Dodgers Bleed Blue, but They See Red

Troy Glaus can strike out a dozen times and he won’t be the biggest loser.

Robb Nen can blow three saves and he won’t be the biggest loser.

The San Francisco Giants can be caught watering down the infield, and the Angels can bring back cheerleaders, and Michael Eisner can be asked the name of his starting first baseman with no lifelines, and none of them will be the biggest losers.

Everyone gathering in Anaheim this weekend can rest easy, the pressure is off, this World Series already has a biggest loser.

That would be the Dodgers.

Remember them?

Nice little family, quaint old house, used to host the best October parties.

Back before your teenager was born.

This week, the Dodgers peer out of their creaky front door to discover the old neighborhood has suddenly, drastically changed.

They hear music from one window. It is their hated neighbors to the north. Those stupid Giants have slapped on some paint, fixed up the yard, set up a bandstand.

They hear laughter from another window. It is their ignored neighbors to the south. Those stupid Angels have remodeled the garage, added a porch, fired up the grill.

After 14 years, a bona fide October party has returned to the block.

But much to the Dodgers’ horror, that party is now raging on either side of them.

Baseball fans who used to fill their home now trample back and forth across their front yard, occasionally pausing to peer through their annual autumn cobwebs and wonder.

Who lives there?

Oh, yeah.

Whatever happened to them?

For the record, the Dodgers won 92 games, their best record in a decade. They finished 3 1/2 games behind the Giants for a wild-card spot. They drew 3 million fans again, thanks to a renewed commitment to the beloved Dodger brand of baseball.

None of that compares to the nightmare of the next two weeks.

Asking the Dodgers whether they are rooting for the Giants or the Angels is like asking a condemned man whether he wants the gas or the chair.

Asking them about lost sons Mike Scioscia and Dusty Baker is like forcing their fingernails down a chalkboard.

Asking them about Tom Goodwin is like poking them in the eye with the chalk.

And, to think, the Dodgers actually smiled earlier this postseason when Gary Sheffield dissolved for the losing Atlanta Braves.

Just before the World Series kicked them in the teeth.

Publicly, as always, Chairman Bob Daly is very classy.

“Any team that has tried for 42 years and finally makes the playoffs, how can you not root for them?” Daly said of the Angels. “Gene Autry was a wonderful owner. The people there now have graciously given him credit. How can you root against something like that?”

Publicly, when it comes to the Giants, Daly is also appropriately feisty.

“This is a team that I spent my life not liking, not rooting for, a team which even recently has tried to rub it in our noses,” Daly said. “So would I root for them? Let me ask you this. Would they root for us?”

Privately, none of it is so simple.

Privately, the Dodgers realize this is not about a game, but a culture, their culture.

It was lost during the early days of Fox and the dark days of Kevin Malone.

It was carried north and south by disciples ranging from Ron Perranoski to Ron Roenicke.

Under the brightest of lights, in the most important of times, this culture now has the Dodgers impossibly surrounded.

Fans see the hated Giants and their mix of big stars and tough role players and think, why can’t the Dodgers be more like them?

Fans see the Angels and their brand of hustling, thoughtful, Al Campanis baseball, and they are too enraged to think.

Daly has seemed intent on restoring the culture, bringing back such figures as Dave Wallace, Maury Wills and Joey Amalfitano while allowing Dan Evans to build an old-fashioned roster filled with pitching and defense.

But any joy their fans took in this year’s achievements has since turned deep green with jealousy.

“People are upset because they think the Angels are a team that used to be the Dodgers,” said Sam Perlmutter, a local entertainment lawyer and longtime season-ticket holder.

“If you look at the Angels, you see Dodger Red,” said Perlmutter, speaking for many frustrated Dodger fans, and ain’t it the truth.

How about this truth?

On that fateful June night in 1998, when Fred Claire’s firing marked the beginning of the end, check out this partial Dodger roster:

Bench coach: Mike Scioscia.

Double-A manager: Ron Roenicke.

Single-A manager: Mickey Hatcher.

Scouts: Gary Sutherland and John Van Orum.

Today, all five men work for the Angels.

Is it any wonder that when Claire called Hatcher this fall to congratulate him, Hatcher passed around the phone?

“Honestly, my advice to the Dodgers now would be to not be distracted by anything that is now outside of their control,” Claire said. “They have to tip their caps to the Giants and Angels, then go back to work.”

Easier for some than others.

Jim Tracy, despite great strides in the last two seasons, must now contend with comparisons to that beloved Dodger down the road.

Said Perlmutter: “A lot of Dodger fans are probably thinking, the Angels are cheap, can’t the Dodgers just buy Scioscia and all his coaches? Heck, just buy the whole team.”

Responded Daly, who arrived after Scioscia left: “While we certainly respect Scioscia, there’s not a man in baseball we would take right now over Jim Tracy. He’s the right manager for our team.”

Tracy said he’s cheering for good baseball like everyone else.

“You have to put everything aside,” he said. “I have nothing but the greatest of respect for Mike Scioscia and his staff, as well as Dusty and his staff.”

It must also be difficult for Evans, knowing they paid Tom Goodwin $3.5 million to play for the Giants after the Dodgers cut him in spring training.

It was a good cut; Goodwin ignored instruction and was generally a pain. But with $3.5 million, the Dodgers would rather have bought a decent bench player instead of Goodwin’s taunting grief.

In all this, the Dodgers aren’t so worried about losing fans to the Angels. The hourlong drive will weed most of them out.

It’s the damage to perception that worries them. Now that folks feel the Dodger Way has become the Angel Way, can they ever get it back?

To that end, last winter they hired the man who helped build and nurture virtually every player on the Angel roster.

Bill Bavasi now runs the Dodger farm system, and he might have been their best off-season acquisition.

But imagine that.

The Dodgers doing something right by copying the Angels.

Their nightmare indeed.

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