LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Dodgers ace Kevin Brown has been admitted to a hospital because of a back injury he sustained while playing with his son last week.

	Brown

Brown, who did not accompany the team on its nine-game road trip, checked in to Centinela Hospital late Monday, team officials said.

Dodgers manager Jim Tracy said Brown was injured last Wednesday after lunging to stop his son from falling off a bed. He said Brown was feeling better by Tuesday afternoon, but would remain in the hospital for at least another day.

"Kevin is in the hospital and will remain there for the next day or so to give doctors the chance to observe him,'' Tracy said before the Dodgers game Tuesday night in Colorado. "On a scale of 1 to 10, his discomfort level that began at 9 or 9 1/2 has subsided to a 2.''

Tracy said doctors are calling the injury a protrusion and that he is hooked up to an IV to receive medication.

	Brown and Out
	Kevin Brown is now on the disabled list for the fifth time since the beginning of last season and the sixth time since he signed a seven-year, $105 million contract with the Dodgers in December of 1998. That translates into lots of lost money for Los Angeles. Brown's salary breaks down to $41,000 per day based on his contract, and multiplied by the 122 days he has been on the DL that adds up to around $5 million the Dodgers have paid Brown to nurse his various injuries.
		DL days	Cost*
	'02 Right elbow sprain	8	$328K
	'02 Elbow scar tissue	16	$656K
	'01 Severe right elbow sprain	40	$1.6M
	'01 Cercival radiculopothy	24	$984K
	'01 Right Achilles tendon	17	$697K
	'00 Fractured pinky	17	$697K
	* $41K per day based on overall contract

"The doctors as of now are just letting this thing quiet down, but they certainly didn't give me any indication that it required anything like surgery,'' said Brown's agent, Scott Boras. "They gave him an injection of an anti-inflammatory medication to decrease the swelling.''

Brown has been on the disabled list since May 27 with a sprained right elbow. He stayed home Sunday after experiencing stiffness in his lower back.

Brown was scheduled to return from the disabled list June 11, but Tracy said he would not be allowed to throw until fluid and inflammation in the back of his surgically repaired elbow is gone.

"He was already on the disabled list, so it wasn't a performance-related issue that caused this thing to arise,'' Boras said. "I had this happen with Greg Maddux in spring training, where he tweaked his back. It took about 10 days to get the inflammation out of the nerve.''

Brown, 38, has been on the DL twice since undergoing surgery last Sept. 27 to repair a torn flexor muscle in his elbow.

He has been on the disabled list five times since the beginning of last season, and six times since signing a $105 million, seven-year contract in December 1998. Brown is 2-3 with a 4.06 ERA in nine starts this season.