Donkey Gets a Name but No Place to Heehaw

I thought Saturday would be a good day to visit Chavez Ravine, what with the team out of town, to map out the best way to get the donkey into Dodger Stadium once we have named the mascot.

The Angels never had to concern themselves with something like this when they settled on the Rally Monkey. They borrowed a monkey from the TV show “Friends,” put it in a small cage, covered the cage so the poor animal had no idea it was being shipped off to Orange County, and then trained it to jump around as if it suddenly cared about the Angels.

Later this technique was used successfully on humans in Edison Field.

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A DONKEY presents different problems. I have no idea, of course, what it’s like to cart around a big donkey all day, and while several jokes come to mind, I know the editor who was working last night and none of them would have gotten past her. Lucky for Bubba II, the middle brother-in-law....

One naysayer suggested the Dodgers won’t allow the Dodger Donkey Mascot to come to a game, and I’ve got to admit, this is a concern because we’re not talking about Staples Center President Tim Leiweke here.

As you know, Leiweke loves to make money -- raising Laker playoff parking prices from $15 to $20 because he can -- so if the donkey had its own ticket, and I think you’ll see this when the bidding for those $3,000 ringside packages for the Lennox Lewis fight concludes, you just know he’d roll out the red carpet.

I would hope the Dodgers would do the same thing, and provide a nice grazing area. Ever since I suggested the donkey, the players have been stoked, coming from behind four times to post a 4-2 record.

A note of caution to the Dodgers: The last team to turn its back on an animal continues to pay for it. William “Billygoat” Sianis took his pet goat, “Murphy,” to Wrigley Field for the fourth game of the 1945 World Series, and even though Murphy had his own ticket, Chicago Cub owner Phil Wrigley refused admittance to the goat, saying, “it smelled.”

Sianis then put a hex on the Cubs, and after the Cubs lost to the Detroit Tigers in the 1945 World Series, he sent a note to Wrigley: “Who smells now?”

There have been several well-publicized ritual exorcism efforts in recent years to lift the goat curse, but the Cubs haven’t played in a World Series since.

(This makes you wonder who cursed the Dodgers after the 1988 season.)

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I FIGURED center field, maybe right behind the fence, would be the perfect place for the new Dodger donkey mascot during games. I would imagine The Times would want to sponsor it, and maybe have Sports Editor Bill Dwyre sit on it before home games to wave to the fans.

When I arrived Saturday to check out the area, Dodger officials stopped me. They were very nervous, and behind them I noticed a long line of people waiting to take batting practice. Obviously, I had stumbled on secret workouts to find a replacement for Adrian Beltre.

Dave, a fan who refused to reveal his last name, which will be interesting if he’s signed to replace Beltre -- “Now batting, Dave. Just Dave” -- telephoned The Times to say the Dodgers had been doing this since 9 a.m.

I called Derrick Hall, the Dodgers’ spin master, and he said the workouts were “only secret in the sense they were closed,” and I also presume because they didn’t want Beltre to know about them.

“We have no intention of signing someone to replace Beltre,” he said, and I said, “Why not?” He replied, “We’re just doing something good for our premier ticket holders,” so I said, “Then why not get someone better than Beltre if you want to do something good for your premier ticket holders?”

I’m not sure how the donkey came up, but I think he mentioned it, or a word that means the same thing....

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***NEWS FLASH***

Both Adrian Beltre and Fred McGriff are now hitting above .200.

The “name-the-donkey-mascot” contest is over.

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THE RUNNERS-UP, who will each get four tickets to a Dodger game, and my thanks for making me laugh, are Frank Anastasia and Wayne Damore.

Anastasia suggested the “Decibel Donkey,” putting it on the scoreboard with a decibel meter, and when the crowd yells loud enough, the donkey starts kicking. “And when the crowd gets louder,” Anastasia wrote, “the donkey starts braying like, well, a Grocery Store Bagger after a couple of beers.”

Damore wanted the donkey called “Vamonos,” which loosely translated means, “Let’s go,” which could also be used to tell fans when to leave, he said. He also wanted to know if I’d consider calling it “Traveler.” I don’t believe in cruelty to animals, however.

I’m surprised no one mentioned “Kevin,” which would have claimed first prize, but we do have a winner. Carlos Sanchez, one of several who suggested the donkey be named after the burro-riding Don Quixote, gets two tickets to an Angel game for getting his name pulled out of a hat and inspiring me to call our new hero “Quixotic, the Dodger Donkey.”

And why “Quixotic”? I give you this dictionary definition of quixotic: “Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Jason Negri:

“Can’t TNT find anyone more biased than Danny Ainge to call a Laker game? Let me see, ‘I played for Boston, my good friend is Kevin McHale, let’s make fun of Robert Horry -- didn’t Horry throw a towel in my face when I was coaching the Suns?’ I wish Chick was still here.”

So do I.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.