BIG DREAMS GROWING UP IN AUGUSTA, GA., BROXTON MASTERED THE SPORT OF BASEBALL. NOW, HE'S BEGINNING TO MASTER THE ART OF RELIEVING WITH THE DODGERS.

Byline: TONY JACKSON 

Staff WRITER

ATLANTA - One hundred forty-five miles east of Atlanta is the city of Augusta, Ga., home to one of the world's most famous sporting venues. It is a place where legends are born in the Masters, as golf announcer Jim Nantz has so melodramatically pointed out on so many occasions over the years, with the previously little-known Trevor Immelman having become the latest Sunday.

Almost 24 years ago, Jonathan Broxton was born there, too. And by the time he was a month old, he was already making himself at home on a lush patch of manicured grass where so many athletes have gone to ply their trade.

But that grass wasn't at Augusta National Golf Club. Instead, it was at a softball diamond in Waynesboro, the little town 25 miles to the south, where Broxton was raised.

"My dad played travel softball, so they started taking me to the field right away," said Broxton, now the Dodgers' fireballing setup man. "A few years later, they took me out of T-Ball and made me play with the 10- and 11-year-olds. I was 6 at the time. I actually made the All-Star team that year as a pitcher and a shortstop."

He might have been the biggest kid out there, too.

Now, officially listed at 6-feet-4 and 290 pounds, the otherwise reserved, mild-mannered Broxton is a hulking, intimidating presence on the mound, especially in the eighth inning of a tight game. Toss in a fastball that usually clocks in between 93 and 96 mph -- one that he can throw even harder when he tries to (in his words) "hump up on it" -- and you have the makings of a dominating relief pitcher.

Just how dominating? So far, in what is more or less his third season in the majors, the right-hander has struck out 12 batters in 71/3 innings. That projects to 14.7 per nine innings -- two better than San Francisco's Jonathan Sanchez (12.6), the National League leader on the list (which consists mostly of starting pitchers).

Broxton has allowed just one run this season, that coming in a comparatively rough eighth inning April 8 at Arizona in which he still managed to strike out three of the five batters he faced. He has a 1.23 ERA, has allowed just five hits and is holding batters to a .192 average.

Broxton will take all those numbers into tonight's opener of a three-game series with the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field, the closest thing he has to a hometown ballpark in the majors. The Dodgers had Thursday off, arrived around dinner time and don't have to be at the park until this afternoon, but Broxton passed up the chance to get back to Waynesboro because he didn't want to be away from the team.

If Broxton won't go to Waynesboro, a good portion of Waynesboro will come to him.

"It seems like it's usually the middle of the week when we play the Braves," Broxton said. "This year, it's on a weekend, so it will work out a lot better for them. But I'm letting everybody take care of their own tickets."

While it's true Broxton has never dominated at the level he is now, it is hardly true that he has never dominated. Last year, in his first full season in the majors, he made a staggering 83 appearances, and he continued a streak of not allowing a home run that had begun the previous season and reached 94 games before he finally gave up one to Philadelphia's Tadahito Iguchi on Aug. 23.

He has stuff that is more prototypical of a closer than Takashi Saito, who has held that role for the past two seasons.

Saito is 38, and Broxton is the heir apparent, even if that is a subject he isn't willing to touch just yet.

"It's a goal of mine, but right now, we have Saito," Broxton said. "He has been unbelievable the last two years. My job is just to go out and get the ball to him, and the guys before me, their job is to get the ball to me. If we can do that every night, we'll win a lot of games."

It's still nice for the Dodgers to know they have another option at closer if Saito suffers an injury.

"We have a closer to pitch the eighth inning and another one to pitch the ninth inning," pitching coach Rick Honeycutt said. "Broxton has closer stuff, and the great thing about him is how he approaches the game every day. He is just always a bull when you give him the ball, no matter what."

But when he goes home to Waynesboro for the winter, Broxton is anything but abull.

"Every once in a while, somebody might see me in Wal-Mart or someplace, and they might be too shy to come up," he said. "But the people who have known me all my life, they don't treat me any different. They know I'm the same guy I always was. My dad always taught me not to get the big head. He said the minute you get the big head, it's over."

[e-mail]

HEIGHT

6'4"

WEIGHT

290

ARM

96 MPH

DODGERS

TODAY at Atlanta, 4:30 p.m., Turner Field.

TV: Ch. 9.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) no caption (Jonathan Broxton)