In his sixth year as field commander of the Long Beach State baseball team, billed on Broadway, or at least on Bellflower Boulevard, as the Dirtbags, Mike Weathers has been savoring a season that already has exceeded expectations. Coming off one in which his revered troops failed to qualify for the playoffs, Weathers couldn't be happier that his young club wound up the regular season with a 38-17 record that earned it the right to host the NCAA Regionals this weekend at Blair Field. "What were my expectations going into this season?

" says Weathers, repeating a reporter's question. "I had none. I had no idea how we would do, since we were such a young team with so many newcomers.

"But the players have been up all year, fighting and scrapping and always being in games. They reminded me a lot of those Dirtbag teams of the mid 1990s that didn't have a lot of star players, but always were very competitive." It is a consensus among those pundits who loyally follow the Dirtbags - and it's a sizable contingent - that Mr.

Weathers has done his most stellar work this season. But no way you will get him to say it. "I think the 2002 season when I took over for Dave Snow was also very

"I will say our pitching coach, Troy Buckley, has done his best job of coaching. We've had some important guys injured, but we just kept putting out pitchers who were able to do the job. You have to give Troy a lot of credit for that.

" You also have to give Mike Weathers a lot of credit for sustaining the successful Dirtbag program that was built by Dave Snow, for whom Weathers served as an assistant for nine seasons. "Mike just does a terrific job," says Dr. F.

King Alexander, the Long Beach State president. "And what I also like about him is that he has a terrific sense of humor." "No doubt we're fortunate to have one of the top coaches in college baseball," says Vic Cegles, the 49ers' athletic director.

These are giddy times for Mike Weathers, whose team opens the playoffs this evening against Illinois-Chicago. Chosen head coach of the U.S.

National team, an honor reflecting the esteem with which he's held in his sport, Weathers will be busy this summer directing this all-star contingent of college players in the Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the World Games in Amsterdam, Holland. "I'll be involved with the team for 57 days," says Weathers, who will begin such duty on June 18. "I'm really looking forward to it.

" This is Weathers' third tour with the U.S. National team, having played on it in 1970 and been an assistant in 2003.

Mike Weathers is 57, but has shown no signs of slowing down. And neither have the Dirtbags, who, along with Brian Gimmillaro's 49er women's volleyball team, are this city's most popular athletic entity. .

.. I don't know about you, but I've been applying sun screen on my face to protect it from possible severe burns from the blast of sweltering air emanating from the vocal cords of Kobe Bryant these days.

...

Didn't Kobe Bryant realize when Shaquille O'Neal departed that his Laker team would disintegrate into mediocrity? ..

. I've heard that Bryant's agent, Rob Pelinka, has been orchestrating this bizarre scenario in which Bryant appears to have become mentally unhinged. Can Pelinka be that stupid?

...

The chances of Jerry Buss trading Kobe Bryant are roughly tantamount of my paying the $20 million price tag for a ride on a space shuttle. Of course, I could afford it, but why would I waste hard-earned money on such a folly? .

.. Ol' Doc Buss realizes the box office difficulties his team suddenly would endure if he got rid of a marquee attraction like Kobe Bryant.

...

I never thought I'd live to hear anyone say, "I regret not signing with the Los Angeles Clippers." At least I never thought I'd hear Kobe Bryant say it. .

.. If Jeanie Buss is upset with brother Jimmy Buss, and if Jimmy Buss isn't high on Jeanie's live-in pal, Phil Jackson, and if Phil Jackson doesn't have respect for Mitch Kupchak, and if Jerry Buss likes Mitch Kupchak, then where do Kurt Linda Rambis, friends of Phil Jeanie, fit in all this titillating internal Laker turmoil?

...

Isn't it a strange coincidence that those two party animals, Jerry Buss, 74, and Lindsay Lohan, 20, would get busted the same week for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol? ..

. Wonder if wedding bells are on the horizon for Ol' Doc Buss, who I hear is smitten by the 23-year-old woman who was with him the other morning when the Carlsbad cops marched him off to jail. Jerry used to date women half his age, now it's a third.

Ah, how money cuts through cultural boundaries. ..

. I think Jerry West would strongly consider returning to the Lakers irrespective of what he told me the other day - he told me there was no chance of it happening - if Phil Jackson departed the scene. No chance of that happening, since the Laker coach is getting paid a ridiculous $10 million a year for his on-the-job-retirement gig.

...

Why don't they just crown the San Antonio Spurs now, and put an end to these ridiculous NBA playoffs that were decided the moment the league's commissioner, King David Stern, suspended Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, thereby assuring Tim Duncan of his fourth world championship. ..

. I want to apologize to those 10 or so Duck fans who live in the area who savagely have censured me for committing an egregious error that I'm sure will alter the landscape of journalism by referring to the Ducks center Andy McDonald as Mike McDonald. Frankly, I'm surprised I didn't call him Joe, or Bill.

...

I can't believe how many people have come up in supermarket parking lots in recent weeks cadging me for gas money. ..

. It's a scary thought when I figured out the other day with simple math that I've slept the equivalent of 18 years in my life. .

.. Will all those journalists who keep telling Kobe Bryant to shut up please shut up themselves.

I defend any person's constitutional right to stick his foot squarely in his mouth, especially if it provides a column for me. ..

. Long Beach's zaniest character, Dickie (Too Fast Too Furious/Count Dracula) Babian, has offered his limousine and its mighty driver, 6-foot-10 Andre The Giant lookalike Paul Gubany, gratis to Jerry Buss with one little proviso - two Laker season tickets. "I can save Jerry thousands of dollars in car and legal expenses," says the 73-year-old, 5-3, 250-pound Babian, who has E-mailed his proposition to the Laker offices and who, incidentally, is on a diet that always starts tomorrow instead of today.

...

Never realized the Press-Telegram's stellar circulation director, Dennis (The Menace) Schafer, was a former minor league pitcher who actually played for a time with the old Fresno Giants when they were in the California League. ..

. Schafer, along with the Press-Telegram's executive editor Rich (Call Me Mr. Cub) Archbold and Archbold's loyal secretary, Bernice Romo, had a brief sitdown with, of all people, Bad Stu Ledsam, and me last Friday at the Daily Grill.

This impromptu conference wasn't exactly like Churchill, Stalin and FDR at Yalta, but there were some intriguing insights revealed by Archbold on his fumbling, bumbling, tumbling Cubbies. ..

. I always find waking up far more difficult than falling asleep, perhaps because the only time I reach a truly tranquil state in life is when I'm not awake. .

.. Why doesn't the once decisive New York Yankee owner, George Steinbrenner, just fire Joe Torre to put both Torre and his team out of their misery?

Torre apologists can say what they want, but he's done a lousy job of managing this season, as his phlegmatic bunch of mercenaries has been cat-walking through it. ..

. Proud papa Tom Power E-mails that his daughter, Jaclyn Power, is graduating this week from Long Beach State with a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies. The 2002 Los Alamitos High graduate, who ran a 5:21 mile and 18:09 three-mile there as a freshman, was featured by me in a Father's Day column a few years back relating her incredible recovery from a near-fatal automobile accident.

...

Poly High cross country coach Mike Fillipow will be the director Saturday of a track meet at Heartwell Park that will feature 400 participants from the Long Beach middle schools. He invited me to be the starter, but I will be in Tucson visiting my 96-year-old mother who still has more energy than I do. .

.. Benjamin Bravo of Long Beach believes the reason for Nomar Garciaparra's notable lack of power this season - going into the Dodgers' game Thursday night against Washington, he had one home run in 194 plate appearances - is that he's become worn out caring for the twins his wife, Mia Hamm, recently gave birth to.

"Nomar is a tired man and is probably suffering from sleep deprivation," says Bravo. Hummm. Never thought of that one for Garciaparra's home run drought.

...

Kobe Bryant has become as selfishly self-absorbed off the court as he has so often been on it. ..

. Chuck Liddell should be renamed Chuck Liedown. .

.. Wonder what Bob (Bananas) Foster's favorite dessert is?

...

I find the healthiest cheap dinner for me to be Carl's charcoal chicken salad for $4.86. .

.. Why do those in government believe they know what's best for me when they seldom know what's best for themselves?

...

Understandably, Boston Red Sox fans are nervous these hours because everything has been going too smoothly this season. ..

. A lot of major league baseball writers don't cover a beat more thoroughly than our Bob Keisser does the Dirtbags. .

.. One of the few virtues of growing old is that young toughs no longer flash daggers at me.

...

My ears are ringing from listening to Kobe Bryant.