You Come Here Often? Once Is All He Needs

It’s been one e-mail after another, blah-blah-blah about the Dodgers, everybody bugging me with, “What do you say now about the Blue Crew, Mr. Smart Guy?” So I skipped San Antonio, knowing the outcome, and went to Thursday’s baseball game to see what’s going on.

You poor people -- so this is what has you all excited?

It’s the same crummy team I watched last year. And the year before that.

Please, don’t waste my time with your ridiculous “I told you so’s” when you really have nothing to tell me.

The Blue Crew had two hits going into the ninth, trailing, 7-1, against the Cubs, who rested Sammy Sosa.

Hideo Nomo got four outs and then took the rest of the day off. They had Jose Lima sing the national anthem and then pitch. Must be some cost-cutting move by the Boston Parking Lot Attendant and his wife, the Screaming Meanie. Milton Bradley, reporters were telling me, has apparently replaced Kevin Brown in the clubhouse as Mr. Grumpy, although he seems to be hitting more like F.P. Santangelo.

“I’m tired of answering questions about Milton,” the Micro Manager said before the game, and I can understand why.

So this is what everyone wanted me to see? You folks really owe me an explanation.

“You have to come here more often,” the Micro Manager said, which is not what I usually hear from coaches, managers and players.

I stopped by the clubhouse before the game to see whether there’s anything different down there and noticed almost every player wears a necklace. Never too early, I guess, to get the feel of that choke collar.

“You can mark it down, 10:35 a.m., May 13th,” Lima said. “It’s going to be a slap in your face. Come Sept. 13th we’ll probably be 10 games up on everybody, and you’re going to have to apologize to everyone. If not, I’m coming to your house.”

I don’t know what it is about No. 27, but it seems whoever is wearing it here, we don’t see eye to eye. I tried to be positive, predicting a Dodger loss Thursday but telling Lima, “That’s still two out of three against the Cubs.”

“Three out of three,” he said. “I expect you to come to me and apologize after we beat the Cubs today to make it three out of three.”

Three hours later, I went to the clubhouse, and caught Lima, who was trying to slip out while the rest of the media went to the Micro Manager’s office for their daily ration of cliches.

Lima didn’t apologize. “We don’t want negative people in here,” he said, and here I had just told him, “I liked the way you sang the national anthem,” when I could have said, “You sing better than you pitch.”

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CHRIS CURRY also went to the game. Curry, who said he worked as an intern for the Lakers in 2000, took the day off from his current job to sit in left field.

“Before the game Nomo and [pitching coach] Jim Colborn came down to the bullpen, I’m leaning on the rail and I yell, ‘Hey, Colborn, do you think Nomo is going to hit 85’ ” on the radar gun?Curry said. “Colborn stares at me, then yells, ‘Let’s see you throw 85.’ I told him, ‘Size 11 cleats.’

“Then he calls the security lady over and says, ‘That guy in the yellow shirt -- get him out of here.’ Security put me in my seat and told me I couldn’t talk to the players like that. One more word and I’d be thrown out. Hey, Nomo couldn’t understand me, and I didn’t use a single word of profanity. I wanted to know if Nomo could hit 85. If Peter Gammons had asked, would they have thrown him out?”

Colborn said, “I just wanted to quiet him down. Major League Baseball has advised us of zero tolerance. We’re advised any time it’s borderline abusive language or even attitude to call security.”

I’m surprised they haven’t cleared the park, in that case, so players can compete without getting abuse, or a bad attitude from fans. Let’s make it like golf.

“The fans were yelling obscenities at Moises Alou in left field and things about him urinating on his hands, and Dodger security didn’t do anything,” Curry said.

After the game a reporter asked the Micro Manager about Nomo’s velocity, and surprisingly he did not call for security. “We didn’t have much time to measure his velocity,” he said.

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STOPPED BY Tom Lasorda’s box and found Loni Anderson. I figured she was lost, although Lasorda might be the only one old enough to remember her from her role as Jennifer Marlowe on “WKRP in Cincinnati.” I offered to spend the rest of the afternoon, if that’s what it took, to show her around.

When I arrived, Lasorda was talking about Jo, his saintly wife of 54 years, and how “he had selected her from a group of 25 women. I was going over their qualifications....” That’s when he noticed I was taking notes, which shut him up. The peace and quiet was wonderful, and although I’m sure Jo would like some of that, she might want to ask him for the rest of the story later.

Anderson was honored by the Dodgers for her work on behalf of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She had been a guest on several radio shows earlier, and on one show she had been described as being “really hot.” I asked Lasorda whether he concurred, but he still wasn’t talking.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from David Saw:

“While I hate the Cubs and their drunk idiot fans, I went to Tuesday’s game just to see you face Ernie Banks after your column ripped him. But the gutless so-called sportswriter you are, you went to the Laker game.... Looking forward to getting your autograph IF you show up in Anaheim during the Yankee series.”

I’ll look for you; I have no doubt you will stand out from everyone else.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.