TRACING BACK HIS STEPS THE BUC STOPS HERE FORMER MANAGER TRACY RETURNS TO DODGER STADIUM.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

After Jim Tracy's taxi from the Pittsburgh Pirates' hotel in Century City deposited him outside Dodger Stadium's right-field corner Friday afternoon -- the opposite side of the building from where he used to drive in -- he sat down in one of the yellow seats and looked out at a half-decade of memories.

Tracy had managed four winning teams on in this ballpark. He'd celebrated a division championship on that diamond. He'd gotten fired in those offices.

``I reflected on the wonderful things that happened here,'' he said a while later in the visitors' dugout. ``The good so outweighs the bad that it's not even worth dwelling on the bad.''

How long will it take before Tracy can say that in Pittsburgh?

Someday, maybe he'll look back on his role in returning the Pirates to the glory of Mazeroski, Clemente and Stargell. But as he sat there before the start of this weekend's Pirates-Dodgers series, the Bucs were the worst team in the National League, losers of eight games in a row.

So there is something harder than managing the Dodgers for five years that spanned two ownerships, four general managers and head cases from Gary Sheffield to Kevin Brown to Milton Bradley.

The man hasn't changed. Still courtly, loquacious, remembers the name of everybody he's ever known. Still as prepared as any manager you'll ever meet.

The job has changed. He's in charge of a roster that's young and low-rent. He's trying to end the club's string of 13 losing seasons since Barry Bonds starred at Three Rivers Stadium. The skipper who rarely called out a player on his Dodgers teams has been blunt about saying so when his Pirates fail to Play the Game the Right Way.

Notably, he criticized shortstop Jack Wilson (Thousand Oaks High) last week for throwing too late to prevent a Luis Castillo infield single in a loss to Minnesota. Tracy's approach has been dissected in the clubhouse and the hometown papers.

``All I want this group to understand is that, to go to the places we want to, you're going to have to raise your expectations,'' Tracy said before his Pirates lost to Grady Little's Dodgers 10-4. ``If that ruffles your feathers, maybe this isn't the place for you to be. We've been reading the standings in Pittsburgh from the bottom up for a long time. In order to read them from the top down, we have to realize there are a lot of intangible little aspects of this game that have to be addressed ...

``This is very unsettling for me, to be sitting here and we're taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers and we're 22 games under .500. So what are we going to do to change it? ... I said from day one in spring training, I'm not going to talk about how young we are, and I'm not going to talk about how our payroll is only X million dollars. It seems like when you hear that enough times, then it's OK to be horrible. And it's not.''

Wilson didn't sound entirely happy the other day after Tracy's criticism (``He's the manager'').

Said Pirates outfielder Jeromy Burnitz, who played for Tracy's Dodgers in 2003, on Friday: ``They're expecting (Tracy) to mold this group into something. ... (But) I've found that players don't respond to the digs anymore. That's my point of view, it's not a dig at him or any manager.''

John Shelby, one of the coaches Tracy brought with him to Pittsburgh, says he's surprised Tracy's criticisms have been such a ``big deal.''

``He's trying to help them recognize what it takes to be a winning ballclub,'' Shelby said. ``It's positive.''

It's an adjustment for Tracy to go from L.A. to this, even after five years that L.A. remembers as something less than its finest. Tracy, 50, calls Steve Finley's division- clinching grand slam in 2004 ``the greatest feeling of my career.'' But a year later, his Dodgers were 71-91 and Tracy was fired.

It had less to do with the philosophical differences with GM Paul DePodesta than with owner Frank McCourt's dissatisfaction with Tracy's leadership amid the Bradley-Jeff Kent blowup. No problem, Tracy's solid reputation earned him a prompt call from the Pirates.

Since October, he and wife Debra have sold their Claremont house and seen son Chad (Pepperdine) drafted in the third round by Texas. Another son, Mark, just graduated from high school and is choosing a Southern California college. Trace has left L.A., but there are still traces.

``If there was any major disappointment, if I over-think about it, it's (winning) in 2004 and not having the opportunity to take some of those pieces back to spring training in 2005 and try to do it again,'' Tracy said of DePodesta's roster changes.

Tracy would look at (as he might put it) the dugout on the other side of the field Friday night and see young Dodgers Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley and Jonathan Broxton -- all new to the big-league roster in '06 -- and imagines how they might have blended with the veterans of '04. ``You realize you were that close to getting where you hoped to, and it got away,'' Tracy said.

In Pittsburgh, it's going to take a while just to get that close.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Jim Tracy's hard-nosed style has already gotten the attention of his young Pittsburgh squad.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(2 -- 3 -- color) no caption (Jim Tracy)

Box:

TALE OF TWO SEASONS