What Else but a LaLa Rivalry?

There was a bench-clearing chat between the Angels and Dodgers. No punches were thrown. No jerseys were grabbed, not really, not in anger. Only for show.

There was some shouting, and Angel Manager Mike Scioscia somehow managed to get thrown out.

“I guess [the umpires] were tired of hearing my voice,” Scioscia said.

So you couldn’t call this a brawl.

And you can’t call what the Dodgers and Angels have a rivalry.

Not if you listen to the participants.

It’s not like the Dodgers and Giants, says Dodger Manager Jim Tracy. With that matchup, there’s the history; there’s playing in the same division; there are imagined slights, insults, devastating losses and hatred simmering over generations.

It’s not like the Yankees and Mets, interleague neighbors, same as the Dodgers and Angels--except that the New York teams have met in a World Series and all the games between the teams happen in New York so they are, of course, the most important games ever.

Could there have been more made out of nothing than the whole “should he or shouldn’t he” thing between Shawn Estes and Roger Clemens? And then Estes doesn’t hit Clemens, he hits Clemens, with a home run instead of a beanball.

Dennis Cook, Angel relief pitcher, actually hit Shawn Green, suddenly the Dodgers’ hottest batter, smack in the middle of the back with a baseball. In this three-game weekend series between the Interstate-5 non-rivals, Green hit four home runs and a couple of doubles.

So when Green came to bat in the bottom of the seventh Sunday, having already hit two doubles, Cook was just taking the mound, having replaced Al Levine, who had given up what turned out to be a game-winning, run-scoring single to Mark Grudzielanek in the Dodgers’ come-from-behind 5-4 victory.

And Cook’s one and only pitch hit Green in the back. As Green jogged to first base, he turned to Cook and yelled “Why?”

And Cook walked toward Green. Only to tell him, Cook said, that he didn’t mean to hit Green. But this is baseball, and baseball is all about “unwritten rules,” which dictate that if the pitcher walks off the mound, he is making a threat.

So Green started walking toward Cook. And everyone wearing a baseball uniform started running onto the field. From the dugouts and bullpens, blue and red, all meeting in the middle to ... stand around.

Each of these teams is a game out of first place in its division. The Dodgers trail the defending World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks. The Angels are behind the Seattle Mariners, a team that won 116 games last season.

“What good is throwing a punch and sitting in the clubhouse watching a game on TV,” Tracy said.

“I’m glad nobody on either team was dumb enough to throw a punch.”

The Yankees and Mets, they would have thrown punches. That’s what East Coast rivals do. Dumb or not.

West Coast rivals simply sputter some bad words under their breaths, then shuffle off the field. Some players on each team were actually giggling as they walked back to their dugouts.

Green said that he really didn’t think Cook meant to throw at him. “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t on purpose,” Green said.

Added Cook, the father of triplets who seems too nice a man to be aiming at batters on Father’s Day: “I didn’t mean to hit him, and that’s all I’ll say.”

The Dodgers won two of three in the first part of the six-game Freeway Series. There were 52,183 at Dodger Stadium Sunday and 156,070 for the series, the most the Dodgers have drawn for a three-game home series since April 2000, for the first three home games of the year. But this is no rivalry, right?

“It’s a rivalry of sorts,” Tracy said. “The teams are so close to one another, and the fans get involved.”

Twice in the last three years, benches have been cleared during the game. But it’s no rivalry.

“In the obvious geographic sense, it’s a rivalry,” Scioscia said. “But real rivalries are built on tradition. Angels-Dodgers will never be in the same league as Dodgers-Giants.”

Real rivalries are also built on closeness, on the sounds of one team’s fans ragging on the other teams’ fans, on two neighboring teams playing each other when the games really matter.

These games over the weekend really mattered. The next three, at Edison Field June 28-30, also will matter a lot. Both the Dodgers and Angels seem unwilling to back away from chasing division titles. Both have unbendable wills; steady, sturdy, talented managers; overpowering closers (Eric Gagne, Troy Percival); unassuming stars (Green, Eric Karros, Paul Lo Duca, Darin Erstad, Garret Anderson, Troy Glaus); some power deficits and a little weakness in middle relief. Both are chasing powerhouse teams.

Rivals, then? Yes?

Maybe not.

Green grew up in Orange County but never wanted to play for the Angels. He wanted to play for the Dodgers. He points out that it is probably necessary to despise a real rival.

“Like the Giants or even Arizona,” Green said. “At the end of the year, I’ll be pulling for both teams, Dodgers and Angels, to make the playoffs. So I think this is always going to be a rivalry only by proximity.”

But over the last nine games--six last year, three so far this year--five have been decided by one run, one by two. They have been, Tracy said, “well-played, hard-fought, just what baseball fans want between their rivals.”

Aha! Caught ya, Jim.

Rivals. Really.

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