No Doubts About It: Karros Has a New Fan

DENVER — I wasn’t there when Kirk Gibson hit his magical home run and have regretted it ever since. So you can understand why I hopped an airplane Tuesday and rushed to Coors Field to see Eric Karros in uniform batting .302 before another game was played and I missed yet another memorable moment in Dodger history.

“Shocking, unbelievable, and in the month of April when you never get a hit,” I said when I got to him before the game, and he said, “Is there a question there?”

I thought of something Al Michaels had once said at a hockey game to capture the general reaction to Karros’ .302 batting average, but the way the first baseman is swinging the bat these days I didn’t think he’d miss if he took exception.

So I toned it down, and said something like, “How do you account for the ball hitting your bat so often, you lucky stiff? Didn’t some people have you written off?”

Karros grinned. “I owe it all to you,” he said, and I must say I’ve been doing my best to motivate him. “Six or seven years ago I would have been really upset with some of the things written, and would have come looking for you.”

I nodded, telling him as slow as he is today, maybe six years ago with a running start he might’ve caught me, but it’s out of the question now.

“You can’t get to me,” Karros said, and I told him about Michael Olowokandi saying the same thing a couple months ago after averaging 19.6 points on a Clipper trip, and then scoring two points in the two games after our little chat.

I congratulated him on vaulting to the fifth spot in the batting order, and he grabbed his jersey from his locker, and said, “I had no idea I was batting fifth, and of all the people to be the messenger--it’s you.”

As he finished buttoning his jersey, he realized he had put on his game-time uniform when he was supposed to be pulling on his batting practice top. “Give me credit for noticing it before you did,” he said, and he was laughing. “You just got me so excited to play the game,” that well, I got to him.

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A YEAR ago Karros batted .239 during April. He has a career batting average of .259 in the first month of the season. He’s a lot worse in August--.207 last year and .248 for his career, and I’ll be sure to start reminding him of that early in June. But here we are on April 16 with Karros not only batting above .300, but topping all the Dodger regulars.

“And you’ve only hit into one double play this season,” I said.

“You can’t blame me for the runner being thrown out at second [after he struck out],” Karros said, and now he was the one doing the teasing.

I told him I’d be in the press box Tuesday night to mark the occasion if this was going to be the only time all year he hit above .300, or grounded into his first double play of the season, and he said, “You can’t get to me.”

In the second inning, Karros led off with a fly ball to right, putting him at .295. Thank heavens my plane wasn’t late.

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PEOPLE TOLD me Karros is a good guy--political, smart and savvy, but still a good guy. I wasn’t sure, however, he could handle the high hard ones from certain members of the media. My mistake. Tuesday he took the test, and didn’t blink. “If I’m healthy,” he said, “no matter what you say, I’ll just prove you wrong.”

I suggested in my own way maybe he was too old to play effectively anymore, not fast enough to beat an aging sportswriter in a race and maybe he should consider changing his name legally to “6-4-3.”

He reacted like I was just joking. “I know there are a lot of doubters, but I never doubted myself,” he said, and I told him I didn’t buy that, and he said, “I take that back. At the end of last season I had my doubts.”

He had back problems last year--and while it certainly wasn’t from carrying the team, he used the Lakers’ therapist to get healthy again, and voila, now we’ve got Joe DiMaggio. I wonder if the therapist has time to see Shawn Green. Soon.

“Whatever it took to get better,” Karros said. “If I had to climb a mountain and stand on one leg, I’d have done it.”

Speaking of climbing a mountain, I wondered if that’s what it feels like when he’s running to first base. “I’m second on the team right now in stolen bases,” he said.

Only 104 more and he’ll break Maury Wills’ Dodger mark, which will be followed by a federal probe into record fixing.

“I’m older and wiser now [and you can’t get to me],” Karros said, and in the fourth inning he singled, boosting his average to .311.

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APPARENTLY IT’S the magic potion when someone tells Karros he can’t do something. He said people have doubted him since he was in the minor leagues, and “I think things have gone pretty well,” he said, and hitting more home runs than any other Dodger in their L.A. years is pretty good for a guy fighting to just make it.

The secret, it seems, is to constantly tell Karros he can’t do the job, and if it will help, I’ll do it for the team. In fact, I don’t think there’s any way he can keep this up. After all, August is coming.

“You can’t get to me,” Karros said, then singling in the sixth, and again in the eighth to raise his average to .340. And I can say I was there to see it, and now I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks me to join him at the ballpark more often.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Rachel:

“Tell me you’re not going to the Kings’ playoff game; it’s not fair.”

I don’t plan on missing a single pitch.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com