Writing Is on Wall, Ball Over It : Dodgers: Johnson’s homer in ninth beats L.A., but he probably lost job to Zeile.

The game had been over for nearly an hour.

The Dodgers, 2-0 losers Friday afternoon to the Chicago Cubs, boarded the team bus and were heading back to their downtown hotel. The paid crowd of 26,077 strolled out of Wrigley Field.

The park was virtually empty, except for a few stragglers--and Cub third baseman Howard Johnson.

Johnson, who a few years ago was considered one of the finest players in baseball, wasn’t moving.

He instead remained seated in the players’ lounge. He had a beer in his left hand, and his eyes were fixed on the TV screen.

It was as if viewing the replay on television was the only way to validate in his mind what really happened.

He watched for the moment he had been patiently anticipating, turned up the volume to Cub broadcaster Harry Caray, and listened to him scream the moment Johnson swung at Dodger reliever Rudy Seanez’s first-pitch, one-out fastball in the ninth inning:

“It’s back! Way back! Way back! Way back!

“Home run!

“Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!”

Johnson watched as he jumped high off the ground, threw his right fist into the air, and then joyously shook his arms at the crowd and Cubs bench while he danced around the bases.

“You live for that,” Johnson said, taking a swig of beer. “You absolutely live for that moment.

“Even if that was my last game as a Cub, it was a moment I’ll always treasure.”

Johnson’s two-run homer to center field left the Dodgers with their third shutout loss in the last seven games, completely ruining starter Tom Candiotti’s brilliant performance.

Candiotti did not allow a ball to be hit out of the infield for the first four innings, had a no-hitter for 5 2/3 innings, and pitched a shutout for eight innings. It made absolutely no difference because the Dodgers couldn’t score.

“Sooner or later, things will work out--that is if I don’t hang myself,” said Candiotti, who is 2-5, despite yielding a 1.03 earned-run average in his last five starts.

Said Seanez, who was activated before the game from the disabled list: “The worst part is seeing him pitch like that all game, coming in, and right away giving up a shot that ends the game. That was just a bad pitch.”

Yet the way this day transpired, even if Seanez had thrown the perfect pitch, Johnson was destined to be the hero.

Johnson, 34, who had World Series rings on each of his hands before most of the Dodgers were out of high school, spent his morning wondering if he was about to be released.

He heard the news from a reporter that the Cubs had just acquired third baseman Todd Zeile from the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Mike Morgan and two minor leaguers. Considering he had been the everyday third baseman during Steve Buechele’s absence, it didn’t take 16 years of baseball experience for him to figure out that his dismal play necessitated the trade.

“My mind was in a fog all day,” said Johnson, batting only .129 this season. “It hit me that regardless of what I did today, Zeile will be out there every day from now on. I figured, well, at least I got today to play. Make it a good one.”

If not for Cub General Manager Ed Lynch, his former teammate with the New York Mets, Johnson might not even be playing this season. He was at the free-agent camp in Homestead, Fla., when the Cubs offered him $250,000 to play one last season.

“It’s been tough, but you deal with the adversity,” said Johnson, who led the National League with 38 homers and 117 RBIs in 1991, only to hit a combined total of 24 homers and 109 RBIs the last three seasons.

“People have told me, ‘You’re through. You’re finished.’ It’s all about proving everybody wrong. It motivates you.”

This perhaps explains why Johnson slid hard into second base, spiking the left ankle of second baseman Delino DeShields in the seventh inning in an attempt to break up a double play.

“I feel bad about that, I didn’t want to hurt DeShields,” Johnson said. “I even told [Dodger coach] Joe Amalfitano to tell him that I’m sorry. I hope he understands.

“They just happened to catch me on a very emotional day.”