A Gridiron Horse Replaces a Toxic Shef’s Blend in Left

The Dodger left fielder barreled into the manager’s office this spring with a demand.

It’s not what you think.

It’s not even close.

“I want to play,” the left fielder threatened. “I don’t care where you bat me. I don’t care how you use me. I just want to play.”

This is the story Jim Tracy tells when describing Brian Jordan.

This is the only story he tells.

“Do I need another one?” he says.

His locker is in the same corner of the room. His position is the same patch on the field.

But the difference will be as clear as a collision with a second baseman or a fence.

Gary Sheffield was about mirrors.

Brian Jordan is about breaking them.

Sheffield played hopscotch.

Jordan played football.

On this opening day, the Dodgers are careful to avoid anointing Jordan as the replacement for the Dodgers’ best, and nuttiest, player.

But I wish they would.

Fans need to know that this is one chemistry class the Dodgers didn’t flunk.

Fans need to understand that while they may have acquired only 70% of Sheffield’s instincts, they added 200% of his insides.

That may not equate to a dramatic opening-day home run.

But it does mean the Dodgers now have a guy who will chase down a fly ball, break up a double play, scold a slacking rookie.

At this point in the Dodger evolution, a fair swap.

“Baseball is not a contact sport,” said hitting coach Jack Clark with one of his wry smiles. “But Brian Jordan doesn’t mind making it a contact sport.”

Certainly, this winter’s deal with the Atlanta Braves was made only because it included left-hander Odalis Perez, a 23-year-old kid who was good enough that he pitched out of their rotation in his last two injury-free seasons.

But Perez will work once every five days.

Jordan works nearly every day, at least 133 games a year for each of the last four seasons.

“Everybody talks about me being injury prone,” he said. “But nobody talks about how I play through those injuries.”

Jordan, 35, works not just on the field, but at his locker, a former Pro Bowl alternate defensive back who outrageously likens narcissistic baseball clubhouses to huddles.

“I look at this like I looked at a football--a team sport,” he said. “We’ve got to rely on each other.”

Jordan works the way another Dodger football player once worked.

Same work ethic, same mentality, same giant legs and small cliches, perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Guy by the name of Gibson.

He’s not going to hit like Sheffield, so forget it.

Brian Jordan will strike out nearly 100 times. He’ll barely draw 50 walks. In six full major league seasons, he has batted .300 once.

But just as important is something he probably won’t do.

If the Dodgers are three games behind division-leading Arizona on Sept. 23 and facing the Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium ... Jordan probably won’t walk out.

Not the way Sheffield did last fall, when his silly first-inning ejection led to the loss not just of one game, but of a season, as the Dodgers were never that close again.

Nobody around here really knows Jordan that well.

But there is a sense that he is not that sort of player.

He is, instead, the sort of player who keeps his mouth shut in big games because he loves the fall, with six homers and 26 RBIs in 31 division and league championship series games.

He was dreadful in his only World Series against the New York Yankees--one for 13--but the Dodgers would be thrilled if he simply led them there.

He is also the sort of player who has already pumped the bad air out of that once-nasty corner of the clubhouse.

Reporters no longer sprint there for the latest dirt. Teammates no longer flee there for fear of being stained by it.

Jordan initially ripped the trade because he had not been warned and because his wife was on the verge of having a baby.

But now he is all huge grins. And you can almost understand.

“My initial reaction to the trade was shock, thinking about my family and everything,” he said. “But I was fine the next day.”

So fine, he rushed into Tracy’s office again at the end of spring training to congratulate him on a fire-and-brimstone speech.

“Tracy made me want to run through a wall, and I wanted to tell him that we need more of those speeches,” Jordan said. “Before coming here, I always heard that this team was separated.”

It was. In some ways, it still is.

But amid the Dodgers’ many dilemmas, there is finally real hope that this most ancient of problems can be fixed.

The man replacing Gary Sheffield has stalked into an old corner of the clubhouse carrying a fresh playbook filled with new schemes.

The I-formation not included.

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