They Share a Friendship With No Borders to Cross

With so many baseball uniforms turning into a standard mix of gray and blue it’s getting tougher to tell teams apart.

And when Shawn Green and Carlos Delgado stand next to each other, you could dress one in a hockey sweater and they’d still look like teammates.

There they were, next to the batting cage at Dodger Stadium. The rest of the Dodgers were practicing, all the other Blue Jays were stretching down the first-base line.

One trade, 2,100 miles, an international border and separate leagues haven’t been enough to drive Green and Delgado apart. This week’s interleague games between the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays just happened to bring them together on the same field again.

“When you play on different teams, you still are pulling for your friends,” Green said. “When you play against him--even here--I’m pulling for him to do well. I want to win the games, and that’s it.”

Green is from Tustin, Delgado from the town of Aguadilla in northwest Puerto Rico.

“We’ve got, I wouldn’t say similar backgrounds, but the way we were brought up,” Delgado said. “I come from a good family, he comes from a good family.

“He’s very family-oriented. It’s one of those things that’s hard to explain. We hit it off. Year in and year out you seem to be at the same place at the same time and you get to know each other pretty good.”

Their friendship was forged on the way through the Toronto organization, with stops in Dunedin, Fla., Knoxville, Tenn., and Syracuse, N.Y. It didn’t end when Green was traded to the Dodgers for Raul Mondesi in November 1999.

“They were tight,” Blue Jay catcher Darrin Fletcher said. “They came up together in the minor leagues, they were a big part of the club too. They were kind of our dynamic duo. They did a lot together. They were both single at the time and had plenty of time on their hands to hang out. They’re still close, even today.”

They talk at least once a week. Green is married now; Delgado was in the wedding.

They both played in Class A in 1992. The next year they were in double A, then they moved up to triple A in ’94.

Green hit the majors full-time in 1995, and Delgado came up for good in 1996.

“We were together for eight years,” Green said. “We have, I think, in some ways real similar personalities, in other ways real different. He’s a lot more assertive. I’m kind of a more passive person. I think that kind of mixes well. We always got along. He laughs at my dumb jokes. We have fun.

“For me, he’s always been kind of like a big brother. He’s taught me a lot about hitting and just about handling myself in different situations. That’s the kind of thing that always came real easy for him.”

Analyzing pitchers also came easier for Delgado than Green.

“I have a better memory than him,” Delgado said.

They went over pitchers and their patterns from at-bat to at-bat and game to game.

“The next time I’d see the same guy I’d say, ‘Well, this guy did this last time,’ ” Delgado said. “It got to the point where I had to remember for both of us.

“But he was pretty good. Next thing you know, the more times you face guys, you pick up a few things here and there. It gives you a little bit of an advantage.”

They challenged each other, including a friendly home run competition in batting practice in which the loser bought sushi.

For some time it appeared that Green needed Delgado. As Green said: “He’s helped me build my confidence. He always believed in me and what I can do, and that kind of rubbed off.”

In Green’s first year in Los Angeles he hit a career-low .269 and his power production dropped from 42 home runs and 123 RBIs in 1999 to 24 homers and 99 RBIs.

Maybe it was the adjustment to the National League and the return to Southern California. The Dodgers promoted Green and he was outspoken about his desire to be a role model for the Jewish community. Maybe it was all too much.

“For me, it was tough to learn how to say no to people and how to be assertive,” Green said. “The one difficult thing was learning how to separate being at home and playing at home. Toronto was kind of like my baseball world, where my home is my home, and all of a sudden everything is combined. That was difficult to adjust to. Now I’m used to it.”

If he finally learned how to handle stardom, then he had to come to grips with how to deal with standing alone in the batting order. With Gary Sheffield batting behind him last year, he saw enough good pitches to hit a Dodger-record 49 home runs and drive in 125 runs.

But after Sheffield was traded to Atlanta in the off-season, Green got off to a slow start.

At the end of April, he was hitting .237 with only three home runs and 17 RBIs.

He was sitting on a .230 average and had not homered in a month May 21 when he hit two out against Milwaukee.

His 18 homers since that date (including four in one game on May 23) are the most in the majors.

Clearly, he is fine just by himself now. Can he imagine himself reunited with Delgado?

“The odds are probably slim, but it would be nice to play together again,” Green said. “You never know, though.”

With Eric Karros returning to form and an already bloated payroll, it wouldn’t be easy for the Dodgers to bring Delgado in to play first base.

The Angels, on the other hand, would be a great destination for Delgado and his big, left-handed bat.

Although the Blue Jays are struggling in the American League East, they haven’t started an auction yet.

If they do decide to bail out, with two years and $36 million left on Delgado’s contract, not to mention his trade value, he would be a logical place to start.

Talkative on every other subject, Delgado won’t talk about this topic, including whether or not he would waive his no-trade clause to go to the Angels.

“I’m not here to speculate,” he said.

We’d like to see him play.

He sure could help the Angels, and you’ve got to think that if he and Green were both in Southern California, Green would be better off too.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.