Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — Living in LA is pretty cool sometimes. You might go to a deli in the Valley and be sitting next to actor James Cromwell (which happened to me once) or be walking out of a movie theater and run into Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles (also happened to me). Or, if you’re on the LA Dodgers, maybe Academy Award winner Denzel Washington comes to your clubhouse and gives the team a message. Which, come to think of it is way better than eating my pancakes next to the guy from Babe, Pig in the City.
Anyway, the star of Training Day dropped by the Dodgers’ locker room before the game last week, and shared a few stories with the team before they took the field against the Reds. While he admitted being a Yankee fan as a kid growing up in New York, he told of days as a kid playing wiffle ball with his friends and sneaking past the turnstiles at Yankee Stadium. And he said with a grin, he had hated the Dodgers as a kid, “because that’s what you do.”
But then he turned serious. “I just pray,” he said, “that you understand the power and authority that you all have. The influence that you have, and I know you do. But never take your gift for granted; it could be taken from you in a second.”
Then he told a story of how his hundred-year-old aunt was face-timing with Jay-Z (seriously), and he said that he hoped the players would use their gift “to do God’s work.”
Then after his son Malcolm (a Dodger fan) addressed the team, Denzel hung around to take pictures with everyone, and joked with each player as he had his picture snapped with the Hollywood legend. “You’re too skinny to play baseball!” he said when he shook hands with Trea Turner. “What position do you play?”
In all, it seemed like a great visit from one of the best…
