If Dodgers Want Any Help, There’s No Shortage Here

Perhaps if we can’t make the Dodgers into winners, we can make them controversial. Change your strategy, Mr. Murdoch, and you can draw viewers from pro wrestling programs. Here are 10 suggestions to keep Dodger fans riveted:

1. About every fourth game, have Tom Lasorda chase Glenn Hoffman out of the dugout, through the stadium seats with a bat.

2. Team Robin Leach with Vin Scully to report on players’ unceasing opulence and off-field immorality.

3. During a TV close-up, show pitching coach Charlie Hough conducting ball-scuffing training.

4. Have Wilton Guerrero strike up a conversation with the plate umpire while corking his bat in the on-deck circle.

5. Once or twice during the season, have a pregame interview with a paranoid player who will answer only by mumbling through his glove.

6. Just before the visiting team takes the field, release 30 cobras that are trained to roam the warning track.

7. When both dugouts empty to fight, have groundskeepers turn fire hoses on participants.

8. Have a reciprocal “Camera Night” when players come to your house to take your picture.

9. Have relief pitchers drag annoying fans into the bullpen and beat them up.

10. Have a brick barbecue built on the first base coaching box at Dodger Stadium, where Mickey Hatcher, wearing apron and chef’s hat, can coach and make hamburgers for fans at the same time.

WAYNE E. SCOTT, Camarillo

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The Reds finally got even for the Frank Robinson-for-Milt Pappas deal in 1965. Only the Orioles were not the victims this time.

FRED J. BAPTISTE, Redlands

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If I were a Dodger, I would not want Lasorda to “love me as a son.” He seems to have a proclivity for shafting those he loves as a son. Or does he love them as a son only after he has shafted them?

RAE DIBBLE, Montebello

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In two to three years we will see the following:

1. Paul Konerko will be batting with the average and consistency of Mike Piazza in his prime.

2. Dennis Reyes will be pitching with the effectiveness of Pedro Martinez, a Cy Young Award winner.

What Dodger fans will know for sure is, Fred Claire cannot be blamed for this one.

WAYNE MURAMATSU, Cerritos

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That old saying, “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” should be changed to “It ain’t over until the fat guy becomes GM.”

MARK EVANS, Bakersfield

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Those who think the Murdoch Dodgers trading Konerko and Reyes to Cincinnati for Jeff Shaw doesn’t make sense should not be surprised, because not much of what jolly Tom Lasorda ever did made sense. It is a case of a rookie general manager getting snookered by a real general manager.

JACK ALLEN, Pacific Palisades

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Jerry Seinfeld said, “It is hard to rationalize loyalty to any athletic team. The players change; the coaches change. The only thing that stays the same is the uniforms. So, you are really rooting for the clothing.”

Hey, Fox, don’t make the Dodgers wear those navy blue shirts anymore. I’ve been rooting for the white shirts all of these years.

JOHN THOMPSON, Chino

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We have sprinkled so many teams with Former Dodgers that I hear that the famous ballpark snacks are now called Ex-Dodger Dogs at all 29 other ballparks.

ALEX ZIMS, Van Nuys

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The only thing left to speculate on this season: How many players from the opening-day roster will still be around on Fan Slap-in-the-Face Day in late September?

RANDY KRAUCH, El Segundo