This isn't much of a homecoming game. Adrian Beltre would love to catch up with all the friends he left behind, but most of them are gone too. The place he left behind is different too, with the seats decorated in pastels and luxury boxes encroaching upon the territory in which the third baseman used to catch foul balls.
Beltre and the Dodgers divorced 18 months ago, after a passionate summer of home runs, after the joy of a division championship, after the nightly three-letter serenades at Dodger Stadium: "M-V-P! M-V-P!"
The Dodgers didn't win a playoff series. Beltre didn't win the most-valuable-player award. Paul DePodesta tore up the roster. Beltre fled for Seattle. The Dodgers lost 91 games. Ned Colletti replaced DePodesta as general manager and tore up the roster again.
So, as he returns to Dodger Stadium tonight with the Mariners, Beltre might look into the home dugout and wonder, "Who the heck are you guys?"
At the same time, tens of thousands of fans might look at Beltre and wonder, "What the heck happened to you?"
He left town as a homegrown superstar. He returns as a big-bucks bust. And, in a reflective moment before a recent game, he wondered aloud whether he would have suffered through the struggles of the last two seasons had he stayed with the Dodgers.
"Probably not," he said. "Probably not. You never know. It's baseball. But probably not.... It was going to be the team that I had always been with, and I was going to play in a league that I had played in for the last seven years. So probably not."
Beltre delivered five decent seasons for the Dodgers, then one historic one, in 2004. He hit .334 with 48 home runs, most in the major leagues and tied with Mike Schmidt for the record by a third baseman. He drove in 121 runs. Barry Bonds was the MVP, but Beltre was second.
The Dodgers had pledged all summer to treat Beltre as their top priority, but they belatedly entered the bidding, at six years and $60 million. The Mariners already had offered five years and $64 million, and the Detroit Tigers reportedly dangled seven years at $90 million.
Agent Scott Boras said Beltre never asked him to work out the best deal so he could stay in Los Angeles.
"Adrian makes those decisions," Boras said. "He knew the options. He could have made more money in another place. He felt Seattle as a destination would work for him."
