There’s Reason To Cheer Baseball Shows Some Hope, Even If It’s Reversible

Now, at midseason, baseball may be getting just a tiny bit luckier. Nothing monumental, mind you. Nothing that can’t be reversed, to be sure. Still, the sport has some spark again. For those of us who stubbornly insist on making a distinction - in our own minds, at least - between baseball-as-business and baseball-as-sport, the sky is no longer totally dark.

Fortunately, this has been a season when the hard-liners have been humbled and the meek - or meritorious - have inherited first place for the time being.

Jerry Reinsdorf’s White Sox - the team every right-thinking American roots against - have already fired their manager. Now, they may be left for dead at 28-38 - 9-1/2 games out of the American League wild-card spot. Who did the deed? Why, just as the White Sox seemed to have come to life, the Orioles swept a four-game series in Chicago for the first time since 1969! Doves 4, Hawks 0. Think Orioles owner Peter Angelos didn’t love that?

The teams in first place in the six division races at the All-Star break are a collection of Franchises It’s Inhumane To Root Against.

The Cleveland Indians haven’t been to the postseason since 1954. If they make it, Tribe fans will cheer till they Shake The Jake by The Lake.

The Boston Red Sox haven’t won the World Series since 1918. Their new knuckleballing ace - minor-league castoff Tim Wakefield - tosses the ball so softly he looks as if he’s playing catch with a bare-handed grandfather. Will the man with the 50 mph pitch take the Bosox farther than Roger Clemens?

The California Angels have never given Gene Autry a World Series visit. Now, his team’s fate seems to hinge on Lee Smith. Foes are starting to rattle the immobile, old 250-pound reliever by bunting, or threatening to bunt, constantly. Is that legal? Can’t somebody get a rule changed around here?

The Colorado Rockies are a third-year expansion team. As longshots, they make the Miracle Mets look like pikers. If the Rockies play the Indians in the World Series in the mile-high Coors Field launching pad, that 15-14 game in the ‘93 Series may suddenly look like a pitchers’ duel.

Cincinnati is the prototypical “small market” team that isn’t supposed to be able to compete in this era. Fittingly, the Reds are tied for the second-best record in the game. Their manager? Davey Johnson, whom the Orioles passed over in favor of Phil Regan.

And, finally, the Atlanta Braves, losers of two of the best World Series ever played. If any team deserves a title to complete a long, hard-earned project, it’s the Braves.

Among players, this seems to be the season for the nice guys to get the ink. As you may have noted, Cal Ripken still has not been (i-n-j-u-r-e-d). Many now seem to take it for granted he’ll break Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 consecutive games. This week’s All-Star fest has been used as a sort of premature celebration to congratulate Ripken on a job not finished.

The man’s almost 35 years old. His hair’s white. What’s left of it. Why isn’t anybody worried? This isn’t a foregone conclusion like those interminable countdowns to 3,000 hits or 500 homers.

Ripken only has 54 games to go, you say. Only? More than 95 percent of the players in baseball have already missed a game with injury this season. Plenty of decent players don’t have a 54-game streak in their career. Before this season, Jeff Conine had the second-longest consecutive-game streak that was still intact: only 307 games. That is, until he got hurt.

Buy rabbits feet. Break wishbones.

The prince of nice guys, however, may not be Ripken but a fellow who’s so modest he excused himself from the All-Star Game so that he wouldn’t bore everybody and distract attention from rookie Hideo Nomo. Greg Maddux, with a minor groin pull, said he was glad to stay home in Atlanta and give the N.L. starting assignment to Nomo. Why, pointed out Maddux, Nomo has that wild windup, all those strikeouts, plus the first-Japanese-superstar angle. “He’s more exciting than I am,” said Maddux, sincerely, not sarcastically.

Nomo is a phenom because he has a 1.99 ERA in 13 starts.

Maddux has a 2.02 ERA over his past 110 starts, covering all of the 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995 seasons. The last pitcher to be that effective over so long a span was Sandy Koufax in his four best years, 1963 through 1966.

Baseball also will enter its second half with two important pieces of semi-good news on its plate. The owners have agreed - after more than 100 days of dawdling - to talk to the players again. For now, they claim they will stay away from the bargaining table themselves and negotiate through their lawyers.

“Put the professionals at the table,” said John Harrington, CEO of the Red Sox.

What an amazing idea!

Perhaps the best thing about last night’s All-Star Game is that it was the last contest - hopefully, forever - played under baseball’s current I-Can-Play-Slower-Than-You convention.

Starting July 28, time between half innings will be cut by 25 seconds. No. that’s not as much as the 45 seconds originally promised. Somebody fibbed. But, remember, this is baseball. We’re lucky the game’s brain trust didn’t end up finding a way to add 25 seconds between half innings. Anyway, that’s 7 minutes trimmed. Only 20 more to go.

Also, hitters will be permitted to leave the batter’s box between pitches, but must remain within 3 feet of the box. Of course, it now looks as though everybody’s getting cold feet at the last second. In June, the owners had said hitters would not be permitted to leave the box between pitches.

Players insist they have an inalienable right to dawdle. After all, they are the game, right? Sorry, sorry. Suddenly, I just got this splitting headache. On second thought, maybe everything isn’t absolutely perfect in baseball quite yet.