As August ends, so does the frivolity of summer. Kids go back to school. Stockbrokers start trading in earnest. For the Dodgers, who still have a shot at the playoffs, the season's last 30 games will make the difference between post-season immortality or an October fishing trip.

Baseball is the most habitual of sports. Each of the season's 162 contests pit more than 20 players to a side, all of whom are serviced by a cadre of coaches, trainers and front-office staff. Ritual is the magic that assures all of them get their assignments and where they need to go.

"Game Time: 7:10" someone's scrawled on the whiteboard at the head of the clubhouse. "Pitchers stretch: 4:00," the note goes on. "Position players stretch: 4:30."

The timing hasn't changed since the very first game. By the end of August, the players know exactly how long they have to pull on their socks, start chewing their gum, evade a pesky writer or gather up their bats. Day after day, hits and runs, wins and losses, successes and failures accumulate.

Then time runs out. September is when history is written. A poor individual season can be at least partially offset with a flurry of last minute home runs or shutout innings. Teams can show heart and win fans by making even the most fanciful runs at a World Series berth.

People always remember best what happened last.

No one knows that more than Gary Sheffield, the Dodgers' brilliantly talented left fielder. He ended the previous year as the most productive hitter in team history, slugging 43 home runs, driving in 109 runs, and batting .325 to boot. After sometimes stormy relations with previous clubs, he seemed to have found a home in Los Angeles.

But spring training was a disaster. Dodger management, including long since fired general manager Kevin Malone, deeply offended Sheffield in ways he never clearly explained. He demanded a new contract or a trade. He intimated he wouldn't, or couldn't, play hard as a Dodger.

Suddenly, Sheffield was a talk radio target, the very epitome of the overpaid athlete with attitude. Pilloried in the press, he eventually fired his agent, apologized to the team, and yet was still booed lustily by unforgiving fans. Things looked bleak in April when the Dodgers headed back from Florida to start the season.

I first spoke with Sheffield before last Wednesday's game against the Colorado Rockies. He'd been creaming the ball of late, batting .387 with 14 home runs, including several game winners, since the middle of July.

An Orange County sportswriter kept going on and on about batting technique, but Sheffield amiably answered the questions. Pressed for time to make the pregame warmups, he still waved me into the neighboring seat while I took out my pen.

I wanted to know about the pointing. More than once I had seen Sheffield cap a home run trot by lifting his right arm and eyes to the sky as he crossed home plate.

"Oh that," he said. "That's an affirmance of my faith. I want people to know that it's God they should really be cheering."

Sheffield is a deeply religious Christian. In 1999 he married DeLeon Richards, a world-class gospel singer. He tithes 10% of his salary, a reported $45,000 per month, to a Florida church. He and his wife are active in several charities.

Sheffield's heavenward nod after each home run, it turns out, is a new ritual for him. "I started it this year," he explains. "After spring training, I hit that home run in the first game." The game-winning home run, it turned out. "I just felt thankful and it happened."

Perhaps that set the stage for his remarkable comeback. Sheffield's early year tumult is fast receding. Teammates happily call his name and manager Jim Tracy lauds him in the papers. His few supporters last April are being vindicated by his fabulous play this August.

The Dodgers, it's clear, won't go anywhere this fall without Sheffield's help. But Sheffield himself has a personal story to complete.

"My wife says if you walk on faith, you're fine," he told ESPN Magazine in May. "Well, that's the hardest thing about life, walking on faith."

Each time he looks up into the sky, it seems, Sheffield's faith becomes just a little bit stronger. Here's hoping that, as he and his team ready themselves for September's final push, he has many such occasions to celebrate.