DODGERS STILL LOOKING FOR SOME OLD MAGIC.

Byline: Steve Dilbeck Staff Writer

You don't really know them, do you? It's been three years now, which should be long enough. Yet the Dodgers remain slightly out of focus, this fuzzy image we were always so certain we knew, now struggling mightily to take form.

There had always been a certain warmth attached to following the Dodgers, a comfort. They were stable, they were family, part of home. A Dodgers bobble-headed doll in the rear window.

It had been 10 years since the Dodgers won a World Series when Peter O'Malley sold his family enterprise into the mega-corporate world of Fox. It's not like every season had been bliss. That there were not decisions that seemed incredulous, moves that made you scream into the night.

But O'Malley always made the Dodgers familiar. There was no doubt where 100 percent of his interest went. No uncertainty there was someone both passionate and experienced running the city's favored team. More often than not, the Dodgers won and contended.

And he had vision. On a sunny spring day in Vero Beach, O'Malley invited team beat writers to his private bungalow for an informal dinner and discussion. Nothing for the notepads, just an exchange of thoughts. O'Malley said then the day was close when teams could no longer afford to be family-owned, that instead major corporations - with greater resources - would run teams. This was more than 10 years ago, long before baseball was overrun by the Disneys and News Corps. of the world.

O'Malley expected this to be a boon but never could have foreseen the chaos that would follow when he ultimately sold his team to Rupert Murdoch.

In the three years that followed, we have seen a suit trade popular catcher Mike Piazza, Tommy Lasorda's managerial successor Bill Russell and general manager Fred Claire fired in midseason, outsider Kevin Malone hired as the new GM, a complete reshuffling of personnel both upstairs and on the field, team president Bob Graziano fired - by someone we had never heard of - and then hired back when Warner Bros. executive Robert Daly came on as the new CEO, a firing of a second and third manager, and an overall record of 246-240.

It isn't that they are no longer your daddy's Dodgers, you're not sure whose they are.

This year they were another collection of players, a decent if somewhat foreign team with a $90 million price tag. Only five players on the 25-man roster were originally drafted by the Dodgers, and two of them - Tom Goodwin and Dave Hansen - were on their second go-round. So many new people everywhere, they became difficult to embrace.

Their biggest acquisition in the offseason was outfielder Shawn Green, traded for and then signed for $84 million. This came a year after they shook up baseball by giving right-hander Kevin Brown $105 million. Fox was at least willing to spend to build a team.

Green, perhaps pressing his first season in his hometown, had a nice but unspectacular season. Gary Sheffield had a monster year, yet never seemed to be taken in by the fans. Brown led the NL in ERA, but his antisocial demeanor continued to make him someone you could admire without embracing. Starter Chan Ho Park seemed to have a breakthrough season. They had a team-record 211 home runs.

Only a real ``team'' never seemed to emerge. Lots of decent parts that failed to develop into an impressive whole. In truth, they weren't as bad as seems to be the popular retrospective viewpoint. They finished 86-76 and second in the NL West, a nine-game improvement over the previous season. Just not enough of an improvement to save manager Davey Johnson, who lost a battle of wills to Malone.

After pulling to within two games of the Giants on Aug. 2, the Dodgers lost 11 of 15 and were hardly heard from again. When Daly announced the firing, he admitted his first year on the job was a ``learning experience'' and he had been ``naive'' in the way he handled Johnson's dismissal. Daly seems decent and well-meaning, if egotistical, yet with a new and inexperienced baseball man at the helm, the Dodgers continue in some kind of embryonic state.

So into the offseason they went, Malone hanging on and Daly suddenly talking of budget restraints and trying to improve the team the traditional ``Dodgers'' way, through pitching and defense.

They are evolving in this post-O'Malley era, not yet a true winner, and not yet familiar.

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Photo: The Dodgers improved in 2000, but not enough to save Davey Johnson's job.

Associated Press