Strawberry Agrees to Have Back Surgery : Dodgers: The announcement comes before 3-1 loss to Padres during which catcher Piazza doesn’t call time and Clark steals home.

Darryl Strawberry has finally listened to something other than his fears.

After a reassuring closed-door chat with Manager Tom Lasorda, Strawberry has agreed to undergo back surgery soon enough to be ready for spring training in 1993.

“I’m going to do it . . . and I’m excited about it,” Strawberry said Thursday with a nervous laugh.

His announcement came before another unusual Dodger loss, this time a 3-1 defeat to the San Diego Padres before 17,377 at Dodger Stadium.

The Padres broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning when Jerald Clark stole home after rookie catcher Mike Piazza trotted to the mound without calling time.

Strawberry, who was diagnosed with a herniated disk on May 16, has already agreed to surgery once, on July 30, before changing his mind.

But this time, he says, his decision is final.

On Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, he will undergo a microscopic procedure that will remove a fragmented piece of disk in his lower back.

He was finally persuaded to undergo the operation after a talk with Lasorda on Wednesday, shortly after an examination revealed that nerve problems in the lower back are causing pain in Strawberry’s right leg and weakness in his toes.

“Tommy called me into his office and just wanted me to do what was best,” Strawberry said. “They didn’t put any pressure on me, I would not do this if I didn’t believe in it. But now I see I need to get it done as soon as possible.”

The operation will require a rehabilitation of at least three months, according to back specialist Dr. Robert Watkins, who will perform the surgery.

Judging from the recovery of the Chicago Cubs’ Shawon Dunston, who had a nearly identical surgery May 13, Strawberry will probably need closer to five months. Dunston will not begin playing again until next month in the Arizona Instructional League.

But either way, it appears Strawberry should be ready for late February workouts in Vero Beach.

“A lot of people have had to pay for the kind of season I’ve had,” Strawberry said. “All I want to do is come back at 100%, and I’ve been told I can do that.”

Strawberry met with Dunston last week in Chicago before returning to action in hopes of discovering that his month-long rehabilitation had worked.

At the time, Dunston told Strawberry to have the surgery immediately, stressing that his back would not get any better.

Strawberry did not listen. Despite getting only four hits in 17 at-bats with one run batted in during his testing period, he still wasn’t listening until he walked into Lasorda’s office Wednesday.

Even though he hoped Strawberry would have the surgery like everyone else in the organization, Lasorda wasn’t going to say anything until Watkins told Lasorda that surgery was once again recommended.

“Darryl has been afraid to have the operation, and I understand why,” Lasorda said. “So I just wanted to tell Darryl that my wife (Jo) had it and she is fine. And I told him that Dr. Watkins has done over 700 of these, and he’s the best.”

Strawberry ended the season with a career-low five home runs and 25 RBIs in 43 games.

There was nobody who felt worse after Thursday night’s game than Piazza, who said he thought he had called time before running to the mound. “I know I said it, but I guess I needed to make a bigger deal of it,” Piazza said.

The mistake helped Orel Hershiser get his 13th loss even though he yielded one earned run in eight innings.