Think Blue Week Gives Longtime Fan a Ground-Level Look at Game

Like many men, I’ve been in love more than once. But I’ve had only one devotion that has endured for more than 30 years--with an ache, a joy, an exasperation, a merriment called the Dodgers.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the Dodgers arrived in Southern California just a few months after I did. They were new in town; I was young and impressionable. That first year they impressed me with a seventh-place finish in an eight-team pennant race.

Both of us developed, though: the Dodgers into world champions; me into a season ticket-holder. I always figured the only way I’d get closer to the field would be by way of an upgraded seat. That was before Think Blue Week.

In 1987 the Dodgers started a promotion called Think Blue Week. Fans were invited to write in and compete for a “fantasy” night, in which they would assume the role of a Dodger sportswriter, batboy or girl, photographer, organist, public address announcer, grounds crew member, or even sing the national anthem.

This year I decided to give it a try. I wrote, explaining how when I was a youngster and the team had just moved into Dodger Stadium a friend and I began a little “Dodger Museum,” comprising mostly trinkets, souvenirs and anything we could cadge from the stadium. One of the first things collected was a handful of dirt from the warning track that surrounds the playing field.

I was at my desk when, as ballplayers say when they are brought up to the major leagues, I “got the call.” Dodger special events coordinator Robbie Lapides said I was a winner. I chose to work as a groundskeeper on opening night of Think Blue Week.

My group assembled at the Dodger offices 90 minutes before game time. We exchanged the stories that had brought us together. The batgirl for the night had been rejected in an earlier Dodger batboy contest because, well, she was a girl. The woman who would throw out the ceremonial first pitch came 500 miles to do it, from deep in the heart of San Francisco Giants territory.

I donned my official Dodger grounds crew shirt, with the team patch adorning one sleeve and my name embroidered over the breast pocket, and concentrated on keeping my blood pressure in the three-digit range.

Robbie started to lead us down to the dugout-level seats where we would hang around until we were introduced to the crowd before the game. “Can we get a picture taken with Tommy?” someone asked, referring to Lasorda, the manager. No promises, but maybe if he’s around, she allowed.

As we approached the entrance to the dugout boxes, there, sure enough, was Lasorda. We all introduced ourselves with handshakes all around and many pictures. This was getting better all the time and I hadn’t even started.

We went over the program quickly. I’d be assisting on the field before the game and then help smooth the infield at the halfway mark. “OK, Tom, the grounds crew is working,” Robbie said. “You can go ahead and get out there. And by the way, when you’re finished you can go sit in the bullpen until it’s time for you to come back.”

I was going to be sitting with honest-to-God big league pitchers and I hadn’t prepared a list of coruscating questions.

When we finished the pregame field preparations I joined one of the crew members on the tractor that drags the infield and we started off toward the outfield bleachers. We turned a corner and came face to face with Dodger starter Orel Hershiser, warming up. I stood there not knowing what to do next, but sure that I wanted to watch every pitch. Just me, Orel, pitching coach Ron Perranoski and bullpen coach Mark Cresse, who was catching.

I finally noticed someone had put Hershiser’s warm-up jacket on the tractor. He finished warming up and started toward where I was standing.

It was one of those moments when several calculations flash through your mind in seconds. I could:

* Step out of the way.

* Grab the jacket, blast out the back of the bullpen and keep running until I hit the Orange County line.

* Hand him the jacket.

* Ask him to autograph the program I had in my pocket for my son; both of us rate him our favorite Dodger.

I picked up the jacket, handed it to him and said: “Good luck.” Or something equally insightful. Almost inaudibly he said thanks and disappeared.

Something had told me I couldn’t really ask for an autograph. After all, this was our starter on his way to work. And his face convinced me: no expression. A stare that told me he was somewhere else completely. And that I wasn’t ever going there. He didn’t seem to be a man taking counsel in his fears or doubts.

I turned around in time to find Cresse flipping me the ball Orel used to warm up. Call it the Dodger fan’s version of taking communion.

I was still disoriented when the Dodger relief pitchers began to arrive from the clubhouse and, with Cresse, invited me to join them in their lair beneath the left-field stands. To a man, they were friendly, willing to answer my questions. A comfortable conversation regarding baseball, women, minor sports (the NBA finals had just started) and more baseball spun out as the game progressed through the window in front of us. By turns funny, profane, superstitious and virtually nonstop, this was male bonding at its best.

Like everything else during this night, I knew it had to end. And when one of the regular groundskeepers told me we had to make our way back to the infield I thought the high point of the evening had passed. But my bullpen commune turned out to be just a piece of the magic.

We headed down a corridor past the batting cages. We ducked into the clubhouse, then turned a corner, descended a short ramp and ended up in the one place from which every fan wants to watch a game: the Dodger dugout.

I felt like I’d just dropped into the Dodger fan’s version of “Fantasia.” Instead of mop handles it was my baseball card collection that came to life. I was 10 again.

Trying not to stare is sometimes difficult, and when I momentarily locked eyes with Darryl Strawberry it felt marginally uncomfortable. He quickly returned to goofing around with his buddy Eric Davis, though--just a couple of happy millionaires.

We watched a half-inning from there and another from the railing in front of the photographer’s well, adjacent to the dugout. It seemed like the quickest six outs ever.

Dragging the infield between innings was almost an anticlimax. But my grounds crew mentor, Rico, made sure I turned around to catch myself on Dodgervision, the huge video screen above the left-field stands. I suppose players grow accustomed to the feeling of watching themselves on that screen; for me it produced a feeling that I wasn’t really standing where that screen told me I was standing. If you know what I mean.

When we finished dragging the infield, I was finished. Robbie was there to direct me off the field and back to a seat, now just another fan in the stands.

I never did get back close enough to Orel to ask for an autograph, but he pitched well and the Dodgers won. Sometimes just about everything works.

Tom Reinken is deputy graphics editor for the Times Orange County Edition.