|
Los Angeles Dodgers
Scouting Report
By the Numbers | Players To Watch | Projected Roster
| |
The Dodgers' pitching and power galore notwithstanding,
speedy Eric Young should fire L.A.'s
engine.
(V.J.
Lovero)
| This
season marks the beginning of the end. The O'Malley family has
owned the Dodgers for 48 years, but soon one of the
National League's legendary franchises will be merely
another rib in a corporate umbrella. The players are
pleased. They think Rupert Murdoch's
News Corp. will mean more money for salaries, and what's
more important than that? For the club itself, this season
is one long final exam to see if the parochial school
values the O'Malleys hold dear—that neatness counts, that
punctuality does too, that
hard work will get you closer to God—are still meaningful
as the century
closes.
But the value that is popularly supposed to be at the core
of the O'Malley family has been absent from the Dodgers for
years: family unity itself. Of course, Bill Russell, the
manager, will tell you that togetherness is overrated, that
on the mighty
L.A. teams of the 1970s, for which he played, there were guys
who
couldn't stand
each other. No doubt true—but at least there was
passion.
Last year the Dodgers were talent-rich (catcher Mike
Piazza, rightfielder Raul Mondesi, first baseman Eric
Karros, righthander Ramon Martinez, third baseman Todd
Zeile) but emotionally disengaged. They finished second in
a division they should have
manhandled. In June, Piazza told the
Los Angeles
Times that the team's problems were cultural and social, that
the team
wasn't a melting pot but a mosaic, with big gaps between
the tiles. He was trying to rattle the team out of its
lethargy. Instead, the catcher was called insensitive, not
only by some
fans, but also by some teammates. It's an awful thing to be
misunderstood.
Nothing's changed, at least on paper. The team pretty much
stood still over the winter. Los Angeles once again has the
most international roster in baseball, including a starting
rotation with five pitchers whose native language is not
English: Martinez
is Dominican, Hideo Nomo is Japanese, Chan Ho Park is
Korean, and Ismael Valdes and Dennis Reyes are Mexican.
What's more, three of the every-day eight are from
overseas: Mondesi and shortstop Jose Vizcaino are
Dominican, and centerfielder Roger Cedeño
is Venezuelan. When asked about Team United Nations, the
players shrug and mumble—if the guy can play, who cares
where he's
from?
That's what they say. Who knows what they think. The most
important question about the 1998 Dodgers is also the
simplest: Is winning games the players' highest priority?
"There are a lot of young veterans on this team,
players at the peaks of their
careers," says Russell. "They've shown they can put up
numbers, they've proven to themselves they can make a lot
of money. What they still have to prove is that they can
win a
ring."
Maybe the most significant problem in the Los Angeles
clubhouse is, by team custom, lack of a tap. The Elias
Sports Bureau has not yet made a study in this area, but
the teams with the best chemistry are generally among those
15 or so clubs that have a
keg flowing in the trainer's room after games. The ritual is
an ancient one, common to many societies, in which grown
men, unencumbered by the distraction of family,
encircle a large metal cylinder, imbibing its contents
while nursing wounds and
commiserating about the opposition. This is known in the literature
as male
bonding.
Lack of unity on the Dodgers isn't only a function of
birthplace. Some players live so far from the ballpark that
when games are over, guys split, and split fast. In most
American metropolises, your income dictates precisely where
you live. Greater Los
Angeles defies demographers. In Los Angeles, your residence
reveals not so much your economic class but your lifestyle.
Piazza lives in Manhattan Beach, among the hard bodies.
Park lives in Glendale, where the newsstands carry Korean
papers. Zeile lives
in Westlake Village—suburban, gated, conservative. On the
Dodgers, there are players who live 50 miles from one
another.
Last year, on an off day during a road trip, 20 members of
the Padres got together for golf. Hearing about this act of
companionship, one Dodger said, "We
couldn't get a foursome together." But last year is
another lifetime in baseball.
At spring
training, several young
Caribbean players were trying to keep a count in Korean. Or
was it Japanese? They weren't quite sure. They knew it
wasn't
Spanish.
—by Mark Bechtel
Scouting Report | By the Numbers | Players To Watch | Projected Roster
|
