Rally monkey, chew on this: Dodgers try the rally banana

The Dodgers had not scored in 35 innings, their longest stretch of zeros in 53 years. Someone had to do something.

Enrique Hernandez decided to grab a banana.

Not to eat. To wave.

This was the fifth inning Friday. The Dodgers scored. Hernandez put down the banana.

Then came the eighth inning. Hernandez picked up the banana and waved it again. The Dodgers scored again. They won, 2-1.

“You can call it coincidence,” he said, “or you can call it a rally banana.”

The Dodgers’ ebullient utility player took to Twitter on Saturday, encouraging fans thus: “Hey guys, make sure to bring your #RallyBanana to the game tonight!!”

The bubble machine of last summer -- the soap bubbles dispensed in the dugout to celebrate home runs -- has vanished. Its time simply passed.

“Nothing really caused the demise of that,” Manager Don Mattingly said.

In 2000, a guy joking around in the Angels’ video room started the rally monkey craze. The Angels won the World Series two years later, turning the Rally Monkey into a national phenomenon.

If the rally banana catches on at Dodger Stadium, Mattingly knows what would come next.

“They’ll probably have some sort of marketing for that, right?” he said.

Follow Bill Shaikin on Twitter @BillShaikin