DODGERS MUST WIN TO WIN FANS.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

As the Dodgers prepare to open the season Tuesday, they find themselves to be Strangers in Their Own Town, according to no less an authority than Los Angeles Magazine. The wherefores are detailed in the April issue in a highly readable article beginning on page 48, right after a cool black-and-white-photo for a fancy Westside health club, which is honored by the endorsement of Dyan Cannon.

Well, if that doesn't say it all about the Dodgers' loss of status: In many towns, the baseball team would be viewed as the paragon of athletic vigor and would be delivering the testimonials for the health club. The sixty-something actress would be the subject of the cover story evoking nostalgia for lost glory. But this is Los Angeles and the way things are going for the ballclub, it might be time to give Dyan Cannon a try in center field.

Dodgers executives, understandably, are unhappy to pick up this slick magazine, this local arbiter of upscale cool, this guidebook for the mud-bath set, to find their franchise described as ``a ballclub we no longer recognize ... characterless and interchangeable ... (living in) a Laker town.''

The front office maintains the article is a rehash of fans' old complaints - the club's loss of a ``family'' feel since Peter O'Malley sold out, the corporate mentality of the Fox ownership, the trade of crowd favorite Mike Piazza, the lavish contract for Kevin Brown, the bitterness of Gary Sheffield, the various fiascos of Kevin Malone, the managerial comings and goings, the roster's shortage of Dodgers farm-system products, the ads on the Dodger Stadium fences (etc.). The brass would like to think the Dodgers' image problems have been substantially corrected since the bumbling early months of the Fox era.

Yet the fact remains that Dodger Stadium attendance had declined by nearly 10 percent over the past seasons and Los Angeles is not on a first-name basis with any Dodger the way it is with the Lakers' Shaq (O'Neal) and Kobe (Bryant).

Allow me to offer a theory as a life-long L.A. resident who identifies with the yearning for the good-old days of Sandy, Garv, Fernando, Orel and Gibby: If the Dodgers have lost their hold on the community, the reason is a little matter that is touched on, in an oh-by-the-way sort of fashion, on page 118 of Los Angeles Magazine.

They aren't winning.

Friday night, in the third inning of the Dodgers' exhibition game against Cleveland, their first Dodger Stadium appearance of 2002, first baseman Eric Karros chased after a foul pop-up by Travis Fryman, overran the ball and let it drop on the grass. Much of a crowd announced at 22,022 booed.

Karros is an 11th-year Dodger, a UCLA and Dodgers farm-system product, a holdover from the O'Malley era and an upstanding citizen. He is everything L.A. Mag tells us we are supposed to love in a ballplayer. So why was Karros booed in the third inning of the season's first dress rehearsal?

Because he's coming off a bad year. Because he hasn't been a winner. Because his career has coincided with the Dodgers' longest World Series drought - going on 14 seasons - since Brooklyn and the 1930s.

If he's part of a pennant winner, Karros will be a hero. If he's part of a pennant winner, even Kevin Brown will be beloved. If he lifts a World Series trophy, even Bob Daly will be the toast of the town. If Dodger Stadium is the site of another Kirk Gibson moment, it will feel like home again.

Gibson himself was a mercenary and a grouch. Nobody held it against him because he led the Dodgers to a trophy.

In Los Angeles, we simply don't do the lovable loser thing very well. We aren't Brooklyn, we aren't Chicago and we aren't Boston. A sports franchise here can forget about reconnecting with the community by flipping the warm-and-fuzzy switch at the ol' ballpark.

If it's a Lakers town, it isn't because they're a group of home-grown players and coaches embodying the virtues of continuity and stability. They have gone through as much change as the Dodgers in the same period of time. The difference is the basketball team has won two titles and the baseball team has been watching.

If the Dodgers wonder how to restore the umbilical link with their city, I propose a plan in two phases:

1. Win the World Series, then:

2. Take your chances.

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For the Dodgers to recapture the hearts of L.A.'s fans, they must stop making plays such as when Dave Roberts dove, but missed a ball in a spring-training.

Roberto Borea/Associated Press