Brown Has a New Attitude After Joining This Support Group

Amid the media congestion in the New York Yankees’ spring clubhouse, amid the ballyhooed arrival of Alex Rodriguez and the questions about his relationship with Derek Jeter, amid the almost daily steroid interrogations of Gary Sheffield and the conspicuously thinner Jason Giambi, it’s as if Kevin Brown is just one more smiling face.

Kevin Brown? Smiling?

Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but even the taciturn Brown can’t help but express excitement at being surrounded by all these other All-Stars and millionaires -- and who can blame him?

* He’ll be pitching for a team considerably closer to his Georgia home, the motivation for telling the Dodgers he’d be willing to waive his no-trade clause if a deal could be arranged (and, if it couldn’t have been, , he now says, he might have retired).

* He’ll be working with an offense capable of doubling his support of 3.7 runs a game in his fifth and final year in Los Angeles. That was the 60th-lowest total among the 66 major league pitchers who started at least 20 games.

* He’ll be paid by an owner willing to pay any price to fill any hole.

No wonder Manager Joe Torre claims the often-acidic Brown “even seems to be having fun” as he performs the rites of springs.

No wonder there is no mistaking the meaning when Brown says, “There’s definitely a difference in being here.” Here as distinguished from still being with the Dodgers, who wasted the best pitching in the big leagues last year because of the offensive holes they still haven’t filled.

“Any time you don’t win it’s frustrating, no matter the cause,” Brown said.

“But to try and point a finger and say they should have done this or that, it’s all water under the bridge.

“They had reasons for doing what they did and what they didn’t, and I can’t really blame anybody because they could have pointed a finger at me the year before for not being healthy.

“It’s just a case where I’m leaving L.A. with unfinished business. I went out there hoping to be in a situation like the Yankees have been in all these years, with a chance to be in the postseason.

“It’s definitely a little bittersweet, not having accomplished what I set out to accomplish, and not to have come out of there feeling on top of the world.

“I obviously wish things had turned out differently, but I can’t be too disappointed.

“I feel I did everything I could when I was healthy enough to do it, and I met a lot of great people and played with a lot of great guys.”

Whether the man who can bust up a clubhouse after a tough loss and stare down reporters at any time or place took a Dale Carnegie course over the off-season isn’t clear, but he definitely chose the high road regarding the Dodgers during a patient interview.

Of course, he is apt to remember that the Dodgers paid him $75 million in five years and were rewarded with only 58 wins.

The inept offense played into that -- Brown had the National League’s second-best earned-run average last year but was credited with only 14 victories -- and so did his injuries.

He was on the disabled list six times in the five years and required elbow and back operations.

“I certainly didn’t want the health problems, but some things you can’t control,” Brown said. “I had made it through a lot of years without any serious setbacks, but it’s hard to make it through an entire career. Accidents happen, and that’s what I feel it was -- one bad day on one bad mound.”

He referred to a start in San Diego during the 2000 season when he kept slipping on the hard hill.

“I came out of that game with a sore elbow and rib cage, not realizing how bad it was, and I think that’s where a lot of the ensuing problems started,” Brown said.

He started only 29 games in the 2001 and 2002 seasons before coming back to set the competitive tone last year during 32 starts and 211 innings.

Nothing about his decision to inform the Dodgers in November that he would be willing to be traded to a team closer to his Macon, Ga., home had to do with any dissatisfaction relating to the club, he said, not even an incident last year when Manager Jim Tracy tried to lift Brown for a pinch-hitter. Instead, Brown grabbed a bat, yelled an expletive at Tracy and raced to the plate.

They had a heated argument the next day, but Brown now says he respects Tracy, thinks he has been put in a tough situation (without consistent front-office support and ownership stability) during his three years and wishes for Tracy that he had “calmer waters” in which to manage.

“If he had a problem with me, I didn’t know about it,” Brown said. “And if I had a problem with him, I didn’t know about it.”

There was nothing more to his departure, he added, than a desire to spend more time with his wife and their three sons. His $105-million contract included the use of a private jet, but even that “didn’t make those miles and hours [to and from Los Angeles] any shorter,” he said.

“I mean, it was definitely better than traveling commercial, but it was still 4 1/2 hours, with a three-hour time change. It wasn’t easy on the kids, going back and forth to school, and it wasn’t easy on me, getting ready to pitch.

“The perfect place would have been Atlanta, where I could have lived at home and seen the kids every day, but that didn’t work out. New York turned out to be the best combination of being with a team that has a chance to win and closer to home.

“I would have seriously considered retirement if I had stayed with the Dodgers.”

Most players don’t live in the city in which they are employed and make the best of the situation, but are Brown and agent Scott Boras to be blamed for requesting the charter arrangement in the winter of 1998? Or is News Corp., the former Dodger owner, to be blamed for acquiescing?

The Yankees are now picking up the jet tab at about $600,000 a year and also are responsible for the $30 million owed Brown over the final two years of his contract.

Led to believe that Roger Clemens was retiring, the Yankees traded Jeff Weaver, two minor leaguers and $3 million to the Dodgers, who bragged about the financial flexibility that the deal provided but have yet to do anything with the savings except possibly apply it to Frank McCourt’s considerable debt from purchasing the club.

Money, of course, means nothing to George Steinbrenner. It’s still all about winning. Steinbrenner recently looked into Brown’s 38-year-old eyes and told New York reporters that he liked what he saw.

“I see a real competitor, a warrior,” the Boss said. “It’s the same look I saw in Mike Mussina’s eyes and still see. He’s a real warrior, and I like warriors.”

It takes a warrior, of course, to survive in the Bronx. Brown probably has the mentality and intensity.

“I may have more margin for error,” he said, referring to the Yankee offense, “but I won’t change the way I go about it.”

Neither will he be something he’s not off the field.

The New York media horde will be tested, as will Brown, who recently told the New York Post’s George King, “I won’t take it personally if you don’t talk to me every day.”

Yet, even Brown is not immune to the emotional jolt that comes with walking into the Yankees’ all-star clubhouse.

“When you walk in here, with this many guys who have done as well as they have for as long as they have, it’s a real thrill,” he said.

“There are no guarantees, but we have a real opportunity to do something special.”

Clearly, there is a difference.