It Would’ve Been a Nice Way to Cap Off the Win

I was unable to wear my genuine blue Dodger cap to Saturday’s game. It got soaked in champagne, as you might imagine, after the Dodgers’ home-opening victory, the family celebration getting a little out of hand. The Grocery Store Bagger also did his best to squeeze every drop out of the cap, as if he hadn’t had a drink in the last few minutes, so it’s also a little mangled.

As soon he gets done sucking it dry, I hope to get it back.

The Micro Manager gave it to me as a gift and said I wouldn’t be allowed into his office to hear him talk without it, so banned from his pregame drone, I stayed behind to chat with GM Paul DePodesta and offered him the “I told you so” chance after nine games to tell everyone he really knows what he’s doing.

I also told him it might be a good idea to take it before the Dodgers play too many more games, if you know what I mean.

“Thanks for giving me the opportunity,” he said, and that’s when I interrupted, bringing up Hee-Seop Choi and delivering my own “I told you” he’s a stiff speech.

“I’m very confident in his ability,” DePodesta insisted. “He’s still a young player who is still getting his legs under him.”

I thought the problem was Choi couldn’t hit; I had no idea he was still learning to walk, which might explain why the Micro Manager vaulted Jason Grabowski ahead of Choi on Saturday night. The first big move this season.

As you might recall, the Micro Manager said Choi was the Dodgers’ everyday first baseman -- just not today, or now, any day.

The Dodgers put Grabowski through a crash course this week on how to play first. Too bad they never thought about giving him a crash course on how to hit. Grabowski said he’s happy because “it’s a chance to get some more at-bats.”

“Is that a good thing?” I asked.

Grabowski laughed, and I assume he was thinking: I can’t be any worse than Choi. (Grabowski singled in his first at-bat in place of Choi, and I wonder if Choi has ever heard of Wally Pipp?)

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DEPODESTA HAS a luxury suite, but he stays in the clubhouse to watch the Dodgers on TV, flipping the channel when his pitchers go to work. I guess we don’t have to worry about him getting in a fight with a fan behind home plate in San Diego.

“Nothing good can happen except maybe getting three outs and moving the game along, so I’ll flip the channel when our pitchers are on, maybe get a workout in, or check the box scores on my computer.”

I asked if he developed this “no look” habit at the tail end of last season when Jose Lima pitched, but he said he has never had an interest in watching his pitchers work. I can relate.

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MR. LISA, a.k.a. Scott Erickson, beat the Padres. He marries Lisa Guerrero and gets a Saturday night date with Lady Luck; some people have got it all.

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I OWE an apology to horse racing trainer Jeff Mullins, who told me several weeks ago that anyone who bets on horses is either a “[gambling] addict or an idiot.”

Mullins was right.

Gambling addicts are going to wager on horses, of course, but everyone else must be an idiot to wager on horses these days knowing now how much the public is being deceived.

I’ve even got my concerns about the media who cover the sport regularly -- working within a few feet of a betting machine, which provides the tempting conflict of interest to bet first, and report information that might affect a race later.

Mullins was caught cheating -- using a milkshake that is suppose to allow a horse to run farther without getting tired, and therefore doing his best to make handicapping idiots out of the public.

Trainer Vladimir Cerin ran a milkshake horse too, and if that wasn’t enough, he said the horse had surgery allowing it to breathe, and as a result the horse, a huge longshot, won on the day of a Pick 6 carryover that paid more than $200,000.

Cerin said the public had no right to know about the throat surgery, and apparently the milkshake it got served. What else is he keeping secret?

Mullins knew what he was talking about when he said anyone who bets on horse racing is an idiot.

He later tried to wiggle his way out of being held accountable for those comments when the heat got turned up, just as he tried to shift attention to a racing board official and the track vet rather than discuss his milkshake violation.

But he had it right.

Now I’ve been told the California Horse Racing Board wants to discipline Mullins for conduct detrimental to the sport of horse racing for comments he made on Page 2, as well as in a TV interview that followed.

Our company attorney said I’ve been subpoenaed to appear before the Santa Anita stewards on the Mullins matter, a hearing that was scheduled for Saturday but has been pushed back to April 30.

There’s some legal maneuvering going on, so I don’t know if I’ll be involved in the hearing, but how do you punish a guy when he says the fans are being played for fools and all evidence suggests they really are?

I had no intention of writing about the sport any longer, but most horse racing writers don’t want to look any deeper for fear of alienating the folks they deal with on a regular basis. However, the reason the fans come off looking like idiots, in part, is because the media have not done a good job here.

Now there’s going to be a disciplinary hearing to look into the Sweet Catomine fiasco, which had the public wagering $700,000 in the Santa Anita Derby on a horse the owner and trainer apparently knew wasn’t up to snuff.

If you think these are only isolated incidents of deception, you’re an idiot.

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THEY SHOWED Luke Walton on the Dodger scoreboard and the fans in Dodger Stadium booed. If I’m Kobe Bryant, like DePodesta, I watch the Dodgers on TV this year.