PUBLICIST STEVE BRENER : The 11th Man : The Dodgers Call the Fans the 10th Man on the Field, but Their P.R. Director’s Role Is at Least as Important

It’s Old-Timers’ Day at Dodger Stadium and a lot of the old familiar faces are milling about. Pee Wee Reese. Duke Snider. Roy Campanella. Sandy Koufax. The boys of championship summers ’55 and ’59 have returned to knock about 30 years off the calendar by playing in a three-inning game.

Managing the 1955 team is Steve Brener, the Dodgers’ director of publicity. Brener was all of 4 years old when the ’55 Brooklyn team defeated the New York Yankees for their first championship.

“Hey Junior,” Tom Lasorda, the current Dodger manager, yells at Brener, “give me a chance to hit.”

“Sorry Tommy, but pitchers don’t hit in this league,” Brener says, using the designated-hitter rule as an excuse to keep Lasorda out of the batter’s box.

At the moment, Brener is concerned with overcoming a 1-0 deficit in the bottom of the third inning.

“Let’s get two runs,” Lasorda shouts from his spot on the bench. “I want to suck up this win.”

With men at first and second, Brener sends Lasorda in to pinch-run. Maury Wills, he isn’t.

“What’s the fine if he goes?” Ken McMullen asks.

With the crowd chanting, “Go, go, go,” Lasorda strays too far off second.

Seeing the second baseman sneak in behind, Brener tries to warn his unsuspecting base runner. “Hey Tom . . .”

It’s too late. Lasorda is picked off.

An argument ensues and a generous umpire gives Lasorda a reprieve, ruling that time was out. Lasorda returns to second, and moments later scores a run in a 3-1 victory for the ’55 team.

“There’s that victory,” Lasorda says to Brener as the two men shake hands. “We sucked up another one.”

Later, Lasorda is asked about Brener’s managerial performance.

He laughs.

“Steve Brener,” he says, “has been managing this team for nine years--up in that press box.”

The phone, as usual, is ringing in the Dodgers publicity office. “Non-stop,” said Maryann Hudson, Brener’s secretary.

This call is from the Houston clubhouse. The Astros want a box of Dodger visors.

A few minutes later, Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC Entertainment, arrives at the stadium. Brener takes him and some friends down to the field.

“He very easily could have said, ‘Maryann, take Brandon down to the field,’ ” Hudson said, “but he does what’s expected of him. He gives 150% all the time. He goes that extra mile, and that makes the difference.”

Brener, 34, has been the Dodgers’ publicity director since 1975. He has been with the team since 1970, putting in a workaholic’s hours.

Brener arrives at his office by 10 a.m. every day. He leaves for his Northridge home about an hour

after each home game. That can be anywhere from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. or later, depending on when the game ends.

When the Dodgers are at home, Brener has a seven-days-a-week job. When they travel, Brener is often with them. He makes half the trips, while Toby Zwikel, the director of publications, makes the other half.

Even when Brener doesn’t travel, he works at the office from 9 a.m. to about 6 p.m. Then he goes home and keeps score of the game by radio or television.

His work year doesn’t end with the last out of the regular season.

“Once the season stops, the next day, we’re already preparing for the next season,” Brener said. “We do a final wrap-up on statistics, work on the highlight film and start on (next season’s) press guide.”

The year, Brener said, is “13 months long.”

Brener stays busy during the day working on statistics and answering requests from fans and players. His office tries to answer every correspondence.

It tries to answer every imaginable question the media might have, too. At Dodger home games, the press is provided with six to 10 pages of notes compiled by Brener and Zwikel. How have the Dodgers done at night? During the day? Against left-handers? On artificial turf? In one-run ball games? The answers are there.

“Steve deals with people on all levels,” Hudson said, “from (club president) Peter O’Malley to our interns. He takes the time. He’s a caring individual.

“Somebody will write him a letter that I think he’d turn down. But he won’t turn it down, he’ll instead find out more about their request. Someone will write and say our Little League team wants 16 baseballs signed by the Dodger players. He’ll make sure they get the balls.”

It’s also Brener’s job to clear the clubhouse of non-players 30 minutes before each home game. He goes early to check on last-minute details, like player moves or injuries.

Said Brener of his pregame routine: “I’m a trouble-shooter.”

Growing up in Van Nuys, Brener loved sports, especially baseball. “I loved the Dodgers,” he said. “They were my team. I used to throw a tennis ball against the wall, making like I was Sandy Koufax pitching against the Phillies.”

But he says his fantasy of becoming an athlete ended before attending Grant High. “When I started high school, I had an interest in becoming an accountant.”

It was during a track meet at Valley College involving Grant, however, that Brener, a 10th-grade spectator, changed his mind.

Pete Kokon, then a sports writer and columnist for the now-defunct Valley Times, was at the meet looking for someone to cover the event.

“I was asking around,” Kokon said, “when I heard this little voice in the middle of the field say, ‘I’ll do it. I’m your man.’ ”

“He was just a little fellow who didn’t look like he could reach the scorer’s table. So I said to him, ‘You are? Who are you? Can you do it?’ ”

Brener’s reply got him the job. “Try me,” he told Kokon.

Brener covered the meet and phoned in the results for $5.

“All of a sudden,” Brener said, “this changed my course of direction.”

Brener began covering games for the Valley Times and the Valley News and Green Sheet (now the Daily News). He also served as sports editor for Grant’s school newspaper. Later he attended Valley College, where he became sports information director in his first semester.

Through his sports connections, he became associated with Norm Sherry and Roger Craig, two former Dodgers who had become scouts for the California Angels and the Dodgers, respectively.

During a Valley baseball game, Brener asked Sherry and Craig what his chances were of getting into baseball in some capacity.

“They said they were a million to one,” Brener recalled.

But they were good enough for Brener.

Through Sherry, Brener was put in contact with then-Angel General Manager Dick Walsh. Walsh gave him the chance he wanted--a part-time job with the club’s publicity department in 1969.

“I would drive from the San Fernando Valley to Anaheim every day right after I took my classes,” Brener said.

He did that for a year until joining the Dodgers in 1970 in a similar capacity.

“I had idolized all these players and here I was, working for the club,” Brener said. “Now, I was getting autographs from them and taking people down to meet them.”

Brener was considered a part-time employee, although he was working close to a 100 hours a week. And he still had his school work to do. After joining the Dodgers, Brener attended Cal State Northridge and graduated in 1973 with a journalism degree.

Said Brener: “One time I actually had double vision. I was running the message board and I noticed I was seeing the letters double.”

But he didn’t mind the hours. He was working for the Dodgers.

“It was a dream come true,” he said.

His dream took on even more significance just before the start of the 1975 season, when he was named publicity director.

Red Patterson, then the Dodgers’ vice president in charge of public relations, left to become president of the Angels. Fred Claire, the publicity director, took Patterson’s job.

“It was the happiest day of my life,” Brener said.

At 24, Brener became the youngest publicity director in the major leagues.

“I felt that Steve was the right man for the job,” said Claire, now the team’s executive vice president. “He certainly had proved that he was qualified. He was young, but I didn’t place a lot of importance on that.”

Now that he has grown into the job, he doesn’t see himself growing out of it.

“I dont know what the next step is,” he said. “It may sound stale or whatever, but I’m not looking (to move up in the organization). . .

“When I wake up in the morning, I look forward to coming to Dodger Stadium. It’s a brand new day. It’s another adventure.”

Lasorda, in his ninth year as the Dodgers’ manager, talks of Brener as if he were another of his players. He affectionately refers to him as “Junior,” a nickname that Kokon gave Brener, and one that Lasorda picked up.

“Very rarely do you see a publicity director and a major league manager that are that close,” Lasorda said. “When we visit people and go to restaurants, a lot of people think he’s related to me.”

Lasorda laughed.

“He’s Jewish and I’m Italian and he’s always said an Italian needs a Jew to take care of him. I agree.

“He has done so much for me. He’s allowed me to become recognizable all over the country.

“When you’re a P. R. director and you want players to make appearances and do interviews, if they don’t like you to begin with, then you’re gonna have a tough time getting them to do that extra thing.”

Said Bill Russell, in his 16th season with the Dodgers: “I’ve only been with one organization, but as public-relations minded as the Dodgers are, you have got to have people that are proud and capable of doing a great job.”

Said Second baseman Steve Sax: “He puts no pressure on you to do things. He asks; he doesn’t demand.”

Mention Lasorda to Brener and he laughs. “There is never a dull moment with Tommy,” Brener said, his smile growing.

If Brener has learned one thing about Lasorda it’s that the Dodger manager hates to lose--at anything.

Brener should know.

There was the time in 1979 in Houston when Brener bet Lasorda a steak dinner that he could hit one of his curveballs. “The first pitch,” Brener said, “came right at my head. I hit the dirt. I was gonna run out to the mound but (coach Mark) Cresse put a bear hug on me.”

As it turned out, Brener bought the steak dinner.

Another time, when the team was in Houston, Lasorda and Brener played one-on-one in basketball. Lasorda was the winner, but not without a protest.

“You talk about no harm, no foul,” Brener said, “I got clobbered.”

In 1976, the two squared off in a tennis match. “Lasorda had his cronies as judges,” Brener charged.

“Everything I hit they called out. Anything near the line was out.

“There’s no doubt I won,” Brener added, “but technically, Lasorda felt he won.”

Lasorda was asked if, indeed, Brener was the winner. Lasorda, in turn, had a question for a reporter.

“Is that story gonna be fiction? If it is, then you can say I lost.”

The debate rages on.

When the Dodgers lose on the road, the manager and publicist often take long walks afterward.

“The manager has to have someone to talk to after a tough loss,” Brener said. “I guess I’m his ear.”

Said Lasorda: “When we walk the streets late at night in St. Louis or New York or Philadelphia, you can see that he is really sad if we have lost. And when we win you can see how happy he is.”

“We’re like two brothers,” Lasorda continued, “We’re always together and I love him just like I do my brother.”

Brener sits at the far right of the Dodger Stadium press box, right below organist Helen Dell. When Dell plays “Charge,” it’s only after a signal from Brener.

“If Steve didn’t tell me when to play the charges,” Dell said, “I’d probably get excited and play too many.”

Throughout the game, Brener fields questions from reporters. When did Mike Marshall go on the disabled list? When is the last time a Dodger player struck out eight straight times?

Being a publicity director in Los Angeles means that Brener has to deal with one of the largest media contingents in the nation. On the road, eight to nine reporters travel with the team regularly, as well as two radio broadcast teams.

“He has a thankless job,” said Gordon Verrell, who has covered the Dodgers for 17 years for the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “He has the newspapers he has to please. And he can’t ask too much from the players or they’ll get on him. And the bosses don’t want certain items to appear in the paper.”

Said Kevin Modesti of the Daily News, who began covering the Dodgers this season: “They’ve been completely cooperative, as cooperative as any P. R. department I’ve dealt with. I’ve felt in even the toughest situation, they don’t try to hide things.”

The Dodgers, and subsequently Brener’s office, do not take the media lightly, according to Ken Gurnick of the Herald Examiner.

“They know that it has to be cultivated,” Gurnick said. “No P. R. department does any more to help the media than the Dodgers.”

As for dealing with the press, Brener said: “All you can be is honest with them. You have to treat all the media alike. You can’t favor one over the other.”

On every road trip, Brener attempts to take the writers out to dinner at least once.

“And we’re not talking McDonald’s either,” said Gordon Edes of The Times. “They run up a major-league bill.”

Last month when the club was in Houston, Brener and the writers ran up a dinner bill of $900.

Why the dinners?

“Because it’s good public relations,” Brener said. “It’s a looser atmosphere. A time to shoot the breeze.”

The work Brener and the Dodgers do is seen around the league.

“I think of the Dodgers as the epitome of class in baseball,” said Ed Wade, publicity director of the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I think Steve does as fine a job as anybody in the game.

“His situation is unique in that in L. A. he deals with high visibility people. We might get a television personality or a VIP here once in a while. I’m sure with Steve it’s a day-in, day-out situation.”

Of course, Brener has perhaps the glamour job for P. R. directors in baseball. In contrast, consider the Pittsburgh publicist’s job.

The Pirates, after finishing in last place in 1984, reside at the bottom of the National League East standings again this season. Rarely are there 10,000 people in the stands and there is talk of the team leaving the city. Earlier this season, a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh investigated drug-trafficking charges and several major league players were called to testify.

“When the team is succesful and things are going well (off the field),” Wade said, “the P. R. man is busy. When things are negative, the P. R. man is also busy. Obviously, when things are positive, it’s a lot more fun.

“When the club is not successul and you have the activities off the field, it tends to get you down.”

There have been very few down times for Brener.

“This is utopia,” Brener said of the Dodgers. “If anyone wanted to work in sports, this organization has got to be the place.”

When the Dodgers are at home, Lynne Brener, Steve’s wife, tries to make it out to the stadium five times a week.

“I like sitting on the third-base side on the club level so I can see him in the press box,” she said.

Adjusting to Steve’s schedule has never been much of a problem for Lynne. “When I met him, he was working there, so I knew the hours.”

When the couple was dating, they would meet after games to go out. When the Dodgers travel to San Diego, Lynne and Steve are together.

“I usually go on at least one trip a year (besides San Diego),” Lynne said. “Usually, the Eastern swing.”

The Philadelphia-New York-Montreal excursion last year served as the Brener’s honeymoon.

They were married in Calabasas on Aug. 16, an off-day for the team. But the next day, Steve had to be back in the office as the Dodgers prepared to play the Phillies.

Eight days after they were married, they went on the road with the team.

Brener used to take 80% of the road trips until Zwikel began making half the trips in 1981. “I get some weekends at home now,” he said.

The Dodgers’ most recent trip to San Diego was special for Brener. Not only did he have Lynne with him, he also had Kimberly, his 5-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. Kimberly lives with her mother in Bakersfield.

The first night in San Diego, the Dodgers rallied from a one-run deficit to defeat the Padres, 3-2, on a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning by Al Oliver.

As usual, Brener scurried to the locker room after the game. He returned to the press box about 40 minutes later, where he was greeted by Lynne, Kimberly and two friends.

After about 10 more minutes, Brener was ready to leave. It had been a long day--what with the drive from Los Angeles--and he was all set to join his party.

“That’s it for tonight,” he said as he headed toward the elevator.

But it wasn’t. A reporter wanted to know exactly when Oliver had come off the disabled list.

The Dodgers’ publicist obligingly put his briefcase and four-inch thick statistics book down and leafed through a few pages, quickly finding the answer.

Finally, Steve Brener was off for some leisure--something not easily found in a 13-months-a-year job.