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PHILADELPHIA — Even Dodgers fans steeped in the lore of Kirk Gibson might not remember the name of Mel Didier.

Didier was the scout who had issued this warning to the 1988 Dodgers: If you’re facing Dennis Eckersley, the mighty closer for the Oakland Athletics, and the count runs full, he’s going to throw a backdoor slider.

Eckersley threw it, Gibson hit it for a home run, and the Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

If these Dodgers go on to win the World Series, no one will struggle to remember the name of Mookie Betts, of course. On Monday, however, Betts pushed the Dodgers to within one win of the National League Championship Series — not with his bat and not with his glove, but with memory and aptitude to rival Didier.

“His mind is so far advanced,” Dodgers coach Dino Ebel said of Betts. “That was the ballgame right there.”

With the tying run at second base and none out in the ninth inning, he was the calm in a screaming madhouse. As the Dodgers infielders gathered at the mound and Alex Vesia entered from the bullpen, Betts thought back to a play he had participated in once, in an August game against the Angels. Miguel Rojas had taught him the so-called “wheel play.”

“All he had to do was tell me once,” Betts said. “To me, that was like a do-or-die situation. Them tying the game up turns all the momentum there. If we can find a way to stop it, that would be great.

“I just made a decision and rolled with it.”

On the mound, amid the bedlam, Betts put on the wheel play. It’s a bunt coverage: with a runner on second base, the third baseman and first baseman charge home, with the idea that one would field the bunt and throw out the runner at third.

In any previous decade, the Dodgers would have practiced this play in spring training, repeatedly.

“We don’t really even practice the wheel play, with pitchers not hitting any more,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “There’s very few times where you’re 100% sure that a guy is going to bunt.”

This was the time. The Phillies had opened the ninth with three consecutive hits, including a two-run double from Nick Castellanos.

The Dodgers led 4-3 with none out and Castellanos on second base. Phillies manager Rob Thomson said he wanted to play for the tie and take his chances to match his team’s bullpen against the Dodgers bullpen in extra innings.

And for the “never bunt” crowd: the chance to score one run is slightly higher with a runner on third base with one out than with a runner on second base and none out. The Phillies had the bottom of the order coming up — starting with infielder Bryson Stott, whom the Dodgers had evaluated as a good bunter.

Betts remembered how he had asked Rojas when to run the wheel play.

“In a do-or-die situation,” Rojas had told him.

So Betts took charge and put on the play.

“I don’t know if it was very comfortable, but somebody’s got to do it,” Betts said.

“I figured, if there was ever a good time to make a decision and roll with it, that was the time.”

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy throws to third after fielding a bunt from Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott in the ninth inning in Game 2 of the NLDS on Monday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Muncy would charge and, if the ball was bunted to him, would throw to Betts covering third base. First baseman Freddie Freeman then said he would charge and, if the ball was not bunted to him, would cover second base so Stott could not advance there, since second baseman Tommy Edman would be covering first. Later, on his PItchCom, Vesia said he heard an order to cover second base.

By the time Dodgers manager Dave Roberts got to the mound, the infielders said the play was on.

“When Doc came out and made the pitching change, we talked to him about it and he was all on board,” Muncy said. “I am going to credit Mook. It was his idea.”

Said Betts: “That was one of times where Doc called on us and said, you guys figure it out — in a very positive way. And we did.”

Rojas called Betts “an extension of the manager on the field.”

Said Rojas: “I’m happy that he called it right there on the field. Because it was the right play with the right runner, knowing the guy was going to bunt.”

All of this speaks well of Betts’ intuition and intelligence, but the postseason is not the time for “trust the process” blather. The postseason is the time when the right call is the one that actually works.

For Stott or anyone else, Thomson said, a batter that sees the wheel play in motion should forget about the bunt and swing away, given the holes left by two infielders charging the plate and the other two rushing to cover a base.

Stott bunted.

The first problem for the Phillies was that they had no one available to pinch-run for Castellanos. Aside from a backup catcher, they had two position players left: Harrison Bader, playing with a sore groin, and Weston Wilson, whom the Phillies had to save to run for Bader.

The second problem for the Phillies was that the Dodgers had only run the wheel play once this season, so even the best advance scouts could not have been warning the Phillies to beware.

“It’s something we have under our sleeve,” Rojas said.

The third and most critical problem for the Phillies was that Betts had lingered close to second base, shadowing Castellanos. By the time Stott could have seen Betts take off for third, it was too late.

“Mookie did a great job of disguising the wheel play,” Thomson said.

Muncy fielded the ball cleanly, and Betts beat Castellanos to the bag by so much that Betts had time to drop his knee and block the bag before tagging out Castellanos, holding onto the ball even as Castellanos upended him.

“Those guys executed it to perfection,” Roberts said. “It was a lot tougher — they made it look a lot easier than it was. And for me, that was our only chance, really, to win that game in that moment.”

If Muncy did not field the ball cleanly or did not make a good throw, or if Betts did not beat Castellanos to the bag or tag him out, the Phillies would have had the tying run at third base and the winning run at first base with none out.

But they did not, which meant the ensuing single did not tie the score. Two batters later, the Dodgers had won.

The play would be difficult enough for a lifelong shortstop. Betts is in his first season as a full-time shortstop.

“It shows his intuition in the game,” Muncy said. “It’s second to none out there. It doesn’t matter what position you put that guy at — he knows what’s going on. It’s honestly really impressive.”

Said Ebel: “He’s obsessed with being a great player. And he’s still learning. He’s still going to get better. That’s the scary thing about it.”

As the Dodgers headed for a happy flight back to Los Angeles, Betts offered this game a five-star review.

“I’ll take off my Dodgers hat and just put on a fan hat,” he said. “I think that was a really dope baseball game.”

When my father was crossing the U.S.-Mexico border like an undocumented Road Runner back in the 1970s, la migra caught him more than a few times.

They chased him and his friends through factories in Los Angeles and across the hills that separate Tijuana and San Diego. He was tackled and handcuffed and hauled off in cars, trucks and vans. Sometimes, Papi and his pals were dropped off at the border checkpoint in San Ysidro and ordered to walk back into Mexico. Other times, he was packed into grimy cells with other men.

But there was no anger or terror in his voice when I asked him recently how la migra treated him whenever they’d catch him.

“Like humans,” he said. “They had a job to do, and they knew why we mojados were coming here, so they knew they would see us again. So why make it difficult for both of us?”

His most vivid memory was the time a guard in El Centro gave him extra food because he thought my dad was a bit too skinny.

There’s never a pretty way to deport someone. But there’s always a less indecent, a less callous, a less ugly way.

The Trump presidency has amply proven he has no interest in skirting meanness and cruelty.

“The way they treat immigrants now is a disgrace,” Papi said. “Like animals. It’s sad. It’s ugly. It needs to stop.”

I talked to him a few days after a gunman fired on a Dallas ICE facility, killing a detainee and striking two others before killing himself. One of the other wounded detainees, an immigrant from Mexico, died days later. Instead of expressing sympathy for the deceased, the Trump administration initially offered one giant shrug. What passed for empathy was Vice President JD Vance telling reporters, “Look, just because we don’t support illegal aliens, we don’t want them to be executed by violent assassins engaged in political violence” while blaming the attack on Democrats.

It was up to Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem to try and show that the federal government has a heart. Her statement on the Dallas attack offered “prayers” to the victims and their families but quickly pivoted to what she felt was the real tragedy.

How ungrateful critics are of la migra.

“For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed,” Noem said. “This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences…The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop.”

You might have been forgiven for not realizing from such a statement that the three people punctured by a gunman’s bullets were immigrants.

This administration is never going to roll out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants. But the least they can do it deal with them as if … well, as if they are human.

Under Noem’s leadership, DHS’ social media campaign has instead produced videos that call undocumented immigrants “the worst of the worst” and depict immigration agents as heroes called by God to confront invading hordes. A recent one even used the theme song to the cartoon version of the Pokémon trading card game — tagline “Gotta catch them all” — to imply going after the mango guy and tamale lady is no different than capturing fictional monsters.

That’s one step away from “The Eternal Jew,” the infamous Nazi propaganda movie that compared Jews to rats and argued they needed to be eradicated.

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) as prisoners stand, looking out from a cell, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in March.

(Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Noem is correct when she said that words have consequences — but the “violence and dehumanization” she decries against ICE workers is nothing compared to the cascade of hate spewing from Trump and his goons against immigrants. That rot in the top has infested all parts of American government, leading to officials trying to outdo themselves over who can show the most fealty to Trump by being nastiest to people.

If there were a Cruelty Olympics, Trump’s sycophants would all be elbowing each other for the gold.

Politicians in red states propose repulsive names for their immigration detention facility — “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, for instance, or “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana. U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, Trump’s top prosecutor in Southern California, has trumpeted the arrests of activists he claimed attacked federal agents even as video uploaded by civilians offers a different story. In a recent case, a federal jury acquitted Brayan Ramos-Brito of misdemeanor assault charges after evidence shown in court contradicted what Border Patrol agents had reported to justify his prosecution.

La migra regularly harass U.S. citizens even after they’ve offered proof of residency and have ignored court-ordered restraining orders banning them from targeting people because of their ethnicity. Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino continually squanders taxpayer dollars on photo ops, like the Border Patrol’s July occupation of a nearly empty MacArthur Park or a recent deployment of boats on the Chicago River complete with agents bearing rifles as if they were safari hunters cruising the Congo.

Our nation’s deportation Leviathan is so imperious that an ICE agent, face contorted with anger, outside a New York immigration court recently shoved an Ecuadorian woman pleading for her husband down to the ground, stood over her and wagged his finger in front of her bawling children even as cameras recorded the terrible scene. The move was so egregious that Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughin quickly put out a statement claiming the incident was “unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE.”

The act was so outrageous and it was all caught on camera, so what choice did she have? Nevertheless, CBS News reported that the agent is back on duty.

Noem and her crew are so high on their holy war that they don’t realize they’re their own worst enemy. La migra didn’t face the same public acrimony during Barack Obama’s first term, when deportation rates were so high immigration activists dubbed him the “deporter-in-chief.” They didn’t need local law enforcement to fend off angry crowds every time they conducted a raid in Trump’s first term.

The difference now is that cruelty seems like an absolute mandate, so forgive those of us who aren’t throwing roses at ICE when they march into our neighborhoods and haul off our loved ones. And it seems more folks are souring on Trump’s deportation plans. A June Gallup poll found that 79% of Americans said immigration was “a good thing” — a 15% increase since last year and the highest mark recorded by Gallup since it started asking the question in 2001. Meanwhile, a Washington Post/Ipsos September poll showed 44% of adults surveyed approved of Trump’s performance on immigration — a six-point drop since February.

I asked my dad how he thought the government should treat deportees. Our family has personally known Border Patrol agents.

“Well, most of them shouldn’t be deported in the first place,” he said. “If they want to work or already have families here, let them stay but say they need to behave well or they have to leave.”

That’s probably not going to happen, so what should the government do?

“Don’t yell at people,” my dad said. “Talk with patience. Feed immigrants well, give them clean clothes and give them privacy when they have to use the bathroom. Say, ‘sorry we have to do all this, but it’s what Trump wants.’

“And then they should apologize,” Papi concluded. “ They should tell everyone, ’We’re sorry we’ve been so mean. We can do better.’”

Well, that ain’t happening, dad.

At the end of the 2019 minor-league season, Alex Call looked at his hitting numbers, then looked himself in the mirror.

A former third-round draft pick who had already changed organizations once, he knew he had just had the kind of year that typically portends a short professional career.

As a 24-year-old outfielder at the double-A level in the Cleveland Guardians organization, Call had taken 325 plate appearances that year with the Akron RubberDucks. In 93 of them — a rate of nearly 30% — he recorded a strikeout.

It wasn’t the only ugly stat in a season that saw Call bat just .205, reach base at a .266 clip and hit only five home runs. But it was the biggest sign of a fundamental flaw plaguing the right-handed hitter’s game.

“That,” he recalled recently, while reflecting on what became a turning point moment in his career, “just wasn’t gonna get it done.”

Six years later, Call joined the Dodgers as a trade deadline addition last week with a polar opposite reputation. Now, the defensively versatile outfielder is one of the harder outs in all the majors. Since the start of last season, his .297 batting average ranks eighth among MLB hitters with at least 350 plate appearances. More important, over that same span, he ranks top 60 in strikeout rate and walk rate (with a 55-to-39 ratio overall), and 22nd in chase rate; consistently putting together some of the better at-bats in all the sport.

“This guy’s just a straight grinder, works at-bats,” general manager Brandon Gomes said after the Dodgers acquired Call from the Washington Nationals in exchange for two pitching prospects. “Playing against him, he’s always incredibly frustrating to try to game plan for and get out.”

“I’ve faced Alex a few times,” added future Hall of Fame left-hander Clayton Kershaw. “He’s tough against lefties, a great defender. A good add, for sure.”

The Dodgers, of course, could have made splashier adds at the deadline. They were linked to All-Star caliber names, including Steven Kwan of the Guardians, but didn’t splurge to pay such inflated deadline prices.

Instead, they settled for Call, who was a smaller name but came with team control through 2029. They put their faith in his overhauled offensive skill set, hopeful a personal transformation more than half-a-decade in the making will make him a key piece in their pursuit of a second straight World Series title.

“That is my whole game,” Call said on the day he arrived with the club. “I am going to grind out at-bats, put the ball in play, take my walks, make it tough on the pitcher, lengthen out the lineup.”

The origins of that mindset date to that 2019 season, and the pandemic-altered year that followed.

Entering 2020, Call committed to a change at the plate. In what was a crowded pipeline of outfielders in the Guardians system — highlighted at that time by Kwan, who has since blossomed into one of the best left fielders in the game — he recognized he needed a new identity. If he was going to reach the majors, it was going to start with simply working better at-bats.

“It’s a bad feeling,” he said, “having a cloud hanging over your head after a season like that.”

The only problem: COVID-19 came, the 2020 minor league season was canceled, and Call (like so many other minor-league long shots clinging to big-league dreams) was left effectively on his own.

So, he found different ways to improve his bat.

As the baseball world shut down, Call bought a portable Junior Hack Attack hitting machine with a self-feeding ball dispenser. And everywhere he went that year — from spring training housing in Phoenix to his childhood home in Wisconsin to his family’s offseason residence in Indiana — he sought out any place “I could find a hitting cage and an outlet” to use it, he said laughing.

His focus was simple. Work on hitting fastballs up in the strike zone. Eliminate what had been one of the biggest holes in his swing.

“For me, it’s just about having that mentality to where, it doesn’t matter if I have two strikes or if it’s an 0-0 count,” he said. “Believe I’m comfortable in every situation. I’m going to put the ball in play.”

By that winter, Call sought out a more advanced piece of training technology as well.

Over the previous couple years, a company called Win Reality had begun manufacturing virtual reality hitting goggles — using data-driven models, actual video and computer-generated images to recreate virtual at-bats against real pitchers from a hitter’s point of view inside Oculus-style headsets.

A handful of MLB teams, including the Dodgers, had invested in the system for their teams. In the months leading up to the 2021 season, Call decided to do the same for himself, buying the $300 product (and paying for its annual $200 software program) to help couple his new swing with a more discerning approach.

“[I was] just really practicing the zone,” Call said. “Knowing what pitches are my strengths and what pitches I don’t want to swing at until two strikes. Developing that plan and developing that approach.”

The training paid off.

At the start of the 2021 season, Call was sent back to double-A Akron. When he arrived, he was informed by manager Rouglas Odor that he would only be slated to play 2-3 games per week — a quick reminder of how far down the organization depth chart he’d fallen.

“I remember him being very disappointed,” Odor, now the Guardians’ big-league third-base coach, recalled this week. “But he took ownership of his career, and didn’t let what I told him affect him.”

Call’s chance arrived that May, after Kwan went down with a hamstring injury. And almost immediately, his COVID-year changes took effect. Over 180 plate appearances, Call hit .310, drew 21 walks and — just as he’d hoped — cut his strikeout rate by half, punching out only 26 times.

“He was a totally different hitter,” said Odor, who had also been Call’s manager during his dismal 2019 campaign. “Defensively, he was already to play in the big leagues. He made some unbelievable plays … But offensively, he found his stroke. His plate discipline was more consistent. And he had an unbelievable season.”

By the end of the season, Call had been promoted to triple-A. The next July, he earned a promotion to the majors.

The ascent from there wasn’t linear. In August 2022, he was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Nationals. In 2023, he played in 128 big-league games but hit only .200, sending him back to triple-A for most of last year.

Alex Call bats against the Houston Astros on July 28 as a member of the Washington Nationals.

(Karen Warren / Associated Press)

Still, his plate discipline didn’t waver (he struck out only 78 times in his 439 plate appearances in 2023, an 18% rate, while also drawing 53 walks). His VR routine only became more ingrained, seeing upward of 54,000 simulated pitches (or, essentially 25 seasons’ worth of throws) through his headset each year, as he told the Washington Post last month.

It all has clicked over the last calendar year, with Call following up a productive return to the majors at the end of 2024 with his best full-season performance this term.

“The type of player that I am, I can hit the ball over the fence, but it’s not really my full game,” Call said. “So for me, it was about trying to create as many opportunities to get on base as possible … I have to be able to hit the ball at good angles.”

Call is one of only four players with at least 200 plate appearances this season (along with Kyle Tucker, Gleyber Torres and Geraldo Perdomo) who strikes out less than 15% of the time, chases less than 20% of the time and whiffs less than 20% of the time. He has hit .236 with two strikes (better than everyone else on the Dodgers except Hyeseong Kim).

He had his first standout game with the Dodgers on Wednesday, when he singled, doubled and made a catch while crashing into the left-field wall to save an extra-base hit.

Eight at-bats into his Dodgers career entering Friday’s game, he has also yet to strike out once.

“I’m always proud of players like Alex, because he wasn’t this big prospect, but he became an everyday big-league player,” Odor said. “He had the urgency to make something happen in order to reach his goal, and his dream.”

And now, Call is aiming to take his career one step further — to be not just a productive big-league bat, but one capable of playing an impactful role on a title-contending club in Los Angeles.

“I always knew that I could do it and be an established major leaguer,” Call said. “It’s just, sometimes it takes a little bit of time. And I’m grateful that I was given that time, and just continued to get better.”