FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Replete in Dodger blue, Davey Johnson emerged from the visitors' clubhouse at Fort Lauderdale Stadium yesterday morning, walked past the dugout and began searching for familiar faces. They were everywhere.

Johnson went straight for the cage where the Orioles were taking batting practice. He threw an arm around third-base coach Sam Perlozzo, shook hands with manager Ray Miller and hugged bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks. Players, beginning with catcher Lenny Webster, came by one at a time.

The Vero Beach edition of the Orioles had arrived. And an otherwise routine exhibition game was kicked up a few notches.

There was general manager Kevin Malone, in a blue golf shirt with Los Angeles emblem, blue sneakers, blue-and-white socks and blue-tinted sunglasses -- attire he chose especially for this visit with the team that had employed him as assistant GM. And there were coaches Rick Down, Rick Dempsey and John "T-Bone" Shelby, each with Orioles roots. Only pitchers Kevin Brown and Alan Mills were missing.

Johnson, the Orioles' manager in 1996 and '97 before resigning amid a feud with owner Peter Angelos, didn't try to pass this off as any other game.

"It's a long trip down here," he said, grinning, "but I brought a pretty representative squad."

He should have lost Eric Gagne on the way. The young right-hander allowed seven runs in one-third of an inning in the Orioles' 10-0 victory.

Johnson severed his ties with the Orioles in November 1997, the same day he was named Manager of the Year, and a month after his club had been eliminated from the American League Championship Series for a second consecutive season. To pass the time, he played golf in Scotland and Ireland, watched games on his satellite dish, visited family and scouted for a Japanese team.

"Nobody second-guessed me or bad-mouthed me," he said.

Though it had been his dream to manage the Orioles, the organization that taught him the game, Johnson said he doesn't wish he had taken a different approach to the events that led to his departure.

"I don't do that," he said. "I probably think about things too long before I make a decision anyway. If you do that, you can't ever look back and wish you had done something differently because you look at all the angles before you do something. Whether it's in the game of baseball or your life, you do what you think is best for all concerned.

"For some strange reason, and through no fault of my own, things happen for the best for me. I feel blessed more than anything. Somebody's looking out for me. It's obviously not me. If I was doing it, I'd have it all screwed up. But I've been more fortunate than most."

Given plenty of room to gloat over the Orioles' tumble into fourth place last season, Johnson took the high road.

"I have a lot of friends there," he said. "I certainly didn't get any satisfaction in seeing them have a rough year last year. That didn't do me any good. You get attached to players, so I hated to see them struggle."

When Ray Miller was named Orioles manager, he called Johnson to make sure there were no hard feelings and that nothing the former pitching coach said upon taking the job had offended him. They also spoke in person, at a fishing tournament in Florida that Miller won, after Johnson was hired by the Dodgers in late October last year.

"I think he's arguably the best in the game if you want to go by winning percentage," Miller said. "He deserves all the accolades. I have a lot of respect for him. I called him the day he resigned and tried to talk him out of it."

Johnson said Miller's call and concerns weren't necessary. "The '97 season was very special for both of us. And I wish him continued success. No hard feelings at all. It was more like, 'Are you sure this is what you want? Be careful what you wish for, Ray.' But I do wish him well."

The sentiment, Johnson said, even extends to Angelos.

"I only have good feelings. He brought me back there, and I'll be forever indebted for that," Johnson said.

"I kind of knew what he expected and we just fell short, that's all. If that 12-year-old [Jeffrey Maier] hadn't caught that ball and if [Armando] Benitez hadn't hung a slider, it might be different. I might still be over there. I know his expectations and my expectations are similar. He's not going to settle for second-best."

Earlier in camp, Miller talked about the problems that arose last season from various members of the organization not being on the "same page." Yesterday, with Malone soon to be on the premises, Miller turned the page.

"I have all the respect in the world for Kevin," Miller said. "He's a bright, aggressive young man. He wanted the job full time and he didn't get it here. Now he's in a great organization. He was between a rock and a hard place because it was like, 'Is [Pat] Gillick coming back?' And, 'Is Kevin going to get the job?' And people were doing roles and having to cover things that other people weren't doing."

Malone drew a crowd the moment his foot hit the first blade of grass. Players and coaches couldn't pass by without engaging in conversation. If anyone failed to notice him, whether it was Mike Mussina or Single-A catcher Jayson Werth, Malone stopped in mid-sentence to yell their name and extend his hand.

"It's a little strange," he said. "For three years I walked on this field being part of the black and orange. It feels a little different. Different colors, different team, different organization."

But the same Malone. He didn't want to rehash Miller's comments, which hinted at the frustration that came from not getting players he needed last season because the front office was slow to pull the trigger. But Malone still had fun with it.

Did he give Miller his full support?

"I thought I did, but that's all right," he said, a smiling creasing his lips. "I can't comment. There's no value in that. But the Dodgers must not have thought I was too bad."

Pub Date: 3/09/99