This Is All We Have Left?

The Dodgers are in last place. The Angels are in last place.

Go back on strike. We’ll try the replacement players.

The Dodgers have one .300 hitter, catcher Mike Piazza. Their next leading hitter is backup catcher Carlos Hernandez, who has batted 14 times.

The Angels’ top hitter is Rex Hudler, which makes me realize that Marge Schott was misquoted. What Marge really said was: “Hudler was good in the beginning.”

But because our basketball and hockey teams are as cold as the carpoolers in Dr. Kevorkian’s van and our football teams have blown town faster than Helen Hunt in a twister, baseball is all we have, unless you want to count a soccer team that spends its Sundays playing something called the Kansas City Wiz.

Welcome to our lollapalooza ’96 tour. I haven’t seen this many dog teams since I covered the Iditarod.

The only reason the Dodgers and Angels are in fourth place is because there is no fifth place. Of the opponents in their divisions, only one city--Oakland--has won a World Series. The Giants haven’t won one for 42 years. The Padres have never won one. The Rockies, Rangers and Mariners have never even been in one.

So, it’s not as though the competition is too stiff.

The Dodgers keep telling everybody: “We’re a better team than this.”

Really? Based on what?

They spent all of 1995 trying to fend off Colorado, San Diego and San Francisco, an expansion team and two sub-.500 clubs.

They claimed this as proof how good they were, by winning that lousy four-team division of theirs by one game. Then they got swept by the Cincinnati Reds, who got swept by the Atlanta Braves.

So what did the Dodgers say this spring? That the Braves should watch out, because the Dodgers were coming after them.

Atlanta is 30-16. L.A. is 24-24.

Better hurry.

This organization has not won a postseason game in eight years.

The Dodgers are near the bottom of baseball in batting average and runs scored. Opponents are outhitting them, .268 to .236. Roger Cedeno, hitting a tame .253, ranks fourth on the current roster in average. Raul Mondesi, Eric Karros and Mike Blowers have 18 doubles and one triple in 503 at-bats. Eighteen doubles for the 4-5-6 men in the order.

Tom Lasorda knows how to yell. He’s a hugger, but he also knows how to pop his top. Should the Dodgers go into June still in last place, it might be time for Tommy to take off the gloves and start clearing some bench space for people who haven’t produced, and for Fred Claire to start offering pitchers to teams that can spare hitters.

Which brings us to the Angels.

Too bad the Angels and Dodgers don’t have a habit of dealing with one another, because the Angels sure could use a Tom Candiotti, a Pedro Astacio or a Chan Ho Park, while the Dodgers sure could use a stick.

No way the Angels are going to bust up that outfield of Garret Anderson, Jim Edmonds and slammin’ Timmy Salmon, however, so I don’t see how the Dodgers could benefit by a trade, unless Chili Davis could find his fielder’s glove.

The Angels should be sitting pretty. Seattle pitcher Randy Johnson, the scariest man in the Northwest outside of those holed up in Montana, is injured. This is a chance to make up ground on division-leading Texas, which usually collapses this time of year like an Australian in a golf tournament.

Unlike the Dodgers, the Angels can hit.

Unfortunately, Angel opponents are hitting harder, 12 points higher than the Angel team average, because the Halo pitching staff has a team earned-run average of 5.05. There are T-ball teams in Orange County holding batters to fewer runs.

One major magazine this spring projected a Freeway Series between the Dodgers and Angels, based on last season’s close calls. I believe this same magazine also picked Forbes over Dole.

Taking the freeway to a championship game is something I would love to do. Right now, I think my only hope is soccer.