Dodgers

Moves BASEBALL DODGERS -- Agreed to terms with C Rene Rivera and IF Terry Tiffee on minor league contracts. PIRATES -- Named Jack Bowen national crosschecker. YANKEES -- Agreed to terms with C Jorge Posada on four-year contract. BASKETBALL NUGGETS -- Signed C Jelani McCoy from Los Angeles (D-League). COLLEGES NEBRASKA -- Named Tom Osborne interim football coach. Pro soccer IGNITION (MISL) -- Agreed to terms with G Tomer Chencinski and F Leo Gibson.

"The baseball life is like a circus life. It looks glamorous while the show is on, but when the show is over, it's not glamorous." Rich Donnelly Los Angeles Dodgers coach, on Mike Hargrove's decision to resign as Seattle Mariners manager last week

LOS ANGELES -- The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Jiffy Lube Giants this day. They trailed the Burger King Dodgers 4-3 with but one inning left to play.Dodgers' pitcher, Kevin "Chevy Trucks: Like A Rock" Brown (during the Seventh Inning Stretch, which was brought to the fans at Microsoft Dodger Stadium by Frito Lay, General Motors bought the naming rights to Brown) toed the big "S" on the chocolate-brown Snickers pitcher's mound and glared toward the red Papa John's Pizza home plate, where the recently renamed Barry "Tylenol" Bonds menacingly waved his black Twizzlers Licorice bat with the bright yellow M&M's sweet spot on the barrel.

Highlights and lowlights from the Orioles' 10-0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Fort Lauderdale Stadium:Juan Guzman: Working on a two-seamer, he showed the form that makes opposing batters dread every at-bat against him.Doug Linton: It appears the "Tommy John" surgery in '97 was a complete success. So far, Linton has been the same.Willis Otanez: Out of options, but not out of the club's plans. Not by a long shot.Davey Johnson: Always good copy, even when he's not trying.Outfield communication: The Dodgers need some of their youngsters to work on it. Now.Brady Anderson: Goes 0-for-3 but scores twice and drives in a run. Neat trick.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kevin Brown doesn't look any different. He still cuts his hair the same way. He still throws that wicked sinker. Still has that Southern drawl, and we're not talking Southern California."I'm the same guy," he says earnestly, as if that were possible.He still makes his home in Macon, Ga., but life definitely has changed since he pitched for the San Diego Padres in the World Series last October. He became a free agent and then became a lot of things he probably never imagined he would ever become.

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The San Francisco Giants must have gotten lost in the free-agent free-for-all. They've won more games than any other National League West team over the past two years, but seemed to fall off the face of the baseball world after the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks went spend-happy over the winter.They lost the National League wild-card berth in a playoff against the Chicago Cubs last year and have largely the same team back in 1999, but everyone is assuming that they'll finish well behind the Dodgers and D-backs, because each of those teams added a superstar pitcher to their starting rotations.

Misery loves company. The Orioles may have cooled off during their frustrating three-game series against the Boston Red Sox and their first two games against the New York Yankees, but they clearly have been replaced as baseball's most disappointing team.The Los Angeles Dodgers were swept in a three-game series by the last-place San Diego Padres and entered this weekend's important series against the rival San Francisco Giants in danger of dropping into the National League West cellar.How can that be?

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Tradition died hard at Dodgertown, where the stability of the staid Los Angeles Dodgers organization used to be reflected in the familiarity of the faces that populated training camp each spring.Turnover was a dirty word in the glory days of one of baseball's most storied franchises. The Dodgers were slow to join in the free-agent frenzy of the 1970s and '80s and stubborn in their emphasis on player development. They clung to the ways of the past until time began to pass them by.Not anymore.

Highlights and lowlights from the Orioles' 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Vero Beach, Fla.DOWN --Doug Johns: Was due for a poor outing. This is it.UP -- Brady Anderson: Takes over the club lead in RBIs with 10 after hitting a two-run homer in the fifth.DOWN -- Willis Otanez: Commits his team-leading fourth error, a wild throw that allowed a run in the first. Also goes 0-for-3 in the cleanup spot.UP -- Mike Timlin: Breezes through the fifth, not allowing the ball out of the infield.

Has the baseball world turned upside down, or what?The 1999 season has reached its traditional midpoint, and many of the basic assumptions that dominate the sport as it approaches the turn of a new century have been called into question.Money talks?Better check with the four big-revenue teams that are wallowing at the bottom of the standings. The Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and Anaheim Angels expected to be in serious contention this year, but instead have challenged the direct correlation between payroll and playoff viability.

Ramirez, Dodgers agree to $45M deal baseball The winter of discontent in Mannywood is over. Outfielder Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers officially agreed yesterday on a two-year, $45 million contract that keeps him with the National League West champions. The slugger can void the second season of the deal and again become a free agent. The stalemate was broken during a 6 a.m. meeting that brought the sides face-to-face at owner Frank McCourt's Malibu, Calif., home. The Dodgers confirmed the deal shortly after Ramirez, 36, passed a physical.

The offer the Dodgers made to Manny Ramirez was a brilliant public relations move and could turn out to be a very impactful event. Of course, Ramirez isn't going to accept the reported two-year, $50 million offer that apparently includes an option for a third season. The question is how a pre-emptive $25 million-per-year offer affects the other teams that are expected to be involved. It's just possible that the offer was a poison pill that will make some of those teams back out before open bidding even starts.

Dodgers make first pitch to keep slugger Ramirez baseball The Los Angeles Dodgers have offered Manny Ramirez the second-highest average salary in baseball behind Alex Rodriguez in an effort to keep the free-agent slugger, general manager Ned Colletti said yesterday. Colletti did not disclose details, but he acknowledged that the proposed deal exceeded the average of $20 million a season Ramirez received during his most recent eight-year, $160 million contract. However, mlb.com reported that the Dodgers' offer is said to be in the range of $55 million over two years.

As we learned in the first round, the Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer the team that appeared destined to miss the playoffs in August and scraped in with an 84-78 record. They're a versatile outfit with dangerous bats up and down the lineup and a stingy starter in every rotation slot. Their matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies is no easy call, but I'll take the team that's hitting and pitching better than at any point this season. Not only do the Dodgers boast a nuclear-hot Manny Ramirez in the three hole, they have their chief table-setter, Rafael Furcal, back at the top of the lineup.

You'll probably hear some derivative of the word at least 50 times during the 2008 National League Championship Series: contrast. It's Philadelphia and its blue-collar fatalism pitted against Los Angeles and its impassioned and impersonal glitz. It's baseball's most revered manager, Joe Torre, against its most maligned, Charlie Manuel. It's a bunch of big-name bombers versus a lineup with less power than the Federal Reserve Board. It's a team no one expected versus one always expected to choke.

LOS ANGELES - For the first two games of the National League Championship Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers will head back to Philadelphia, the site of a four-game sweep in late August that started a season-worst eight-game losing streak for the Dodgers. But memories of Philadelphia don't necessarily elicit negative emotions for the Dodgers, who were outscored 27-5 by the Phillies in that series. Because of the beatings they absorbed, the players say, they found out how much manager Joe Torre believed in them.

Call it baseball's version of the circle of life. Orioles manager Dave Trembley looks across the field at the Los Angeles Angels and sees the kind of team that he would like his team to be. Angels manager Mike Scioscia looks across the field at the Orioles and sees one of the organizations that was a model for what his team has become. "They have balance in every conceivable area," said Trembley. "They have every component you would want. When somebody gets hurt, they can bring somebody up from the minor leagues and not miss a beat."

April 8 1974 Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hit his 715th career home run in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, breaking Babe Ruth's record.

Yesterday Grapefruit League Florida 7 Orioles 6 L.A. Dodgers (ss) 6 Washington 1 L.A. Dodgers (ss) 3 San Diego (ss) 3 Boston 16 Cincinnati 6 Toronto 4 Pittsburgh 1 Houston (ss) 15 Atlanta (ss) 6 N.Y. Yankees (ss) 11 Detroit 7 Cleveland 14 Houston (ss) 6 Minnesota 11 Philadelphia 2 Tampa Bay (ss) 11 Atlanta (ss) 10 St. Louis 10 N.Y. Mets 3 Tampa Bay (ss) 7 N.Y. Yankees (ss) 2 Cactus League Chicago White Sox 5 Chicago Cubs 3 L.A. Angels 5 Arizona 4 Oakland (ss) 10 San Francisco (ss) 2 Milwaukee 8 Kansas City 3 Oakland (ss)

Littering the bases Orioles starter Steve Trachsel went four innings yesterday. Only one of them was clean. Trachsel allowed four runs (three earned) and seven hits, walked one and didn't record a strikeout. He faced 19 batters. The Dodgers almost hit for the cycle in the third, getting a single, two doubles and a triple. Andruw Jones bounced an RBI single up the middle in the first after an error and walk put Trachsel in trouble. Rafael Furcal, Delwyn Young and Matt Kemp drove in runs in the third, but Trachsel blanked the Dodgers in the fourth despite allowing two singles.