Yasiel Puig will probably win the National League's Rookie of the Year award, could be a contender for Most Valuable Player despite playing a little more than half a season, would win the mayor's job in Los Angeles if the job were open, and most Dodger fans would suggest immediate Hall of Fame election after his first 90 games in the big leagues.
Meanwhile, he will definitely get a Christmas card from Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, who was so close to the unemployment line before Puig was called up from the minors in late May that he was seen checking out rocking chairs at Home Depot.
Now Mattingly's a hero, thanks to one of the greatest turnarounds in Major League Baseball History.
The Dodgers were one of the pre-season favourites in the National League but they were stumbling along with a 23-31 record on June 1 - dead last in the NL West, seven games behind Arizona.
Then, Mattingly got real smart, learning how to spell P-U-I-G and write those letters on his lineup card daily. After that, he sat back and watched his team play like the 1927 Yankees. At one point, the Dodgers ran off an unheard-of 41-8 streak.
By mid-August, that seven-game deficit had turned into a seven-game lead atop the division. Suddenly, the Dodgers, led by Puig and slugging team-mates Adrian Gonzales and Hanley Ramirez, are playing like the pre-season favourites experts had predicted, and baseball's fun again in LaLa Land.
With a little more than a month to go before the playoffs, predicting the NL's World Series rep is a tossup. Pittsburgh, guaranteed a winning record for the first time in 21 years, has been a factor in the highly competitive Central Division, with St. Louis and Cincinnati strong threats, too. In the NL East, Atlanta Braves turned a 12-1 start into a runaway, and a 14-game winning streak in August gave them an insurmountable 15-game lead over Washington, the Stephen Strasburg-Bryce Harper-led team that most experts had predicted would make the World Series. As it turns out, they'll be lucky to get a wildcard berth.
We'll look at the American League next week, but in the meantime, Don Mattingly can thank Puig for turning him into the smartest manager in baseball.
Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald: "A Green Bay Packers fan who's a grandmother got a multi-layered green Mohawk hairdo. You know who I feel sorry for? The beautician who saw an 80-year-old waiting and thought: 'OK, this will be easy.' "
R.J Currie of sportsdeke.com: "Tennis legend Jimmy Connors is Maria Sharapova's new coach. So far it's going well; not only does Maria grunt, she cusses John McEnroe."
Steve Simmons of Sunmedia: "Jacques Martin can bore people in both of Canada's official languages."
Late-night funnyman Conan O'Brien: "The NFL announced that referees are going to crack down this year on excessive celebrations. NFL players are being told not to show off too much after a touchdown, a sack or a murder."
Steve Rushin in Sports Illustrated, in a column about names of players in the long history of Major League Baseball: "For the moment, the major leagues still have employed only four Balls (Art, Jeff, Jim and Neal), resulting in one Walk (Bob)."
Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: "Possible reaction from Â鶹ÊÓƵ Eastern Conference teams to the allegation that Johnny Manziel was paid for signing autographs? "See, this comes from teaching players how to write."
R.J. Currie again: "No matter how well NASCAR's Danica Patrick drives, some guys will always grade her on curves."
The Sports Curmudgeon: "Who has the most odious job in sports in 2013? A. Publicist for Oscar Pistorius; B. Publicist for A-Rod; C. Manager of the Houston Astros; D. Cornerman who has to swab out a boxer's nose with a Q-Tip between rounds; E. Stablehand who has to clean out the stalls of thoroughbred racehorses 365 days a year."
Bartt Davis of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, after 6-year-old Spencer Conn of Grayson, Ga., hit five home runs on consecutive pitches over two games: "No word on whether Conn has been tested for enhanced levels of Flintstones vitamins."
Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: Here's hoping that Iowa - named the nation's No. 1 party school - gets paired up against Brigham Young, which again came in dead last, in a postseason football game. Talk about a bowl marketer's dream: BYU vs. BYOB.
Retired NFLer Barrie Sanders, giving the top 10 list on Letterman titled: 'Signs you probably won't make the hall of fame': "You can never get it straight: Is it punt or bunt?"
TNT's Conan O'Brien again, after Alex Rodriguez hit his first home run of 2013 on the same day as the season premiere of 'Breaking Bad': "It was a big day for drug dealers."
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