This Could Be Deal Dodgers Have to Make

The Dodgers should trade a pitcher, people say. The Dodgers have all sorts of pitchers. All they need to do is trade a pitcher.

Trade a pitcher for whom?

For a center fielder? How fair is that to Jose Gonzalez, who is one of the few Dodgers playing decent baseball these days?

Trade a pitcher for Dan Gladden? For Mickey Brantley? Are one of those guys going to turn the Dodger season around?

And trade which pitcher?

Trade Tim Leary, 1988’s comeback player of the year and Silver Bat award winner? Trade Tim Belcher, 1988’s rookie pitcher of the year?

They can’t trade John Tudor or Fernando Valenzuela, because their arms are suspect. Can’t trade Ramon Martinez, because his arm isn’t suspect. Can’t trade Orel Hershiser, because he’s Orel Hershiser.

The Dodgers could trade Mike Morgan, but it would be one of the dirtiest tricks ever done to a player. The guy pitches his heart out, night after night, puts together a masterful earned-run average in his first three months in town . . . and then you trade him? No wonder Morgan decided to rent a house rather than buy.

It is nice to have a surplus of pitchers--but do they? Valenzuela is getting better, but isn’t exactly throwing great balls of fire. And Tudor hasn’t finished five innings yet.

We can see trading Alejandro Pena a lot sooner than we can see trading a starter. Then again, how good a hitter would Pena bring? And what position would this hitter play?

It is obvious the Dodgers desperately need hitting. Kirk Gibson is slumping, and has fragile body parts. Eddie Murray is neither seeing good pitches nor swinging well at the ones he sees. The Dodgers have lost potent bats such as Steve Sax, Pedro Guerrero and Mike Devereaux, all in the last year.

However, they also won a World Series in that last year, and we believe a championship team deserves a one-year grace period before you start blasting them. The same people who want us to be critical of the Dodgers are the same people who often criticize us for being over-critical? Besides, the Dodgers are not exactly 20 games out of first place.

There still is time to make a move.

And, we do have a suggestion.

You might not like it, and there might be reasons behind the scenes that would prevent the Dodgers from exploring it. Just the same, here it is:

There is a hitter, evidently available, who could be just what the Dodger doctor ordered.

The name is Boggs. Wade Boggs.

Say it dramatically, as James Bond would.

Word is going around again that the Boston Red Sox are ready and willing to move Wade Boggs, if the price is right. One story says that Boggs is insisting upon making more money in his next contract than Roger Clemens does, which would put the third baseman around $3 million a year.

Maybe these rumors are untrue. Maybe it also is untrue what we hear that most of the teams around baseball have no interest in Boggs. That they are trying to keep salaries in line. Or that they fear clubhouse or public reaction to Boggs, who has been embroiled for months in that mistress mess.

All we know for sure is this:

Boggs has a lifetime batting average of .356. He just turned 31, so he might have 10 seasons left, minimum. He played 155 games last season and made 11 errors.

Boggs has six consecutive 200-hit seasons. Nobody currently on the Dodgers has had one 200-hit season. Nobody has had one 190-hit season. Boston badly needs starting pitching, having lost Bruce Hurst and Oil Can Boyd. The Dodgers also could toss in Jeff Hamilton, a talent on the rise who can field and is just now finding his batting eye. Hamilton is a right-handed hitter with eight home runs who certainly could clear the Green Monster.

Possibly we are far off-base on this. Maybe Boston would laugh at a trade offer of Hamilton, a starting pitcher (Belcher?) and possibly a third player, maybe a Mariano Duncan or a Dave Anderson. Maybe Boston already has.

Or maybe Fred Claire would rather have poison oak than have Wade Boggs. We don’t know. We don’t even know for sure if Boggsy is available.

But, we sure would like to know.

He undoubtedly would approve a trade to Los Angeles. He might ask more money than Hershiser is making, but if Orel wants some hits behind him, he had better not worry about picayune things such as who earns the most money on the ballclub.

As for Gibson, he misses too many games to make too many demands, at next salary time. Wade Boggs has not appeared in fewer than 147 games since 1982, when he was a rookie.

All the All-Stars and many of their bosses will be in the neighborhood soon for Tuesday’s midsummer classic. A deal that brought Wade Boggs to Los Angeles, now that would truly be a midsummer classic.