Dodgers’ Key: War Is Howell : Baseball: The team’s hopes might depend on the bunker spirit of their top relief pitcher.

When a television type summoned Jay Howell from the air-conditioned clubhouse to the 105-degree field at New York’s Shea Stadium Sunday morning, Howell held up his hand.

“Wait,” he said. “I need to put on my jacket.”

He slipped into his thick blue Dodger coat, buttoned it up to the collar and walked into nature’s steam bath.

Howell calmly spent 15 minutes along the third base line doing a TV interview and signing autographs while everyone around him stared. When he finally came inside, he had the steely look of a man who had walked through a fire.

“So I heard it was cooling down out there,” he said, shrugging. “So I was wrong.”

If anybody possesses the mixture of qualities the Dodgers need to help them pull out of their slump, it is Howell.

He is tough. And he is a bit weird.

This week the Dodgers will be unleashing this combination on opponents for the first time since June 20 when Howell returns to the mound after sitting out a month because of a sprained right elbow.

“I can hear him now when he walks into the bullpen on that first night he’s ready to pitch,” Tim Crews said. “He’ll look at us and say, ‘Hello, you bleeps!’ ”

Howell was typically precise when asked about the date he would come off the disabled list, which could be as soon tonight before the opener of a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I’ll be activated Tuesday,” he said. “Or Wednesday. Or Thursday.”

The Dodgers don’t care, as long as it is soon. They need him for their final 71 games.

During his recent absence, the team that had the best record in baseball went 12-15.

The bullpen suffered six losses during those 27 games after combining for only two losses in the Dodgers’ first 64 games. The bullpen also saved only four games during Howell’s absence while compiling a 3.87 earned-run average.

“Let’s just say without Jay down there, the bullpen is a very quiet place,” Kevin Gross said.

And with Howell? Well, there is a reason he refers to himself and his bullpen mates as “The Dirty Half Dozen.”

While many relief pitchers treat their bullpens like think tanks, Howell still thinks of the Dodger bullpen as a bunker.

He yells at the relievers, saying, “Put on your combat boots, get ready for war!”

He yells about opposing hitters, saying, “This guy can’t hit us! No way can he hit us!”

He is not afraid to yell at himself, particularly while throwing perhaps the most intense warm-up pitches in the league.

“C’mon, get that spin right!” he is often heard yelling to himself. “You can do better than that!”

Said Crews: “If you’ll notice, a lot of guys take it easy during warm-ups, but not Jay. He throws in the bullpen like he is throwing to hitters. He tells us, ‘Men, if you are going to be the hero, you’ve got to be ready.’ ”

And the other relievers always listen.

“He is their captain, every word to them is like Scripture,” said Mark Cresse, bullpen coach.

It is this love of a good fight that prompted Howell to make an early return from knee surgery last year, forcing him to pitch in pain and eventually requiring him to undergo a second, postseason knee operation.

And it is this love of a good fight that will keep him from publicly complaining about being overworked once he returns to the roster. Even though he knows Manager Tom Lasorda will ask him to at least warm up almost every day.

Howell wonders if it wasn’t this constant strain on the arm that caused his sore elbow in the first place. But he will never ask for a day off, even though that is all it would take for Lasorda to give him a rest.

“Over the (four) years here, I’ve gotten to know Tommy better,” Howell said. “My role is a large one, and I understand that. If the game is close, I’m throwing. I’ll pitch if we are winning a close one, if we are tied or even if we are losing.

“It’s hard, but I understand and accept it. And I’m not asking out.”

He suppressed his competitiveness during his current bout with the sprained elbow ligaments because he didn’t want to live through a rerun of last season. But it was difficult.

“I thought I could come back much sooner, but I was just hoping, because I can’t stand to be out,” Howell said. “I feel stale. Beer doesn’t seem as cold. Food doesn’t taste as good.

“And what the heck, even when I’m out, I still get blamed for these losses, because the bullpen has had to make adjustments with me being gone. Not being able to pitch makes me miserable.”

Howell is not only the heart of the bullpen, he is its conscience. And Howell doesn’t like excuses.

“If it’s our fault, we know it, and we say it,” Howell said. “We could have guys so overworked they are bleeding from the mouth down there, but I don’t care.

“Give us the pressure. We want it. And we if don’t do the job, blame us. We’ll be your scapegoat. We’re used to it. We’ll handle it.”

It is precisely this sort of brash attitude that was missing while Howell was missing.

It was to this attitude that Lasorda appealed last weekend when he called an impromptu meeting of the relief pitchers.

“Tommy told us that this team would only go as far as we would take them,” Howell said. “We like that.”

Despite turning 36 last winter and being on the disabled list seven times in his 10-year career, Howell can still carry the Dodgers far.

Before he was hurt, he had a team-leading 11 saves in 12 opportunities. Opponents were batting .216 against him, second lowest on the team.

What do Hal Morris, Eric Davis and Craig Biggio have in common? They are the only three batters Howell has walked this year. And Morris was walked intentionally.

“Walks are stupid,” Howell said.

Because of the two knee operations, Howell is not the same pitcher who set the Dodger record of 28 saves in 1989. He often frustrates fans by putting on an average of nearly one baserunner per inning and has given up two home runs in 33 2/3 innings.

“But my job is to protect the lead, and I pitch to protect the lead,” Howell said.

“If I’m up by two runs and give up a run because I want the guy to hit the ball, then we still have the lead, right?

“It is not my job to strike everybody out. It is my job to keep us ahead. Judge me by that.”

Victories figure to be even more special to Howell during these final 10 weeks of the season because they could be his last victories as a Dodger. His contract is scheduled to expire even though he held out of training camp for a couple of days and demanded a trade in hopes of sparking a contract extension.

“If you ask me, Jay is not coming back,” Crews said. “I can just tell. He always says that after three years, a team gets tired of you. And I wonder if he doesn’t think that is going to happen here.”

In 1988, while pitching for a championship and a new contract, Howell went 3-1 with eight saves in his last 18 outings, including finishing the season with 18 scoreless innings.

“Why couldn’t it be the same way this year?” Howell asked. “On both a professional and personal level, everything is the same.”

But about that trade?

“I do not want to be traded now,” he said. “There has been too much hard work put into this season. We have a chance. I don’t want to leave it now.”

Nor does he want to talk about it.

“As soon as the season started, all my thinking about that contract stuff stopped,” Howell said. “Guys who knew me, they knew it would. I don’t bitch or moan, I play. And down the stretch, that is the time I really like to play.

“I’ll bust my butt for the rest of this year, just like every year. Not because of any contract, but just because it’s the right thing to do.”

He paused and stared across the clubhouse at another relief pitcher, who nodded in unspoken agreement.

“Like I said, it’s a war out there,” Howell said.