It’s a new kind of Gatorade dumping

With the Chicago Cubs struggling to keep their heads above .500, the team has made a move to try to improve the atmosphere in the dugout.

Yes, the Cubs have decided to retire their dugout Gatorade dispenser, the bright orange target for so many frustrated players.

Both Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano have pummeled the cooler during fits of rage. So now it is being removed from harm’s way.

“It was tough while it lasted,” Reed Johnson told the Chicago Tribune. “We’re only two months into the season, and it’s been through a lot already.

“And it was still spitting out juice.”

Said Dempster: “It would have been more entertaining [to keep it], that’s for sure. I’m going to miss it. It’s part of our team. I gave it a big hug.”

Trivia time

What was the Cubs’ original nickname?

That would be a first

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle notes that the Lakers are trying to accomplish something unprecedented in the team’s history: winning an NBA championship without a dominant center.

Writes Ostler: “If you concede that (Shaquille) O’Neal is a lock for induction, the Lakers have not won an NBA title without a Hall of Fame center. One could even argue that (George) Mikan, (Wilt) Chamberlain, (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar and O’Neal are on the Mt. Rushmore of NBA centers. You’d have to dynamite Bill Russell’s visage into that mountainside too, even if he’d refuse to pose.

“Can the Lakers win a title without a major force camped on the low block? Can they do it with Andrew Bynum (playoff averages: 17 minutes, 6.3 points. 3.6 rebounds)?

“That’s Kobe Bryant’s great quest, and if he does it, his legacy.”

Untouchables

The New York Yankees are selling pieces of their old stadium and are planning to hold an auction in late July where such items as the dugout phone, the clubhouse carpet and the foul poles will be up for bidding. But some pieces are not for sale, despite requests from fans -- the restroom urinals.

“People always ask for the bathroom stuff, like the urinals,” Brandon Steiner, CEO of Steiner Sports, the exclusive distributor of old Yankee Stadium memorabilia, told the New York Daily News. “There were some strange requests.”

Trivia answer

The White Stockings.

And finally

From Conan O’Brien’s first monologue as host of “The Tonight Show”: “I think they have built us a beautiful studio here in Los Angeles. It’s absolutely gorgeous. This studio holds 380 people. That’s right. It’s exactly like being at a Clippers game.”

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mike.penner@latimes.com