IN A LEAGUE OF ITS OWN THE NATIONAL PASTIME HAS ALWAYS INSPIRED ARTISTS, BUT RARELY MORE SO THAN RIGHT NOW IN L.A.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Nearly half a century ago, a sports franchise switched coasts, a community was uprooted, and a generation of artists was given a historical event to write, paint, sing and make movies about.

That the Dodgers' relocation from Brooklyn to Los Angeles can transcend sports and enter the sociological, pop-cultural and even artistic realm isn't so surprising. Baseball routinely does the same thing.

``I think it's the kind of game - and many writers have written volumes on this - that lends itself to storytelling,'' says writer-director Ron Shelton. ``There's no clock, of course. You're not truly out of it until the last out. There's a terminal deathwatch with every other sport. You can't make up this distance, you're too far behind. With football, you watch the clock run out on the game. With baseball you don't. There are enough miracles every year to keep that myth alive.''

Shelton played second base in the Baltimore Orioles' farm system. He later went on to write and direct ``Bull Durham'' (1989), the story of hardball and sex in the minor leagues starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon that many consider the ultimate modern baseball-themed movie. He followed up six years later with ``Cobb,'' about the irascible ``Georgia Peach,'' Ty Cobb. Although he has moved away from sports-themed movies recently, Shelton says, ``I'm not done with baseball.''

``I think a great movie could be done about the Negro leagues, although it would be hard to get financed,'' he says. ``There are an infinite number of stories you can tell about. They're like little Westerns.''

An assortment of artists - singers, dramatists, performance artists - will converge at the Ford Amphitheatre Sunday evening to participate in ``Legacies: Baseball From Flatbush to the City of Angels,'' sponsored by the Pasadena-based nonprofit organization the Baseball Reliquary. Founder and executive director Terry Cannon structured ``Legacies'' around the Dodgers' relocation precisely because he knew so many artists who in previous works had examined the event and its aftermath.

There's a lot of territory to mine. In 1958, three years after the Brooklyn franchise's first World Series victory, Walter O'Malley took the team west, thereby depriving one part of the country of a certain part of its cultural identity and opening up the economics of the sport. To hear some tell it, the nation has never entirely recovered. ``Little Westerns?'' Heck, the Dodgers' move is a story of David Lean epic proportions.

The bolt from Brookyn

``It was probably the most controversial franchise shift in the history of professional sports,'' says Cannon. ``Baseball is so ingrained into a community, and the move from Brooklyn sort of served as the death knell for that community. They're still recovering from that. For L.A., (the arrival of the Dodgers) elevated this city into a whole different kind of stature.''

``We still occasionally meet people who curse the Dodgers and curse the O'Malleys,'' says Richard Montoya, whose comedy troupe Culture Clash will be part of Sunday's event. ``Baseball fans are the greatest sufferers in the world. I had thought it was the Catholic Church, but people seem to be suffering more over that move and that loss.''

In ``Chavez Ravine,'' seen last year at the Mark Taper Forum, Culture Clash explored the displacement of the Mexican-American community in Elysian Park to make way for Dodger Stadium. Culture Clash will do a selection from ``Chavez Ravine'' Sunday, joining monologuist Heather Woodbury, who tackles the Brooklyn-to-L.A relocation in her ``Tale of 2 Cities.''

Dan Kwong and Byron Motley are also on the program, along with jazz crooner Sue Raney, who is teaming with her musician - and former ballplayer - husband Carmen Fanzone on renditions of ``Dodger Blue'' and ``There Used to Be a Ballpark,'' the latter recorded by Frank Sinatra. Brooklyn-born comedian Elayne Boosler, herself a major baseball fan, will be the emcee.

The Dodgers - who will not be in town that day - are even loaning their organist, Nancy Bea Hefley, for the event, although the Baseball Reliquary is not formally associated with Major League Baseball or any of its teams.

You wouldn't necessarily expect an arty crowd to be at a baseball-themed event - or, for that matter, a hardball fanatic at ``Turandot'' either - but the crossover between our national pastime and the arts is a common event, especially in this town.

On deck this fall

Tinseltown regularly shows up in the stands of Dodger Stadium, and not only to suit up for the annual Hollywood Stars game promotion (which occurred on Saturday). There are the stars who are known for their baseball mania, such as Charlie Sheen, a memorabilia collector who purchased the baseball that rolled between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner's legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, possibly costing Boston its first title since 1918. Then there's Billy Crystal, frequent Oscars host and director of the HBO film ``61*,'' about Roger Maris' pursuit of Babe Ruth's single-season home-run record.

How big a hardball nut is Crystal? Sufficiently big that Crystal could appear at the premiere of his film ``Monsters, Inc.'' at the El Capitan Theatre and, as the lights were going down, dash out and catch a plane to be in the stands for Game 1 of the 2001 World Series. And for good reason. Crystal, a lifelong New York Yankees fan, owns a portion of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The two teams were World Series opponents that year.

``He had to be at the premiere at 2 p.m. and he got to the game in Arizona at 5 p.m.,'' says Gary Miereanu, vice president of communications for the Dodgers, who worked for Disney at the time. ``I'm qualifying that as a big fan.''

Actors and singers are frequently tapped to croon the national anthem, and Miereanu would like to see some sort of cross-pollination with the Hollywood Bowl or the Los Angeles Philharmonic involving baseball-themed music, much like the program the Boston Pops did earlier this season.

``Baseball is all about hopes and dreams, and the arts are about extending those dreams,'' says Miereanu.

The, er, hits figure to keep on coming in September when Richard Greenberg's Tony Award-winning play, ``Take Me Out,'' arrives at the Geffen Playhouse. In the play, which examines the repercussions of a star athlete outing himself, a tightly wound business manager named Mason Marzac delivers a speech about his view of baseball.

``I have come - with no little excitement - to understand,'' says Marzac, who is just barely getting warmed up, ``that baseball is a perfect metaphor for hope in a democratic society. It has to do with the rules of play. It has to do with the mode of enforcement of those rules. It has to do with certain nuances and grace notes of the game.''

Great character. Great speech. Hot subject.

Today's water-cooler baseball debates focus primarily on the controversy over the use of anabolic steroids by star athletes. When Greenberg was conducting his research, Atlanta Braves bullpen ace John Rocker had unleashed a racist tirade and Greenberg had tracked the dust kicked up over former major leaguer Billy Bean coming out of the closet in 1999.

While writing the play, Greenberg fell in love with the game, in much the same way Marzac does.

``I love the way Richard has of using the game of baseball as a microcosm for America,'' says Randall Arney, artistic director of the Geffen, who will direct the production. ``Everyone talks about a gay player who comes out, but there is an Asian player who speaks no English. We see the alienation he feels, much as the gay player does. There are two Hispanic players who talk to only each other. Ironically, the team is made up of a bunch of individual islands who must function as a team.''

Kind of like the people watching them from the stands, says Shelton.

``It helps that players are short and fat and tall and skinny and from Japan and Korea and Venezuela and Panama and ghettos of Oakland,'' says Shelton. ``They're more like us.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

LEGACIES: BASEBALL FROM FLATBUSH TO THE CITY OF ANGELS

Where: Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: $20. Call [phone].

TAKE ME OUT

Where: Geffen Playhouse at the Brentwood Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., building No. 258, Brentwood.

When: Sept. 14 through Oct. 24.

Tickets: $38 to $52. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Hitting HOME

The Dodgers and baseball connect with filmmakers and playwrights

Photo by Tom Mendoza/Photo illustration by Roger W. Vargo

(2) Richard Montoya, left, and Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash will perform a piece from ``Chavez Ravine'' at the Ford Amphitheatre Sunday, as part of the bill of ``Legacies: Baseball From Flatbush to the City of Angels.''

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(3) ``Take Me Out,'' Richard Greenberg's play about a major leaguer going public with his sexual orientation, will open Sept. 14 at the Geffen Playhouse. Above, the Broadway cast.