DODGERS GET FAILING GRADE IN CHEMISTRY.

Byline: PAUL OBERJUERGE

For the good of the game, some teams shouldn't win anything.

Those who spend profligately.

(Write us a check, New York Yankees.)

Those who misbehave shamelessly.

(Assume the position, Cincinnati Bengals.)

Those who play joylessly.

(Give us a scowl, Los Angeles Dodgers.)

Yes, the Dodgers, circa 2007. A team that is SO not a "team," them playing in October would be an affront to real teams everywhere.

There's an old baseball description for ballclubs like the Dodgers: "Twenty-five guys. Twenty-five cabs."

Watch this team interact. On the field and off. Ask people who spend time with them on a daily basis. And the analysis is pretty much the same.

The Dodgers have an unhappy clubhouse.

They are a team in only one sense: They wear the same uniform. (At least until the next clubhouse-churning trade.)

The Dodgers' 2007 motto might as well be: "All for one and none for all." It's every man for himself.

All you need do is spend a few hours in the dismal and dreary cellblock that is the Dodgers' clubhouse to pick up the energy-sapping vibe.

Is there any team with a winning record in baseball that seems to enjoy itself less than the Dodgers?

Any team with less apparent chemistry or camaraderie?

Any team where surliness is more readily accepted as acceptable behavior? Any team with less clubhouse leadership?

What is amazing about these Dodgers is that they remain on the periphery of the chase for the playoffs, despite being as cuddly as porcupines. (And despite a 6-1 loss to Arizona on Sunday.)

Dodgers brass didn't plan this. Ned Colletti, general manager, apparently prefers happy clubhouses.

But that's not what the Dodgers have, as they enter the final two weeks.

Which brings us to a recent baseball debate.

Does chemistry matter? At all? Does leadership help you win?

Modern statistical analysts, enamored of individuals' raw numbers, suggest chemistry is a chimera. What you need is good players because good players win, and winning makes the nastiest churl chummy. Thus, the chicken of competence comes before the egg of joy.

But how to explain the Dodgers? Who are 79-70 but all mope around as if they just came from a funeral?

In point of fact, this is a club riven along fault lines of age, experience, talent, language, ethnicity and personality, and the club does little to bridge those gaps.

The team's natural leaders, veterans Jeff Kent and Nomar Garciaparra, are reticent to a fault. Maybe you get that way when you're in the latter stages of careers and feel as if speaking up brings nothing but trouble. (Remember Kent and his abortive 2005 attempt to straighten out Milton Bradley?)

Some of the self-impressed kids have heads rapidly outgrowing their ball caps. Which rankles some veterans. Who are considered irrelevant by some kids.

And if they all wanted to talk about it, not that they really do, serious issues of language arise in a clubhouse where English, Spanish, Japanese and Cantonese are native tongues.

And, anyway, perhaps all they might agree on is this: They have little respect for management.

All this might not be so jarring if not for the example of the Angels, just 35 miles down the freeway.

The Angels are a team in the traditional sense. With strong chain of command, a clearly communicated corporate ethos, veteran leadership and a knowledge that self-sacrifice (like hitting behind a runner) is noticed by management, appreciated by the collective and tangible in producing more victories than defeats.

Enter the Angels' clubhouse, and you can be sure to see guys lounging on couches, watching television and bantering.

Enter the Dodgers' clubhouse and guys sit in front of their lockers wearing headphones, alone in their own little world.

Sometimes, it's better for sports if certain teams don't win.

Because they fail to satisfy our basic expectations of what a team should be: Communal, egalitarian, mutually supportive and devoted in pursuit of a common goal.

If the Dodgers are any of that, they hide it well. Thus, better to let some teams who actually like each other advance into October.

Let these Dodgers go their separate ways, as always, and let Ned Colletti take another whack at team chemistry during the coming offseason.

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