COLUMNIST CARRIES CURSE NO MORE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

SAN DIEGO - As a ballclub's pennant hopes crumble, a hard-nosed columnist has to go looking for somebody to blame, to identify the hapless individual whose mere presence seems to guarantee defeat. In the Dodgers' case, I've found him.

He's on the wrong side of 40, getting thicker in the middle and thinner about the hairline, and his greatest moment in a baseball uniform came long ago when, in a media-vs.-stars exhibition game at Dodger Stadium, he was pinch hit for by a ringer named Pedro Guerrero. He has spent decades searching for the batting stroke that carried him to a .508 average for the Sepulveda Park Cubs. Nowadays, if scouts talk about his five tools, they mean a laptop computer, a pocket calculator, a thesaurus, a scorebook and a hotel pen.

By now you've guessed I'm not talking about Omar Daal.

A review of the statistics and the memory suggests if the Dodgers don't win the National League wild card this season, the man to blame will be - this is so embarrassing - me.

``Uh oh,'' Jim Tracy said with a brave smile when I walked into the manager's office before the final game of the Dodgers-Rockies game in Denver last week. ``Do I have to worry because you're here?''

I'd like to say it ain't so, but apparently it is.

When the Dodgers lost the first two games of the Rockies series, it meant they had lost seven consecutive games that yours truly attended. The next day, Daily News beat writer Brian Dohn kidded Tracy they had a chance to win because Kevin Modesti was going to the USC-Colorado football game in Boulder that afternoon. Sure enough, the Dodgers won the Saturday game 16-3. Then, when I returned to Coors Field for the Sunday game, they justified Tracy's concern by coming from ahead to lose by a run.

After that it really got ridiculous, this streak.

I covered the Dodgers-Giants game in Los Angeles on Wednesday; the Dodgers lost when the Giants' pitcher hit a big home run. I covered the Dodgers-Padres game here Friday; the Dodgers lost as Andy Ashby had blister trouble. Ten times in a row when I'd been in the ballpark, the Dodgers had lost.

Saturday was a real test, an immovable-object-vs.-irresistible-force kind of matchup, with me in the press box and the recently invincible Hideo Nomo on the pitcher's mound. Nomo obviously came in knowing this was going to take a superior effort. He retired 17 Padres in a row in the middle innings and the Dodgers pulled out a 5-3 victory.

Sometimes, as Tracy might put it, you've just got to tip your cap.

I'd started to suspect this whole thing about the Dodgers being playoff contenders is an elaborate hoax, like the moon landing in ``Capricorn One,'' the movie with O.J. Simpson's second-best acting performance. I mean, from what I'd seen with my own eyes, the Dodgers were a team of .222 hitters with a 6.00 ERA. I'd read about them winning, but I hadn't actually watched the Dodgers win since June 22 against the Red Sox.

Or maybe I was carrying a curse, as in that well-worn sitcom plot: ``After she drops all of her friends' life savings down a grating, Laverne fears she is a jinx.''

Tracy reassured me before Saturday's game, though he wasn't exactly smiling this time.

``I don't take it personally,'' Tracy said when I offered to apologize for killing his team. ``I'm not superstitious.''

Neither am I, but if this calculator is correct, the odds against randomly attending 10 losses in a row by a team that plays .550 ball are about 3,500-1. It's my luck I get these odds at the ballpark, not the racetrack.

The thing is, any idiot can see 10 losses in a row by covering a really bad team every day. It happened to me on a columnist's peripatetic itinerary while the Dodgers generally were doing well. The first loss was against the Angels in Anaheim June 30 in a game notable for Brian Jordan kicking Mark Grudzielanek in the head chasing a fly ball, the next two against the Diamondbacks July 11 and 13 with the umpires getting the blame. Back then, Hiram Bocachica was still a Dodger.

I left the country for two weeks on vacation and returned with my deadly touch intact, watching a loss to the Marlins Aug. 20 - the Dodgers' only defeat in a 10-game stretch. Put it this way, since June I'd seen more victories by the England cricket team than by the L.A. baseball team.

While they'd gone 0-10 with me in the park, the Dodgers had gone 36-28 without me. The 10 losses included three by one run and four in which the Dodgers led.

I'm the guy who goes to ``The Lion King'' the night the lion costumes are at the cleaners and the cast comes out in gorilla suits.

I write this in the hope that, as Dodgers fans see the wild card slipping away, you'll take comfort in having an easy scapegoat.

I'm to blame.

OK, Omar Daal also has something to do with it.