DODGERS' FANTASY FANATICS : FUN NEVER STOPS FOR RESEDA FRIENDS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

So you think baseball is dying.

You think the strike, Roberto Alomar, the salaries, Albert Belle, the 3-1/2-hour games and Marge Schott have spoiled the sport for the fans.

You think that now that the O'Malleys are selling out, this is a Lakers town.

Obviously, you haven't spoken with your Reseda neighbors Neil Adams and Jeff Sherman recently.

By the time you're finished reading about Neil and Jeff, you may think they've gone a little overboard in their affection for baseball and the Dodgers. Or, like me, you may just be jealous of them.

A dozen years ago, Neil's wife, Susan, was trying to answer the question, What do you get for the man who already has Dodgers season tickets? She found her answer: You send him to the Dodgertown fantasy camp in Vero Beach, Fla.

The camp was in its infancy then. Pretty soon, Neil was, too.

``It will melt you down into a kid real quick,'' says Jeff, another season-ticket holder whom Neil met at the camp.

The Dodgers were among the first teams to offer the fantasy-camp experience to their fans. The club assembled a staff of ex-players and current major-league coaches to tutor the middle-aged pretenders in the less-than-finer points of batting, fielding and pitching.

The campers played games among themselves - and capped off the week with a game against their famous tutors.

``The first person I ever worked with was Duke Snider,'' says Jeff, still finding it hard to believe. ``He was talking guys down to the outdoor batting cage and working with them on a batting tee.

``It was the thrill of a lifetime. He was very cordial, helpful and supportive. And it was easy to recognize I knew nothing about swinging a bat.''

So Jeff and Neil got this baseball fantasy out of their systems, right?

Not exactly. This week, when the two 47-year-olds from Reseda arrived in Vero Beach, it was the 15th Dodgers fantasy camp for Jeff and the 20th for Neil, who attends not only in February but in November as well.

By the way, each camp costs nearly $4,000 to attend.

``When I ride in the van from the airport and turn into the Dodgertown facility, I still get chills,'' Neil says on the phone from Vero, where the campers have just finished an afternoon workout.

``Just seeing the field. . .,'' Jeff says. ``I still have thoughts like, `Maybe I could get a job as a gardener and stay here year-round.' ''

Jeff is in the wholesale gift business in Van Nuys. Neil is in the car business. But they have found a way to make their fantasy last all year.

On diamonds at Redondo High School in Redondo Beach and Memorial Field in Commerce most Sundays, Jeff and Neil play baseball in a six-team league made up of nearly 100 former Dodgers fantasy campers.

Although the Dodgers have nothing to do with the league, they allow it to be called Dodgertown West, and the players wear the authentic home-and-road Dodgers uniforms they are given in Florida.

Dodgertown West's 98-game schedule stretches from January to December and includes some interleague play - four ``all-star'' series against former San Francisco Giants fantasy campers.

All this takes place under the umbrella of the Men's Senior Baseball League, which includes 3,000 teams nationwide.

Every baseball fan feels a tingle this time of year, with big-league pitchers and catchers scheduled to report to spring training a week from today. But Neil, Jeff and their friends take it a step further.

``We play year-round. We're always tingling,'' says Joe Mausser, a 76-year-old retired Rockwell engineer from Los Alamitos who is the league's commissioner (and still a pretty fair first and second baseman and right fielder).

For some, like Jeff, who played baseball from ages 8 to 17, the league provides a chance to recapture his youth.

``I had to wait till I was 40 before I hit my first home run,'' he says, remembering his shot over a fence 306 feet away.

For some, like Neil, who was a Little League benchwarmer, the play is not the thing.

``The whole objective (of Dodgertown West) is to maintain the camaraderie you establish down here at Dodgertown,'' says Neil, who is in charge of recruiting new campers to play in the West Coast league.

The fun is the thing, on the field and off. In baseball, isn't that what it's all about?

``I think we're all intelligent enough to realize this is for wannabees and has-beens,'' Jeff says.

``Don't say it!'' shouts a wounded Neil.

On Wednesday, they'll come home, able to say they batted against Clem Labine, Carl Erskine, Ralph Branca, Jerry Reuss and Tom Lasorda, and pitched to Snider, Reggie Smith, Mike Scioscia, Steve Yeager, Frank Howard, Steve Garvey and Bill Russell.

And they'll have something else to be proud of.

``When we finish our games,'' Jeff says, ``and we see other MSBL teams coming onto the field, they always look at us and say, `You guys have the nicest uniforms in the league!' ''

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Photo

Photo: (color) Valley residents Neil Adams, left, and Jeff Sherman pose with former Dodgers great Steve Garvey at the adult baseball camp in Vero Beach, Fla.

Jon Soo Hoo / Los Angeles Dodgers