BOLD DODGERS BACK ON MAP.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Out on Stadium Way after a typically nervous Dodgers victory one night last week, young entrepreneurs hawked bootleg T-shirts advertising the first-place club as The Big Blue Wrecking Crew.

That bold nickname, borrowed from the bleacher-busting 1970s Dodgers, looked kind of ridiculous applied to the 2004 version, a squad of kids and castoffs that specializes in slender wins for a no-name manager, cost- conscious general manager and mom-and-pop ownership.

Then came Friday.

Just wondering.

Did the Dodgers just grow into those T-shirts?

We may not know for months if these are good trades, or if they will upset the team's precious chemistry and bullpen structure. We may not know until the non-waiver trade deadline today at 1 p.m. exactly which players are involved, with Randy Johnson a fantastic possibility. We do know the Dodgers feel like big deals again in a sports world where you're either gigantic or you're forgotten.

All day Friday on ESPN, for good or ill the arbiter of importance in this sports world, the news was all about the Dodgers moving and shaking and making a huge trade happen.

Think about how unlikely this would have seemed before the start of the season. The team had just been sold to Frank and Jamie McCourt, whose promise to win was diluted by the plan to merely keep the player payroll in the major leagues' ``75 percentile.'' The McCourts had just hired GM Paul DePodesta, a 31-year-old whose experience as the Oakland Athletics' assistant GM suggested a penchant for trying to win on a tight budget. Handicappers had the Dodgers facing a 16th year without a pennant after losing Kevin Brown to the Yankees. From Anaheim came murmurings that when the Angels got done, the Dodgers wouldn't even be the big baseball team in their own city anymore.

With every banner headline the Lakers made, the Dodgers shriveled.

It was natural to worry that the Dodgers were about to slink from the stage of the big-market ballclubs.

Apparently not.

Friday, with baseball's third-best record and a 2 1/2-game lead in the National League West entering a weekend series at San Diego, the Dodgers front office swung for the fences.

Fans debated whether the Dodgers should spend their limited resources on a trade for youth or pennant-race experience, for a starting pitcher or a power hitter. The Dodgers had another idea. How about some of each?

By the time the Dodgers completed Friday night's 12-3 victory over the Padres, one part of what could become a three-part trade had been completed and approved by the commissioner's office.

The Dodgers had traded set-up reliever Guillermo Mota, catcher Paul Lo Duca and right fielder Juan Encarnacion to Florida to get 26-year- oldright-hander Brad Penny, 25-year-old first baseman Hee Seop Choi and Double-A pitcher Bill Murphy (Cal State Northridge).

They were awaiting approval for a trade that sends a not-yet-identified minor leaguer to Colorado to get 33-year-old catcher Charles Johnson.

And they were anxious to hear if their offer of Penny and two minor-leaguers to Arizona would land them Randy Johnson, the 39-year-old best left-hander in the game who has the right to veto the trade.

Even if the Johnson phase doesn't go through, DePodesta will have presided over a makeover of half of the everyday lineup in less than six months in the GM's chair, his opening-day-eve trade for center fielder Milton Bradley having led to Shawn Green's move from right to first base and the Dave Roberts-Jayson Werth time share in left. DePodesta will have changed the face of the starting rotation whether it's Johnson coming in or Penny (3.15 ERA). And he will have shaken up the majors' best bullpen in order to do it.

If Johnson comes to Los Angeles, Frank McCourt would take on a net addition of $11.5 million to the Dodgers' payroll for next season.

Presumably McCourt would have enough left to buy a T-shirt from the guys on the corner.

Clearly, these are not the shrinking Dodgers of the spring.

To Dodgers fans sick of watching the franchise lose stature over the years, the question of the trades' effectiveness is a matter for another day. Friday it felt good just to see the team look like as big a player as L.A. deserves.

Not that moving and shaking is necessarily a worthy end in itself: Last time the Dodgers made this much news with a trade, they woke up the next morning without Mike Piazza.