DODGERS' LUCKY NUMBER IS ONE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

VERO BEACH, Fla. - When several veteran Dodgers told the Daily News over the weekend that they hadn't yet got to know new shortstop Cesar Izturis, the comments raised stern eyebrows in the front office. Particularly troubling, for a club trying to repair its image as one big happy family, was catcher Paul Lo Duca's statement that, 2 1/2 weeks into spring training, he hadn't even met Izturis.

That painted the picture of the 21-year-old Izturis coming to a new team without so much as a welcome from one of its leaders.

``It caught my eye,'' manager Jim Tracy said of Lo Duca's comment, before suggesting such a lack of contact between teammates this early in the spring wouldn't shock him.

It's no surprise that when Lo Duca was asked about Izturis again Tuesday morning, he said he had met the kid on their first day together here, going out of his way to shake hands and offer assistance. And Izturis, asked about Lo Duca, remarked that older Dodgers had made him feel ``at home'' since his arrival from the Toronto Blue Jays.

Management's anxiety over the appearance of a chemistry gap reflects the Dodgers' understanding that even though the distracting Gary Sheffield has been traded, a warm clubhouse atmosphere this season is no sure thing.

Although ``chemistry'' is the baseball jargon for it, there's little science involved in creating camaraderie on a 25-man team. Usually, the clubhouse either comes together or it doesn't based on luck and timing.

A club that takes chemistry for granted is setting itself up for heartache.

The Dodgers are a team without an obvious, vocal leader among its veteran players.

``I think guys are still trying to feel their way,'' outfielder Marquis Grissom said.

They're a team that has only three players who own a World Series winner's ring - Grissom and pitchers Kevin Brown and Jesse Orosco.

And they're a team whose psyche figures to be tested by early, on-field struggles if the batting order doesn't produce some pleasant surprises and the pitching rotation doesn't receive a clean bill of health.

There's going to be more to ensuring the club's emotional health than simply getting rid of Sheffield, whose antimanagement outbursts rang in teammates' heads.

``There's no guarantees,'' said pitcher Matt Herges, whose brief and surprising turn as a potential distraction ended when he agreed Saturday to a new contract. ``Something can happen, you know. On every team I've been on, there's been scuffles, disagreements, maybe even blows.''

``Maybe initially that takes away from chemistry,'' Herges added, ``but not in the long haul.''

It's a baseball axiom that what happens out there (on the field) is influenced by what happens in here (in the clubhouse).

The clubhouse, for the Dodgers, for these six weeks, is a roughly 60-by- 40-foot room without windows, lit softly from a high, sound-absorbent ceiling. Fifty wire-framed lockers stand against the four walls. Gear bags and boxes of bats sit atop the lockers. A rectangular table with chairs for 16 stands in the middle of the floor. Players hunch over their meals at that table, read the papers at that table, play card games at that table and toss damp towels onto that table if they accidentally miss the attendants' hampers. The only artwork on the walls is a huge action photograph of Gil Hodges. It is hidden behind the lockers of Jeff Branson, Chin-Feng Chen and Craig House. There's a peep hole in the main door.

A small sign beside that door reads, ``Maximum Occupancy 125.''

The goal is to make 125, or 50, or the opening-day 25, feel like one.

At this stage of the spring, before any would-be Dodger has been demoted or released, unity appears to be within the team's grasp. When I went looking for players to interview Tuesday morning, I was struck by how many Dodgers already were engaged in conversations - with other Dodgers. It was just the kind of genial environment Tracy and the front office would like to see all the time. A positive sign.

``(It's) guys enjoying being around their teammates,'' pitcher Terry Mulholland said. ``There's nothing worse than being on a ballclub with a bunch of guys you can't stand. When you spend 162 games in the same locker room, you hope the personalities mesh. From what I've seen this spring, we've got guys who are playing golf together, fishing together and going out to dinner together. It's a good atmosphere.

``It's been one of the smoother spring trainings I've been around.''

Mulholland, 38, was a member of the gritty 1993 Philadelphia Phillies, the best recent example of a baseball team that rode a unified personality to a pennant.

``It was probably the best example I've seen of where a personality of a club, where the heart of that team was so strong that it made up for the inabilities of some of the players,'' Mulholland said.

He said those Phillies veterans developed a kinship as the formerly sad- sack franchise improved over a period of years, led by John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Darren Daulton, Curt Schilling and Mitch Williams.

The Dodgers hope their taste of a pennant race in 2001 whetted players' appetites for 2002.

``I think the season before kind of helps produce that,'' infielder Jeff Reboulet said. ``Guys see that you're not that far away. You see where you were playing for something late in the year and you were pretty close. That creates a little excitement.''

Among the every-day fixtures, right fielder Shawn Green, first baseman Eric Karros and new left fielder Brian Jordan say they prefer to lead by example rather than by standing on tables and shouting.

``We didn't have it (vocal leadership) last year,'' Orosco said. ``If (we) will, that remains to be seen.''

News flash: It all remains to be seen.

The Dodgers only can hope that when the team's new personality walks in the clubhouse door, somebody steps forward to shake its hand.