Neck and Neck--Coast to Coast : Dodgers: Brett Butler, the former Brave and Giant, will be the key man at Candlestick Park this weekend.

Brett Butler laughs at the irony. It’s either that or cry.

The Dodgers’ leader will take the field at Candlestick Park tonight with a chance to add a string of exclamation points to his most valuable player-type season.

His team is tied for first place with the Atlanta Braves with three games remaining. After leading the National League West for 133 of 177 days, the Dodgers are suddenly the underdogs because they must face the Giants while the Braves play host to the lowly Houston Astros.

“This is big, and I want to be the guy ,” Butler said. “This has been my dream ever since I was a little boy, to help the Dodgers win a championship. Now I’ve got that chance. I want to be right in the middle of everything. I can’t wait.”

Yet, when he leaves Candlestick Park, when he is alone again, sometimes he is struck with a different thought.

A small, deep part of him wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to be playing for the Braves.

It has nothing to do with tomahawks, or Neon Deion, or even baseball.

“This is about family,” said Butler, who as a free agent last winter chose the Dodgers over the Braves. “When I think of my family, and not about myself or my love for the Dodgers, I think about Atlanta.

“I wonder what would have happened if I had signed there and stayed home. I’m glad I didn’t, because the Dodgers are my new family. But sure, sometimes I still wonder.”

That is because his wife and four children are in suburban Atlanta, where Butler has lived for several years. They left Los Angeles in early September because Butler’s three daughters had to return to school.

Since then, Butler has batted .239, lowering his average from .312 to .299. It has been his worst hitting month of the season and only the second month in which he has batted less than .300.

It’s not that his slump bears any relation to his absent family, but he missed them so much, he recently pulled the children out of school for a week to bring them back to Los Angeles.

“This is the one part about the baseball season that I’ve always hated,” Butler said.

He spent part of every day before games talking with his family on the telephone, reassuring his children that he will be home soon.

“The other day, I told them, ‘I will be home in eight days or 28 days,’ ” he said. “I’m praying it will be 28 days, but they all said, ‘Oh Daddy, please make it eight days.’ ”

After games, he spends his evenings listening to his answering machine.

“By the time I get home, it’s too late in Atlanta for me to call my wife, so she has usually called me,” he said. “The best I can do is get her on tape, telling me she watched the game and misses me. Then she tells me good night.”

“This is why when I first became a free agent, I told my agent, ‘For my family’s sake, I want to play in Atlanta.’ ”

Although much was made about how the Braves insulted Butler--after the Dodgers’ original offer--with a counteroffer of only $100,000 more, money was not the reason Butler joined the Dodgers.

“I kept saying to myself, ‘I should sign with the Braves, but I have dreamed about signing with the Dodgers,’ ” Butler said. “Then, one day right here, I made my decision. My wife said, ‘Brett, be selfish for once. Go after that dream.’ And that was it.”

Butler shook his head.

“And now look at me,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve got everything I want, I’m playing for the team I want, I never want to leave here . . . and sometimes I still hope I did the right thing for my family.”

It did not help that since Dec. 15, the day he signed, Butler has had to face friends and neighbors who openly wonder about his decision.

“I remember telling the wife of a good friend that I signed, and she immediately handed the phone to her husband,” Butler said. “She didn’t talk to me for four days before apologizing.”

Butler said he has even heard things at church.

“People would come up to me this winter and say, real nicely, ‘You always said you wanted to come home to play, and you finally had your chance and you didn’t do it?’ ” Butler said. “People weren’t mad, they were hurt.”

When Butler discovered that somebody had covered his house with eggs and toilet paper during the Dodgers’ last visit to Atlanta, he was not surprised.

“Some people have taken it worse than others,” Butler said. “And that hurts me, because I don’t hate Atlanta. In fact, if we can’t make it to the World Series, I want the Braves to win.”

But Butler is doing his best to make sure the Braves get no closer than this weekend. He has proven to be the Dodgers’ most consistent player and baseball’s best off-season acquisition, and until his slump, he was probably among the favorites to become the league’s MVP.

“The entire year, he has been the guy you want to go to,” pitcher Orel Hershiser said. “He has been just kinetic.”

Said outfielder Darryl Strawberry: “What he has done while batting leadoff has made him our most valuable player. He’s our MVP, not me.”

And most people don’t realize that the major league record Butler could break this weekend has nothing to do with his bat.

If he does not make an error today or Saturday, he will tie the National League record for most consecutive errorless games in one season by an outfielder, 159, set by Curt Flood in 1966.

And this is with an old glove, without his name on it, that he had worn only during rainy games.

But if nothing else, Butler has led this team in improvisation:

--With hits that included bloops and bunts and line drives where no one was standing, Butler has accumulated 161 singles, the most by a Los Angeles hitter in 26 years. He already ranks fourth on the Dodger all-time singles list for a season.

--With the help of 38 stolen bases and a variety of hit-and-run plays, he has scored a league-leading 112 runs, the most by a Dodger in 29 years. He ranks third on the Dodgers’ all-time list for one season.

--With a batting eye that has gotten better with age, he has drawn a league-leading 107 walks, four short of the Los Angeles single-season record.

“I would never say anything about winning an MVP award, because I believe that in life, you should stand in the back of the room and let somebody call you forward,” Butler said. “But what an ending to a dream season.”

The only thing better, Butler said, would be clinching the championship at Candlestick Park, where he spent three years with the San Francisco Giants.

When he returned for the Dodgers’ first series at Candlestick this season, he had two hits in 12 at-bats after being booed mercilessly.

“Their reaction stunned me, that hurt me; I really played hard for those people,” he said. “But now I understand.”

He learned quickly, because since then he has collected 17 hits in 49 at-bats for a .347 average against the Giants. He hopes this weekend, he doubles that.

“The Giants are going to be ready for us, but we’re ready for them,” Butler said. “I know it’s going to be tenfold worse than when we were in Atlanta. That feeling around the country that everybody wants the Braves to win is 10 times worse in San Francisco, just because it’s San Francisco.

“And while the Braves’ fans just want to win, the Giants’ fans want to spoil. Their fans are motivated by hatred and really, really wanting to spoil it for us.

“As soon as one Dodger walks out onto that field, the fans are going to start, and they aren’t going to stop. But that’s fine. We can deal with that.”

Just as Butler can deal with the fact that his family lives with the enemy.

“Hey, I’m not ready to go back to Atlanta right now,” Butler said. “Three games left? I think we could have at least 11 games left, if you get my point. No way am I ready to go home yet.”