Gooden Brings His Special K’s to L.A. Tonight : Hershiser Opposes the Met Star, Who Sings but Not as Well as He Hums

There’ll be a fanfare for an uncommon man tonight at a sold-out Dodger Stadium, which is the way it goes wherever Dwight Gooden, the Prince of pitchers, appears for a command performance.

Gooden, as usual, will not be unaccompanied. His all-star backup band, the New York Mets, merely got off to the best start in the franchise’s 25-year history, winning 20 of their first 24 games. They’ve cooled recently, with three losses in their last five games, but they still rate as the class act in the National League.

Sharing the billing with the New York cast tonight will be Orel Hershiser and the Dodgers, who have yet to receive their copy of “Get Metsmerized,” the new music video cut by the Mets. But the Dodgers know Gooden’s tune by heart even if they haven’t heard him sing it.

“Change-up, fastball, slider and curve ... Step up to the plate if you’ve got the nerve,” intones the 21-year-old Gooden, who pitches with more conviction than he sings.

Gooden, who against the Dodgers is 4-1 with a 1.06 earned-run average--a record that includes three memorable confrontations against Fernando Valenzuela last season--opened 1986 by winning his first five starts. That gave rise to the thought, however implausible, that at 21 the National League Cy Young Award winner might go through a season undefeated.

Last Sunday, however, Gooden was beaten by the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2, all three runs scoring on a bases-loaded single by Pete Rose.

“I don’t like to see anybody lose, but it does seem odd when it’s him,” Met Manager Davey Johnson said afterward.

On any other night, Hershiser would be an attraction in his own right. He did, after all, go 19-3 last season with a 2.03 ERA, second only to Gooden among National League right-handers.

But Hershiser, who will be facing Gooden for the first time, isn’t dealing in false humility when he acknowledges the difference.

“He’s the type of guy you can pitch against and, win or lose, you can tell your kids and grand-kids about it, and they’ll know the name,” Hershiser said. “Now I could go out and pitch against Tim Conroy (the St. Louis left-hander who lost to the Dodgers Wednesday), and there’s a slim chance that my little boy knows who Conroy is. He’ll know Gooden. . . . He’s just the dominant force in the game right now.”

The Mets, of course, are well aware of Hershiser, who in five starts against them has a 1-1 record and 1.64 ERA.

To know him, however, does not mean they necessarily like him.

“Hershiser is not a favorite with our team,” Keith Hernandez, the Mets’ All-Star first baseman, wrote in his recently published book, “If At First: A Season With the Mets,” a diary of the 1985 season. “He’s what we call a real major leaguer, with all the pro moves out there, adjusting his cap, his arm. . . . All this piddling takes time, and he can turn a no-hitter into a three-hour marathon.”

Grist for a feud, a throwing down of the gauntlet that could prompt a replay of the Ed Lynch-Mariano Duncan brawl last September? With someone other than Hershiser, perhaps.

But Hershiser, told about Hernandez’s remarks, sounded more impressed than insulted.

“I’m surprised I made the book,” Hershiser said. “I’ve been in the big leagues two years, and I’m in the book? That’s a compliment.

“Did Hernandez say what gave him trouble? Maybe I can use it.”

For his part, Hernandez, speaking by phone Thursday from Houston, was complimentary--sort of.

“He takes forever to pitch, that’s all,” Hernandez said. “That’s his style; it’s not meant as a criticism.

“He’s a very fine pitcher, one of the best--that’s obvious. He just takes nine years to pitch. That’s his style, his tempo, and if I were him, I’d do the same. Most hitters just don’t like pitchers who take forever to pitch.

“He’s very calm for a young kid, very composed, one of the things that impressed me when I first saw him. And he pitched better in trouble, which is a sign of a good pitcher.”

Hershiser doesn’t deny that his pace may be better suited for chess than baseball.

“It’s just something I do because I’m a perfectionist,” Hershiser said. “Shoot, if I don’t feel right, if the ball doesn’t feel perfect, I get rid of it.

“It looks like a nervous thing because of the situation, but it’s more wanting everything to be right. I’ve been told by people, including my wife (Jamie), that I work faster now than when I first came up.”

Few people have ever worked with greater dispatch than the Mets’ Gooden did last June at Dodger Stadium after he had loaded the bases with none out in the eighth inning of a 1-1 tie, then threw nine fastballs to retire the side. Greg Brock struck out. Mike Scioscia popped out. Terry Whitfield struck out.

The next inning, the Mets loaded the bases on Valenzuela and scored three runs.

“I’ve heard that (golfer) Arnold Palmer in his heyday absolutely willed the ball into the cup,” Hernandez wrote of Gooden’s feat. “I had doubts, but no more. I’ve now seen Dwight Gooden exert that kind of domination with a baseball.”

Because of that domination, Hershiser said there’s really no point for him as a pitcher to observe Gooden, whose last appearance in L.A. was just as electrifying. Gooden threw nine shutout innings, Valenzuela 11 in a game won by the Mets, 2-0, on a two-run double by Darryl Strawberry in the 13th.

“Watching him pitch, there’s nothing I can really learn from him,” Hershiser said. “It’s like watching Koufax. The tools they’re working with are completely different from what other people are given. They’re blessed with such great tools, they’re pitching a different game.

“Now, when I watch (John) Tudor or (Mario) Soto or Fernando or (Bob) Welch, I can learn from those guys because I have comparable tools. I can see how they set up hitters, how they react to adversity.

“Watching Gooden, if he ever gets in trouble, he just rears back and throws harder. I don’t have that capability. In maybe one out of five starts, I feel as good as he looks velocity-wise.”

As other-worldly as his pitching was last season, Gooden also distinguished himself at the plate with 21 hits, a club record for Met pitchers. Against Valenzuela, he is batting .375--on 6-for-16 hitting--with five hits in his last seven at-bats.

“I read somewhere that Gooden said if he ever hurt his arm, he’d go down to Double-A and come back as an outfielder,” Hershiser said. “That’s pretty brash.

“If I ever hurt my arm, I’d probably go down to Triple-A and come back as a manager.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that Hershiser isn’t looking forward to taking his hacks against Gooden.

“Shoot, I’ll take extra BP (batting practice),” Hershiser said. “I’ll just have to turn the machine up to about 300.”

Gooden has a penchant for pitching best immediately after he has lost, which doesn’t bode well for the Dodgers. After losing two straight starts last May, including a 6-2 defeat against Valenzuela at Shea Stadium on May 25, Gooden won his next 14 decisions. That streak ended when he lost to the Giants, 3-2, on Aug. 31. In his last six starts after that, he allowed two earned runs in 53 innings, an ERA of 0.34.

“Doc, like any great competitor, is intent on doing well in his next start,” Hernandez said. “You can’t predict what will happen, but he doesn’t like to get hit, which is rare.”

Gooden’s reputation absorbed a few shots this spring. He twisted an ankle at home in Tampa, Fla., in January, but failed to show up for a physical in New York.

Then, during spring training, he told the club that he had been in a car accident with a friend and was given the day off, but the Mets later learned that either there wasn’t an accident or if there was, it wasn’t serious enough to warrant time off, so they reportedly fined him $500.

And last month, Gooden and his sister were involved in a dispute with an airport rental-car clerk in which his sister allegedly threw a drink in the clerk’s face.

The Mets’ publicity department is very protective of Gooden--to a fault, some say. Gooden’s availability for interviews is generally limited to postgame appearances on days he pitches. Some reporters have taken to referring to Gooden and Met publicist Jay Horwitz as “Dr. K and Nurse Jay.”

Said Horwitz: “I was really disappointed. The other day was national nurses’ day, and I didn’t even get a card.”

The Mets are one of just six teams since the turn of the century to win 20 or more of their first 24 games, prompting some to concede that the National League pennant will be flying in Flushing this fall.

“Whoever’s going to win in the American League better start scouting the Mets,” Atlanta Manager Chuck Tanner was quoted as saying the other day. “I mean, send some scouts out here right now. In fact, I’m going to ask Davey Johnson for 12 good seats for the World Series.”

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda was making no such requests.

“It’s like a basketball game,” he said. “In the first half, it seems a team can’t miss the hoop. Then in the second half, it looks like somebody put a lid on it, and nothing will go in.

“Chuck should ask me for 10 tickets.”