Silence Speaks Volumes

Pieces and quiet.

Such is the eerie scene in a muted Dodger clubhouse filled with strangers trying to find each other and themselves.

Gone are the joyous sounds of late last season.

Gone is the buzz that has accompanied this team, like background freeway noise.

Pulsing beneath this aura of calm is a feeling of uncertainty, perhaps even worry that something is wrong.

Where is the chatter? What is the team’s personality? Who are the leaders?

All of which leads to a question about an off-season conducted like a fantasy draft, a roster built like a spreadsheet. It’s the only question that matters:

Can you break up a championship culture and get away with it?

Meet new second baseman Jeff Kent, who laughed.

“So it’s too quiet, huh?” he said with a smile. “What, no Barry Bonds fights? No carwash incidents? What, you need something to write about?”

But seriously.

“I know, there’s not a lot of chatter, not a lot of butterflying around,” he said. “You’re right, it’s quiet, but it’s not a good thing or a bad thing.”

Not a bad thing?

“Because chemistry is so, so overrated,” Kent said.

But what about last year’s Boston Red Sox “idiot” team? What about the rally-monkey Angels?

“It all starts on the field,” Kent said. “When is the last time you’ve heard of a team with great chemistry that stinks? It’s all about the field.”

But what about all that time spent in the clubhouse?

“Hey, Barry Bonds and I fought more in one year than anybody could imagine, and we went to the World Series,” Kent said. “Now that was chemistry.”

Explain.

“If guys hate each other, sometimes I think that’s better,” Kent said. “If they are fighting with each other, competitive with each other, they take it out on the field, on the other team, and that’s great.”

Take it out on the other team?

“Let’s say I go up there, bases loaded, and I don’t get a hit,” Kent said. “The guy batting behind me, if we’re fighting in the clubhouse, he wants to show me up. He wants to say, ‘That at-bat proves Kent stinks. Let me show everyone how I can do it.’ ”

And then?

“Then he does it, gets a big hit, wins the game, just to spite me,” Kent said. “Now that’s chemistry.”

That might work for a hitter.

“Works for pitchers too,” Kent said. “Let’s say a pitcher is mad at somebody in this room. He goes out to the mound. He looks at the batter’s box. He picks up the ball and looks at the batter and is like, ‘I wanna kill you with this ball.’ ”

Kent shook his head, and he wasn’t laughing.

“That’s the guy I want on my team,” he said. “I want that edge. Now that’s chemistry.”

Kent said he’d learned an important lesson after his San Francisco Giants had blown a lead and were beaten by the Angels in a memorable Game 6 of the 2002 World Series.

The Giants were so devastated, they could not recover for Game 7, which they also lost.

“I remember walking into the clubhouse after Game 6, and people were crying, and I should have done something,” he said. “I should have thrown some helmets, said some things, done something to remind us that we were still just one game from winning the thing.

“If we’re ever in a similar situation, and I see that my teammates are down, I’m doing something,” he added. “I’m not going to let that happen again.”

So Jose Lima’s happy face and Steve Finley’s quiet strength are going to be replaced by ...

“I want a guy not afraid to rock the boat,” Kent said.

Starting his Hall of Fame push, this veteran with more homers, 278, than any other second baseman in history, seems willing to be that guy.

He has sat quietly in his far corner locker, but when a question is asked, he answers, whether it be about steroids or heavy lifting.

“My bottom line is, I want to win,” said Kent, who has been in postseason play five times, more than the rest of the Dodger starting infield combined. “And when that happens, I want to be one of the guys in the truck pulling the trailer, not the guy sitting in the trailer. I want to be one of three guys sitting in the cab of that truck.”

The Dodgers’ concern, of course, is that three guys will end up fighting over the steering wheel.

With groundball pitchers throwing in front of an average defensive infield, there is potential for conflict there.

Milton Bradley has been a clubhouse gem so far, and insists that his positive attitude will continue, but disruptions are always a concern there.

There are so many new faces and new attitudes, it would not surprise anyone to see Kent’s theories tested.

General Manager Paul DePodesta likes to quote his assistant, Roy Smith.

“Roy says that our chemistry is always just a three-game winning streak away,” he said.

Amid the quietest, most detached spring in years, neither seems guaranteed.