Big Dodger

Eric Karros blasted the first grand slam of his career Wednesday night while helping the Dodgers post a 9-7 victory over the Montreal Expos, their biggest comeback of the season. "E.K. had a big day," Dodger Manager Davey Johnson said of his first baseman, who also matched his career high with six runs batted in. "His first grand slam couldn't have come at a more opportune time." The Dodgers trailed, 6-0, in the seventh inning before an announced crowd of 8,756 at Olympic Stadium.

So enthralled were the Dodgers with Ismael Valdes that they gave up on him . . . twice . . . within a year. Questions were raised about the right-hander's courage and heart to the point where he was once involved in a clubhouse altercation with Eric Karros. Friday night, a more menacing Valdes made the Dodgers wish for past days by sticking it down their throats. Valdes, who signed a one-year, $2.5-million free agent contract with the Angels on Jan.

The last great Dodger homestand of 1998 came and went Sunday night, and all that was left was a bruised team grappling for the right way to accept reality and a quiet clubhouse that emptied quickly. What's the best approach for the final three weeks of the season? By fighting until the bell sounds, the Dodgers told themselves, or until the 10-count is at last applied.

He claims to bleed Dodger blue and worship the big Dodger in the sky. He brought hugs to the dugout and Sinatra to the clubhouse. He spun baseball stories with reporters over won ton at Paul's Kitchen, filled his office with postgame pasta and pizza, bellowed in team meetings during which players often counted the number of epithets, and filled up tape recorders with expletives when he didn't like a story or question.

Suddenly, it is 1958 again. No big-league baseball is being played west of the Mississippi River. We could even end up with the Yankees versus the Braves again, meaning that someone would presumably need to whisper to a certain Presidential candidate before a debate that no, the Braves no longer play in Milwaukee. Oh, if only the Dodgers could have remained a part of this.

When Darryl Strawberry went up to bat with the bases loaded in the fifth inning of the Dodgers' 9-5 victory over the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, coach Bill Russell nudged someone in the Dodgers' dugout. "If I'm the pitcher, I'd intentionally walk him," Russell said. "Give up one run instead of four." If only the San Diego Padres' Ricky Bones had been listening. Three pitches later, Strawberry hit one over the left-center-field fence for a grand slam.

Kelly Tripucka, the forgotten member of the Utah Jazz, made his first start of the season last Saturday against the Lakers and scored 21 points, including all five of his three-point attempts. Tripucka, whose woes were detailed in a front-page story in the (Salt Lake City) Deseret News, reportedly was inserted into the starting lineup only after a pregame meeting between owner Larry Miller, General Manager David Checketts and Coach Frank Layden.

Southern California took a big step Sunday toward its first professional sports championship since, well, maybe Waterfield and the Rams. OK, so it hasn't been that long. Just seems like it. The Lakers? Big Dodger trade? Clippers acquired Michael Jordan for all the ocean-front property from Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach, plus 30% of Michael Milken's pocket change on any Thursday afternoon? Nope. Women's basketball. The Long Beach StingRays.

Florida and Georgia are fine states. They give us beaches and peaches. They give us greyhound racing--the dog, not the bus--and auto racing. They give us gators and skeeters. They give us juicy oranges and James Brown. Are you prepared for what they intend to give us next? For example, baseball? For the past 100 years, Florida has been to major league baseball what Nebraska has been to surfing.

How do you pass up the opportunity to write about the Tom Lasorda "talking figurines" the Dodgers are going to give to young fans attending Tuesday's game with the Colorado Rockies? You press a button in the figurine's rear and it actually sounds as if Lasorda is talking through his butt, which reminds me, I asked him how he thought the Dodgers might fare over the second half of the season, and he said they can do the same thing his '88 Dodgers accomplished.