BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : For Reds, Zaniness Continues : NL: The soap opera has played well in Cincinnati, but how will it fare against the Braves?

This baseball-crazed town has an owner who loves her St. Bernard, hates her manager, and is ridiculed by most of baseball.

It has a 34-year-old general manager who received death threats for firing Tony Perez, who hired a manager who had, in effect, been blackballed from the game, and who has alienated most of his peers.

It has a manager who is considered among the finest in the game, whose ego kept him out of baseball for three years, and who already has been told that, because he lived with his wife before they were married, he will be fired when the season ends.

It has a third-base coach who has been told he will be next year’s manager, who openly talks about his plans for the team, and is being hired mostly because the owner likes his famous wife.

And this group presides over one of the best teams in baseball.

The Cincinnati Reds may be a wacky bunch, but they will be competing for the National League pennant tonight in Game 1 against the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-seven championship series. The winner advances to the World Series.

“We’re just going to have to forget all of the other stuff that goes on around here and win us a championship,” outfielder Jerome Walton said. “I mean, it’s crazy. You got a manager who wins the division, wins the first round of the playoffs, and now he’s out of here? I thought if you win, you get to keep your job.

“It’s different around here, I’ll say that. It’s like, she brings that dog out, you rub the dog, she says, ‘Good luck,’ and then you go out and win.

“The dog’s cool. The dog don’t mess with anybody. It’s a sweet dog. Who knows, man, we win this whole thing, that dog might be more famous than Lassie. It’ll be the only dog in the world with a World Series ring.”

The dog, of course, is Schottzie 02, not to be confused with the original Schottzie. The original died in 1991, and was buried in her back yard, but owner Marge Schott saved some of the dog’s hair and rubs it on the players for luck.

“I hate when she does that,” pitcher David Wells said. “I don’t want dead dog hair on me. But I love to scare that [new] dog. I get close and bark in its face, and Marge gets so [angry].”

Manager Davey Johnson seldom has to worry about dog hair. When Schott rubs it on her players and coaches, she conveniently skips him.

Schott has no love for Johnson. She hired Perez to manage the team when Lou Piniella fled Cincinnati after the 1992 season. Then, Schott was suspended by acting Commissioner Bud Selig for racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

General Manager Jim Bowden used the opportunity to fire Perez 44 games into the 1993 season and hire Johnson. Schott, along with the rest of Cincinnati, was furious with the decision but, since she was suspended, could do nothing about it.

“If Marge wasn’t suspended, Davey Johnson wouldn’t be managing today,” said Bowden, whose brashness has made him a non-favorite of other general managers. “We also wouldn’t be sitting where we are. I’m not saying we never would have won with Tony, but it would have taken four or five years. We needed an experienced winner to run the team right away.

“I had to make that move, and if it didn’t work, I was finished.”

Johnson, fired by the New York Mets after the 1990 season, went jobless until Bowden hired him. He had won at least 90 games in five seasons and 100 games twice, had won two division titles, had won a pennant and a World Series, but other general managers considered him a risk because of his considerable ego. Bowden took the chance, though, then watched him guide the Reds to first place in last year’s strike-shortened season, then to the division title this year.

Even so, Schott couldn’t stand him. Bowden talked her out of firing him a year ago, but only temporarily. Johnson could come back, Schott said, but for only one more year. Third base coach Ray Knight, who is married to professional golfer Nancy Lopez, one of Schott’s favorite people, would become manager in 1996.

Just to make sure everyone understood the situation, the moves were spelled out in everybody’s contract and publicly announced.

Only now, with the Reds on the brink of a World Series appearance, is it becoming an issue.

“It’s not a distraction but it’s become a real pain,” Bowden said. “People who have been with us know our situation, but now it’s like the media has to focus on something else besides baseball.

“It’s not a distraction because we won’t allow it to be. It’s just like having a big brother leave for college. You know it’s going to happen, you prepare for that day, but it’s still hard to see him go.

“When Lou Piniella left here, he was a great manager and is winning again. When Davey leaves here, he’ll win again. Ray Knight will be a good manager too, down the road.”

Johnson understands the craziness.

He has been offered a job as a consultant to the team but says the only consulting he will be doing is on a golf course. He has no intention of consulting for an owner who spends no money on marketing, refuses to scout outside the continental United States and has no qualms about spending $38 million on a player payroll but keeps track of the paper clips.

Johnson already has spoken with several general managers. The Baltimore Orioles have asked permission to talk with him. The St. Louis Cardinals are waiting.

“They don’t seem to understand,” Johnson says of other general managers. “They’ve heard the stories, but they don’t believe it. I tell them, ‘It is about as cut and dried as it can get.’ . . .

“I don’t even like talking about it. I’m in uncharted waters. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to act.”

Johnson smiles weakly, shakes his head and takes a drag from his cigarette. He jokes about how the elephants from the Cincinnati zoo have been to Schott’s house more than he. In fact, he says, the only time he was ever invited there was for the annual team party.

“I made my rounds and snuck out the back door,” Johnson says. “Hey, what are you going to do? That’s just the way it is. It doesn’t do me any good talking about it. That’s just the way it is here.”

Said outfielder Ron Gant, who signed with the Reds after having been with the Braves, “They told me things would be different in Cincinnati.

“You know something? They were right.”