Game-Face of Survival : John Candelaria’s Past of Glory, Anger, Tragedy Bolsters Dodgers

His locker is at the far end of the Dodger clubhouse, next to the door leading to the dugout. When his teammates head for the field before a game, he is the last player they walk past.

And it is perfect that way, because John Candelaria, slumped quietly in his blue folding chair, serves as a constant reminder of what it will take them to survive.

The players notice his graying hair, the cigarette dangling from his lips, the mug of hot coffee in his hands.

They notice his blank expression and his silence, which they rarely attempt to break, mostly because they really do not know him yet.

But they know enough, and have seen enough, to understand that he is not merely important to the team because he has twice as many saves--two--as Dodger left-handed relievers had last season.

He is important because he has been able to save himself.

“It is great to have somebody you can look at and say, ‘My gosh, is there anything this guy hasn’t done? Is there anything this guy doesn’t know?” reliever Jim Gott said.

Candelaria, the oldest player on the team at 37, looks back at his teammates. And sometimes he dreams.

“It’s been a wild trip,” Candelaria said, his voice strangely soft for a 6-foot-6 man. “I’ve had a lot of rough times and a lot of good times, but sometimes. . . . Sometimes I think, ‘Damn, I wish I could be 24 years old again.’ ”

The Dodgers like him exactly as he is, a side-winding left-hander who pitches a baseball as if he were launching rocks from a slingshot, nice and easy, and frightening.

They use him as a boxer uses his right cross. They bring him into a game when they are on the ropes. He faces one or two hitters. He stuns them, often causing the rest of the team to fall.

“I’ve seen John Candelaria for a long time, and what was true back then is true today,” said Don Robinson of the San Francisco Giants, a former teammate. “If I’m a left-handed hitter, ain’t no way I want to face him.”

The Dodgers like him against players such as San Francisco’s Will Clark and the Atlanta Braves’ David Justice, in the late innings, with the Dodgers protecting a lead.

In two of those situations earlier this year, Candelaria fooled Clark into a popup and struck out Justice.

The Dodgers also like him in spots such as last weekend’s against Philadelphia. Twice, he was needed to stop the Phillies after the seventh inning. In two days he faced only five batters, but got five outs and the Dodgers won both games.

“To bring him in the game in those situations, that’s not my play,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “That’s Candy’s play. Those situations are made for him. That’s when he wants to pitch.”

But more than anything, the Dodgers love Candelaria because of the detachment with which he performs his tasks. The Dodgers don’t mind seeing a blank expression in the clubhouse, because they also see it on the mound, when other players are squirming.

“I passed him in the hallway one day after a great game, and I was still kind of excited, and I said, ‘Hey man, good job last night,’ . . . and he just looked at me,” said Mark Cresse, bullpen coach. “He said, ‘Yesterday’s news, man,’ and kept walking.”

Candelaria, who behaves as if yesterday never existed and tomorrow is a far-off notion, says he has his reasons.

“If I had to think about what I’ve gone through in my life, I would be out there on the mound asking myself, ‘What the hell am I doing out here?’ ” said Candelaria, in his 17th season. “For me, baseball is not a reality. It can’t be a reality.”

One reason is that in Candelaria’s reality, no matter how hard he tries to fix it, there is always Christmas Day, 1984.

That was when his 2 1/2-year-old son, John Robert, fell into the family swimming pool at Candelaria’s winter home in Sarasota, Fla., and nearly drowned. The boy went into a coma. The following November, he died. Candelaria still deals with the pain.

“All I want in my life is five minutes back,” Candelaria said in a whisper. “That’s all I want, just five minutes. I know I can’t get them back, but I still want them. Five lost minutes.”

He paused, taking a deep breath.

“It’s a funny thing about a mind. There are some things you can never forget,” he said. “Some days for me, it’s just a living nightmare.”

When asked to elaborate, he smiled a sad smile.

“I think we’ll just let John Robert go,” he said. “OK?”

Candelaria also deals with the reality of 1987, his final year with the Angels after he was traded to them in 1985 by Pittsburgh.

According to Candelaria, teammate Don Sutton phoned the police, setting Candelaria up for one of two drunk-driving arrests that led to rehabilitation at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.

The celebrated incident might have caused Candelaria to lose trust in all teammates. Now, he stays to himself so much that even fellow reliever Tim Crews was at a loss for words when asked to comment on him.

“I can’t say anything about him because I’ve never spoken much to him,” Crews said. “Seriously.”

Said another Dodger: “He doesn’t talk to us much, but I guess we can’t blame him. After all, here is a guy who was stabbed by a fellow player.”

Candelaria shrugged.

“I have nothing to say about Don Sutton,” he said. “That’s gone. It is history. There is nothing I can do about it.

“Would I ever invite him to my house? No. But I wish him well.”

Candelaria also has been forced to face the reality that the grand vision he held as a young star with the Pittsburgh Pirates has long since blurred.

During his 11 seasons with the Pirates, from 1975-85, he often spoke out against management, hoping to instigate change. He once called his general manager, Harding Peterson, a “bozo” and an “idiot.”

He was finally traded to the Angels in 1985, the first of seven times he would change teams in the next seven years.

“There was a time I thought I was indestructible, but no more,” Candelaria said. “When I spoke up back then, I thought I was helping guys in the clubhouse. But I won’t do it anymore. Because I found that all you do is hurt yourself.”

Everything seemed so easy in his years with the Pirates. He threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers in 1976. He played for a World Series winner in 1979.

“I thought, the rest of my life is going to be like this,” he said. “I was wrong.”

But even the ball from his no-hitter was ruined several years ago, when he used it while throwing against a wall during a winter workout near his home.

“I was coming off an injury, I didn’t have any other ball to play with, and I needed the work,” Candelaria said. “You do what you’ve got to do.”

And his World Series ring is worn by his father, who spends his days working on automobiles in Orlando, Fla.

“I gave it to him because I thought it would be the first of many,” Candelaria said. “Sometimes I think about it. Sometimes I wonder if one day I will ask for it back.”

Last winter, instead of phoning his dad, he decided to join the Dodgers. He turned down at least one offer of a guaranteed contract for an invitation to spring training in hopes of making a team that he felt had the chance to win a championship.

“That is all that’s important to me these days, winning,” Candelaria said. “You can have all that other stuff.”

Although he was not given a contract until the end of camp, he made his lasting impression during one of the first intrasquad games.

He threw a fastball that hit teammate Juan Samuel in the elbow, then later confessed to his astonished teammates that he had done it purposely.

“The guy hit a home run against me six years ago. . . . And pay-back can be brutal,” Candelaria said.

Teammates at least appreciated his honesty and were intrigued by his attitude.

He is the only Dodger reliever who does not spend the entire game in the bullpen. He stays in the clubhouse watching and studying the hitters on television. He does not walk outside until the middle innings.

And even then, sometimes he does not stay outside.

“It is so strange, we’ll turn around and there he is, standing there saying, ‘Lonnie Smith, high-ball hitter or low-ball hitter?’ ” Gott said. “We answer him, and then he’s gone. With Candy, it is all business, all of the time.”

Said Candelaria: “Why not stay where I can see the hitters best?”

Not that Candelaria makes notes on those hitters.

“I don’t have a book, like Orel Hershiser does,” he said. “And what would I ever do with a computer? I guess I’m one of the few guys who still relies on his head.”

He acknowledges being frightened by only one thing.

“It scares me to think about leaving this game, I’m not afraid to admit it,” he said. “I have put so much work into what I’ve done, I don’t know what I will do when it is over. It’s inevitable that it will end, I will not kid myself, but what the heck am I going to do?”

But the guess from at least one former teammate is that Candelaria can handle whatever happens then.

“The best thing about playing in Pittsburgh was that we learned how to play the game from the Willie Stargells, the Phil Garners, guys like that,” said Robinson, who with Candelaria and Dave Parker are the only active players who were full-timers during those great Pittsburgh years.

“We learned, you have a bad day, screw it, you go on to the next day. We learned, you’ve got to be able to handle failure before you handle success.

“Hell, success is easy. Failure is harder. Candy knows that.”

When read that quote, Candelaria ground another cigarette into an ash tray and smiled.

“Yeah,” he said, “That sounds about right.”