Murray Feels at Home Again : Dodgers: Returning to Los Angeles has made the first baseman a happy man and a better player.

At times, the transformation has revealed itself quietly--in a small smile, a little laugh, a playful insult about a teammate’s haircut.

Other times, it has surfaced with a fury--a 500-foot home run that carried from a baseball stadium into a football stadium, a 400-foot shot that caused the crowd to gasp before cheering.

Eddie Murray is happy again.

Coming off a Dodger debut year marked by both the shaky and the spectacular, the first baseman says he is approaching his 14th major league season as if it were his first.

“It’s different now,” the quiet Murray said Wednesday. “The fun has been put back into it for me.”

As if even casual observers couldn’t tell.

After driving in two runs with a home run and a single and in Wednesday’s 7-5 loss to Atlanta, Murray is four for eight with four RBIs in three spring games. Two of those hits have been monstrous homers.

His batting practices have been spirited. His fielding drills have been intense. His clubhouse presence is that of a friendly uncle, as he dispenses both advice and gentle ribs to the several younger players who look to him as a leader.

“You can tell, everything is easier on him now,” Franklin Stubbs said. “Everything about him is more relaxed.”

And one of baseball’s most private players is also sharing his thoughts with reporters. It is with this attitude, he said, that his new relaxation has begun.

“Do you know how hard it is to have some things you want to say, and not be able to say them because you are worried they will come out wrong?” Murray said, referring to his final stormy years in Baltimore.

“Do you know how hard it is to walk up to a group of people waiting to talk to you, and have to say no? Every night, somebody waiting for you and you have to walk right past them? To have everybody think you are always mad? Do you know what that is like?

“I was never mad, I was just afraid to have things come out wrong. I’m not afraid here, and it makes everything better.”

Murray said people in hometown Los Angeles don’t judge him as harshly as those in Baltimore, from the way he looks to the way he plays.

There’s the face, which ranges in expression from intimidating to unapproachable.

“I know, some people think I’m the meanest man in the world because I don’t walk around with a smile on my face,” Murray said. “Just because I don’t smile all the time? How fair is that? I happen to think if you smile all the time, sometimes you look like an idiot. I think people understand that here.”

Then there’s the posture, which some fans think says “lackadaisical.”

“I stand at first base and fold my arms between pitches, I’ve been doing it that way since I was 17 years old, but people would look at me and it’s like, ‘That guy is lazy. He doesn’t look like he is putting out,’ ” Murray said.

“I always thought, ‘Who are you to say this to me?’ I know a lot of guys who look great running down to first base, but fell short of their capabilities because looking good is considered enough.

“So I don’t always look good. But I play hard, and that’s enough.”

For Murray, the pleasure of playing in Los Angeles can be best described by his winter visits to an area batting cage.

“I’ve been going to this cage for years, and nobody has ever known me there,” he said. “They’ve got pictures on the wall of everybody who has batted there, but not my picture, and I’ve been there longer than anybody. Nobody has any idea who I am. It’s wild--and it’s great.”

Murray, 34, is also happy for more visible reasons.

For one, last season’s injured team that surrounded him and made him an easy pitcher’s target is revamped and in better shape. He is excited about the speed of Juan Samuel in the leadoff spot, three batters ahead of him. He is excited about having Hubie Brooks, with his RBI power, batting behind him, in the fifth spot.

“When I think of Juan, I think of having Al Bumbry batting in front of me in Baltimore,” Murray said. “It was so much fun to get a base hit and run to first base smiling because you knew that he would be scoring. When you have slower people on the bases, you get a hit and all you can do is keep looking at home plate and wondering if the guy got there yet.

“Then to have somebody like Hubie behind me, they can’t mess with me anymore or Hubie will make them pay. With all that stuff going on, this year could be big fun.”

Murray admits that last season, despite 20 homers and 88 RBIs, he could have done better. He is not alone. Club officials believe that he could have had at least 100 RBIs, and statistics support that theory. Despite an overall .247 average, Murray had only a .179 batting average in late-inning pressure situations.

Not only does Murray agree with the Dodgers, he has done something about it. This winter he decided to reposition his hands, and then spent hours in a batting cage, getting used to the change.

“My power is my quickness of the bat, and I think last year I may have lost some of that quickness,” Murray said. “So I looked at my hands, and moved them up, and the ball seems to jump off the bat again. I told Benny Hines (batting coach) to watch my hands now, and if they creep down, he should let me know.

“I should have done better last year, and this year I will do better.”

Although Murray downplays it, this is also a big year for him in terms of streaks.

The first involves his fielding, which was good enough for three Gold Gloves with Baltimore, but slipped badly at the end of his 13 years there. After finishing last in fielding among American League first basemen in 1988, he finished first in the National League last season with a .996 mark, becoming the first first baseman since Earl Sheely in the 1920s to have led both leagues.

More impressive than that, though, is a season-ending streak of 111 errorless games. On this season’s schedule, mark down July 8, a Sunday afternoon game at Dodger Stadium against Pittsburgh. If Murray plays every game and stays errorless until then, he will set a major league mark record, breaking Steve Garvey’s mark of 193 consecutive errorless games set with San Diego in 1983-85.

“It’s only 193? I thought it was more than that,” Murray said. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to get any respect in the field anyway. Many years I thought somebody should have won the Gold Glove, but didn’t because somebody else had a better year offensively. Even me.”

Murray said he is proud only because he has worked on his fielding.

“It was always my weakest part,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot of ground balls and tried to take care of that.”

Murray’s other streak is one that most impresses his teammates. The last game he missed was on June 12, 1987. Despite bumps, bruises and worse, he has played in 359 consecutive games, second only to Cal Ripken (1,250) among baseball’s current streaks.

“That’s how Eddie leads the most around here,” infielder Lenny Harris said. “The man plays the game. You automatically assume he is in the lineup. Every day. You just forget about it. That’s what we look at. Man plays every day.”

Said Murray, who was the National League’s only player last season to appear in each of his team’s games: “There are off-days written into the schedule, aren’t there? Barring injuries, those are enough. You sign a contract to play, not to sit. You play as long as you’re capable.”

Murray said it is criticism of his willingness to play that hurts him the most.

“I read a letter in this national magazine where a fan wrote and said that when I played, I acted like I was doing everybody a favor,” Murray said. “I read that, and reread it, and thought, ‘What could he have meant by that? How could he think that?’ ”

Eddie Murray knows he will probably always see letters like that. They will never be easy to read. But they are becoming easier to ignore. Strangers never seem as important once you are home.

Dodger Notes

Jaime Jarrin, a Dodger radio announcer seriously injured in an automobile accident late Monday, had a good day, according to hospital officials. Jarrin both stood and sat up in the intensive care unit of Indian River Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition after suffering several internal injuries and broken ribs. He is expected to remain in intensive care for at least one more day, and will be in the hospital for 10 days to two weeks.

The Dodgers’ 7-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves Wednesday was the result of two 10th-inning runs off reliever Don Aase, whose bid to make the team evaporated earlier in the day when the early-season roster size was cut from 27 to 24 players. Dodger starters Orel Hershiser, Fernando Valenzuela and Tim Belcher combined to allow five runs in eight innings, with both Hershiser and Belcher going three innings.

Early estimates that Dodger starters would pitch only four innings in the season’s first week may be low. Hershiser, who allowed four runs Wednesday, said he may be able to pitch the equivalent of seven innings in his first start, which is scheduled to be opening day.

In a triple-A game Wednesday night against Tidewater, Mike Morgan and Ramon Martinez allowed two runs in five innings. . . . Willie Randolph played in his first spring game Wednesday, leaving Kal Daniels as the only hopeful opening-day starter yet to play. Dodger officials, encouraged by his strong batting practices, are hoping Daniels will be ready to play by this weekend. . . . Chris Gwynn continued his hot spring with a homer Wednesday. . . . Today’s Dodger pitchers against the New York Mets: Jim Neidlinger and Jim Gott.