Garciaparra Wins Comeback Award

Nomar Garciaparra proved master of the comeback this season.

But will he come back to the Dodgers?

The first baseman was voted National League comeback player of the year, receiving the honor during a pregame ceremony. Yet his comebacker as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded in the fifth inning Saturday might have been his last appearance with the team.

Garciaparra is a free agent, just as he was last off-season when Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti signed him to a contract with a $6-million guarantee and a potential of another $4 million in incentives based on plate appearances.

He came to the plate 523 times during the regular season, enough to add $2.5 million for a total of $8.5 million. The Dodgers got significant production for their money, a .303 batting average, 20 home runs, 93 runs batted in and a handful of key hits that won’t be forgotten any time soon.

Garciaparra said he would rather play in L.A. than anywhere else. But he has been around baseball long enough to know that returning to the Dodgers might be difficult.

“In sports there is always change,” he said. “Guys move from team to team. It’s the nature of the business.”

The Dodgers have a young first baseman in James Loney who they believe is ready for every-day duty. They also have 38-year-old Jeff Kent under contract for next season at a hefty $11.5-million salary, and Kent might not be mobile enough to play second base much longer.

All of that is for Colletti to contemplate over the next several weeks. For now, Garciaparra wanted to reflect on a season that breathed new life into his career. In 2004 he played only 62 games for the Chicago Cubs because of an Achilles injury.

“My success is a byproduct of my teammates,” he said. “I can look at the award sitting on my mantel and remember the guys. This was a special group, on and off the field.”

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Joe Beimel faced his teammates in the clubhouse four hours before the game and apologized for letting them down when he cut his pitching hand on a broken glass in a Manhattan bar early Tuesday morning.

The left-handed reliever then departed rather than watch the game from the dugout.

“We just think it would be a more comfortable situation all around,” Manager Grady Little said of not having Beimel stay for the game.

The incident clearly touched a nerve with the normally affable Little. When a reporter joked that Beimel might watch the game from a bar, Little abruptly ended the media session.

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The Dodgers announced they had sold 56,293 tickets to Saturday’s game, a stadium record.

Under a city permit, the Dodgers cannot sell more than 56,000 seats. Spokeswoman Camille Johnston said the team also sold standing-room-only tickets in stadium suites, as allowed. The Dodgers also sold more than 56,000 tickets to postseason games in 1981, 1988 and 2004.

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The Dodgers are a “very likely candidate” to play host to an upcoming All-Star game, Commissioner Bud Selig said Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

The All-Star game will be played in San Francisco next year, and Selig has said he expects to announce the sites for the next few games by the end of this year. The Angels are expected to be awarded one of those games, with Arizona and St. Louis among the other sites under consideration.

The 2008 game is expected to be played in New York, in the farewell season of Yankee Stadium.

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Halfway through his first month with the New York Mets, Jose Valentin, the former Dodger, had no hits, no position and, he was beginning to think, no baseball future.

“It was at that point that I thought my career was going to be over,” he said. “That was something that I was really disappointed about. I was going crazy.”

Valentin is 36. He had sat out most of 2005 because of knee surgery, playing his part in the accumulation of injuries that wrecked the Dodgers season, and otherwise hit .170.

The hitless at-bats and the sporadic playing time in New York seemed a predictable continuation in the arc of his career.

But then Manager Willie Randolph began to play him more, sometimes in left field, other times at second base, a few in right field and at third base. Second baseman Kaz Matsui was traded to Colorado in early June, leaving more at-bats for Valentin, who batted at or near .300 in May, June and July before a .184 tail-off in September.

So, the arc changes again. He can be a free agent after the season.

“I’m pretty sure I can find a job,” Valentin said.

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Mets left fielder Cliff Floyd, who battled late-season ankle and heel ailments, left the game after a hard slide into home plate in the third inning. It was announced that he had strained his left Achilles’ and will be evaluated Monday in New York. Floyd, who had four hits in nine at-bats in the series, was replaced by Endy Chavez.... Like many in baseball, Randolph was saddened by the passing of Negro League great Buck O’Neil. When he was hired to manage the Mets on Nov. 4, 2004, he received a telephone message from O’Neil. “Ah, Skipper,” he recalled O’Neil saying. “Nice going.” Said Randolph: “To this day I have that on my phone. So, every once in a while I’ll just play it back ... and I’ll hear his voice and it means a lot to me.” ... Jim Thome of the Chicago White Sox was the American League comeback player of the year.

Times staff writer Tim Brown also contributed to this notebook.

steve.henson@latimes.com

bill.shaikin@latimes.com