Baseball’s Back; Let’s See, Where Did We Leave It?

Without apology or noticeable encouragement, baseball emerges from wherever we left it. I can’t remember whether Roberto Alomar was spitting on an umpire or Jose Mesa was denying all charges.

Yet pitchers and catchers are reporting to the varied and distant outposts of spring training, a certain sign that Sammy Sosa cannot be far behind.

The old Hot Stove League has been made extinct by the NBA, and the modern ballplayer is better friends with Rand McNally and the Seven Santini Brothers than with the folks who pay to cheer him all summer.

Nevertheless, it is not difficult to catch up. I am here to guide.

Let’s start with Albert Belle. Belle is the grandest free-agent prize of the winter, having eschewed Cleveland for Chicago, plus $11 million and fans and press eager to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This is the Rickey Henderson method of career recharging, and it usually works for a good six months. In Belle’s case, it did not last until the first batting-practice pitch of spring.

Belle admitted losing $40,000 gambling, though whether this is net or gross, it is only pennies, more exactly only three pennies out of every $1,000 the White Sox pay him.

Baseball only cares whether the wagers were on baseball. This only Belle and his bookmaker know, and as long as Belle pays up, the bookmaker won’t tell.

Almost every gambling scandal in sports, from Michael Jordan to Pete Rose to Art Schlichter, became public because the loser didn’t pony up. It would appear that Belle is, at least, an honorable sucker.

The messiest aspect of the Belle situation is that interminable baseball commissioner Bud Selig may have to make a judgment on Belle, who happens to be the most expensive property of his chief rival and primary ventriloquist, Jerry Reinsdorf.

Even if Belle is only put on probation, that creates a caution that might make a difference in a pennant race.

In similar manner, Selig may have to rule on whether a Japanese pitcher named Hideki Irabu plays for the Padres or the Yankees. If Irabu is, as advertised, better than the Dodgers’ Hideo Nomo, why would Selig, who also is an American League owner, not choose to keep Irabu in the National League? These sorts of conflicts have accelerated the search for a full-time commissioner to roughly the speed of reforesting.

The two leagues are cooperating this season, cross-pollinating their versions of baseball with interleague play. This means the Cubs get to use a designated hitter when they play the White Sox.

Among the hitters the Cubs have, it must be reassuring to be able to refer to at least one of them as designated.

But this is Chicago’s year. Oh, sure. The Cubs are better and the Sox are installing calculators to keep up with all the runs they are going to score.

This is also Toronto’s year. It got Roger Clemens from the Red Sox. And this is Oakland’s year. It got Jose Canseco from the Red Sox. And this is the Red Sox’s year because they still have Mo Vaughn.

And the Florida Marlins’ year. They have everybody else.

After four years of self-cannibalization, baseball is entitled to no more than our amazement that it still lives, more or less.

But whereas spring used to be a rite of renewal, it has become merely a right of assembly, and who is collected where no longer matters enough to pay strict attention.

Cal Ripken is still in the league and with the same team, and Paul Molitor and Eddie Murray are somewhere to be found, I suppose.

Pick Ken Caminiti out of a lineup and become an honorary in-law.

The truth is that Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas and Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux and Gary Sheffield and all the easy and vaguely familiar names of the game do not matter as much in reality as they do in invention.

Fantasy League baseball is more intense than major-league baseball.

Baseball is the most sensuous sport, the whiff of oil on new leather, the sound of horsehide on hickory, the feel of fresh dew on cut grass, the taste of crust, the aroma of arrogance.

I can smell it already.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Bernie Lincicome Chicago Tribune