It was a Case of Plane Speaking

Kevin Brown kept talking, but what he had to say really wasn’t that important.

My eye kept wandering, looking at his right arm, the World Series ring on his finger, the Dodger cap in his hand.

All that mattered were that arm and that hand, what was on it and what was in it.

The arm, the ring, the cap.

The tool, the credential, the team.

That’s what the Dodgers spent $105 million on, the right to clothe the arm that powered the last two National League champions--and the World Series winner in 1997--in Dodger blue.

General Manager Kevin Malone still isn’t apologizing for his record-breaking, industry-shaking contract.

Nor should he.

Why should he feel sorry for baseball? Nobody around the league wept when the Dodgers finished out of the running, so the Dodgers shouldn’t have to shed any tears if their free-agent signings leave other teams behind.

If he hadn’t done this, would general managers around the league stand up and applaud his fiscal responsibility? I don’t hear daily praise for the Montreal Expos or Pittsburgh Pirates.

Malone kept working Brown’s agent, Scott Boras. Late-night calls. Early-morning calls. They even went jogging together, with the talk inevitably turning to business.

They would keep running, Malone secretly hoping that Boras would give in to physical exhaustion and cave in. So never let it be said that Kevin Malone won’t go the extra mile to get his man.

Still, this won’t go down as one of Malone’s shrewder negotiations. Setting new salary standards hardly qualifies as a coup.

But it’s his best move here to date. He didn’t have much choice on the numbers. Brown was the only guy left out there who could single-handedly elevate a team to championship status. It almost leads you to believe that Boras intentionally kept him out there to drive up his value.

When the possibility of that negotiating tactic was thrown at Boras, he simply smiled.

“When you bake a cake, you like to keep your recipe a secret,” Boras said.

Malone had clearance to buy.

“I had the support of Bob Graziano, Fox and News Corp.” Malone said.

That’s a lot of layers. He even sought out a higher authority. Malone’s a religious man as it is, but this negotiation caused him to say a few extra prayers. When you’re about to commit to a contract that adds an extra digit to baseball’s salary range, you’d better have faith. And pray that Brown’s arm can hold up for the duration of the seven-year contract.

On that front, the Dodgers got encouraging words from Dr. Frank Jobe, who examined Brown’s arm Tuesday. (One procedural question: Wouldn’t you want to get that medical report before you agreed to a $105-million contract?)

Tardy though it may be, Brown’s arm looked “pristine,” Malone reported.

Brown’s cap still looks pristine too. That won’t last. He likes to throw his caps in the dryer with a few wet towels to give them a distinctive pointy shape.

His demeanor was the other thing sure to change by opening day. No reporter has ever come away from dealing with Brown and considered it a positive experience. But on this afternoon, after about an hour of answering the same questions over and over, he sat down with a group of writers and actually smiled. He likened it to a campfire chat.

“You shouldn’t expect this kind of treatment on game day,” Brown advised us. “I might bite on game day. I think [teammates] know that on the day that I’m pitching, I’m serious. I’m a grump. There’s no doubt about it.

“I’m trying to get focused. But I’m not that bad. Except when I’m actually out there pitching.”

When a reporter relayed a story of how Brown took out his frustrations on the team bench during a spring-training game, he had this simple explanation: “I was pitching.

“It was a game,” Brown added. “Sure, spring training’s spring training, but you’ve got to set the tone. You’ve got to start somewhere.”

That’s exactly what the Dodgers need. Someone who cares more about winning than anything else, even history.

Brown was pitching when Sammy Sosa’s home run show came to San Diego in September. The game was delayed while an attendant brought the specially marked balls to the umpire. Brown didn’t appreciate the wait. He stood in front of the mound, steaming, looking as if he couldn’t wait to put one of those special marks on Sosa’s helmet.

The Dodgers didn’t bring in Brown to be a home run cheerleader or a media darling. They brought him here to win postseason games.

Yes, he pitches only once every five days during the season. But in the playoffs he’s on the mound every four games, and he’s a good bet to get half of the four victories to win a series. That’s why the cost was worth it to Malone.

“We’re going to do everything we can to put this organization in the position they should be: right at the top,” Brown said.

He still referred to the Dodger organization as “they.” When you’re on your fourth team since 1994 it can be tough to feel like part of the family.

All that matters now are the colors, and the cap was blue. When he gets it out of the dryer and it’s all broken in, it will look just right.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at [email protected]