Brown Needs to Prove He Has His Heart in It

This being Valentine’s Day, let me be the first to send a blue Conversation Heart to Kevin Brown.

U Fool

During this celebration of love and romance, I cannot resist sharing another tiny, engraved candy with the Dodgers’ sweetheart of a pitcher.

2 Selfish

Considering this wonderful occasion only comes once a year -- which is about how often Brown pitches -- I am moved to give him one more.

What Nerve

The Dodgers held their first spring workout for pitchers and catchers Thursday. It was also the first official workout for players who are recovering from injuries.

Kevin Brown belongs to both categories.

Yet he didn’t show up.

Thirteen wins in two years, and he didn’t show up.

Still recovering from last summer’s back surgery, and he didn’t show up.

Being paid $45 million over the next three years, and he didn’t show up?

Brown, who has berated reporters for writing about him without talking to him, refused an interview request for this story.

But he told the team that he wasn’t arriving until Monday because of routine personal issues.

“I know that there’s a birthday in the family,” Manager Jim Tracy told reporters at Dodgertown.

This would be fine, if Brown’s injuries had not blown out the candles on the last two Dodger seasons.

Granted, veterans everywhere routinely don’t show up at spring training until the union-mandated Feb. 26 reporting date. The art of showing up late for camp is as old as spring training itself.

The Dodgers used to have one pool in which participants guessed the late reporting date of Pedro Guerrero. In that same pool, participants would also guess the real reason behind the “visa problems” that Guerrero blamed for his tardiness.

Camp is too long, the season is too long, it’s generally no big deal if a guy wants to spend a couple of more days in a golf cart or deer stand.

But this year, for this pitcher, on this team, it’s different.

This year, it’s about perception.

The Dodgers are no longer the top baseball story in town. And Brown, who will turn 38 next month, is no longer their top pitcher.

The Dodgers, amid sale talk and flop talk, need to have a strong and sound spring to regain some of their lost luster.

Their highest-paid employee needs to embrace this effort by showing he can still work.

That may be asking a lot of someone who has embraced little in our community since showing up here as baseball’s hottest mercenary in 1999.

Brown has donated money to inner-city baseball efforts but given little of himself to either teammates or the public.

Typical of this approach were his winter rehabilitation efforts. How did he do? How did he look?

How should the Dodgers know?

He never came to a winter workout. He never flew out from his Georgia home to give anyone a clue. That private plane must have also suffered a herniated disk.

When the Dodgers wanted to check on Brown’s progress, they sent trainer Stan Johnston to Denver to meet with the great man and his back specialist.

So they think he’s doing fine, but they have no idea. And while his absence will delay that first look for only five days, that’s five more degrees of separation between him and his hard-working teammates.

Darren Dreifort is making big money, and recovering from big injuries, and he showed up.

Giovanni Carrara had to travel out of turmoil-filled Venezuela, and he showed up.

Eric Gagne is coming off a breakout season, and he showed up one month early.

“I really get excited when I think about the guys who are here,” said Dan Evans, Dodger general manager.

About Brown, the Dodgers can say little because he is not breaking any rules.

“It’s the player’s responsibility,” Evans said. “I’m sure he knows what it takes to be ready.”

But does he?

Three times in the last three years, while recovering from injuries, Brown has said he was ready to pitch. And three times he has wilted, including last year’s opening-day debacle against the San Francisco Giants.

The most notable thing about Brown in the last two years hasn’t been his fastball or curveball, but his bullying, which has resulted in the Dodgers’ allowing him to pitch when he wasn’t ready.

Maybe that is what’s good about this spring’s absence.

Maybe now, the Dodgers will stop spoiling. Maybe now, they’ll stop pandering.

Maybe now, when Kevin Brown starts talking about how he needs to pitch and fight and win for the team, the Dodgers will realize he’s only talking about himself.

Not that they didn’t already know.

It is sad that for the start of the most important spring training of his career, the Dodgers’ richest veteran didn’t bother to show up.

Sadder, still, is that he isn’t missed.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com