers are pushing Rodriguez. Fans are pushing him. Now that he is apparently not going to play for their favorite New York teams, Fox executives are probably pushing him.

The Dodgers must make like Kevin Brown and blow everybody off.

Just a thought, but why don’t they take that $20-million annual salary that Rodriguez is demanding and put it toward becoming the Dodgers again?

Spend one chunk on two starting pitchers to go with Brown and Park. They don’t need aces, they need foot soldiers, the Burt Hooton and Tim Leary of today’s world.

Rick Reed of the New York Mets could be one. Kevin Appier of the Oakland Athletics could be another. Andy Ashby won 17 games while working behind Brown in San Diego in 1998. Why not try that combination again?

Rodriguez alone cannot win tough games on thick July Sunday afternoons or cool September nights at Chavez Ravine. A veteran pitcher has, and will again.

That is why they also need to sign Chan Ho Park before he becomes a free agent next year. Believe it or not, he has become that veteran.

You’ll notice Darren Dreifort is not on this list. The thinking here is, the Dodgers can find a 39-45 pitcher who has yet to pitch 200 innings in a season a whole lot cheaper than his reported $55-million asking price.

The Dodgers may sign him anyway, if only out of the silly fear that he will go somewhere else and embarrass them. If they do, that adds even greater urgency to what should be their next acquisition.

That would be, a pitching coach. They need someone to work with a staff that has lost all direction since the firing of Charlie Hough in May 1999.

Dave Wallace, former pitching guru here, could return from the Mets, but only in an executive capacity. Maybe pay him the money and let him make the hire. Maybe bring in Orel Hershiser in a move that could be as rewarding as it is risky. Or maybe find some minor league pitching coordinator who most resembles the Atlanta Braves’ Leo Mazzone.

Anybody who can make Eric Gagne concentrate, and Antonio Osuna settle down, and Luke Prokopec grow up quick.

The Dodgers can then at least ask about catcher Charles Johnson. He wasn’t happy here during his previous stay, but he had just been traded and his wife remained in Florida and their first child was on the way and the timing was awful.

Maybe after buying some pitching, they couldn’t afford the catching. But they should at least try.

They can then use any leftovers for their bench, the funding for which would evaporate if they paid $20 million to one player.

Not that the bench is important or anything, but the New York Yankees acquired five bench players after midseason this season, and two of them--Jose Vizcaino and Luis Sojo--had game-winning World Series hits.

As for shortstop? The Dodgers already have a shortstop named Alex. His last name is Cora, he makes the routine plays, and in this lineup, that should be enough.

Folks argue that the Dodgers need Alex Rodriguez for extra pop. But isn’t that what they got Shawn Green for?

People say that Rodriguez will give this club an improved community presence. Again, isn’t that what they said about Green?

Some argue that the move is needed for credibility during what is perhaps the Dodgers’ most embarrassing period since coming to Los Angeles.

But credibility is earned the same way it was earned when the team arrived in 1958. It is earned with winning. And winning is earned with pitching and defense.

The last two winters, two of baseball’s top young players were both essentially for sale. Both were touted as franchise-changing jewels. Teams were lauded for pursuing them, or scolded for not.

Their names were Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, which is kind of funny, considering they had played together for four years on the same pitching-poor Seattle Mariner team, combining for a total of one playoff win.

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