Jordan Feeling Right at Home

With school out for the summer in Atlanta, Pam Jordan has packed up Briana, 10, Bryson, 8, and the two babies, Kenley, 18 months, and Kaleb, 4 months, and they have joined Brian Jordan, husband and father, at his Pasadena apartment, helping the Dodger left fielder feel whole again.

The new digs lack the spaciousness of their Atlanta house, but family is important to Jordan, be it with relatives in the living room or with teammates in the chemistry of the clubhouse, and he has wrestled with his emotions for much of the first half--missing his clan and pressing to do well with his new team.

Now, Briana and Bryson romp in the dugout with other Dodger offspring as their father prepares for the game and their mother gets Kenley and Kaleb ready to join them at Dodger Stadium, with help from Jordan’s parents, who are visiting from Baltimore on the current homestand and who have built a family foundation through almost 40 years of marriage.

“They’ve been the glue,” Brian Jordan said of Betty, a teacher, and Alvin, a former steel worker who was determined that his two sons not be exposed to the heat of the foundry.

The senior Jordans stressed education, and it took.

Brian graduated from the University of Richmond, where he met Pam, who was in the process of becoming an All-American basketball player. She now coaches Briana’s AAU basketball team.

Jordan’s brother and sister, the twins Deric and Felicia, both graduated college. He is a drug rehabilitation counselor and she works for the IRS, which prompts Jordan to laugh and say he shouldn’t be mentioning that or people will think he gets tax breaks.

The education ledger was established early, and now, Brian said, he and Pam are preaching it at home, just as he has helped educate the Dodgers on the benefit of cohesiveness and competitive zeal. Or, as Shawn Green said of the former Atlanta Falcon defensive back:

“Brian brought more of a football mentality, a sense of going out for battle. He’s upbeat, full of life, and more vocal than anyone on the team.

“The chemistry has improved each of the three years I’ve been here. It’s like all of the changes each year have been designed to fit a piece of the puzzle. Now the puzzle is pretty complete, and we have to take the next step.”

Leadership was both the real and intangible element in the trade that brought Jordan and Odalis Perez from the Atlanta Braves for Gary Sheffield, and it was in the first week of the new season that the Dodgers got an early dose of it.

Disturbed by San Francisco’s sweep of the opening series, Jordan called a players-only meeting to explore where his new teammates’ heads were and make sure what he had seen from the Dodgers when he was still with the Braves wasn’t going to be repeated.

“I’d look in their dugout and there was no emotion,” Jordan said. “There was no chemistry, no sense of guys pulling for each other. It was like they were all separatists. Then I got here and guys told me how everything was in turmoil last year, that they didn’t even enjoy coming to the park.”

Maybe it wasn’t turmoil, and maybe it’s a stretch to suggest that Sheffield was a constantly ticking time bomb.

But there was at least one dugout face-down between Green and Sheffield, and always the sense that the lid was about to come off Sheffield’s festering unhappiness at being dropped behind Green in the batting order and the Dodgers’ refusal to extend his contract. There was always the sense that Sheffield was working the clubhouse, looking for a key ally, one minute trying to unite with Eric Karros against Green or with Green against Karros.

If that hornet’s nest is several miles closer to blue heaven now, Jordan and his belief in family deserve considerable credit.

“All I know is that we’re having fun, nobody is looking over their shoulder, everyone is on the top step pulling for each other and showing emotion, which they haven’t always done here, and even the guys who don’t play regularly and could on other teams have been awesome,” Jordan said. “That’s chemistry. That’s why I’m so happy with our performance so far. Maybe we’re headed for a parade, too.”

And what is the key element Jordan thinks he has contributed to that?

“The key thing is that I feel like I brought a winning attitude,” he said. “I’ve been there, done that. I’ve played for winners, and I’ve also seen what can happen to a team when there’s jealousy. I told [Manager Jim Tracy] when I got here and he asked me where I wanted to hit in the lineup that it didn’t matter. If I’m hitting fourth and hot, leave me there. If I’m not, pull me back and put the hot man there.

“Whatever it takes to win. That’s the attitude I bring. I lead by example, but I’m not afraid to speak up.”

In the last four years, Jordan has averaged 23 homers and 95 runs batted in while batting .290. He entered the weekend batting .283 with production projections of 25 homers and 87 RBIs.

Jordan is confident his numbers will improve with warmer weather. Then again, playing all out at age 35, he occasionally requires rest.

As Sheffield battles injuries and helps power the Braves into their customary lead in the NL East, the Dodgers are one game back of Arizona in the West, prospering from the pitching of Perez (8-3) and the varied contributions of Jordan, who still regards the trade as a shock that came without warning.

One day he is taking batting practice at Turner Field, the next he is getting a call telling him he has been traded.

One day he is home for Kabel’s delivery, the next in Vero Beach for the start of spring training with a new team. One day he is moving into the Pasadena apartment, the next his truck is broken into and he is thinking, “Man, this is not for me.”

“That first month was a tough go,” he said. “Missing family. Trying too hard with a new team. Put myself in a hole from the start. But as time went on, I got a lot of support from my teammates, guys like Marquis [Grissom], who also lives in Atlanta and knows what it is to be separated, and I feel like I’ve started to come back, to be myself again.

“Now, it’s great to have the family here. My son is out there for batting practice [in his custom Dodger uniform] and I even let my daughter hit in the cage today. It’s memorable. Historic Dodger Stadium. It’s an experience none of us will ever forget.”

How long it continues is a question Jordan won’t confront until the end of the season.

As a player traded with a multi-year contract (he makes $6 million this year, $9 million next and has a $10.5 million option or $2.5 million buyout in 2004), he can demand a trade at the end of the season. For now, Jordan said, he doesn’t want to put added pressure on himself or General Manager Dan Evans, although if Evans broached the idea of an extension “I’m quite sure my wife would say, ‘Fine, let’s get a place out here instead of an apartment.’ ”

As it is, Jordan said, laughing, “It’s a zoo. I mean, we have a big house in Atlanta and I can get away from the kids and get all the sleep I want. Now, there’s nowhere to go when the babies start crying and Briana and Bryson start pulling the blankets off. I keep teasing Pam that I’m going to send them home because I need to sleep so I can play.”

Jordan would never send them home. Even the once divisive Dodgers seem to grasp his message regarding family values.