Before I get to Tom Lasorda, the dream world he lives in, his belly, the beard he's going to need to grow and the Angel-red garb he will be wearing, I have to admit, I almost gave up on the Choking Dogs.
You go on vacation, your family -- who stopped listening to you long ago -- now no longer talks to you, even though it's probably time again for them to start asking for money.
You did what you could to inspire them to get through Nebraska and Iowa, even allowing them to spend as much time as they liked in a Super Wal-Mart and stay in a Holiday Inn one night, only to have them mutiny and quit before the return trip through Kansas.
Now it's back to work, returning to the Dodgers clubhouse to find another sorry group of mopes down on their luck, many of them probably better suited to being grocery store baggers, and you wonder, what are the chances it will be any different?
Are they going to quit too?
My job, of course, is to get the very best out of our local athletes, at times making a better hitter out of Shawn Green, a good three-point shooter out of The Tanker, a postseason team out of the Angels, an approachable person out of Garret Anderson, a sweetie out of Jeff Kent, a playoff team out of the Clippers and an ex-Laker out of Devean George.
But where do you begin with the Dodgers? Well, I set out to aggravate J.D. Drew, taking on the toughest challenge of all -- trying to get a rise out of an athlete with no pulse.
Then I broke a rule -- ordinarily I ignore the young players on the Dodgers roster because I have two daughters and I know how little they have to offer when I try to talk to them -- and spoke to Andre Ethier.
I even began criticizing Grady Little, maybe the nicest guy to ever pull on a uniform, suggesting the manager with the talented players in Boston who averaged 94 wins a year might be clueless when it comes to working with a roster that's sitting in last place in the National League West.
So what happens? Ethier responded immediately by hitting two home runs, and then another a couple days later.
Drew needed a little more coaxing, walking past me without so much as a word while I teased him a second consecutive day for being lifeless. Then the dead man hit a grand slam -- his first home run since June 1.
Little, meanwhile, began talking before Saturday's game about the number of wins the team will need to make the playoffs, at a time when you'd expect to hear him do his Jim Mora "Playoffs?" imitation.
