ALOU STAYS PUT : Starting Over

SAN DIEGO —  Even as their rival San Diego Padres were playing for a National League pennant Sunday, the Dodgers were reeling from the latest hit in this shambles of a season.

No longer what they were--and maybe never will be again--they were without a manager and turning to Plan B, or is it C, or is it . . .

Well, let me see if I have this right:

* Jim Leyland twice rejects their offer and accepts an offer from the Colorado Rockies, who play in Coors Field, which Leyland acknowledges to be a managerial snake pit.

* Felipe Alou rejects their offer and opts to remain with the Montreal Expos, who annually sell off his best players and may not be playing in Canada beyond next season.

Dodger green is worthless.

Dodger blue?

The allure is gone, the aura dust, the tradition a distant memory.

Yes, the Dodgers will have a manager when the 1999 season begins.

Probably Davey Johnson. Maybe Kevin Kennedy. But make no mistake: A once proud organization has been left to settle for a third or fourth choice.

Make no mistake: The Dodgers have become nothing more than a stalking horse, used by Leyland and Alou to drive up competing offers and the salaries of managers in general.

Is Fox upset? Bet on it.

Executives at the parent company believe the pursuit of Alou was far too public and optimistic, leaving the club to look like “bleeping idiots” when rejected, a source familiar with Fox’s thinking said.

Clearly not the most auspicious start for general manager Kevin Malone, who said Sunday he feels good about what the Dodgers attempted to accomplish with Alou, that Alou was under intense pressure to stay in Montreal and that “the Dodgers will wind up with a great manager.”

Davey Johnson has impressive credentials. He won with the New York Mets, the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles.

He is now also being pursued by the Detroit Tigers, but he has tended to burn bridges, become entangled in ego and power struggles with management and generally earn a reputation as the new Billy Martin, a manager who wins at every stop but quickly wears out his welcome.

Consider: Malone, as assistant general manager, and Johnson, as manager, worked together in Baltimore, but when Malone initiated his pursuit of a Dodger manager he went first to Leyland, then Alou, and has yet to even talk with Johnson, although that process could begin today.

Walter Alston managed the Dodgers for 22 years, Tom Lasorda for 20. The Dodgers have had three managers in the last three years and the current situation is compounded by the fact that Malone/Fox obviously feel that Glenn Hoffman, like Bill Russell before him, lacks the stuff to become another Alston or Lasorda and that there is no one coming out of the system, as Alston and Lasorda did.

Similarly, the Dodgers seem determined to hire an established manager, which closes the door on a Davey Lopes, whose hiring would re-establish roots to some of the best of the Dodger past while providing new and aggressive leadership.

Lopes, as the Padre first base coach, had other things on his mind Sunday, but he said that he didn’t expect to be approached and didn’t consider that a snub.

“I don’t know Kevin Malone other than to say, ‘Hi, Kevin, congratulations on your new job,’ ” Lopes said. “Common sense tells you that in this situation he’s not going to hire someone he doesn’t know or doesn’t have a relationship with. I would be surprised if he did want to talk with me.”

Lopes was the second baseman during the successful 1970s, but he said that the club’s sale to Fox severed ties to the Brooklyn era, the O’Malley era.

“The mystique is gone,” he said. “It’s a new franchise, a new generation, a new corporate era in baseball. It’s all about change--out with the old and in with the new.”

In the process, Lopes said, “You lose all sense of history. Fox is trying to do what it thinks is right, but all the people who were connected with the Dodgers are gone. The initial reaction is negative, but you have to give Kevin a chance to bring in his people and rebuild the organization. It may take three, four or five years.”

In the meantime, Lopes acknowledged, “When two great managers like Jim Leyland and Felipe Alou turn it down, it’s obviously not the prime time job it was. Felipe is a man of integrity. He believes in commitment and loyalty. The grass may seem greener, but that’s not always the case. Jim Leyland is a blue-collar type guy. I don’t think he wanted to go to the West Coast.”

So the Dodgers are without a manager, the rejections by Leyland and Alou merely the latest fiascoes in a year in which the O’Malley era ended, Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo were traded, Russell and Fred Claire were fired, many of the top farm prospects were traded by interim GM Lasorda, the payroll blew past $60 million, the club did little more than flirt with .500 and that covenant with the fans, that commitment to history, tradition and stability, was shattered.

How much Leyland and ultimately Alou considered all of that is uncertain.

How much they weighed the ongoing presence and involvement of Lasorda and the job facing Malone and his new associates in rebuilding the organization at all levels is uncertain. But in considering what the Dodgers once were and have become, there is also the possibility that Dodger Stadium will be rebuilt or refurbished, that the club will move out of Dodgertown and, said Lopes, “I hear they’re even thinking about new uniforms. They’ve basically severed the past.”

As for the future? Bring on Davey Johnson.