BATTER UP: L.A. DODGERS

Counting down the seconds till Opening Day when life begins anew involves providing a "starting nine" of obscure trivia, fun facts, high points and low moments for all 29 major-league teams, and if there's time, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays too! Presenting: The Los Angeles Dodgers.

1. They'll get men on base, but won't always hit 'em home: With a starting outfield of Andre Ethier, aging Luis Gonzalez and Juan Pierre (and his garden-variety .330 on-base percentage), the Dodgers are to run production what L.A. is to good traffic flow, smog-free air and unaugmented mammaries.
   
   L.A. got by last year thanks to having the best on-base percentage in Quadruple-A (also known as the National League), but hit the second-fewest homers in the league. Its only 20-homer guy, J.D. Drew, opted out of his contract to sign with the Red Sox. It's going to be hard to match last year's 820 runs scored (fourth in the NL) with Gonzalez, Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra as the 3-4-5 hitters. You can't steal a pennant.
2. Vin Scully will live long enough to give you a mellifluous eulogy: The voice of the Dodgers is contracted to call games in 2008, when he'll be 80 years old. He's had so many great moments that it's almost been forgotten that as a football broadcaster, he called Dwight Clark's The Catch back in 1982 for CBS.
   
   Scully called his first World Series game when he was 25 years old. Just for purposes of comparison, at the age of 25 yours truly was covering fastball games and junior high volleyball. Mind you, that involved writing and photography.
3. About the pitching: The NL West is all about pitching, and L.A.'s is very good. Jason Schmidt, whom the Dodgers signed away from San Fran, should resume being the game's best unknown ace. Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, lefty reclamation project Randy Wolf and 22-year-old Chad Billingsley project as a solid rotation.
4. Leave the catching to Russ: The Dodgers went 71-43 last year in games Canadian catcher Russ Martin (top photo) started. One of Martin's middle names is Coltrane (presumably after John, not Robbie).
5. Tommy Lasorda has apparently mellowed since his managing days: L.A.'s lion in winter isn't cussing out many radio reporters these days. However, if they wake him up from his eighth-inning nap or ask him about him being referenced in a former Hollywood madam's memoirs, all bets are off.
6. Has manager Grady Little lived down leaving Pedro Martínez in too long in the 2003 ALCS? Sure, it's been three years and the Red Sox did win the World Series the next year. Then again, according to Scott Gray's The Mind of Bill James, on that fateful night in '03, a Red Sox fan who was in London was on business was watching it from a pub when a well-meaning bloke queried, "Excuse me, sir, but would the rules permit those fellows to employ a substitute for the bowler? He seems to be labouring a bit."
   
   Quoth Gray, "The brutal truth: Grady Little had failed to comprehend what was apparent to a drunk, half-asleep Englishman who had never seen a baseball game before."
7. Retro Cool Dodger: Of the two Mike Marshalls who played for the Dodgers in the '70s and '80s, the first (relief pitcher, 1974-76) was definitely the better one. Dwight Gooden later became Dr. K, but Marshall actually is a doctor who earned a D. Phil between baseball seasons and became a physical education professor after his playing career ended. He used his knowledge of kinesiology to learn how to pitch without putting too much strain on his arm, making a mind-bending 106 appearances in '74, when he became the first reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
   
   Oh, and if that wasn't enough, Marshall also won a major individual award or be a major part of a team's pennant drive soon after leaving the Montreal Expos. This is a complete anomaly, but only if you overlook (deep breath), Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Jeff Reardon, Tim Raines, Randy Johnson, Larry Walker, Pedro Martínez, Marquis Grissom, John Wetteland, Moises Alou, Ugueth Urbina, Orlando Cabrera and Vladimir Guerrero. Is that everyone?
8. Need-to-know: The Dodgers would get eaten alive in any American League division, but they're safely enconsced in the NL West until California slides into the ocean, like the mystics and statistics say it will, to quote Warren Zevon. Their pitching will keep them in the playoff race.
   
   The big question is their hitting, in particular whether or not the Rafael Furcal and Pierre together at the top of the order are going to be a productive pair of table-setters.
9. Not that you needed any proof: Here's the crowd reaction to Garciaparra's 10th-inning homer which beat the Padres on a Monday night last September which proved once and for all why baseball is better than football.
   
   
   

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.