DODGER CASKETS FOR DIE-HARD FANS ONLY.

Byline: Kevin Modesti, Staff Writer

This is for Dodger fans who pledge lifelong loyalty to the ballclub and wish they could offer a little more.

A company that manufactures burial caskets and urns is selling a product line decorated with the colors and logos of the Dodgers, as well as the Angels and 18 other teams, under a licensing agreement with Major League Baseball.

Finally - pardon the expression - a chance to demonstrate your devotion to the Dodgers for all eternity.

"If Dad was a huge Dodgers fan throughout his life, what better way to remember it than with a Dodgers casket?" said Nick Popravsky, vice president of sales for Eternal Image Inc. of Michigan.

"This is just one more way for loved ones to carry on a decedent's passion," said Ann-Marie Harris, office manager for Christy Vault Co. Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area company that serves as Eternal Image's West Coast distributor.

Though the baseball caskets and urns have been available for months, the Dodger line was put on display in Southern California for the first time Wednesday, amid soft piano music and whispering conversation in a chapel at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.

The casket is gleaming white 18-gauge steel with baseball-bat grained wood trim and Dodger-blue handles and tassels. Dodger and MLB logos abound, even on the white velvet lining inside. Suggested price: $4,500.

The urn is blue and white aluminum, with a display dome on top to hold a baseball, and a home-plate-shaped base. Suggested price: $800.

For comment, we phoned Tommy Lasorda, the Hall of Fame former Dodger manager who sets the standard for Dodger Blue devotion.

"I think it's great if somebody wants to be buried in a coffin with their team's name on it," Lasorda said.

Lasorda has often said he wants his tombstone to read, "Dodger Stadium was his address, but every ballpark was his home," and to keep promoting the team from the grave by having a Dodger schedule attached to the marker.

Would Tommy consider being buried in one of these Dodger caskets?

"Absolutely," Lasorda said. "Maybe I can buy one now and get a deal."

It's all the brainchild of Eternal Image president and CEO Clint Mytych, a 28-year-old former restaurant and luxury car rental business owner who said being new to the funeral industry freed him to think of new approaches.

"We weren't forced into the box that the industry has been in," Mytych said, the pun apparently not intended.

Not that this inspires morbid plays on words, but it does give new meaning to "riding the pine."

Mytych negotiated an agreement with Major League Baseball and followed with contracts to sell caskets and urns with a Star Trek theme as well as items for dog and cat lovers.

Harris said Sue Burns, a San Francisco Giants part-owner who died in July, was buried in a Giants-logoed casket.

Popravsky said Eternal Image has sold 2,000 baseball-themed urns in the past two years and "a couple of hundred" caskets this year. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs are the top sellers, but the Dodgers are up there.

Hal Wilkes, director of sales and marketing for Christy Vault Co., said the idea of baseball-themed burials reflects the trend away from "traditional" religious funerals toward personalized tributes.

It seemed to be mere coincidence that all this talk about the Dodgers and burial plans mirrored the teams' recent trajectory in the division-championship race.

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Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) An urn, left, and casket with the Dodgers logo are being offered for sale by Eternal Image Inc. of Michigan. The urn has a suggested price of $800, the casket $4,500.

Leo Jarzomb/Staff Photographer