Adding ‘Big Unit’ a Big Plus

The fan walked up to the usher at Dodger Stadium on Thursday afternoon and wondered why the huge crowd of reporters was gathered around Dodger Executive Vice President Fred Claire.

The usher told him Claire was addressing rumors that the Dodgers were trading for Seattle Mariner pitcher Randy Johnson.

“Randy Johnson?” the fan said. “Wow!”

The simple thought, the mere hint of a rumor, is tantalizing. That fan’s reaction is just a taste of what the Dodgers could expect this summer if they get Johnson.

Claire was holding one of those non-news news conferences that are becoming increasingly common in this age when rumors can flow unfiltered over the Internet and the airwaves.

Nothing doing, Claire said.

“There was a deal to be made,” Claire said. “All I had to do was say yes.”

But the Mariners wanted too much, he said. The offer “wasn’t hard to reject.”

Unless the Mariners’ proposal included the names Charles Johnson, Paul Konerko or Ramon Martinez, it shouldn’t have been that hard.

Some reports said the Mariners wanted Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth. Claire said they didn’t, and he must be telling the truth because if that’s all they wanted, Randy Johnson would already be on his way to L.A., right?

But Darren Dreifort? That’s too near-sighted.

The Mariners supposedly were asking for Ismael Valdes this spring, and the Dodgers supposedly thought that was too much. Is a 4-6 pitcher with a 5.48 ERA who is getting lit at a .297 rate by opposing batters too much to give up for Johnson?

Randy Johnson can do what Mike Piazza couldn’t do, what the outfield of Darryl Strawberry, Eric Davis and Brett Butler couldn’t do, what no one in Dodger Blue has done since 1988: win a playoff game.

Forget the back problems the last couple of years. Forget the 6.02 earned-run average this season. If you need a pitcher to win one game with everything riding on it, there’s no better pick than Johnson.

Just ask the Angels. He shut them down in that single-game playoff in 1995. Then he picked up two victories (coming out of the bullpen for the second) in the five-game divisional series against the New York Yankees.

Don’t be fooled by his two losses to the Baltimore Orioles in last year’s playoffs. Those came against the one team that consistently has had Johnson’s number. If the Dodgers get to the World Series this year, the Orioles won’t be there.

And rest assured, if the Dodgers trade for Johnson they will get to the World Series.

“I guess it would be no choice,” second baseman Eric Young said. “We would have to make it to the World Series or the playoffs with Randy Johnson.”

That’s the message the Dodgers would be sending to their players, their fans and their opponents if they make a deal for Johnson.

It wouldn’t be unrealistic at all. The Dodgers trailed the San Diego Padres by six games before Thursday’s game and still have 12 games to play against the Padres. All they have to do is do a bit better than the Padres against the rest of the field, then win the head-to-head matchup by the slimmest of margins.

Get Johnson, and the Dodgers announce that they not only think they can do that, but that they can take on Greg Maddux and the Atlanta Braves too.

There’s another message the Johnson trade would send to all the players who will be free agents this winter.

“I think it’s great to play with a team and an organization that’s going to do that, that isn’t going to go out and cut corners to win,” said Red outfielder Chris Stynes, who, playing in Cincinnati, wouldn’t know what that’s like.

More than messages, getting Johnson would be about winning at this very moment--even if it means losing the free agent-to-be next year.

“That would be a big plus for them,” Stynes said. “Putting a lefty in their [rotation], especially as good a lefty as him. . . . It’s a tough series to try to win.”

(You know who really needs this trade? Del Harris. Without the Johnson deal, the only thing to talk about around here for the next month is the Western Conference finals flameout by the Lakers.)

Claire, to his credit, didn’t hide from reporters and did the best he could to tell them what was going on.

“Just because of the speculation, it doesn’t make good sense to say, ‘We’re not going to talk about this because we don’t want to have a lot of media buzzing around Dodger Stadium,’ ” Claire said. “We like media around Dodger Stadium.”

If you like it so much, get Randy Johnson here and watch the media swarm buzzing around Chavez Ravine in October.