It's been almost eight years since Mike Scioscia last flipped that steel-wire mask over his face. Almost eight years since he looped the metal clasps on a pair of bright blue shinguards between innings of a major-league game.

Scioscia wore a Dodgers uniform for 15 seasons, including 13 as a player and two as bench coach. He blocked the plate as well as any catcher in history, endeared himself to fans forever with one swing against Doc Gooden and was a favorite son of gregarious manager Tom Lasorda.

He speaks with reverence of Roy Campanella, Johnny Roseboro, Del Crandall and others who steeped him in Dodgers tradition and taught him how to play the game of baseball.

Scioscia's dedication was always his strongest quality. It's that same dedication that will keep him grounded tonight, when the Angels open a three-game series against the Dodgers at Edison Field.

For the first time in Scioscia's baseball life, the Dodgers will be the team on the other side.

"There's a strong connection between where I am now and where I came from," said Scioscia, who was hired Nov. 18 as the Angels' 16th manager. "All the foundation I had was laid with the Dodgers. A lot of people there took the time to work with me. I have a lot of great memories and a lot of friends there.

"But I'm excited to be where I am now. I'm excited to be here with the Angels. It's exciting to help lay down the building blocks and get this organization to become that perennial contender that everybody here thinks we can be. There are a lot of guys working hard to get there. I'm glad to be one of them."

Scioscia has his own team now. He has new allegiances, new responsibilities and a new baseball family.

He needed just six weeks under the Arizona sun to bring together a fractured Angels group that collapsed last season under the strain of constant feuding. The Angels are a happy bunch, and while they haven't been consistent enough to put together a win streak of any significance, they are one game over .500 and a half-game out of first place in the AL West after two months of the season.

Some might consider the Angels overachievers. Not Scioscia. And not Lasorda, who always knew his catcher was a natural-born leader.

"He's a man that I really, really enjoyed having to play for me," Lasorda said. "He played the game with everything that he had. He never showed me one minute of disrespect. Every time he put the uniform on, he gave it 100 percent at all times. I told him many, many times that one day he was going to manage in the major leagues."

Lasorda knows a good managerial prospect when he sees one. Seven of his former players are current major-league managers: Davey Lopes, Johnny Oates, Bobby Valentine, Dusty Baker, Phil Garner, Charlie Manuel and Scioscia.

But Scioscia is distinguished among that group. He was the only one of those seven men to play every single one of his games in the major leagues wearing a Dodgers uniform.

And then Scioscia spent two more seasons under Bill Russell as the bench coach, two more as a minor-league catching instructor and another (last season) as manager of the Dodgers' Class AAA team at Albuquerque.

Scioscia might try to downplay this series, but Lasorda knows there will be some hidden motivation at work.

"Mike was dedicated," Lasorda said. "He loved the Dodgers. He loved being a Dodger. But now he's going to get the opportunity to manage against us. I think that's going to be exciting for him.

"He's going to want to win, he's going to want to win so bad, I can't tell you. He's going to want to beat us so bad, sitting down there with (Mickey) Hatcher and (Ron) Roenicke and Alfredo Griffin. All those guys played for me and they were great guys and they did so much."

When Scioscia came to Anaheim, he surrounded himself with people he most respected and admired. It's no coincidence most of them are former Dodgers, too.

Hitting coach Hatcher was an unsung hero of the 1988 World Series team. First-base coach Griffin was a well-liked shortstop who finished his career with the Dodgers. Third-base coach Roenicke played three seasons in LA.

Roenicke, Hatcher and Scioscia all managed in the Dodgers' minor-league system.

In recent years, those jobs have been volatile. Two coaching staffs faced upheaval in less than a year's span, and though Scioscia had been discussed as a replacement for Lasorda, Fox officials decided to go in a different direction.

The result is an organization that hardly resembles the one Scioscia, Hatcher, Roenicke and Griffin remember.

"It's been changed over so much, it's not like going back to what it was when we were there," Hatcher said. "All the people we knew, Peter O'Malley, most of them are gone. It was a family situation when we played. There's all new people there."

And that's not necessarily a good thing, said Dodgers reliever Matt Herges, who played for Scioscia at Albuquerque last season.

"I think the organization definitely lost out when Mike Scioscia left," Herges said. "This organization has a history of having quality people involved, and that goes back to the O'Malleys. I can't wait to see him because I love him. It'll be weird, I guess, but I just look forward to seeing him. Shoot, he's a Dodger, and you grew up watching him."

Scioscia has his own challenges in Anaheim. He borrowed many traits from the Dodgers' old guard, but the managerial style that has emerged is completely original. Scioscia is confident in his decisions, steadfast in his commitment, and he argues calls passionately, but never just for show.

He positions players aggressively, takes chances on the basepaths and trusts his players to execute.

"Any manager can go by the book, and most of them who do are just covering their (rear end)," Hatcher said. "Mike's not afraid. He's going to manage his way, and it's not always by the book. I've seen Tommy Lasorda do that so many times, and you look back at what he did, well, he finished with more wins than losses."

Perhaps Scioscia's toughest challenge was to bring together an Angels team ripped apart by internal conflict last season. That he accomplished this after the first week of spring training speaks to the immediate respect Scioscia earned from his players. They appreciate his understated style and his simple but uncompromising demands.

"Oh yeah, I believe in upward spirals, and it starts with the manager," Angels first baseman Mo Vaughn said. "You talk about team leaders and stuff, and that's good, but if you have no backbone behind the whole thing, there's really nothing you can do.

"Really, the guy in charge is the guy who's gonna keep it tight. Basically, he's the one who's got to show the power, and I think everybody around here knows who's running this team."

Joe Christensen of The Press-Enterprise contributed to this story.