Los Angeles Dodgers’ Adrian Gonzalez takes to the ring to fight off the effects of time

LOS ANGELES – The walls of the Wild Card Boxing Club are adorned with images of the champions who have called this place home.

Manny Pacquiao. Miguel Cotto. James Toney. Johnny Tapia.

Under their unmoving stares, Marvin Somodio held out a pair of mitts that absorb rapid sequences of thudding punches.

Somodio has worked with several world champion boxers. On this particular day, he was training Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

From a southpaw stance, Gonzalez delivered two left uppercuts in succession. Then, a left uppercut followed by a right hook. With every blow Gonzalez landed, Somodio’s mitts boomed.

The owner of this Hollywood landmark, Freddie Roach, looked on curiously.

“He’s not at a main-event level yet, but he’s got the fundamentals down,” said Roach, who is best known for training Pacquiao.

Boxing became a significant part of Gonzalez’s off-season training program three years ago. He was living in the San Diego area at the time and worked with Chris Byrd, a former heavyweight champion.

“I find I get more work and better work out of this than lifting weights,” Gonzalez said. “This gets my core strong, my shoulders strong, my back strong, which are three of the things I need most in baseball.”

Gonzalez became a year-round Los Angeles resident last year, but wanted to continue boxing in the winter. He liked the way the workouts prepared his body to withstand the grind of a 162-game season.

“What better place than here?” Gonzalez said.

So Gonzalez dropped by one day and asked if he could hire someone to work with him. He found a trainer in Somodio, who was once the head trainer for former light-welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov. This marks Gonzalez’s second off-season with Somodio.

Gonzalez believes these workouts are becoming increasingly critical to him. One month into the upcoming season, he will turn 34.

The left-handed-hitting Gonzalez has already made adjustments to his swing, as he looks to drive the ball to right-center field instead of left-center. He is also making changes to his workout schedule, as he started training less than two weeks after the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Mets.

“I feel like the older I get, the more time I take off, the more time it takes me to get back into it,” he said. “So if I take a month off, it will take me a month just to get my body back into that kind of shape.”

Gonzalez accepts he is entering a new stage of his career.

“I’m a realist,” he said. “I’m not a guy who’s trying to be something I’m not. I know what I need to do to be the best I can be. A lot of people, they hit a wall and they don’t know how to get over it because they say, ‘This is what I’ve done my whole life.’ That’s why a lot people get to a certain age and can’t play anymore. They only know one way. I can adjust.”

Part of his most recent adjustment is to make two visits every week to the Wild Card. He does everything a professional boxer would do to prepare for an upcoming prizefight except spar.

Somodio acknowledged he was surprised by Gonzalez’s level of conditioning.

“He can last,” Somodio said with a laugh. “He can train all day. I’m the one who gets tired.”

Gonzalez isn’t the only non-boxer who has trained at the Wild Card.

The first that Roach recalled was former USC offensive lineman Winston Justice. While serving a one-year suspension in college, Winston worked out daily under Roach’s watch. He went on to play in the NFL.

Roach also prepared Shaquille O’Neal for televised exhibition matches against Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley.

“He was pretty good,” Roach said.

Roach tried to remember the name of another former Lakers center he trained. He turned to Somodio and asked, “Who was that other guy? The big guy, that guy that’s not doing nothing right now.”

Andrew Bynum?

“Andrew Bynum,” Roach said with a nod. “He wanted to quit basketball and become a boxer. I talked him out of it.”

On this day, Gonzalez shared his training space with a couple of heavyweight prospects, including Trey Lippe-Morrison, who is 10-0 with 10 knockouts. Lippe-Morrison is the son of Tommy Morrison, the late former heavyweight champion.

As Lippe-Morrison entered the room, Roach gestured toward Gonzalez in the ring and told him, “Your sparring partner.”

Roach was only half-kidding. While Gonzalez won’t risk injury by trading punches with a professional heavyweight, Roach thinks he would be able to hold his own against fighters of Lippe-Morrison’s experience level.

“He can definitely work with him,” Roach said.

Later in the afternoon, as Gonzalez was nearing the end of his workout, 7-foot Taishan Dong of China entered the room. Dong often trains side-by-side with Gonzalez.

Jean Pascal is also training here for an upcoming light heavyweight title fight against champion Sergey Kovalev.

“Watching these guys is fun,” Gonzalez said. “It’s also good knowing I can keep up from a conditioning standpoint.”

Most baseball players can’t.

Last winter, Gonzalez had Yasiel Puig and Joc Pederson accompany him to the gym.

“Everybody says they’re in shape until they step into this place,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a different kind of shape. It’s not like running eight sprints in 20 minutes.”