Job Used to Be Sterling--Now It Looks Like Donald

As classified advertisements go, it was the equivalent of a misspelled message scrawled in black marker on a piece of cardboard taped to a greasy window.

HELP WONTED, INKWIRE WITHIN

So announced the Dodgers on Friday upon ridding themselves of a guy who had the nerve to not win a championship with Devon White and Carlos Perez.

Davey Johnson is gone, and while this in itself is not a particularly bad thing--even weary Johnson wanted out--the Dodgers have now put themselves in a most unenviable position.

They must hire somebody to fill the worst job in baseball.

The title can no longer be claimed by John Rocker’s publicist or Dusty Baker’s toothpick.

It is now officially owned by the man who must sit at the end of the Dodger dugout while a confused front office sits on his head like a migraine.

The Dodger manager used to be a position of stability and strength.

It is now positioned at the end of the wagging index finger of Bob Daly.

The Dodger manager used to be the keeper of the Dodger philosophy.

He is now at the mercy of the Kevin Malone philosophy.

For 42 years, there were only two Dodger managers.

When the team hires somebody new in the next couple of weeks, it will be the fourth manager in four years.

That is the identical number of head coaches employed during the same span by the Clippers.

There is, of course, one difference.

The Clippers have made the playoffs more recently than the Dodgers.

Dodger manager. Clipper coach. We defy you to find a difference.

The Dodgers will find somebody. Heck, the Clippers always do.

But judging from what happened to the likes of Bill Russell, Glenn Hoffman and Davey Johnson, it will be somebody who really needs the work.

Dusty Baker? Bobby Valentine? Anybody who has managed in the big leagues in the last couple of years? Get serious.

Baseball people talk, especially this time of year, and when it comes to the Dodgers, they are all saying the same thing.

You take the Dodger managerial job only if they make you incredibly rich or burn you with cigarettes. Daly insists that Malone has built a winner, and Bob Graziano insists that the organization is in great shape, and the only thing a new manager can do is mess all that up.

If you win, all the credit is going to Daly and Malone.

If you lose, all the blame is going to you.

For six months, you must navigate these waters with the threat of shark bites and jellyfish stings everywhere.

Sometime early this season, Johnson figured it out. He realized he would take the fall for a team that was not built for a stadium where it plays half of its games.

He understood, he couldn’t win playing Malone’s kind of baseball, he couldn’t win playing his kind of baseball, he simply couldn’t win.

So he threw up his hands. Although officially fired Friday, he had long ago quit.

Johnson did not deserve another year. But he also did not deserve having his clubhouse legs buckled by midseason quotes from Daly and Malone that charged him with winning or else.

It was OK for Johnson’s bosses to think those things. But by saying them, they painted Johnson with a weakness that the players spotted at 400 feet.

And if your team thinks you are weak, you are finished.

What is to stop the same thing from happening to the next Dodger manager?

Malone apologized Friday for some of his actions. Daly admitted that, at times during his first season, he was “naive.” Honest and important admissions, all.

Yet Daly continues to publicly support Malone, while Graziano continues to regain the sort of baseball juice that he once used to fire Russell and Fred Claire on the night of Al Campanis’ death.

This power that once rested in the dugout and the stands--the uniformed personnel and fans were more important to Peter O’Malley than anybody--has been clearly shifted to the front office.

This makes the Dodgers a great place for silk-suited tailors, but an unsettling place for managers. Not to mention, an increasingly defiant place for those who would question them.

Despite the best efforts of vice president Derrick Hall--the increasingly lone voice of reason around there--the news conference Friday was as hostile as any in recent Dodger memory.

Reporters openly wondered why Daly would fire Johnson and not also Malone. Daly would glare back with answers like this one:

“For Dodger success in the future, we have to go back to what has made us a success in the last few years--we have to rely on pitching and defense,” he said.

But, um, isn’t that Malone’s responsibility?

Daly also criticized this newspaper for writing about “the glass being half empty.”

He said, “Next year I hope we can turn the tide so everybody can write about the glass being half full.”

Once upon a time, the Dodgers understood that a glass was a glass. To expect anybody to portray it any other way was an insult to the fans.

But once upon a time, the Dodger manager was the public caretaker of that glass. He was the Dodger leader, the Dodger boss, the Dodger symbol.

Now, he is a guy charged mostly with proving that Malone is smart and Daly is right.

Which means the next Dodger manager will be either dumb, or brave, or both.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.