A Short Trip From Slug to Slugger Again

The four words swept across the Southland on Thursday afternoon like a summer breeze, a baseball breeze.

So where were you?

I was at Staples Center, at Laker practice, standing in the rear at the Church of Phil, his daily homily about stripe-shirted serpents nearly complete, when my cell phone rang.

“Shawn Green hit four,” said the voice on the other end.

I walked away, sat down, and repeated the words back for confirmation.

Didn’t you? Didn’t everybody?

Shawn Green hit four?

The same Shawn Green who was benched last week because he couldn’t hit squat?

The same Shawn Green who has yet to prove he can hit outside the shadow of Carlos Delgado or Gary Sheffield?

The same Shawn Green who was ripped by my friend one day earlier while we waited to pick up our children from school?

She said she loved watching the Dodgers but could no longer stand watching the underachieving Green.

I’ve heard that before. I’ve heard that everywhere.

I rushed home from Staples Center, and waiting for me was another phone call, from that friend, eating her words.

Anybody call you?

This is what baseball does better than any sport. It sneaks up. It surprises. It can drag you out of a gym during the middle of the NBA playoffs. It can make you phone somebody in the middle of the day.

Just when you are ready to throw your hands up over the thought of a labor strike, at the home of the commissioner who would preside over that strike, the grandest game sucks you in all over again.

Shawn Green’s four home runs, six runs scored, seven RBIs and a record 19 total bases against the Milwaukee Brewers represent the greatest batting performance in the history of baseball.

It’s not one of the greatest, it’s the greatest.

Better than anything dreamed up by Babe Ruth. Better than anything schemed by Ty Cobb. Better than the best of Joltin’ Joe, and Teddy Ballgame, and the Say-Hey Kid, and Hammerin’ Hank and even Mighty Mike Cameron.

In a game that wasn’t even televised in Los Angeles.

On a day when most folks in town are busy paying attention to basketball.

In front of, by the ninth inning, what appeared to be only a couple of thousand fans.

In what other sport can surroundings so common produce something so special?

Ira Green, Shawn’s father and former batting coach, didn’t even know about it until he heard his son giving a postgame interview.

“The game wasn’t on TV, so I played golf,” recalled Ira, who runs an Orange County baseball academy. “We finished about 1:30, turned on the radio driving home, heard Ross Porter mention four home runs, and I thought, what?”

Shortly after he arrived home, the phone rang.

It was his son, in Milwaukee, preparing to board the plane for Arizona.

“How are you doing?” Ira said.

“How do you think I’m doing?” Shawn said.

They spoke for 20 minutes, but said little about Shawn’s records or the Dodgers’ 16-3 victory.

“It was all too surreal,” Ira said. “I just don’t think it had sunk in yet.”

Besides, father and son have talked enough about baseball recently.

“More in the last couple of weeks than we’ve talked in a long time,” Ira said. “Shawn calls me more when he’s struggling. So, lately, he’s called a lot.”

Ira said he no longer gives specific advice. Perhaps this is because his son is getting too much specific advice.

“My son is very receptive, and all these things go into his head,” Ira said.

One of this town’s classiest athletes is actually too nice. Shawn listens to too many people. He tries too hard to please.

Leaders are not made from those so eager to follow.

“Sometimes, when you bottom out, you just have to say, ‘The hell with everybody’ and go do it on your own,” Ira said.

By all indications, Green said that last weekend, in the middle of an 0-for-18 slump, after he was benched for a Saturday game against the Montreal Expos.

He asked to be put back into the lineup Sunday. Manager Jim Tracy relented.

In the ninth inning, hitless again, he came to the plate against former Dodger Matt Herges. They are close friends. Herges was spending the weekend at Green’s house. Their wives were sitting together in the stands.

This was a perfect time for a nice guy to take a powder.

Instead, Green ripped a double.

“That’s where it started,” his father said. “That’s where Shawn started getting his feel back.”

Imagine that. Amid a Laker run of power and athleticism, the town is again mesmerized by feel. Baseball does that.

Of course, some Dodger fans will look at Thursday and scoff. Shawn Green always hits well when the game is decided and nobody is watching and the pitching is horrible, right?

Other Dodger fans will look at Thursday and celebrate. The Dodger pitching staff is only a couple of those big swings away from carrying this team to the playoffs, right?

The thing about baseball is, both opinions are right, and both opinions are wrong, and both are only as good as this weekend’s starting pitching.

It’s wonderful that Shawn Green pulled out of his slump by swatting away the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

It will be better if he can keep it going against the reality of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.

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