Turning the Ravine Into an Abyss of Despair

In Anaheim, a party.

In Chavez Ravine, a wake.

In Anaheim, a hearty embrace of Vladimir Guerrero.

In Chavez Ravine, a feeble stiff-arm at despair.

On Monday, the second day of the Dodgers’ annual winter workouts, the heart of the team was seemingly sucked into the late-morning mist.

Shawn Green, a regular at these things, didn’t show up.

Dave Roberts, another regular, also didn’t show up.

The manager wasn’t there. The general manager didn’t come to the field. The owner wouldn’t dare.

Only five major league players were present, but that included Eric Gagne, who was so sick he couldn’t leave the clubhouse.

“We still have time,” Gagne said softly. “I still think we can get all the pieces right.”

Gagne was wearing his ninth-inning mask. Yet outside, there was a different sort of Game Over feel.

Around the batting cage were mostly minor league kids working with two Dodger coaches and somebody’s buddy who picked up a fungo bat.

In the outfield were more minor leaguers, anonymously fielding grounders as if on some remote field at Vero Beach.

Watching this were only two print reporters, every other newspaper hack having scurried to the real story in Anaheim.

In the middle of it all was Tom Lasorda, one guy who still remembers the importance of workouts like these.

He was talking about the Angels.

“I’m very impressed with what they’ve done,” he said. “They’re gonna have a lot to say about who wins their division. That’s the good thing about free agency, you can go out and get players you need.”

What about the Dodgers, Tommy?

Lasorda shrugged and winced, a silence that spoke volumes.

As the Guerrero signing reminded everyone here, Chavez Ravine has become the other side of the tracks.

It’s the home of the only team around that’s not trying to win, not trying to sell, not even pretending to honor the trust of legions of longtime fans.

Among many recent wasted opportunities, this terrible trio:

The best available hitter last summer, Brian Giles, was lost to San Diego.

The best available-for-trade hitter this winter, Richie Sexson, was lost to Arizona.

And now one of baseball’s best hitters, period, was lost to the team down the road.

At Monday’s celebration in Anaheim Manager Mike Scioscia said, “We have the makings of a terrific club, a club that I know all of L.A. will be proud of.”

Notice he didn’t say Anaheim. He didn’t say Orange County. He said, “All of L.A.”

The Dodgers won’t say that. They can’t say that. They haven’t been able to say that for 16 years.

So Scioscia says it, and he’s right, and this is what should hurt his former team most.

On one of the darkest Dodger days since Peter O’Malley announced he was selling the team, they officially became an afterthought in their own city.

How could baseball let this happen?

That’s what this is about, you know.

This reaches much higher than the discount desk of Dan Evans, although his legacy will be in the bloody sacrifice of the present for the sake of the future.

This problem reaches all the way to the commissioner’s office, where Bud Selig has allowed the defacing of a franchise that former commissioners considered a treasure.

How could Selig allow an owner who has stopped spending money on the team to sell to a guy who can’t afford it?

Frank McCourt can’t buy Vladimir Guerrero because he can barely buy the Dodger uniforms.

And Fox, already loaning him money for the purchase, certainly isn’t going to help him.

How can Selig approve of this?

The franchise with the major-league guts to break the color barrier is being treated like triple-A team.

The franchise that popularized baseball on the West Coast is being allowed to go south.

Forget Pete Rose, how come Selig is gambling with baseball’s future in its second-biggest city?

McCourt will be approved soon as the new Dodger -- cough, cough -- owner.

He will come to town for the first sports news conference featuring representatives from all major credit cards.

He should first be asked, why?

Why are you buying something you seem incapable of improving?

Why does it seem as though you want the baseball team less than the property in Chavez Ravine, so you can turn it into apartments and build a new stadium downtown?

Why would you not allow the money saved on the Kevin Brown deal to be spent on someone just as powerful?

Why, oh why, would you allow Cy Young’s wing man to leave town because you wouldn’t pay him?

“We cannot replace ‘Q,’ ” Gagne said of setup man Paul Quantrill, whose loss will be the Dodgers’ biggest this winter. “We can only hope to somehow compensate for him.”

McCourt should then be asked, when?

When are you going to turn around and sell the Dodgers to somebody like Arte Moreno?

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to Latimes.com/plaschke