O’Malley Realizes Season and Dodgers Are Young : Baseball: He says he won’t overreact to team’s slow start and struggles of inexperienced players.

It was New York, around midnight, and Peter O’Malley was quietly stepping off an airplane when he felt a stranger pausing at his side.

The man did not offer his name, or even his hand. But O’Malley will not forget his voice.

“Stay with Dave Hansen,” the man said, before walking away. “Don’t give up on Dave Hansen.”

Earlier, back in Los Angeles, while standing in a checkout line at a supermarket, O’Malley heard a different voice. But it sounded the same.

“Hang with Eric Karros,” said a stranger. “He can do it.”

Sitting alone in his darkened Dodger Stadium office overlooking left field Wednesday, O’Malley heard those voices again.

“Everywhere I go, I hear people saying ‘go with the younger players,’ overwhelmingly,” said O’Malley, Dodger president. “They say, ‘Why do you pay Harry $5 million? Go with the younger players.’ ”

And so, although O’Malley is fretting like everyone else over the Dodgers’ worst start since coming to Los Angeles, he will listen to those voices.

In a recent interview he acknowledged his frustration but offered support for his young players, his veteran manager and his risk-taking vice president.

“I’m not going to be interviewed and say we’re going to clean house,” he said. “It’s not going to be like, ‘Charlie is going to go, then Harry will be the next one to to go.’ That is the style of some presidents of some teams in this league, but that isn’t our style.

“We’re not threatening anybody about change. We’re going to ride out the storm calmly, intelligently, wisely. We aren’t going to make intensity any greater than it is.”

As the Dodgers begin a three-game series with the East Division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates today, O’Malley is faced with some of the toughest times of his 23-year presidency.

He is spending $43.7 million for a team that has spent a Los Angeles Dodger-record 22 consecutive days alone in last place.

His home attendance is down an average of 3,000 per game.

His highest-paid player, Darryl Strawberry, is out indefinitely.

The celebrated future cornerstones of his infield, Eric Karros and Dave Hansen, are batting a combined .192 with four home runs and 12 runs batted in.

And despite his best closed-door efforts, his team is facing a landmark six-games-in-three-days marathon in July because the Montreal Expos would not agree to play even one game on a day off.

“We did not get off to the quick start we wanted. This was not the goal, not the plan. . . . This is not what any of us had in mind when this team was put together,” O’Malley said. “We need to put the pieces together. . . . We cannot fall further behind.”

Yet the only changes O’Malley will predict are the ones that occur within the players on the current 25-man roster.

“I don’t think the addition of any one player will lift this team any more than the performance of players that we have,” O’Malley said. “It is unlikely that the addition of any one player will change this team significantly. Plus, we would have to give up something to get that player.”

O’Malley added: “I think the club will improve during the year. I think this club will get better and better as weeks go by. As a team, it will improve.”

The reason for the improvement, according to O’Malley, is that the young players will become older and the older players will become sounder.

“Several young players have done exceptionally well. A couple are struggling . . . but as the season goes along, their confidence will increase,” O’Malley said. “They will improve. They will play a more dominant role.”

O’Malley is also vocal in his support of Manager Tom Lasorda and Vice President Fred Claire, both of whom have been criticized in the media.

“Throughout baseball, managers get too much blame when a team doesn’t win. . . . The manager doesn’t have a sore arm,” O’Malley said. “A manager’s performance is a lot more consistent than people realize. Unless a manager changes his style or approach drastically from one season to another, their performance is consistent, whether it is our manager or any manager.”

O’Malley expressed disagreement with those who would discard the manager or general manager to right the team.

“I don’t think there is the variance in managing of teams that warrants the change and the turnover that exists in major league baseball,” he said. “To me, it’s a quick fix by the clubs that constantly fire the pitching coach, the batting coach, the general manager, the manager.

“I don’t think you gain anything by that. You have good people, you stay with them. On balance you’ll be a lot better off.”

O’Malley said Lasorda seems no different, except perhaps he works harder.

“I have seen no change in his work habits or managing of the team at all,” said O’Malley, who gave Lasorda a one-year contract extension through 1993 earlier this spring. “He’s here even earlier than before. He stays late. His mind is only on the Dodgers. You can’t blame Tommy, or the pitching coach, or batting coach, or any one player. It isn’t that simple to put the responsibility at someone’s doorstep.”

O’Malley said he read of the recent incident in Philadelphia in which Lasorda phoned the press box late in a close game to request a postgame meeting with a Philadelphia sportswriter.

“But we haven’t talked about it,” O’Malley said. “There is a lot of pressure in that clubhouse, a lot of intensity. There are times we like everyone to keep their cool, but it doesn’t always happen.”

Something that did surprise O’Malley was the actions of the Expos, who were tentatively scheduled to make up one of their three postponed games with the Dodgers on July 13 at Dodger Stadium.

Instead, because the Expos refused to play during the All-Star break, the Dodgers must play consecutive doubleheaders on July 6, 7 and 8. This is in addition to their July 3 doubleheader with the Philadelphia Phillies.

“It is a tough schedule in July, and we tried everything possible to avoid it,” O’Malley said. “We had the support of the commissioner’s office, the National League office, the players’ association, and our club, to play one that Monday afternoon (July 13). That the Montreal club voted against it was a complete surprise. That would have been an obvious place to put one of the games. But because it was the All-Star break, some of them had made plans, I understand that.”

O’Malley added: “We have never played six games in three days, to my knowledge. But we’ll call up some players from Albuquerque. . . . We’ll do the best we can with it.”

And after those games, O’Malley hopes that his team reverses last season’s pattern.

“Last year we were in first place about 120 days, but not in first place on the day it counted the most,” he said. “Let’s hope this year, a slow start means a fast finish.”