Once a Dodger, always a Dodger? Apparently not

My town?

Stick around

Eric Gagne announced his retirement last week, not with a Dodger Stadium farewell ceremony but in an interview with a Quebec website. With Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in town to play the Angels this weekend, that got us thinking: Who was the last great Dodger to go out as a Dodger?

The New York Yankees will make sure Jeter and Rivera go out as Yankees.

And what of the Dodgers so cherished by the fans of Los Angeles?

Gagne had a bad arm for two years, then left for a better offer in Texas. Fox dumped Mike Piazza. The Dodgers sent Fernando Valenzuela packing. Steve Garvey traded Dodger blue for Padre brown. Orel Hershiser boomeranged back to the Dodgers, but he was a Giant in between — and an Indian, and a Met.

The Angels had Tim Salmon. The San Diego Padres had Tony Gwynn. The Baltimore Orioles had Cal Ripken. The Yankees will have Jeter and Rivera.

The Dodgers drape themselves in tradition, but who was the last true blue star, from start to finish? Don Drysdale?

Make wayfor the kids

No longer is it a prerequisite for the rookie of the year to play the entire year in the major leagues. In each of the last three years, one of the honored rookies — Chris Coghlan of the Florida Marlins (2009), Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays (2008) and Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers (2007) — has started the season in the minor leagues.

The Texas Rangers called up Justin Smoak on Friday and installed him at first base, the first in what could be a wave of talented rookies to hit the majors in coming weeks.

The better a player does, the more heated the debate will be about whether he needed the extra seasoning or whether his team simply wished to delay his free agency by a year.

Nonetheless, the newcomers to watch could include pitchers Aroldis Chapman ( Cincinnati Reds) and Stephen Strasburg ( Washington Nationals), catchers Tyler Flowers ( Chicago White Sox), Buster Posey ( San Francisco Giants) and Carlos Santana ( Cleveland Indians), third baseman Pedro Alvarez ( Pittsburgh Pirates) and outfielders Mike Stanton (Marlins) and Michael Taylor ( Oakland Athletics).

The rule to benamed later

Torii Hunter helped kick off balloting for this summer’s All-Star game in Anaheim by thinking back to 2002, when he robbed Barry Bonds of a home run in an All-Star game that ended in a tie. By the next year, the rule was that each league would play to win, for home-field advantage in the World Series.

“I think they should call it the Torii Hunter Rule,” Hunter said.

Something surrealabout that ERA

The Rangers, forever in search of quality starting pitching, moved former closer C.J. Wilson into the rotation this spring. So far, so good: The former Fountain Valley High and Loyola Marymount standout has a 1.37 earned-run average through three starts.

When the Rangers visited New York, Wilson toured the Guggenheim Museum, prompting him to blog about why he preferred Salvador Dali to Pablo Picasso.

“Visiting the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, I was a bit underwhelmed with the majority of his Cubist works,” Wilson wrote. “Maybe since I don’t trip on LSD or peyote, they just don’t speak to me.”

— Bill Shaikin