Now, Faceoffs Are on Mound : Baseball: Steve Wilson prefers the intensity of hockey, but Dodgers are glad they have him.

In searching for what has made Steve Wilson the Dodgers’ brightest relief pitcher, do not look in the usual places.

It is not in his arm. Or his legs. Or his back pocket.

To understand Wilson’s success, tell him something that will make him smile, which is almost anything.

Then look in his mouth.

Two chipped teeth--one upper, one lower--are a testament to Wilson’s secret.

He pitches like he used to play hockey.

“I have to admit, hockey is my favorite sport,” Wilson said with a Canadian accent. “I learned my intensity from hockey, where you can’t just put on your skates and go through the motions.”

But for one game witnessed by one college coach during one visit to the United States, Wilson might be suiting up for the Edmonton Oilers against the Kings tonight.

Instead, he will be in the bullpen in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, attempting to keep alive a streak in which he has given up earned runs in only one of 20 appearances as a Dodger.

“It’s kind of odd that I am even here,” Wilson said. “I am a baseball player by accident.”

After growing up in Vancouver, Wilson nearly joined the Oilers’ farm team in Kamloops before graduating from high school.

But while pitching for a Canadian team in Seattle one weekend, he was noticed by then-University of Portland Coach Joe Etzel.

“I guess I must have had a good game, because he made me a scholarship offer,” said Wilson, 27. “I wanted to to go to college, so I took it.”

Ten years later, despite an appearance in a National League championship series for the Chicago Cubs and pennant race heroics for the Dodgers, sometimes he still wonders.

“I think he made the right choice with baseball, but he misses hockey,” said his father Doug, who drives a truck for a courier service in Vancouver. “Sometimes I’m sure he thinks, what if. . . .?”

Said Wilson: “It’s because hockey is a blue collar sport. I like the guys. I like the games . . . and I like to hit.”

The aggressiveness can be spotted on the pitching mound. With a hard curveball and moving fastball that chokes left-handed hitters, Wilson does everything but check the batter into the boards.

“He doesn’t scare,” pitching coach Ron Perranoski said.

His Dodger debut last Sept. 7, after he was acquired from the Cubs for minor league pitcher Jeff Hartsock, was memorable.

The Dodgers were leading the Pittsburgh Pirates in the eighth inning, 2-1, when Barry Bonds came to the plate with runners on first and third with none out.

Wilson, who arrived on a plane from Chicago a couple of innings earlier, was summoned into the game.

Fred Claire, who was hastily explaining the trade to owner Pete O’Malley while they sat together in the box seats of Three Rivers Stadium, will never forget what happened next.

“Steve comes into the game and goes, ball one, ball two, ball three,” Claire recalled, pausing for dramatic effect. “And then he goes, strike one, strike two, strike three.”

Since then, in a Dodger uniform, Wilson has given up two earned runs in 15 1/3 innings covering 20 appearances for a 1.17 earned-run average. If you count spring training, he has given up earned runs in only one of 29 Dodger appearances.

“I just do not understand how the Chicago Cubs gave up on him so easily,” John Candelaria said.

It certainly wasn’t because they wanted Hartsock, a marginal prospect who started this season with the Cubs’ triple-A team in Iowa.

The trade, which must be considered one of Claire’s best, happened after Claire had scoured the country for available left-handed relievers to help his club in the final month.

Claire remembered that a guy named Steve Wilson, who was pitching in Iowa, once struck out 10 Dodgers while starting for the Cubs in 1990.

“Because we already had two good left-handers (Chuck McElroy and Paul Assenmacher), it was either a matter of sending Wilson down or moving him,” said Jim Frey, now a Cubs’ senior vice president. “We liked him, but his role was very diminished.”

Wilson’s biggest problem during parts of three seasons with the Cubs was that he tried too hard to imitate hockey’s emotional level.

“He was a pitcher who carried a lot of emotion to the mound with him. He’s done better now that he’s matured,” Frey said. “With him, time has taken care of a lot of things.”

Wilson is still remembered by the Cubs this spring through the Steve Wilson Memorial Hockey Pool, named after one of the few baseball players who cares about the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The next challenge for this streaking Dodger pitcher? Twenty more near-perfect appearances, perhaps?

“I want to meet (the Kings’) Larry Robinson,” he said.