BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : DODGERS : Butler Says Team Has Come Together

The atmosphere in the Dodgers’ clubhouse is as relaxed as Brett Butler has seen it in his three seasons with the club, and that includes the 1991 season, when the team came within one game of winning the National League West.

“This is what baseball is all about,” Butler said. “The pranks and the laughter and joking comes with winning, but this team has really jelled together.

“Like that prank Jody (Reed) played on me on the last trip. Some of the guys had gone out to dinner and they were walking back to the hotel and they passed a wig shop. And they see this wig with two or three skunk streaks in it, so Jody goes back the next day and buys it and puts it on and while we’re stretching, he comes out in my uniform with the wig on and starts pretending like he’s me. He’s pretending to bunt and stuff.”

Butler has a gray streak through his hair.

“That kind of stuff used to happen all the time when I first started playing baseball,” Butler said. “It’s like Little League stuff, makes you feel like a little kid again.”

Shouted Eric Davis, who overheard the 35-year-old Butler: “It’s been a long time since you have been a little kid.”

And Butler laughed.

ANGELS

CURTIS APOLOGIZES TO TORONTO’S SPRAGUE

Angel center fielder Chad Curtis quietly snuck into the Toronto Blue Jay clubhouse before Monday’s game and apologized to third baseman Ed Sprague for his actions in last week’s brawl.

Although Curtis blamed Sprague for inciting him with verbal taunts from the field, which Sprague denied, he said he was wrong for charging out of the dugout and triggering the bench-clearing fight. He also apologized on the field to Blue Jay coaches Rich Hacker and Galen Cisco.

“He has a right to get upset, and I talked to him about that,” Curtis said. “But don’t get me wrong, he’s not blameless.

“He yelled at me from the field, ‘Do you want a piece of me? Come and get it.’ ”

Sprague, who plans to file an appeal, says his biggest objection is that he received the same penalty three-day suspension as Curtis.

“I don’t think I should have got the same suspension,” Sprague said. “There’s no question he was the instigator. He was the one who came out of the dugout. He came after me.

“I wasn’t just going to stand there and get bum-rushed by the entire dugout.”

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Angel starter John Farrell, with a 7.03 earned-run average during his last six starts, was told that he’ll be skipped in the rotation Friday for his next start. He will be in the bullpen until his scheduled start June 15 against the Texas Rangers. . . . . Rene Gonzales started at first base for the first time since July 5, 1992, replacing the slumping J.T. Snow. . . . Gonzales, whose arm was fine after pitching an inning Sunday, said he was inundated with congratulatory messages Monday.