Megastars power the Dodgers and Los Angeles like never before

Examine, if you want, the illustration that accompanies this story.

The image is worth 671 home runs, 2,056 RBIs and 2,379 runs.

The portrait is a four-headed monument to five MVP awards, 15 All-Star appearances and the last two World Series championships.

For your consideration, Mount Crushmore.

It’s the new wonder of the sports world, the biggest collection of baseball star power in any city in more than six decades, and starting next week, it’s all ours. They’re four of the game’s biggest headliners appearing for two teams that share freeways passing Hollywood, a double-shot of dreams.

We are talking about baseball. . . Belly, Mookie, Rendon and Trout.

We are singing about an upcoming one-season sprint that, if it survives the pandemic, could be unmatched in the long history of Southern California diamonds. Our two teams have never been covered in such shine. Our two disparate organizations have never combined to connect so seamlessly with the culture of a region.

Of course, it will be last summer on a coronavirus tightrope that stretches over a surreal landscape. The 60-game season will be played in socially distant shelters with additional entry gadget rules in front of cardboard fans in empty stadiums. The noise of the crowd will be false. The fear will be real.

Some players will leave to protect their families. Others will be forced to leave after taking positive samples. The championship could be won by the team with most of the stars still standing. That is, if there is even a championship. There is no bubble, just the reality of quartered athletes moving freely through an infected world, and if enough players get sick, entire clubs could disappear, and the virus may decide to exploit everything.

But . . . but . . . but . . . Baseball will give him a shot, making the brilliant Dodgers and Angels worthwhile to see while there’s something to see.

And if the two star-studded venues meet in the World Series for the first time (short season, dice game, you never know), then they should play Game 1 on wet cement at Grauman’s.

The Angels have the best baseball player. Mike Trout, extraordinarily gifted and extremely ignored, comes from a season in which he won a third MVP award that reeked of injustice, because by now he should have won at least five. Trout has hinted that he may leave the team for the safety of his first-born son who will be born soon, but so far he has stayed and is hopeful.

“It will be fun,” he said. “The first day is going to mean something, you have 60 games, you have to try to win them all.”

The Angels also have baseball’s reigning postseason hero. Anthony Rendon, who signed for $ 245 million for seven years this winter after hitting three homers with 15 RBIs in October for World Series champions Washington Nationals. His exploits included hitting the opening home run in the eighth inning against the Dodgers ‘Clayton Kershaw to spur the Nationals’ return in Game 5 of the division series. If his reputation is justified, the amount of teamwork required to stay safe this season perfectly matches his personality.

“We have to realize that we are playing for each other, not necessarily for ourselves, even now more than ever, because of what is happening right now,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers have arguably the second-best player in baseball. The versatile gardener Mookie Betts, acquired in an exchange this winter, is a showcase for human trophies. He has an MVP award, a World Series championship ring, four All-Star appearances, four Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers. He also has an expiring contract, so Dodgers fans should see it well now.

“There are many things that need to be addressed,” he said. “Free agency is not one of those things right now.”

The Dodgers also have baseball’s reigning young superstar. Powerful outfielder Cody Bellinger, still 25, is the current MVP of the National League, a former rookie of the year, two-time All-Star with a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger award.

“It’s going to be weird this year, it’s going to be fun,” he said. “It could be a unique thing in life.”

When these four stars return to the field beginning July 23, they will be surrounded by zero spectators, but they will perform over hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Thanks to the Dodgers’ greed-fueled blackout, for the first time in seven years, all games for both teams will be available on television in almost every home. This summer on Netflix, local baseball will be the best of everything.

How deep do these teams shine? Even the shelters are a Hollywood Walk of Fame. Review the illustration that accompanied this story, and watch the active Dodgers and Angels. who did not make the cut.

Two Hall of Famers were left out: Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Angels anchor Albert Pujols.

Missing were two former rookies of the year: Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager and Angels designated pitcher / hitter Shohei Ohtani.

Dodgers pillars Walker Buehler and Justin Turner and Angels leaders Justin Upton and Andrelton Simmons did not appear.

Also missing were two men with four combined manager of the year awards: Dave Roberts of the Dodgers and new Angels boss Joe Maddon.

There is so much noise in Chavez Ravine and Anaheim, the summer spots almost feel like a winter night at the Staples Center. The Lakers and Clippers set the tone for this star who took off the past two summers by acquiring LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Those teams understand the market. They know that the town demands bright lights and loves those red carpets.

In different ways, the Dodgers’ Guggenheim Baseball Administration and Angels owner Arte Moreno have followed that example. Guggenheim has consistently approved of Andrew Friedman’s large exchanges, while Moreno has consistently spent large sums of money. Even while adhering to the constant pull of analytics, you both realize what is being sold here. It’s not just the statistics, it’s the sizzle, so they have been loaded with stars that will historically clutter the sky.

Since baseball came west in 1958, in fact, such an invaluable baseball collection has never been displayed in a city. There have been other cities with better baseball teams combined: the two New York clubs met in a modern Subway Series in 2000, and San Francisco and Oakland met in the 1989 earthquake-shaken Bay Bridge Series. Those events involved futures Members of the Hall of Fame and several superstars, but in neither case were the lists as loaded as this year’s Dodgers and Angels.

One would have to go back to the mid-1950s in New York to find a city with clubs as glorious as these, when Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Duke Snider toured three central fields and played Cooperstown and a legendary song. .

These Dodgers are favored to reach their third World Series in four years, and who would bet against them? The lineup goes from Betts to Max Muncy to Turner to Bellinger to Seager to Joc Pederson, a powerful group when the sixth-place hitter just hit 36 ​​home runs. The initial pitch led by Buehler and Kershaw is deep enough to bear the loss of David Price, which leaves the only question, as always, about the bullpen. They ended last season without complete faith in any closer, so although Kenley Jansen has appeared after being infected with COVID-19, they still don’t know who to trust.

The Angels aren’t favored even to make the playoffs in a division populated by the previously cheating Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics, but any one of those teams can stumble in a short run, and the Angels are built for the short. travel.

The lineup shot by Trout, Rendon, Ohtani and Upton is formidable. David Fletcher plays like the David Eckstein of 2002. Simmons is brilliant on the field. Maddon is creative on the bench. And the bullpen anchored in Hansel Robles is deep. The Angels just need to somehow put together enough to start pitching around Ohtani’s weekly outing to survive those 60 games.

Which brings this dream sequence to the reality of an October where, let’s be honest, even the idea of ​​Mount Crushmore cannot alter the bleak history of the landscape.

The Dodgers have experienced seven consecutive postseason failures, some horrible, others miserable, and are trying to end a 32-year championship drought.

The Angels haven’t won a postseason game in 11 years, haven’t even made the playoffs in six years, and are chasing their first title since their only championship 18 years ago.

It’s been a long time for both of them, and their headliners have a lot to show if they want to turn their Los Angeles stardom into a lasting legacy.

Trout has been a postseason target. In his only playoff series, a 2014 sweep by the Kansas City Royals, a home run was his only hit in 15 plate appearances.

Rendon needs to prove that last October was no accident. In his previous three postseason series with the Nationals, all losses, he hit .232.

Bellinger has been a postseason nightmare, from his record 17 strikeouts in the 2017 World Series to an overall average of .178 in the postseason.

Betts has been nearly powerless in the postseason, with a home run and four RBIs in 88 at-bats with a .227 batting average. Of course, that long ball was in Game 5 against the Dodgers in 2018, so there is hope.

Actually, in the growing buzz around Mount Crushmore this summer, there is a feeling of that hope. The pieces seem to be in place to transfer the soul from empty stadiums to roaring living rooms and a shorter season in a fall forever. No matter what happens, no matter how short it is, this wild journey will be taken on a road lined with the brightest shine.

Sixty Dodger dramas. Sixty angels shows. Starry, starry nights.