It’s the Sport That Fills Time Between NBA, NFL

The Angels and Dodgers will begin a three-game series Friday at Edison Field, the second between our local teams in a week.

This might be a news bulletin to all you folks, from Oxnard to San Clemente, who have Laker flags waving from the windows of your cars.

Baseball has disappeared, for the second year in a row, from our minds. Since April 22, when the NBA playoffs started, we have cared more about how many technical fouls Rasheed Wallace was going to get than how many home runs Troy Glaus was going to hit (17 so far).

We’ve been more worried about who was going to defend Chris Webber than whether the Dodgers were in any hurry to replace Kevin Malone as general manager (not).

The unseemly capitulation of David Robinson and Tim Duncan has been of much greater importance to the general Southern California populace than the confounding capitulation of Tim Salmon to most American League pitchers (.208 batting average).

It is not only Southern California where baseball has been made invisible by the NBA playoffs.

Philadelphia, which has been a wonderfully involved baseball town, desperately and sometimes angrily waiting for the first winning team since the Phillies made an improbable run into the World Series eight years ago, has left Veterans Stadium deserted.

Not only are the first-place Phillies playing to an empty stadium, no one even mentions their name on WIP, the caricature of a sports-talk radio station built on the idea of ripping everybody every day. It’s kind of sad to see Larry Bowa’s feisty young team totally ignored.

At least we aren’t ignoring first-place teams. Most of the time, anyway. The Dodgers were in first place in the National League West until May 15, when they lost, 2-0, to Montreal.

With Seattle hardly ever losing, the Angels can only dream about first place. Or dream about being disbanded.

Bet that rumor, the one that has Disney so eager to abandon baseball that it would just put the Angels in mothballs, kind of like that electric parade went right by you Angel fans. Except the electric parade is being brought back this summer. Imagine that, in the summer of no electricity, no less.

And who has time to worry about your team disappearing when there’s so much talk of flopping by 7-footers.

Which is different from the flopping the other teams in the AL West will be doing because the Mariners won’t lose.

So much has happened to our local baseball teams since the Lakers started their joyous romp through the NBA playoffs, that we thought we’d provide a public service and advise you distracted baseball fans of what’s been happening.

The Angels:

* Released Glenallen Hill on June 1. The designated hitter, whose batting average was .136, was signed when the team gave up on Jose Canseco in spring training. Now somebody named Jeff DaVanon is the DH. You’ll hardly notice the difference. DaVanon is batting .111.

* Scott Schoeneweis, who’s been pretty darn steady, had the worst pitching outing in team history May 23 when he gave up 11 runs and 12 hits in four-plus innings against Baltimore.

* In the space of three days, two catchers were put on the disabled list--the starter, Bengie Molina, then his replacement, Jorge Fabregas.

* On June 5, the Angels reached .500 for the first time since they were 6-6. But they’ll start this series two games under .500. It doesn’t matter. Seattle’s still winning.

While the 76ers have won the hearts of many sports fans by playing hurt, the Dodgers have had:

* Mark Grudzielanek, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Eric Karros and Adrian Beltre on the disabled list. Grudzielanek and Brown are still on the DL. Plus, pitcher Andy Ashby has been lost for the season.

* The Dodgers also lost Malone, who resigned after a contretemps with a San Diego Padre fan. Without even wondering how hard it must be to engage a Padre fan in anything, at least Malone’s leave-taking got nearly as much attention as the Lakers.

* But you probably missed the Dodgers losing to the Cubs, 20-1, on May 5. Poor young pitcher Jose Nunez was left in long enough to give up nine runs and six hits in 1 2/3 innings. Three days later, in appreciation, Nunez was sent down and 33-year-old Giovanni Carrara was called up.

* If you’re into omens, the Dodgers completed a sweep of the Phillies on April 28.

And these are just some of the highlights.

Thank goodness for the Lakers, right? For the loyal local baseball fans who quickly flipped over to watch the Dodgers against Texas or the Angels against San Francisco Wednesday night as soon as the Lakers had finished off the 76ers, neither had scored in a combined 12 innings.

And Friday night, at Edison Field, how many people will come with miniature TVs, or will have radios plugged into their ears, listening to the Lakers? If the Lakers win the championship in the seventh inning, the cheers will be the loudest either team has heard this season.

These NBA playoffs have been a blessing for the Disney-owned Angels. Basketball has made it possible to ignore Salmon’s slump, Darin Erstad’s May malaise, the otherworldly play of Seattle. We’ve missed the continuing development of Anaheim’s young pitching staff too, but there will be plenty of time for that the rest of the summer.

The playoffs have hurt the Dodgers, though. Considering the uproar about Malone and all the injuries, the Dodgers have performed well and are in a lively battle in the NL West.

In a town where the front page is the only page, where billing is everything, baseball has been second page, second string. It’s too late for the Angels to change their place. Not for the Dodgers. Yet.

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.