BAKER, VALENTINE IN LINE FOR JOHNSON'S JOB?

Byline: Steve Dilbeck

The games within the games, at least we have that. You can't take that from us.

Try to bore us to death on the field. Saddle us with a Dodgers team that specializes in going sideways. Bloat the payroll, dot it with pieces that don't fit, trade back for players who didn't work out the first time.

Give us a $90 million team with $1 worth of personality and we'll still find our intrigue behind the scenes.

Current double-secret insider scoop has the Dodgers firing manager Davey Johnson if his team doesn't make the playoffs. This would be the same guy the Dodgers kept advertising as having the ``best winning percentage of any active manager.'' He is second now and sinking with every loss.

If Johnson goes, intrigue specialists - those ``sources said'' types - tell us the Dodgers will make a run at Giants manager Dusty Baker. If not, there is Mets manager Bobby Valentine.

Managers who are ex-Dodgers seem to get bonus points, though Mike Scioscia, Johnny Oates, Davey Lopes and Phil Garner will apparently have to wait another day to crash Intrigue Central.

Intensifying the Baker and Valentine talk is that both are in the final year of their contracts. Both have been mentioned as a possible Dodgers manager for years.

See how this works?

Ironically for Johnson, both are in position to offer up his head by keeping the Dodgers out of the postseason - Baker, by taking the NL West; Valentine, by earning the wild-card spot.

This is juicy speculation for those who love the games within the game. Not to discourage water-cooler conjecture, but we're doubting either is likely to end up the Dodgers manager, though they might well end up richer for the thought of it.

Baker is in no hurry to make a call. The Giants, understandably, want him back. For Baker, the Dodgers simply could - and likely will - prove to be valuable leverage.

If you're the Giants, the last thing you want is to lose your Manager of the Year to those devils down south. That threat alone figures to be worth a few bucks to Baker, which shouldn't prove a problem now that they're generating all that extra revenue from that understated Coke bottle beyond left field.

Valentine is a different matter. Having taken the Mets to the playoffs last year, he was miffed not to be offered an extension during spring training. That he was not offered a contract, or that he was miffed, came as a surprise to no one.

He and Mets general manager Steve Phillips have the kind of relationship that make Johnson and Dodgers GM Kevin Malone look as cozy as Gore-Lieberman. Things deteriorated a couple of years ago when Valentine got wind that Phillips was trying to trade John Olerud and Carlos Baerga to the Orioles for Rafael Palmeiro and Roberto Alomar.

Valentine, not wanting to lose Olerud, leaked the trade to the media to kill the deal. Phillips heard this from, incredibly, Valentine.

These are serious games within games.

Then there was the time when Phillips went on leave over the threat of a sexual-harassment suit from a spring-training employee during the general managers meetings. A friend called him to say Valentine was bad-mouthing Phillips at the meetings.

Which might explain Phillips' overreaction last April when Valentine spoke to the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, under the assurance that nothing he said would leave the room. Valentine again criticized Phillips, and a fan in the audience posted his comments on a Mets Web site.

Instead of blowing it off, Phillips rushed to Pittsburgh to confront Valentine. We could take lessons from New York on this games-within-games stuff.

If he wanted to fire Valentine, he apparently found no backing in upper management. But once again, intrigue specialists were saying if the Mets didn't make the playoffs, Valentine was gone.

Only the thing is, the Mets are playing well. They are not only in position to capture the wild-card berth for the second consecutive year but giving the mighty Braves another tough fight in the NL East.

In New York, the Mets are again news in a city that is home to the world-champion Yankees.

This is a guy you don't bring back?

Valentine's price is actually going up, which probably means the only chance he has of turning the Mets down is if their offer is so low - and he's making $1 million this season - he gets ticked again and goes back to L.A.

That would require that the Dodgers want him, which despite their need to inject some life into the team, is far from a lock. Most Dodgers management is already weary of in-house fighting, and Valentine brings all that baggage.

And his biggest supporter within the Dodgers has always been buddy Tommy Lasorda, increasingly removed from management decisions.

But the Dodgers at least have to look like great leverage to Valentine.

Sometimes, it's how the game is played. In L.A., it beats watching .500 baseball.

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Photo: (color) Second-year manager Davey Johnson might need playoff berth to secure a third season with the struggling Dodgers.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer