Lasorda, Players React With Dismay to Strawberry News <i> (</i> Los Angeles) : Baseball: Dodger manager is upset and angry at latest escapade and the players believe Strawberry’s time on team is over.

After three exhausting, often embarrassing years of watching him act as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ focus and flash point, his teammates and manager began speaking of Darryl Strawberry in the past tense Monday.

As the cameras and tape recorders moved in for reaction, no Dodger doubted that the latest Strawberry crisis would be his last as a Dodger.

Henry Rodriguez will probably start in left field in Tuesday’s opener, probably sharing the job with Cory Snyder when the latter comes off the disabled list; the lineup will be rejuggled, and Strawberry will not be there.

How long Strawberry will be gone, nobody was sure, but, as Strawberry and Dodger Executive Vice President Fred Claire met in secrecy Monday, the only questions about the end of Strawberry’s Dodger career seemed to be when and how -- not IF -- the Dodgers would operate without him.

“Do I want him on the ballclub? That’s not my decision to make,” said Manager Tom Lasorda. “He has a ton of talent. He’s also had a lot of problems in his baseball career. It’s sad. You can’t do those things.”

In a 40-minute clubhouse meeting, Lasorda updated the team on the latest developments with Strawberry, then several players forcefully declared that their promising spring would not be derailed by one player’s erratic behavior.

“We have to go forward, assume that he’s not going to be here, approach it with that attitude,” said center fielder Brett Butler. “Pick it up where we can, whoever’s out there.”

After all of his bizarre behavior and injuries the past three years, is it possible the Dodgers are better off without Strawberry?

“I can’t say yes, I can’t say no,” Butler said carefully. “All I know is that this my fourth year (as a Dodger) and this is the best spring training that we’ve had in those four years -- focused and driven and our attitude. . . .

“Everybody was fired up that Darryl was coming back, then all of a sudden when this happened, it wasn’t like Awwww. . . . I was like, ‘OK, now we’ve got to do this and this and this.’ It was not a letdown, it was now we’ve got to turn in this direction and move forward.

“Am I sad for him? How can I answer that? There are things going on within Darryl Strawberry that nobody can answer but Darryl Strawberry. He’s going to have to someday answer those questions.”

Though Lasorda and others have pointed to Strawberry as one of the team’s biggest keys for 1994 -- Strawberry is the Dodgers’ sole left-handed power hitter -- the team has played without him more than they have with him the last two years.

A serious back injury limited Strawberry to 75 games the past two seasons, and he has hit only 10 home runs since 1991. Playing without Strawberry is something they will not have to get used to.

“It’s not something new,” Butler said of playing without Strawberry. “We’ve got the personnel to be able to win it all.

“It’s amazing how you have a guy who has played 50 or something games the last two years, and the focus of our ballclub has been the last two years has been him.

“It’s refreshing to have the focus be on a (Chan Ho) Park or a (Darren) Dreifort or a rookie of the year candidate in (Raul) Mondesi . . . not on the . . . the last few years.”

Said Lasorda: “There comes a time when one door will close on you, and if you’re so concerned with the door that closes, you’ll never find the one that’s open. So we’re looking for the open door.”

For most of the players willing to comment -- Delino DeShields, perhaps Strawberry’s closest friend on the club, politely said he wouldn’t talk about Strawberry Monday -- the goal was to avoid becoming absorbed with the daily trials and tribulations of their star-crossed teammate.

“There’s no issue,” said catcher Mike Piaza. “Just go out there and play with the people we have. I’ve never felt it was a distraction.”