While sitting in press row at Dodger Stadium …

–Who pays for the cleanup of a clubhouse when a team clinches on the road? If they don’t collapse here, the Dodgers likely will clinch the National League West this weekend in San Francisco. Where Giants officials have to be less-than-enthused about the champagne/beer dousing their visitors clubhouse will get.  From their arch-rivals, no less. Do ballclubs send a bill to the visiting team for all the cleanup? Would seem fair, to me.

Latin ballplayers seem to love to wear batting helmets that have accrued a season’s worth of pine tar on them … from putting their tarred batting gloves on their helmets. Vladimir Guerrero comes to mind.

I wonder, though, how Manny Ramirez has managed to tar up his Dodgers batting helmet so quickly. It’s as gooey as anything in baseball, but he’s been with the club not even two months.

Did he start spreading tar on it from the moment he arrived? Does he use more tar than the average guy? Does he have clubhouse guys working on it? Or do guys normally get them filthy in a couple of months, and then actually recycle them? Just wondering.

–The Dodgers’ 14-1 surge in early September almost certainly has saved the job of general manager Ned Colletti, and that isn’t a good thing. Not at all. Ned has made a rash of expensive mistakes, so many that it’s hard to imagine he should be kept around.

The Dodgers were 65-70 on Aug. 28, and there were stories leaking about how Frank McCourt had seen enough. And then the Dodgers went 12-1 against NL West opponents, and tacked on a pair of victories over the Pirates, and they were 4.5 games up — and Ned probably can count on another year here.

Ack.

–Nick Hundley, the catcher in the Padres’ minor-league major-league lineup, is not related to Todd Hundley (an injury-prone Dodger in 1999-2000) nor Todd’s father, Randy, a solid player with the Cubs 40 years ago. Both were catchers of some note.

Todd now is perhaps best remembered as the guy who gave the phone number of trainer Kirk Radomoski to Dodgers catcher Paul Lo Duca, and that was the pipeline for steroids into the Dodgers clubhouse. Anyway, Nick Hundley … no relation.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before,  but Joe Torre did a cool thing, before this season. He took over the little office that had belonged to Walter Alston, Dodgers manager here from 1958-1976.

–From 1977-2007, Dodgers managers (well, Tommy Lasorda, mostly), took over a much bigger room that had belonged to coaches. Forcing the coaches into the closet that Alston used to have.

Well, Torre is back in the tiny room (“if it was good enough for Walter Alston …” would be a good explanation), and the coaches are over where Tommy, etc., kicked back in all that space. I like that.

Though it can be a test to talk to Torre, after a game, because so many reporters are wedged in that little space.

–Is Angels infielder Howie Kendrick going to be One of Those Guys whose career is screwed up by injuries? He has been on the disabled list four times in two seasons (and has missed 143 games (and counting) in those two seasons.

Three of the DL stints were for injuries that were just breakdowns of his own body. Not a good sign for a guy who is only 25.

The first, last year, was a bad break — a bone in his hand when hit by a pitch. But in July he suffered a broken bone in the top of his left index finger from, apparently, just swinging the bat.

And this year he’s gone down, twice, to pulled left hammies.

Tweaking a hammy is supposed to be what happens to guys in their 30s. Not middle infielders in their mid-20s.

Kendrick came up with such high expectations, too. Remember when he came up, the second half of 2006, and analysts started talking about how he was going to win a batting title or three?

Well, he’s not going to win any batting titles (despite his .307 career BA) if he can’t play more than 88 games a season, and he hasn’t done that so far this season or last.

–OK, and a stat out of tonight’s Dodgers game. James Loney just doubled in the eighth inning, give the Dodgers three guys with at least 35 doubles … for the first time in franchise history, according to the Dodgers PR people. Matt Kemp has 38 and Andre Ethier has 36.

Hard to imagine the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s didn’t do it at least once … or maybe the Dodgers of the 1970s, the “Blue Wrecking Crew” era.