Morning briefing

We know it won’t be a hit parade

The Dodgers didn’t make the postseason, but there’s always next year -- starting Jan. 1.

That’s when several players, past and present, and notable Dodgers personnel will ride the team’s first-ever float in the 119th Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Former manager Tom Lasorda and former players Carl Erskine, Don Newcombe, Steve Garvey, Wes Parker and Fernando Valenzuela, along with announcer Vin Scully, are scheduled to be aboard the float.

Also scheduled to ride are current players Nomar Garciaparra and James Loney; 50-year stadium vendor “Peanut Guy” Roger Owens; 58-year employee Billy DeLury; Kathy Robinson Young, niece of Jackie Robinson; Ann Meyers Drysdale, widow of Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale; and Spanish-language team broadcaster Jaime Jarrin.

The Dodgers unveiled the design for the popcorn- and peanut-adorned float that “will incorporate sights and sounds” from Dodger Stadium -- well, at least some of the sights and sounds heard as the Dodgers finished fourth in the NL West.

The float will include a 35-foot Dodgers player coming out of a home-run swing amid cheering fans and tunes from stadium organist Nancy Bea Hefley.

See? Hope really does float.

Trivia time

Alex Rodriguez this week won the American League most-valuable-player award, but no switch-hitter has been the AL MVP in more than 35 years. Who was the last?

Money ball

The NFL is investigating whether Green Bay Packers players are offering “bounties” to teammates for achieving certain defensive goals.

But it doesn’t bother quarterback Jon Kitna of the Detroit Lions, who play the Packers on Thanksgiving.

“I don’t know if it is against the rules; if it is, it shouldn’t be,” Kitna said. “They’re not paying people to go out and hurt somebody. They’re just paying people to do their job.”

League rules prohibit teams and players “from offering or accepting bonuses to a player for his or his team’s performance against a particular team, a particular opposing player or players, or a particular group of an opposing team.”

Packers players offered to pay the team’s defensive linemen $500 each if they were able to hold Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson under 100 yards rushing two weeks ago, ESPN reported. They offered another $500 for holding Carolina to less than 60 yards rushing as a team last Sunday.

Peterson had only 45 yards rushing before he left because of an injury in the Vikings’ loss to the Packers on Nov. 11. But the Panthers rushed for 131 yards in their loss to Green Bay.

Such incentives are an effective way to motivate teammates and not a big deal, Kitna said in a conference call Tuesday.

“If I’m a defensive lineman that’s getting paid minimum [salary] to play this game, or a little bit lower salary, and I can earn an extra $500, shoot, you know what? That might inspire me to do more,” Kitna said.

Just a winner

He doesn’t throw his helmet or take shots at other drivers and he keeps his emotions in check, and that’s enough to knock Jimmie Johnson.

On Sunday, the morning the Californian won his second consecutive NASCAR Nextel Cup title at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Johnson’s even-keel persona rubbed Miami Herald columnist Israel Gutierrez the wrong way.

If NASCAR is “going to be something really worth watching, the star has to be charismatic, compelling, even controversial. Johnson is none of those things,” he wrote.

Johnson’s response Tuesday: “I do it my way. I hate that sometimes people don’t have a chance to see the real me. But I’m just doing my job, doing my deal.”

His method, by the way, has earned Johnson more than $50 million in winnings alone.

Trivia answer

Vida Blue. Yes, the pitcher. The Oakland Athletics lefty, at age 22, won both the AL’s MVP and Cy Young awards in 1971 after going 24-8, with eight shutouts, an earned-run-average of 1.82 and 301 strikeouts.

Swinging from both sides of the plate, Blue also hit .116 in 102 at-bats that year, two years before the American League implemented the designated hitter for pitchers.

And finally

Alabama Coach Nick Saban, invoking the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor, said his football team must rebound as America did from a “catastrophic event.”

That event was Alabama’s 21-14 home loss Saturday to Louisiana Monroe, which dropped the Crimson Tide’s record to 6-5. Alabama next faces archrival Auburn on Saturday.

A school spokesman told Associated Press that Saban “was not equating losing football games” to those attacks, but rather “that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times.”

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james.peltz@latimes.com