Thigpen Is Pitching for One More Save

The voice filled Wilson Alvarez’s cell phone with the same emotion that has filled Dodger Stadium during countless ninth innings this season.

Only, this person wasn’t cheering Eric Gagne.

This person wasn’t hoping Gagne would break Bobby Thigpen’s single-season save record.

This person wasn’t rooting for game over. This person wanted season over.

“Throw a complete game or lose,” the person said to Alvarez. “Don’t let him break the record.”

Alvarez listened and sighed, the pleas belonging to an old and dear friend.

A guy named Bobby Thigpen.

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How skeletal is the fame that comes with the all-time save record?

The guy who owns it with 57 saves makes no apologies for not wanting Gagne to save three of the Dodgers’ final four games and break it.

It’s the only baseball juice he has left.

“I really wish him the best,” said Thigpen, chuckling about the call from his St. Petersburg, Fla., home Thursday. “But if he gets a couple of more and then stops, that’s just fine with me. I don’t want him to break the record, no.”

Informed of Thigpen’s stance during a break in his pregame routine, Gagne laughed.

“I think it’s funny, I think it’s perfect,” he said. “I would feel the exact same way. I wouldn’t want him to break my record, either.”

As of 9:42 p.m. Thursday, the record pursuit is also all the baseball juice the Dodgers have left, their wild-card chase mercifully ending with a 6-1 loss to the San Diego Padres at Qualcomm Stadium.

Coupled with the Florida Marlins’ victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, the desperate stumbling by the Dodgers is now finished, six losses in 10 critical games, at least six more missed scoring chances in this most recent one.

From here until Sunday, the Dodgers only have to worry about Gagne.

Sort of like, well, Thigpen.

“Yeah, I hear about Gagne whether I want to or not,” he said. “Somebody is always asking me whether I saw what he did. I guess he was saved by that throw home the other night, right?”

Gagne laughed again.

“I totally understand,” he said. “I mean, that record is him.”

When Thigpen set the record for the Chicago White Sox in 1990, he was a 27-year-old right-hander in his fifth major-league season. He was in his prime. The world was his bullpen.

Yet five years later, he was out of baseball.

His record-setting honeymoon lasted less than a month, as he injured his back during a Japanese barnstorming tour that winter and was never the same. His status as baseball’s top closer lasted less than that.

Fifty-seven saves in one season, but only 54 saves after that.

An All-Star selection that one season, but never again.

Famous, then forgotten, like too many other relievers of his kind. Just look at the four relievers who ranked behind Thigpen on the record book before Gagne arrived.

Randy Myers is where exactly? Rod Beck was living in a mobile home in a minor league parking lot before the Padres signed him this year.

The other two relievers in that list, John Smoltz and Trevor Hoffman, are both coming back from arm injuries.

The save statistic is not only the youngest of the current statistics -- it was invented in 1969 -- but also the least enduring.

It wears on the arm. It taxes the mind. There have been consistently great relievers such as Dennis Eckersley and Lee Smith and Hoffman, but none of them has been able to maintain nutty numbers for long.

Only twice in history has a pitcher led the league with 40-plus saves for consecutive seasons -- Smith and Dan Quisenberry -- and Thigpen is one example why.

“Gagne doesn’t look tired, but I remember being really fatigued, worn out,” said Thigpen, noting he lost 20 pounds during the process. “I remember being ready for a winter off.”

However, he agreed to tour Japan with an All-Star team, a decision that he says cost him his career when he fell off a mound.

“I wrenched my back, but didn’t think anything of it,” he said. “Turns out, that’s what started me on my downward spiral.”

The Dodgers don’t have to worry about that happening to Gagne. He toured Japan last season, but the barnstorming group only travels there every other year.

According to Alvarez, the Dodgers also don’t have to worry about Gagne suddenly losing his touch on the mound, which is how it seemed with Thigpen, now an assistant high school baseball coach and recreational softball player.

“Bobby was great, but he was a different kind of pitcher,” said Alvarez, who was his teammate in 1990. “Bobby would move the ball around, but Gagne is just nasty. When he doesn’t strike somebody out, you wonder, what’s wrong?”

So far, the statistics indicate Gagne’s dominance over Thigpen in every category but saves.

In 7 1/3 fewer innings, he has allowed 23 fewer hits with 66 more strikeouts with an earned-run average that is 61 points lower (1.22 to 1.83).

Not that there wouldn’t be room for both men atop the leaderboard, which was Alvarez’s idea when he returned Thigpen’s call with an invitation.

“I asked him to come out to San Francisco for the weekend, be there in case it happens,” said Alvarez. “I was going to pay.”

Thigpen declined, saying he was busy. But he will be watching, particularly if Gagne ties the record going into Sunday, when the scheduled starting pitcher is, you guessed it, Wilson Alvarez.

“This could be history,” said Alvarez.

“I guess so,” said Thigpen.

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

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(Begin Text of Infobox)

On a Save String

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Relievers who have saved 50 games or more in a season and their save total the next season:

*--* Player Team High (Year) Next Bobby Thigpen White Sox 57 (1990) 30 Eric Gagne Dodgers 55 (2003) -- John Smoltz Braves 55 (2002) 45* Randy Myers Cubs 53 (1993) 21 Trevor Hoffman Padres 53 (1998) 40 Eric Gagne Dodgers 52 (2002) 55* Rod Beck Cubs 51 (1998) 10 Dennis Eckersley Athletics 51 (1992) 36 Mariano Rivera Yankees 50 (2001) 28

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* current save number