Nobody’s Perfect, but Brown Wins

If Davey Johnson wanted to end his controversial reign as Dodger manager, he had his chance early Wednesday.

Chairman Bob Daly, reacting to Johnson’s remarks in Wednesday’s Times, called the manager in and asked if he was truly ready to call it quits, according to sources on the team.

“If they’re gonna [fire me],” Johnson had told The Times’ T.J. Simers in a column that appeared in Wednesday’s editions, “let’s do it and not wait. Let me put my house on the market instead of waiting eight weeks. Just do it.”

But Wednesday, hours before the Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 5-1, at Dodger Stadium, Johnson told Daly that he didn’t want the Dodgers to remove him, that he had just been caught by Simers in a down moment.

There has been plenty to be down about in this, Johnson’s longest year.

He has been hospitalized because of an irregular heartbeat, undergone arthroscopic surgery on his left rotator cuff, seen his well-paid, star-studded lineup all but self-destruct, been told that he’d better make the playoffs if he wants to keep his job, been blasted in the media and been second-guessed by everybody from sports-talk radio hosts to fans.

But by the time Johnson met with reporters late Wednesday afternoon, he appeared to have regained his spirits.

“T.J. is wrong,” Johnson said. “I’m not a dead man yet.”

Does the man who has led teams to one world championship, five division titles and a wild-card playoff berth in a 14-year career feel that he can still do the job?

“There is not a question in my mind,” Johnson said. “I keep waiting for everything to click in. When it does, it’s a beautiful thing. When it does, it kind of runs by itself.”

It appeared that Johnson was going to be able to let things run by themselves the way right-hander Kevin Brown was cruising along Wednesday night in front of a crowd of 31,337.

Through six innings, Brown had a perfect game.

And perhaps it would have remained perfect had not Brown squared to bunt in the fifth inning. Instead, Mike Thurman’s pitch hit Brown on the right index finger.

“It [the finger] had no color in it when I got out there,” Johnson said.

“It took a few minutes to get the feeling back,” Brown admitted.

Brown, who had a no-hitter against San Francisco in 1997, was able to get another perfect inning completed, but the finger soon swelled.

And it the seventh, with the Dodgers ahead, 5-0, Montreal outfielder Peter Bergeron smashed the perfect game and the no-hitter with a line drive off the glove of third baseman Adrian Beltre. Back-to-back doubles by Jose Vidro and Lee Stevens produced a run after Eric Karros had turned a line drive by Milton Bradley into a double play.

Todd Hundley’s RBI single and Beltre’s two-run single in the fourth inning had staked the Dodgers to a comfortable lead.

The Dodgers added a pair of runs in the fifth on an RBI single by Shawn Green and a sacrifice fly by Karros.

After Brown (11-5) hit a batter and gave up a single to start the eighth, Johnson took him out. The win, snapping a two-game losing streak, was his first since July 24.

Brown, however, wouldn’t be drawn into admitting that the injury had ended what might have been a momentous night.

“I am not going to blame the finger for what happened,” he said.

The victory, boosting the Dodgers to 64-61, also moved them back above .500 at home at 31-30.

While nobody is about to start selling playoff tickets, the night offered a welcome if brief respite for Johnson.

He has been criticized for sitting back and expecting the team to run by itself, for depending too much on home runs and not enough on fundamentals.

“I sleep pretty good at night,” the Dodger manager had said before the game. “I work hard. It’s not like I draw things out of a hat.

“When we were eight games over [.500], I would have liked to have hit the next level so I could kick into being the rocking-chair manager I like to be. But it didn’t happen”

If Johnson had given Daly the wrong answer Wednesday, he might have found himself kicked into a rocking chair this morning.

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* SHEFFIELD BEGINS SUSPENSION

Because he has flu anyway, Dodger outfielder drops appeal and begins serving five-game suspension for role during incident at Wrigley Field. Page 5