He’s Not Quite Ready to Paint the Town Red

I have no idea right now whether Grady Little will be successful as a Dodger manager, or gone like Davey Johnson after two years.

One of the headlines in The Times on Wednesday proclaimed: “Team Pulls a Real Coup With Its Latest Hire,” and so I guess you have to give a lot of credit to the Dodgers for finding the roving catching instructor for the Cubs before anyone else.

Inside the sports section there was another headline: “Dodgers Make Wise Choice for Manager,” and while that’s a nice prediction and entirely possible, it seems a little premature until we see how the guy handles the National League, a payroll substantially less than that of the Red Sox and a lineup that can’t hit.

I read them all Wednesday, and know most of the columnists in town have already pronounced this a great hire for the Dodgers, but I wonder if that’s because Little is not Jim Fregosi and most of them never heard of any of the other guys being interviewed by General Manager Ned Colletti.

Plaschke, a former baseball beat writer, obviously knows his baseball and was gushing in the paper: “In resurrecting Grady Little as the new Dodger manager, [Colletti] hit a late-inning, backdoor slider out of the park.”

But as I recall Plaschke also was gushing when he wrote, “When it comes to college football, Los Angeles clearly belongs to the Bruins,” just as USC was about to win 45 of its next 46 games.

Maybe he’s right this time, or maybe he keeps his record intact.

Right now all we know is that the Boston experiment continues. It began with the Boston Parking Lot Attendant, an avid Red Sox fan, borrowing the money to buy the Dodgers, and then hiring Paul DePodesta, a clone of Red Sox GM Theo Epstein, to plot the team’s future.

When that didn’t work, the Dodgers tried to hire Epstein, who chose to remain unemployed.

Then the Parking Lot Attendant made his 23-year-old son, Drew, who grew up in Boston and has a degree in astrophysics from Columbia, the vice president in charge of marketing. The kid proved to be a marketing whiz, attracting the attention of Shannen Doherty.

When the Red Sox went to the World Series in 2004 -- a year after letting Little go -- Frank McCourt was there to support them. The Red Sox got a big postseason boost from Derek Lowe, and after Boston won the World Series, McCourt hired him to come to L.A., which you could say changed the life of Fox TV reporter Carolyn Hughes, while so far not doing all that much for the Dodgers.

The Times’ Tim Brown reported this week the Dodgers also have an interest in Red Sox players David Wells and Bill Mueller, while MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick reported the Dodgers have an interest in Manny Ramirez. It might take a while, but in time the Boston Parking Lot Attendant might have the team on the field that he really wants.

Don’t be surprised if he starts building a green wall in the left-field pavilion.

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LITTLE COMES to the Dodgers with “a folksy approach” and an impressive resume, a 188-136 record in two seasons as a manager, although it’s probably what you would expect from a guy who had Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, Nomar Garciaparra, David Ortiz and Jason Varitek on his side.

By all accounts players love him, and I can’t think of anything more important than keeping millionaire baseball players happy, so I can see why everyone is so excited about the guy. Too bad Kevin Brown isn’t still here; I would have liked to have seen a loving manager try to embrace him.

Little is also supposed to be a good communicator, who should have no problem dealing with the Los Angeles media because we’re told he’s already been through the Boston pressure-cooker, which is tougher than anything he’ll face here. I’m just wondering, though, if Boston management ever had to hire a crisis manager to help deal with the local media.

On another positive note, Little managed in the American League, which has the designated hitter, and given the shortage of quality Dodger hitters, it probably works in his favor coming to the NL.

That means, of course, he’ll have more decisions to make when it comes to deciding when’s the right time to remove a pitcher from the game. But I can’t imagine that being a problem.

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IT’S KIND of funny now, but back in 2003 when still in high school, Reggie Bush played the role of reporter for NFLHS.com and covered media day before the Super Bowl in San Diego. Bush interviewed Marcus Allen, Keyshawn Johnson and Terrell Davis, and then wrote a story about his experiences.

“I’m so excited that I got to attend media day,” Bush reported. “

Who knew it would be the closest any defensive lineman would ever get to Bush again?

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Edna G.:

“Let’s help the Dodgers win -- Fire Simers. As a long-time Dodger fan of 50 years, I have never read a more incompetent and insolent excuse for a sportswriter than you.... You don’t deserve to write for the Times. Nor do you deserve to even be admitted to the bathroom at Dodger Stadium. The L.A. Times needs to do all true Dodger fans a favor -- fire you and replace you with a copy boy.”

I believe The Times already has laid off all the copy boys.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

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