National League : Guerrero: Playing Third Affecting Hitting

Don’t size him for a Gold Glove yet, but a month into the season, Pedro Guerrero has removed any doubt that he can be a capable third baseman.

There was never any question that Guerrero has the athletic ability. Until this season, however, he has not shown the willingness. That changed, Guerrero says, last winter when Manager Tom Lasorda visited him in the Dominican Republic.

“ ‘Sorda called me and said, ‘I’m coming. Pick me up at the airport,’ ” Guerrero said. “Then he started taking me out to lunch and dinner, and paying for my lunch and dinner. That’s when I knew something was going on.

“He said, ‘I want you to be my third baseman. We need you to play third base.’ I had no choice, so I said, ‘All right, I’ll play.’ ”

Guerrero said that infield coach Monty Basgall convinced him this spring that he can play the position well. “I don’t want to make (Monty) look bad, I don’t want to make myself look bad, and I don’t want the team to look bad,” Guerrero said.

Guerrero, who last week had some problems playing on AstroTurf but charges bunts as well as any third baseman in the league, still contends that his shift from the outfield has affected his hitting.

“I probably could hit more in the outfield,” he said. “When I’m not hitting and I’m playing in the outfield, I feel like I have time to think about what I did wrong. At third base, you don’t have time to think.

“But I know I’m going to hit. Sooner or later, I’m going to hit.”

St. Louis blues: It’s only one month into the season, and St. Louis Cardinal reliever Neil Allen already has given up a game-winning home run to Gary Carter on opening day, walked home the winning run the next day, and then balked home another game-winner last Wednesday against the Dodgers.

Allen has never been the fans’ favorite, since many of them have not forgotten that the Cardinals traded popular first baseman Keith Hernandez to get him from the New York Mets. Now he has the additional burden of trying to replace the irreplaceable Bruce Sutter as the team’s No. 1 reliever.

“(The pressure) has been building up,” Allen said in an empty Cardinal clubhouse the day he balked home Ken Landreaux of the Dodgers. “It would be awful nice to pitch in a totally relaxed atmosphere where I could be just old Neil Allen again.”

Allen, a good-natured Kansan who is quick to smile, said he went to see a sports motivator, Irwin Greif, in New York three times a week for about a month last winter in an effort to regain his confidence.

He said the sessions helped, but as one Dodger player said: “I don’t think he has the makeup to be a short reliever.”

Sad Hack: Reliever Greg Minton of the San Francisco Giants on the problems experienced by Jeff (Hack Man) Leonard, the team captain who started the weekend batting .159:

“He should go back and be what he was last year, a bad dude. He plays best when he has a chip on his shoulder. He was a man you were a little uncomfortable to be around. That’s the Hack Man.

“One of these days he’s going to say, ‘To hell with it. I just don’t give a damn about all that.’ Then it’s going to be like it was in the old days: Hack vs. the world.”

Unfriendly confines: Outfielder Chili Davis of the Giants, on the bleacherites in Chicago’s Wrigley Field: “They’re alcoholics.”

San Diego Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn, on the same subject just before San Diego’s first visit back to Chicago since beating the Cubs in last fall’s playoffs: “I’m sure I’ll get verbal abuse for three days. I hope they don’t throw anything. I mean, they get radical out there, but you just hope they don’t get drunk. Chicago’s wild, I’ll tell you. It’s great to go out there because someone will say one of those lines (a sample: Fee fi fo fum, Tony Gwynn’s a bleeping bum!) and I’ll laugh for 5 or 10 minutes.”

Hurts so bad: Bob Horner, the Atlanta Braves’ oft-injured third baseman, after pulling a hamstring: “Why don’t you just put me in a wheelchair and send me to the old folks’ home. This game is getting to me.”

On second thought: Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher John Candelaria, who last season called team Vice President Harding (Pete) Peterson a “bozo” and an “idiot” now says: “He has a tough job and he’s got to answer to one man (Pirate President Dan Galbreath). I’m sure Pete was concerned about the club after what happened last year. Now there’s a lot of pressure on him.”

Siren song: Bob Prince, fired as the Pirates’ announcer after the 1975 season, has been brought back in an effort to bolster the club’s sorry attendance. Prince, 68, known for his “green weenies” and lucky babushkas, once dived into a St. Louis hotel swimming pool from a third-floor window.

Jim Woods, Prince’s broadcast partner from 1958-69, is skeptical that Prince is going to bring back the fans. “The Pirates lost Pittsburgh a long time ago,” Woods said. “It’s a Steelers’ town now.”

Notes Former Cub pitcher Fergie Jenkins is running for a seat in the Canadian parliament on the Liberal party ticket. . . . For the 12th straight season, the Giants had a losing record for the month of April. One reason: They had only one more hit (124) than strikeout (123). . . . An exhibition game between the Chicago White Sox and Cubs, which drew more than 42,000 fans to Comiskey Park last Monday, earned more than $100,000 for each team. In the past, the game has been played for charity. Asked why it wasn’t this season, White Sox co-owner Eddie Einhorn said: “Charity begins at home.” . . . The thinnest bullpen in the league belongs to Philadelphia, with Kent Tekulve, 6-4, 185, and Pat Zachry, 6-5, 175. . . . Scheduled to appear in the Pirates’ autograph booth today: George Hendrick. Reporters aren’t invited.