NO SURPRISES HERE: SIGNS POINTED TO EXIT.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Mark McGwire is due in town today and his former USC teammate, Randy Johnson, might be on his way to L.A., too. Meanwhile, back in Omaha, Neb., the current crop of Trojans ballplayers are still alive after turning back Florida in extra innings in an elimination game at the College World Series.

. . . We interrupt this column to bring you the following weather advisory: The severe weather system that spawned tornadoes in South Dakota and driving rain and wind in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan has left its mark locally.

``The Tornado'' pulled up from Chavez Ravine on Monday afternoon, some three years after touching down, and there's no telling where it'll land, though sophisticated radar tracking the phenomenon indicates Baltimore or Boston could be directly in its path.

Pitcher Hideo Nomo and the Dodgers parted ways on Monday and some people sounded as if they couldn't have been more surprised if a dark funnel cloud had appeared out of nowhere and ripped the roofs off their houses.

Truth to tell, there were warning signs aplenty that Nomo's days as a Dodger were numbered. The first sirens sounded in Nomo's head long before he started on a losing streak that reached four games Saturday and well before he was pulled into manager Bill Russell's office last week and given assurances he wasn't part of a trade package for Seattle southpaw Johnson.

The Dodgers didn't sign the 29-year-old righthander to a long-term deal over the summer, citing his offseason elbow surgery and the team's impending sale to Rupert Murdoch's Fox Group. It was then Nomo knew he wasn't in the Japanese pro league anymore, where tradition and loyalty are batterymates.

Nomo figured he had more than earned his keep here, having brought busloads of new fans to the ballpark and inspired the sale of sushi in Dodger Stadium concession stands as well as the construction of 31 large outdoor screens in 13 cities in his native Japan so his countrymen could follow each of his starts.

Nomomania was big on both sides of the Pacific Rim. But the pitcher from Osaka who earned the nickname ``The Tornado'' because of his unorthodox twisting delivery sensed his support within the Dodgers' organization was waning after pitching coach Dave Wallace, who had overseen Nomo's initial tryout with the Dodgers, left last fall for a front-office position with the New York Mets and owner Peter O'Malley turned the team over to Murdoch.

It didn't help that his fastball - which in his first three years had been the perfect foil for his forkball - had been downgraded by the experts this year, from the F-5 class to F-3 in terms of the havoc it was capable of wreaking.

When the Dodgers traded catcher Mike Piazza, the supposed cornerstone of the franchise, Nomo could see the sayonara on the wall. If anything, his desultory performance in his past five starts - he allowed 18 earned runs in his last 26-2/3 innings - was a message in and of itself, one he finally articulated through an interpreter on Monday when he said he ``definitely needed a change of scenery.''

The end might not have come so abruptly if the Dodgers had been able to put Tupperware lids over the mouths of all their employees. As soon as word leaked out that Nomo's name was being bandied about in trade talks, the pitcher's course was clear.

After all, where Nomo comes from, appearances matter. In Japan, you don't dare send a gift of cash if the bills are wrinkled and worn. Anything less than crisp bills is liable to be taken as an affront rather than an act of generosity. Likewise, in Nomo's eyes, anything less than a crisp new contract was an insult. To save face, he had to leave.

And so it was that Nomo's agent Don Nomura finally met with general manager Fred Claire and requested a trade on Sunday, some six weeks after Nomo had first voiced his misgivings in a closed-door meeting.

Unlike the Johnson saga, which has been dragging on for almost a week now, effectively coating the Dodgers clubhouse floor in eggshells, the Dodgers moved swiftly on this, designating Nomo for assignment.

The move meant Nomo was dropped from the team's 40-man roster. The Dodgers have 10 days to shop Nomo around. Meanwhile, Johnson can be theirs today for the right price, which figures to include pitcher Ismael Valdes. It's a deal they can no longer afford to pass up.

When Nomo broke in with the Dodgers in 1995, he became only the second Japanese player to appear in the major leagues and the first in 30 years. That he went on to win Rookie of the Year honors after posting 236 strikouts that season was no small source of pride to a nation that perceived its own ballplayers as lesser stars than their counterparts in the United States.

The Dodgers routinely fielded some 100 Japanese media requests on days when Nomo pitched at home. Now he's taking his arm and his army elsewhere. Dodgers fans can only hope a heat wave - something in the high 90s - is moving in.