CLAIRE WOULD LIKE A LITTLE HONESTY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

The trouble with being an honest man is you can't hide what you're thinking, even when you should.

Take Fred Claire, late Friday night in the Dodger Stadium Club, at the press conference to announce the seismic, 5-for-2 trade with the Florida Marlins.

In 20 minutes before the cameras, the Dodgers' executive vice president for baseball operations didn't say a discouraging word about the trade or the way it went down.

But: He also didn't smile, didn't indulge rhetorical questions with his usual good humor and didn't bother to stand up straight and feign rapt attention when Dodgers president Bob Graziano took the microphone.

Correction: He smiled, briefly, once, when a writer started to ask Graziano about Claire's shrunken role but was drowned out by a TV guy.

In 11 years in the ``general manager'' job, it's safe to say Claire never has looked so angry in public, or had reason to look so defeated.

``He's an honest guy,'' said a Dodgers employee who interpreted Claire's body language as I did.

Fred Claire was not happy.

Not happy with the way Graziano and their Fox Group boss Chase Carey commandeered the Mike Piazza-for-Gary Sheffield-and-Bobby Bonilla trade talks that began with a call from Florida's GM to Claire.

Not happy that, after taking a diminished role in the biggest trade in Dodgers history, the man with the three-year contract and titular responsibility for player personnel decisions wonders if he's still in charge.

Not happy that, while Sheffield and Dodgers executives dithered over the outfielder's contract details, the team played a game without Piazza and Todd Zeile, both in limbo, and lost feebly to the Montreal Expos Friday.

Saturday, on the field during batting practice, Claire first tried to shrug off his Friday-night frown, saying it had been a grueling 24 hours.

Then his essential honesty took over.

``When Peter O'Malley named me to this position in 1987, I told him I asked for only one thing: complete, total responsibility,'' Claire said, leaning on the screen behind home plate. ``He said, `You got it.' ''

Peter O'Malley is no longer in charge.

``If my responsibility changes, that's important to me, because I've worked long and hard in my life to get to where I am,'' Claire said. ``I need to be comfortable with what my responsibilities are. I quite frankly think I'm owed that.''

He said Graziano and the Fox men have reassured him, saying the big names and bigger salaries made the Piazza trade unique, and he wants to believe they're sincere.

If not, he said, ``Tell me what you want to tell me. I'm a big boy.''

The joke at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon had been, ``Why hasn't the trade been announced? Because they haven't told Fred yet.''

It turned out, the joke was practically true.

Claire made a point of telling reporters that he heard the trade was agreed to in principle when Graziano phoned from the Dominican Republic in the seventh inning of Thursday's loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. His role had been ``advisory.''

Claire insists he is not ``trying to distance myself'' from the trade.

And give him credit for that: He is a loyal soldier, a 30-year Dodgers employee. And now that the deal is done, he will say nothing explicitly bad about it.

In fact, knowing his role would be a topic of reporters' questions before Saturday night's game and planning to express his discomfort, Claire talked first with Sheffield, so the best of the new Dodgers wouldn't misinterpret the comments as critical of the trade.

``We are a much improved team today,'' Claire said - no misinterpreting that - noting the improved catching with Johnson, addition of left-handed power with switch-hitting Bonilla, and the all-around hitting of Sheffield.

But in subtle ways, he is distancing himself.

He makes it clear he did not ``shop'' Piazza. Which, he could have added but didn't, the Dodgers should have done to see if the game's most valuable catcher could bring a better deal from another team.

He suggests that even if the Dodgers are stronger now, ``With any trade, it's not only today.''

The Dodgers' player payroll just went up, which has to be bittersweet for Claire, who worked within a tight budget all winter and took the heat for failing to improve the team.

``If my limit was $5 million more,'' he said, ``there might have been six different things I would have done.''

What bothers him isn't the criticism, of which he's had a lot in the decade since the Dodgers' last postseason victory. He's a standup guy, the kind who'll cheerfully return the phone calls of writers who blasted him that morning.

What bothers him is the fear that his precious ``complete, total responsibility'' is slipping away, and that he'll be the last to know.

Fred Claire wants as much honesty as he has given. He thinks he's owed that. He's right.