See What Some Positive Thinking Can Achieve

Walking the Dogs all the way to the finish line....

SAN DIEGO -- Some one e-mailed and raised an interesting point: “Recently you have been giving more column inches to the Choking Dogs, and they’ve been choking. Apparently, they believe what you write. Maybe if you write that they are winners, they’ll believe that.”

So I went to the Dodger clubhouse before Thursday’s game intent on lying to the guys, and instead of referring to Jeff Weaver as one of the “slugs” in the starting rotation, I lowered my voice so I wouldn’t scare the Flake and said I thought the Choking Dogs could still be winners.

“Your job is to write the facts,” he huffed while making a run for the clubhouse door, “and not give your opinions.”

The facts are the Dodgers have collapsed and gagged down the stretch, and while someone should probably point out to him that I’m paid to offer my opinions as a columnist, I could see given the team’s mood that I was going to have a hard time coming up with the facts to make the chokers feel like winners.

I began taking notes. I noticed Jayson Werth, who between you and me is kind of an immature clod, hitting the wall with his bat, and I realized I could report in the newspaper that Werth had finally hit something after striking out five consecutive times. In a way, I guess, you could say, he’s a real winner, all right.

I’d have to stay away from negative statistics, though, such as the Micro Manager’s 47-49 record in the month of September the last four years if I was going to make everyone feel like winners. But I could make a big deal out of his October record -- 4-1, which bodes well for the last two regular-season games against the Giants.

It’s not easy trying to make these guys feel good about themselves. The Dodgers have had only seven quality starts in their last 20 games, as General Manager Paul DePodesta pointed out, and while I’d like to thank him for trying to help me trash the team, I’ve really got to leave back-biting quotes like that out of the paper.

“Maybe we could also leave out the fact David is hitting a buck seventy-four,” said catcher David Ross, and I had no problem with that because the fact is -- as Weaver would want me to report -- David Ross is hitting a buck seventy-two.

Jose Lima chimed in. (What a surprise). Apparently he had been in the training room and several players were reading the newspaper and making fun of what he had said in The Times, and he was a little on edge.

“Instead of you writing, I want to write a column about you,” he said, while never giving me the chance to explain that I’ve changed my approach. “I might get you fired. Who’s your boss?”

“Bill Dwyre,” I said, and talk about winners, I urged Lima to call him, knowing what an inspiration Dwyre can be when he hasn’t nodded off at his desk.

“Better get him early,” I said.

“I don’t even know what to say to you,” Lima said, and leaving Lima speechless, I’ve got a feeling I’ve just done my first good deed of the year for the Dodgers.

*

I PROBABLY couldn’t go wrong writing every story about Adrian Beltre the way he’s going. “I believe we’re going to be in the playoffs,” he said, and without thinking I reverted to nasty form.

“Did you believe in Jack and the Beanstalk as a kid too?” I asked, and Beltre said, “I never heard of Jack. He never made it to the Dominican [Republic].”

Now everyone knows Eric Gagne is a winner, so I went to him for advice on how to make everyone else in the doghouse, excuse me, the clubhouse feel like winners.

“You’ve got to rip people,” he said. “To be honest, it hasn’t been that bad so far. Let’s see what you’ve really got. Rip more.”

That’s easy for him to say, of course, because he hardly gets in the game any more so what does he care if I go on a ripping spree.

“I love it when you get on everybody,” Alex Cora said. “It keeps everyone loose. Don’t stop.”

The Dodgers keep pitching Kaz Ishii, and I might not be able to stop.

“Keep picking on me,” Milton Bradley said, and I assured him I would make that sacrifice if it would help, and he said, “if we play bad and lose, you should bash us ... it fires us up.”

I do that, of course, and I worry that it will get to be too much and the Choking Dogs will respond like whipped puppies.

“You have an overblown conception of your impact on the world,” said pitching coach Jim Colborn, and I wonder what impact he’s had on the Choking Dogs’ starting rotation? “Your words are probably read by a few people in the Southland and chuckled at. But as for the cosmos

I had no idea the Dodgers are the cosmos, which certainly makes this story about a bunch of gagging baseball players bigger than I thought.

“Whatever you write, it has a pretty insignificant impact on what happens,” Colborn added, and I don’t know, as soon as I started treating the Choking Dogs like winners, they sat up and won -- like good boys.

*

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Jim Chett:

“If I ran the Dodgers, a number of negative writers like yourself would be banned from the clubhouse ... Managers have banned certain writers from the clubhouse and will continue to do so. Such bans have cost some writers their jobs. And, if I ran the Dodgers, I never would have made that bonehead trade with Florida. Why don’t you interview some front office people about the trade and publish their comments?”

I’m trying not to be a negative writer.

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Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.