DOUBLE FEATURE

Some jobs are tough to fill, especially for would-be employers seeking potential saviors.

The applicant pool is small because leadership positions are demanding. Kevin Brown acknowledges he’s unsuited for many roles, saying his inflexible demeanor would hurt him in most occupations, and those who know him agree.

But they also say, if you run a major league baseball team and you’re looking for a dominant starting pitcher, look to Brown. If you want your pitching staff to set higher standards, consider having Brown in your starting rotation. And if your goal is to win, to join the game’s elite, get Brown on your team.

The Dodgers did that in December.

They made Brown baseball’s first $100-million player, signing the free agent to a record seven-year, $105-million contract that stirred anger throughout the industry. The fallout caused by Brown’s deal, which includes unprecedented perks, continued through the off-season and spring training.

But the Dodgers believe the grief will be worth it because Brown is the leader they have long lacked.

The all-star right-hander is being counted on to propel the team far into the postseason, somewhere it hasn’t been in a long time. The Dodgers view the exceptionally talented--and intensely competitive--Brown as the key piece to their puzzle, figuring they needed him at almost any price. Now, with their competitors privately hoping Brown flops, the Dodgers move forward behind their new franchise player.

“The Dodgers wanted me here because they understand what my focus is, they understand the way I am and what my approach is in this game,” said Brown, whose 2.33 earned-run average the last three seasons is the lowest in the major leagues. “My job is to give this team a chance to win every day I pitch and to help this team win any way I can when I’m not pitching.

“I’ll be there trying to give moral support, whether that means hootin’ and hollerin’ in the dugout, or whatever I have to do. Whatever it takes to be part of that winning effort, to help the Dodgers get back to that type of position again, that’s what I’ll do. That’s why I’m here.”

Brown has done it elsewhere.

He helped lead the Florida Marlins to the 1997 World Series title, twice defeating the Atlanta Braves in the National League championship series. And San Diego Padre players and officials cited Brown’s arrival, in an off-season trade, as the key to their World Series appearance last season. As a Padre, Brown gave the Braves fits again in the ’98 championship series.

He also moved into distinguished company.

He has 51 victories in the last three seasons, tying Roger Clemens of the New York Yankees for the third most in the majors. With 727 1/3 innings during that span, Brown trails only Clemens and Greg Maddux of the Braves.

Moreover, Brown and Maddux are the only pitchers in baseball history who have not been on the disabled list because of arm problems while pitching at least 1,400 innings, according to research by the Dodgers.

Dodger General Manager Kevin Malone had seen, and heard, enough.

The moment Malone took control of baseball operations in September, acquiring Brown became the organization’s top off-season priority, though the Dodgers were also interested in Randy Johnson. They have not won a postseason game since 1988, and Malone believed Brown’s talent and intensity were needed.

“This guy is really special,” said Malone, the Dodgers’ point man in negotiations with Brown’s agent, Scott Boras. “A lot of guys talk about wanting to win, about wanting to be out there leading, but then they don’t back it up.

“They want to talk about what it takes to win, about really becoming great, but they don’t want to put in the work to reach that point. This guy is all about winning. He backs it up in everything he does, in how he prepares, in the high standards he sets for himself and the guys around him. This guy walks the walk.”

Brown’s current and former teammates agree.

Dodger outfielder Gary Sheffield and Brown were with the Marlins in 1996 and ’97. When Sheffield heard Brown was coming to town, he knew what the Dodgers were getting.

“He brings the respect factor,” Sheffield said. “You have to respect this guy because of everything he’s done. Your team is just looked at differently. Guys know that when they face Kevin Brown, they’re not only going against a guy with nasty stuff, they’re going against a guy who’s never going to give in.

“He’s a constant competitor on an everyday basis. Even when he’s not pitching, you’re always going to hear him. He’s always on the hitters, trying to get guys pumped up. He can make a big impact on a ballclub.”

Brown did last season for the Padres, finishing third in the NL Cy Young Award balloting after the Marlins traded him during their salary purge. He went 18-7 with a 2.38 ERA and 257 strikeouts in 257 innings, elevating the performance of the other starters in the process.

Former Padre pitching coach Dave Stewart praised Brown for setting an example others strive to match.

“As a pitching coach, you’re so repetitive with your guys at times that you need another guy to say the same thing that you’re saying, to do what you’re trying to explain, to really make it sink in, and Kevin was that guy for me,” said Stewart, now assistant general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. “When you see him go after it like he does, when you watch him go about his business, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to try raise the level of their game too.

“I know that [Padre pitcher] Andy Ashby and [former Padre] Joey Hamilton talked about it last year, that they learned just from watching Brownie. Everyone needs a No. 1 starter, and Kevin is one of the best.”

Brown is uncomfortable with such praise. He doesn’t want to be perceived as all-knowing, preferring to be one of the guys.

But Dodger Manager Davey Johnson moved quickly to capitalize on Brown’s commanding presence in spring training, putting the rest of the starting rotation in Brown’s workout group. Like it or not, Brown is viewed differently.

“It’s not my job to try to judge if that’s the effect I have on people,” said the hard-throwing pitcher, whose fastball has been clocked at 97 mph. “I do think some guys, especially in the last two or three years, have really appreciated the way I approach the game. The thing people always want to talk about is my effect on the other guys, but it has got to be a two-way street.

“That’s the way it has been the last couple of years especially. I tried to learn from the guys I played with. I tried to learn from Ashby and Hamilton last year, I tried to learn from Al Leiter and Alex Fernandez and those guys I played with in Florida. Hopefully, they learn from you, and you learn from them as well.”

Brown is fueled by his intensity. His temper and game-day scowl are legendary, and Brown is prone to clubhouse outbursts when he’s dissatisfied with his performance.

And even when he’s not.

During spring training, Brown destroyed a toilet with a bat in the Dodgertown clubhouse because he was angry about being scalded while taking a shower. The water temperature in the shower got hotter when someone flushed the toilet, which Brown then smashed.

Brown has abused clubhouses across the country during his 10 full seasons while pitching for the Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, Marlins and Padres. That’s just the way he is, and you must accept the whole package when you accept Brown, current and former teammates said.

Leiter, now the New York Mets’ ace, was with the Marlins’ World Series club and remains among Brown’s closest friends in the game. He said there are two sides to Brown’s personality.

“When we were in Florida, [Manager Jim] Leyland would joke around with anybody, but not with Brownie,” Leiter said. “Brownie had this game-day demeanor. Nobody would mess with him--teammates, coaches, trainers. You just left him alone. But it’s unfair to think Brownie is like that all the time.

“We all turn it off and on. Brownie’s got a nice side to him. He goofs around and laughs. I know his field persona is that snarling, [ticked]-off, mean thing, and it works for him. He just extends it beyond the game. Before the game, his whole persona changes.”

Brown said that’s the only way he can work effectively.

“I use it as a way to blow [frustration] out of my system, to get it out of there and motivate myself to do better,” Brown said of his clubhouse tantrums. “I’m never satisfied with myself. There have been times other guys cut up [joke] about it, or give me a hard time about it. There have been times when I’ll have a 1-2-3 inning, and you throw 10 pitches and get three up and three down, but I came in yelling and stuff.

“They’re looking at me like, ‘What in the world is that all about?’ I said, ‘Well, I got by with a bad pitch.’ I’m happy I got the guy out, but I’m not happy the way I threw the ball, because you’re not going to get by with mistakes in this game. The guys are too good, and you’re going to pay for your mistakes. That’s the thing that keeps pushing you to do better. You can’t ever be satisfied in this game.”

That single-minded drive has enabled Brown to become the highest-paid player in baseball history, overcoming his unremarkable athletic background.

Brown was an average pitcher and shortstop while growing up in Irwinton, Ga. So average, in fact, he wasn’t recruited by colleges or drafted.

He considered walking on at Georgia Tech, where he had received an academic scholarship in chemical engineering. But Brown had to be talked into joining the team because he would lose his scholarship, which was tied to a job program, if he couldn’t work because he was playing baseball.

Coach Jim Morris, now at the University of Miami, persuaded Brown to come out and gave him a partial scholarship.

“You could see that he was very crude when he first came out,” Morris said. “You could see that he hadn’t pitched much.

“But the first time you said, ‘OK, now do this,’ you could see that he picked up things real quickly. . . . He ended up being a freshman All-American that year, and then the real difference was his sophomore year. He went from throwing 83, 84 [mph] to 85, 86. Then he suddenly started hitting 93, 94 on the gun, and no one does that. No one increases their velocity that significantly so quickly, and I still can’t explain it to this day, but he took off from that point.”

Brown was a first-team All-American as a junior, and the Rangers selected him with the fourth overall pick in the 1986 free-agent draft. He struggled in his only full season in the minor leagues in 1987, going 1-11 with a 6.49 ERA in 19 starts at three stops.

The Rangers promoted Brown to Texas on Sept. 12, 1988, after he’d gone 12-10 with a 3.51 ERA for their triple-A affiliate. He averaged 11 wins in his first three seasons in the majors, and had a breakthrough year in 1992, going 21-11 with a 3.32 ERA.

Although Brown, 34, has been dominant the last three seasons, his record is only 139-99. He has won 20 games once and has never won a Cy Young.

For those reasons, among others, many eyebrows were raised when Brown’s groundbreaking deal was announced at the winter meetings.

The Dodgers were castigated for making Brown the first player to earn $15 million annually, and for providing a chartered jet to fly his wife, Candace, and their sons, Ridge and Grayson, from the family’s home in Macon, Ga., to Los Angeles 12 times a season. They have since been ridiculed for presumably bidding against themselves.

“Everyone wants to talk about money . . . but this guy wouldn’t be here if he was only about money, and we wouldn’t have wanted him here,” Malone said. “We know we made a big commitment, but we made the commitment because we believe in this guy, and we believe in what he wants to do for the Dodgers.

“We’re all about winning, and Kevin Brown is all about winning. But all anybody wants to look at is $105 million.”

Actually, Brown’s contract, as reported to the Major League Baseball Players Assn. is $106,571,739. That factors in the cost of the chartered jet, ground transportation from Burbank Airport and eight premium season tickets annually. But what’s another $1,571,739?

After all, good help is hard to find.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Kevin Brown Facts

The new Dodger ace’s 2.33 ERA in the last three seasons is the best in the major leagues and 2.14 runs below the average ERA from 1996-98:

* Age: 34.

* Height: 6 feet 4.

* Weight: 200 pounds.

* Workhorse: Joins Greg Maddux as the only pitcher to have worked more than 1,400 innings in the last seven seasons without being put on the disabled list for an arm problem.

* Winner: Led two different teams (Florida and San Diego) to the World Series the past two seasons.