Reporting from Quebec City, Canada — They are the Dodgers' two fallen heroes, the one with the goggles and the one with the dreadlocks.
They are the two players that have electrified Dodger Stadium in the two decades without a World Series. The one with the goggles has not pitched for the home team in three years, the longing for his showtime, and for a more innocent time, evident in his voice.
Game Over is long over. Long live Mannywood.
"I hear it's pretty cool," Eric Gagne said, "with Manny."
On the day Manny Ramirez would make his comeback before tens of thousands of adoring fans -- in enemy territory, no less -- Gagne sat at a table for two at a riverfront cafe, in this weathered city more than 400 years old, and more than 400 miles from the nearest big league outpost.
He wore a black Ed Hardy T-shirt. He ate his poutine -- the Quebec delicacy of fries topped with gravy and cheese -- in peace. No one asked him for an autograph.
This is a long way to go to get away from the Mitchell Report and start over.
This is home. These are the people who nurtured him, who dropped coins into a bucket to help pay his way to college, who packed the stadium here and gave him a standing ovation just for coming home to pitch, for the Quebec Capitales of the independent Can-Am League.
L.A. was home too, once upon a time. We wore goggles and goatees, sweat-stained caps and "Game Over" shirts. We went nuts for the record-setting 84 consecutive saves and for the Cy Young Award, for "Welcome to the Jungle" and for the best show in town.
"The electricity was unreal," Gagne said. "I never thought that was possible in baseball.
"Those were the best days of my life. I think about them every day."
Those were some of the best days of our baseball lives too, memories now tarnished by the Mitchell Report. In 2004, according to the report, Gagne received multiple shipments of human growth hormone, one sent directly to the clubhouse at Dodger Stadium.
"I'm not denying it," he said. "I'm not saying I did it. I just can't talk about it.
"It's a touchy subject. It doesn't just involve me."
He won't say why, but it's not hard to guess. If he says he did indeed obtain HGH, the next question would be how. The answer in the Mitchell Report: through his old friend and teammate, Paul Lo Duca.
