Lo and Beholden

After years of numbness, the Dodger clubhouse has been filled by what old-timers remember as feeling.

It flows through back hallways two hours after games, where Marquis Grissom counsels Tom Goodwin.

It runs into the team’s windowless lounge after midnight, where Chad Kreuter holds court.

It carries through the office of steady Manager Jim Tracy and into the dugout of a second-place team that has yet to play a full game with its expected starting lineup.

But it all starts in the dirt.

Behind home plate, or alongside first base, depending on where Paul Lo Duca is playing.

Before every game, Lo Duca toes his cleats through the infield to draw what looks like graffiti, but is actually a gift.

L.L. +

The initials are for his mother, Luci Lo Duca. The cross is for where he believes she went in October 1996, when she died of ovarian cancer, two years before she would have seen him play his first major league game.

“My mother is the one who always told me to believe in myself, no matter what anybody said,” he said. “My mother is the one who, when I was being told I couldn’t do it, basically said, ‘Screw ‘em.’ ”

How proud Luci Lo Duca would have been today, this baseball mom who used to pitch white pinto beans to her son in the frontyard of their Phoenix home so he could learn to hit anything.

Earlier this week, he did hit everything, becoming the first Dodger in 28 years to collect six hits in a game.

How inspired she would have been, this woman who once punched out a college heckler who was riding her son.

“I was walking off the field and this guy is screaming at me and then I hear this, ‘You son of a . . .’ and I turn around to see my mom has popped this guy,” Lo Duca recalled. “He got ready to hit her back and then realized, whoa, this is a woman.”

Today, Lo Duca needs no bodyguards, although the pitchers certainly would volunteer. He has thrown out 46% of potential base-stealers. He has combined with Kreuter to help guide them to a 3.80 earned-run average, second in the National League.

How much enjoyment Luci Lo Duca would receive from watching everything about her son, a squat, short-haired guy of 5 feet 9 who has become one of the magnets around which this Dodger team rotates.

Of course, if you believe Lo Duca, she is watching.

Did you see what happened just before he crossed home plate with the winning run in the Dodgers’ memorable Memorial Day comeback victory over the Colorado Rockies?

Did you see him staring into the sky?

Guess where he was looking.

“I was so exhausted, so drained, I wanted to share it with her,” he said.

Six hits, eleven innings, the winning run, then more interviews in one afternoon than he had given in a lifetime.

The Dodgers’ newest throwback celebrated by driving home, drinking 20 glasses of water, and throwing up.

It’s early yet, and maybe it’s because you are watching the Lakers and think L.A. athletes can do anything, but still . . . maybe this is it.

Maybe this is the bridge.

Maybe Paul Lo Duca--born in Brooklyn and co-owner of The Brooklyn Cafe in Sedona, Ariz.--can be the long-missing link to the good old days.

“You know what he is? He’s a survivor,” Tracy said. “He’s a survivor who constantly craves the opportunity to prove himself.”

It was Tracy who didn’t blink this winter when people in town--OK, me--screamed for the Dodgers to sign Charles Johnson instead of taking a chance on this 28-year-old career Dodger minor leaguer.

“I was on the record as saying, ‘I want to give this guy an opportunity,’ ” Tracy said.

It was Tracy who, impressed with Lo Duca’s swing, then even moved him into the leadoff spot. Um, no, neither Yeager nor Scioscia nor Piazza batted leadoff.

Yet there was Lo Duca on Wednesday night against the Rockies’ Mike Hampton, plopping down a sacrifice bunt that led to their first two runs in a 4-1 victory.

So far, he not only nibbles at stereotypes on the field--they are 6-2 with him batting leadoff--but also in the clubhouse, where a recent early-afternoon interview was filled with more appreciation than attitude.

Hey, this was a guy whose last name has been spelled as one word, LoDuca, by the club’s media relations department and everyone else for his entire eight-year pro career, even in this year’s media guide.

Yet he never said anything until now.

“A lot of people ripped me before I got here and, frankly, they had every right to rip me, because I had never done anything,” Lo Duca said. “Piazza, Todd Hundley, Johnson, I’m never going to fill any of their shoes.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t take anything for granted. I’ll do anything it takes. I want to keep proving people wrong.”

That’s a lot of proving.

Did you know that, while at Arizona State, he was selected as the Sporting News’ national player of the year? Yet he wasn’t drafted by the Dodgers until the 25th round.

Did you know that he batted at least .300 in seven of his eight minor-league seasons? Yet in the minds of Dodger officials, he was always eclipsed--no pun intended--by Angel Pena.

“I’ve always been the smallest, I’ve always been the slowest,” he said. “But my mom always said, ‘You’re a better person than that.’ ”

Shortly before his mom died after a long battle with cancer, she asked Lo Duca to return to his Arizona Fall League team on the day after her funeral.

He refused. She insisted. So he did, catching nine innings and collecting two hits.

When he was struggling last season after being sent back to triple-A Albuquerque, it was again family who guided him through.

His father Paul Sr., brother Anthony and future wife Sonia met him for dinner after a game in which he didn’t hustle.

“We told him, ‘You don’t want to play anymore, come back and work at the restaurant,’ ” Anthony recalled. “We told him if he didn’t want to try, he might as well quit right there.”

He decided he would make one more attempt. The results of that effort can be seen every day in a Dodger team that actually appears to enjoy what its doing.

“I remember for the last couple of years, you would walk into the clubhouse and nobody would even say hi to you,” Lo Duca said. “That’s all changed this year. It’s like everybody wants to be here.”

If only to see what the leadoff-hitting catcher with his mom’s name written on his cleats and batting gloves will do next.

On the day of a recent 7 p.m. game, Lo Duca walked into Dodger Stadium at 1:30.

“I figured, where else do I have to be?” he said, sitting in a clubhouse that feels like a living room, right where he belonged.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

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Leading Man

A look at Lo Duca’s statistics and team rank:

Batting Avg. .382 (1)

On-base percentage .415 (2)

Slugging % .645 (1)

Home runs 5 (t5)

Runs Batted in 17 (5)

Runners thrown out 6 (1)

Runners thrown out % 46.2 (1)