Rookie of the Year

Baseball’s major leagues usually wait until the season ends before they single out the best of their nimble young newcomers for special praise. This year a 47-year-old former travel agent who is batting 1.000 without ever leaving the bench, is, hands down, already the Rookie of the Year.

And if Commissioner Peter Ueberroth is getting more credit then he really deserves for cutting down the players and owners for wandering off base, so be it. A lot of no-hitters are snug in the record books only because the pitchers were backed up by acrobats with gloves on, diving for fly balls and spearing line drives.

Besides, Ueberroth must have done something right. He announced the settlement mere hours after the players’ union and the owners said they were hopelessly deadlocked. Later both parties said they had agreed to agree by the time the commissioner walked in on their meeting Wednesday morning. Ueberroth, as they say, handled that opportunity like a Golden Glover. All the press got from him was a modest smile.

The rewards for the Rookie of the Year usually include more chances to make speeches than most of them want, lots of press attention, instant replays of their more memorable moments and a trophy. Ueberroth already gets lots of invitations to make speeches, and somebody else will get the trophy, but the replays and the press attention cannot hurt for a man who is already a designated hitter for any public office that comes to mind.

For 30 million or so other Americans, the rewards were every bit as satisfying. They were no longer reduced to contemplating a late summer of empty weekdays and weekends of glorified scrimmages on football fields. Suddenly umpires were back doing their strikeout dances. Home runs would once more be hit while fans had their backs turned, waiting in line for hot dogs and beer. Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds was back in the batter’s box, going for Ty Cobb’s record. And for two of Southern California’s hometown teams, the Angels and the Dodgers, those division leads for which they worked so hard now mean something more than asterisks for the archives of a season that never quite made it.

Nimble newcomers have been honored for less by the folks on the field and in the bleachers.