Los Angeles Times

Bill Plaschke: Those Dodgers stars fans cheer for? Marty Lamb saw them first

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Dodgers' hottest hitter is being interviewed by phone while driving his Ford pickup south through the Kentucky hills and into Tennessee.

There is country music on his radio. There is a cowboy hat in the back. In the console is a cup into which he collects the juice from the snuff that rarely leaves his lower lip.

"My wife says she can hear it when I spit," Marty Lamb says. "She said, 'Don't you get on that phone with me and spit.' "

He laughs, because he's doing what he loves, driving four hours to places such as Kingsport, Tenn., where he will sit in a minor league ballpark watching teenage kids throw curves and take hacks.

"Every night there's the excitement of watching somebody new," he says. "You look

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