Mount Wilson Writers

The Los Angeles sun was hidden by a layer of morning clouds that finally dissipated in the afternoon heat. The weather seemed to be a harbinger of baseball apparitions outlined by the return of former homegrown talent to the field at Chaves Ravine. The battery of pitcher and catcher scheduled to start for the opposing New York Mets ball-club represented the disheartening reminder of arguably the two worst trades in the post-championship era of Dodger history. The Hall of Fame combination of Dominican pitcher Pedro Martinez and Tommy Lasorda’s godson, catcher Mike Piazza, emblematized and hauntingly reminded the Dodger faithful of the perceived ineptitude of nearly twenty years in Dodgerdom. Pedro Martinez, a marquee pitcher for over a decade, a Cy Young award winner in both leagues, and capable of being mentioned in the same sentence as other premiere pitchers of the era such as Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, was traded by the Dodgers to the Montreal Expos for a disgruntled second baseman named Delino Deshields. Even at the time it seemed a risk, albeit calculated, a skinny unproven pitcher for an established infielder who could potentially help solidify a young and powerful homegrown team. Perhaps no one could have predicted the disparity that would come to define the two careers, but certainly the potential of Pedro was obvious. One only had to look to his older brother Ramon, and the success he was having with the Dodgers, to second guess the logic of the trade. While the Dodgers seemed more than willing to deal Pedro in an attempt to clear a hurdle toward a championship, the cornerstone of the young generation of home-made talent was anchored by a soft spoken catcher who could hit for power and average. As baseball historians look back through the annals of statistics, certainly Mike Piazza will be, and currently can be, viewed as perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in the history of the game. Regardless of his ranking, his offensive production resembles or surpasses Bench, Campanella, Berra. In what many regard as the grandest mistake in franchise history, in the final season of his contract, facing an off-season in which the Dodger ownership would inevitably be required to pay top dollar to retain the bat of their powerful catcher, Piazza was traded in the Spring of 1998 for a collection of players, Gary Sheffield being the only one worth noting. As one looks back upon the decade of the 1990s, the Los Angeles baseball club seemed poise to establish dynastic rule; five rookies of the year in a row, two playoff appearances, youth. The imperial dreams of all Angelinos crashed in upon the city on that dark April day. But the precedent had been set four years earlier when Martinez was cast aside to acquire a malcontent.

If the New York battery of Piazza and Martinez were stinging reminders of managerial indiscretion, the Los Angles battery of Brad Penny and Dionner Navarro represented a more tangible example of what appears to be a trend of questionable Dodger trades. Though only through the turning of time will the intelligibility of these two recent trades become apparent, the season of struggle that is 2005 highlights the frustration that many feel toward the Dodger hierarchy. Brad Penny was acquired in 2004 for, ironically, the heir apparent to Piazza, Paul LoDuca. A fan favorite for his unquestionable work ethic and skills behind the plate, LoDuca’s dismissal appeared incomprehensible at the time. And though Penny may grow into his role as the ace of a pitching staffed mired in mediocrity, his year old Dodger career has fluctuated between injury and flashes of brilliance. There is little argument that Penny is a solid pitcher and has had an above average stint in the big leagues, but fans remain ambivalent and most still question the thought process that leads to the trading franchise face. Navarro, the rookie catcher who, whether he realizes it or not, is the heir apparent to the unparalleled legacy of Dodger catchers, is finding the 2005 season to be his on-the-job training. Deemed at least a year away from playing everyday with the big club as the year began, he started in AA, rose rapidly to the AAA team in Las Vegas, and was summoned to the Dodgers when Paul Bako, the second string catcher, was sidelined for the year with a injury, and the inability of everyday catcher Jason Phillips to throw out even ten percent of the runners who attempted to steal on him began to cost the Dodgers games in the standings. Navarro was acquired when Shawn Green, another solid performer on and off the field, was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

As the two teams faced off for a Sunday afternoon game, both squads still ostensibly in the playoff race, it seemed fitting that the visiting Mets pitcher-catcher combination, would be the remnants from an unfulfilled Dodger era. After all, the orange and blue colors that compose the Mets’ uniforms were taken from the ghosts that still haunt New York baseball. The orange was a tip of the cap to the New York Giants who departed for San Francisco. And the blue was taken in memoriam for the lost club of Flatbush, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Freud might deem the presence of Piazza and Martinez in New York uniforms on the grass of Dodger Stadium as the “return of the repressed,” but to me it simply represented the fallibility of fate. I felt the significance of this game early, the new breed of Dodgers composed by a Harvard grad, who never laced up the spikes professionally and who relied upon statistical evaluation as his ultimate mode of determining the net worth of a ball player versus the embodiment of unfulfilled baseball fantasy, Martinez in his first game at Dodger Stadium since he last donned a Expo uniform, and Piazza in perhaps his final Dodger stadium visit.

No Met pitcher has ever pitched a no-hitter and Martinez had been disappointed more than once in his own attempt to claim such a prize. Even his brother Ramon, whose career was solid but not near the level of Pedro’s, had pitched a no-no, in Dodger Blue no less with Piazza behind the plate calling the game. Martinez was pitching a masterful game through seven innings against his old club, allowing only one batter to reach first, offering a base on balls to center fielder Milton Bradley. The three zeroes that aligned themselves on the scoreboard served as indication of the Dodger’s ineptitude. In fact one of the intermittent highlights of the otherwise forgettable first seven innings for the Dodgers was a throw that Navarro made on a high Penny fastball to catch Miguel Cairo, another former Dodger prospect, attempting to swipe second base in the sixth inning. Martinez retired the first batter in the eighth and the historic atmosphere was bolstered by a palpable tension that settled upon the frustrated LA crowd. And then it was over, a momentary grasp at a revered baseball feat dashed by a ball hit off the bat of second baseman Antonio Perez. The ball carried deep into left centerfield as thirty-nine year old veteran Gerald Williams dashed toward the flashing white orb in an attempt to preserve history. As the outfielder neared the wall he turned his head, noticed the impending collision with the blue padded fence, closed his eyes, and extended his gloved hand. The ball and fielder smacked the wall simultaneously, the no-hitter squelched by a gap of six inches between the outstretched mitt and the abyss of blue. Perez slid safely into third base with a triple and the methodical Martinez performance collapse beneath the veracity of the brevity of a baseball in screaming flight and a man at full dash around the bases. And now the ghosts receded into the ephemeral atmosphere, the hall of immortals opened all afternoon gave way to the reality of this single ballgame: the Mets had a one run lead and the Dodgers had the tying run stationed ninety feet away. Like an early morning alarm clock blitzing a deepened sleep, the next batter, Jayson Werth punctuated the puncturing of a pitcher’s dream sending an inside fastball a dozen rows up into the left field bleachers, giving the ebullient Dodger ball-club a 2-1 lead. What seemed a frozen moment in time, a glimpse into immortality, sped to a truth that all veterans, including Martinez, eventually recognize; that baseball is a game of almosts and these moments of maybe shake the gods and ghosts of baseball from restless sleep. Martinez was able to retire the next two batters but the conclusion seemed starkly apparent. He did not hang his head nor curse his catcher. He did not look skyward or mouth the word why, but simple walked back toward the dugout hopeful that his team could tie the game in the top of the ninth inning.

Amidst the clamor of Pedro’s brush with perfection, the pitching performance of his counterpart had been overshadowed. Penny had allowed a handful of hits, but only one run on back to back doubles. And now with two runs supporting the foundation of his afternoon, Penny strode to the mound attempting to gain the first complete game of his Dodger career. In previous seasons he would not have been given the chance, for the ball would have been handed to Eric Gagne the Dodger closer. However, Gagne, out for the season because of injury, had rescinded his role to Yhency Brozaban, a pitcher with a blazing fastball but barely a full year of major league service. Brozoban’s catastrophic and atmospheric Earned Run Average had cost him his role as the team’s closer. Thus, the game which had been in the grasp of Martinez shifted its focus to the Dodger starter. Fittingly, it was the current Dodger battery that sealed the game. With one out the Mets were able to move Anderson to third and had two chances the tie the game and allow Martinez to take the mound for the bottom of the ninth. But on a check swing grounder to Perez at second base, Anderson came rushing home to test Navarro behind the plate. Anderson attempted to slide around the catcher’s tag, tripping up the home plate umpire. Stumbling backward but without falling, the official snapped his closed fist indicating that Navarro had made the tag atop Anderson’s head before the runner could touch home. And thus Martinez was plagued again by the almost of time, the split second decision making of Perez who instinctually fired home, the runner’s hand inches off target. And moments later the contest was over on a strikeout by Met’s pinch-hitter Matsui, the sun slowly crept toward the horizon in the dusty glimpse of a western afternoon. Werth leapt from his outfield position and seemed to fly toward Perez in comradely celebration. Martinez sat still upon the dugout bench frozen like winter raindrops. The baseball ghosts tapped upon his shoulder, he turned to look, and the moment was gone.

The bittersweet bellows of being perhaps brought perspective to Piazza and Martinez; perhaps not. And like the failed no-hit attempt, Dodger fans are left to ponder what might have been. Perhaps Martinez, driven by a quest for vindication, channeled divinity through seven innings. Like a scorned lover, Martinez was never shy about his disregard for the Dodger organization, betrayed by begetters, his career was always a validation of the erroneous nature of the fateful Dodger decision. Perhaps the homer by Werth indicated a final absolution for the Dodger franchise- free to finally liberate a phantasm of failed assessment. Piazza, ostensibly without the bitterness toward the family who nurtured and subsequently displayed disloyalty, went quietly that afternoon striking out three times, an after thought in a pitcher’s duel, overshadowed by his own counterpart in a post that he once manned. But certainly, when Piazza is immortalized in Cooperstown it will be as a Met and not as a Dodger and this is the most painful proof of injudicious imprudence. As Lasorda must know, as he sits upright in bed in the midst of darkness, this is the sorrow of almost. As both teams struggle to fill a playoff spot that neither will realistically occupy, the reality of the present burnishes its incontestable glare. A new regime man’s the sixty feet six inch space between the pitching rubber and the home plate pentagon, and like the haunting dreams that penetrate and obsess each generation of ballplayers, Piazza and Martinez still alive in the baseball present will one day join the echelon, haunted no longer by dreams of almost. And so for one August Sunday, the nightmares of summers past and passing recede from Chavez Ravine, converted into a future hope, that this generation, Penny and Navarro, will transcend the almost and touch eternity.