Ex-benchwarmer no longer pines for happier times

Several fans e-mailed recently suggesting something probably needs to be written -- given Juan Pierre’s tremendous play of late -- after he was referred to here in the past as a Little Leaguer.

So I stopped by Dodger Stadium on Monday to let the little guy know he has 27 games to go before returning to the bench to make way for Manny’s return.

“You don’t talk to me all last year,” Pierre said with mock outrage, “and now you talk to me.”

Once I had reminded him that I do not talk to benchwarmers, so there was no reason to chat with him last season, he laughed, the Juan Pierre I did not know a year ago.

That guy was sullen, sitting alone and almost sad in the corner of the dugout, and maybe you would’ve done the same if you had played 162 games five straight years, only to be told to sit in favor of playing Andruw Jones.

But then Manny arrived, a pouting Pierre sinking further into the background, his Dodgers life going so badly that he won permission from the team to seek employment elsewhere if he could.

I would have been happy to drive him to the airport, making it one less sourpuss in town, but then something changed -- Juan Pierre changed.

“I came back with a different attitude in spring training,” he admitted. “I came back with God in me. God is in control of all this, and God wanted me on the bench last year. I don’t know why, but His plan is bigger than me.”

Now I know Manager Joe Torre carries a lot of weight around here, but I would never refer to him as God, especially when God is perfect and Torre’s the one who decided to go with Jones over Pierre.

“God is in Joe Torre,” Pierre said, and the Dodgers do have the best record in baseball, a miracle, if you will.

Torre said he has noticed the difference in Pierre too. “Last year really wasn’t comfortable for Juan and I. But I think Manny made the difference,” Torre said, while making it clear, “Manny and God are not the same thing.

“A year ago Juan didn’t understand why he wasn’t playing, what with Andruw here,” Torre said, “but this year he understood with Manny -- he was behind the other three guys [Manny, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier].”

Pierre’s still the first player to report to the field for work, thinks of an interview as a “roast,” and still hasn’t done an interview on camera before a game the last two years. The answer heard most often when interviewing Pierre? “We done now.”

Yet the change this season in Pierre has been a dramatic one, beginning day one in spring training, the guy joking around, and I repeat, Juan Pierre joking around.

“I wasn’t happy with myself last year,” he said. “I can’t explain it. I have always read the Bible, but I was reading it again during the off-season. You know, Paul, knocked from that horse. . . .

“I just figured out God’s plan is way better than mine. I thought I could do it on my own, but I was miserable. I can only control things that I can control. Whether I play or don’t play is not always in my control. I came to grips with that.”

Pierre came to the Dodgers after the unexpected departure of J.D. Drew, and beginning with his first inning on the job, Vin Scully began talking about the shortcomings of his arm in center field. That’s as close as one can get around here to hearing God speak on TV.

Only in an effort to help Pierre, of course, I suggested he have his Little League arm cut off, find a cadaver and with the aid of modern science become an all-around player.

For some reason he was slow to warm to the idea, like most everything else offered here at the time, but now in such a refreshing way, nothing seems to unsettle him.

“I’m in a peaceful place,” he said. “They crucified Jesus and he’s the only man who was perfect, so what do you think you can do to me?”

A year ago he might have said the same thing and stalked off, but now it’s said with almost a light heart.

“With everything that’s going on in the world, the economy and all that, I get to put on this uniform and play,” he said. “I’m fortunate. People ragging on me, just doesn’t matter anymore. Before, I got offended, but now you can call me anything you want.”

After a slight pause, however, he added, “well, not anything.”

He’s more approachable, all right, outgoing and accepting, but he remains just as competitive, a .302 career hitter in no hurry to return to the bench.

“The pineywoods, as we call it down South,” Pierre said. “It ain’t good to be on the pineywoods.”

Interview over, Pierre’s thrilled, of course, and he couldn’t wait to jump off the bench and run out to the field to begin preparing for a game in which he’d post two of the Dodgers’ first four hits.

But unlike the past, where there would be no turnaround in Pierre, he stopped at the top of the dugout steps and looked over his shoulder with a grin to say, “We shouldn’t have to talk again for what -- another 27 games?”

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BEFORE THE game Torre said, “When [Manny Ramirez] completes his rehab,” which stopped me -- wondering why Torre had elected to use the word rehab, “which would suggest drugs,” I said, but “then of course we are talking drugs, so it’s the perfect word.”

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YOU CAN check out YouTube for a glimpse of the Drug Man taking batting practice in Dodger Stadium. Maybe it’s just the distance from where the video was shot, but Ramirez already looks smaller.

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TORRE SAID Ramirez will be allowed to play in the minor leagues in preparation for his return -- 10 days before the end of his suspension.

You can just imagine the minor league promotion possibilities: “Come See the Drug Man,” or maybe “Fertile Female Night.”

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t.j.simers@latimes.com