Baseball Notes : Like Him or Not, Carter Is Cooperstown Bound

Darryl Strawberry isn’t the first player to knock Gary Carter. Dozens of his former Montreal teammates did, and he may be the least favorite of all the New York Mets.

After all, how can you like a guy who’s a shameless self-promoter, is ultra-sensitive to criticism and is one of the biggest reasons teams take particular pleasure in beating the Mets? Yet there is also this: He is going to the Hall of Fame.

How many other active players already have their tickets punched? Probably seven: Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Eddie Murray, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Dale Murphy, Don Sutton--and Carter. He has been that great.

The evidence:

--His 1,657 games as a catcher are second in the National League only to Al Lopez, who caught 1,861.

--Carter has caught 100 or more games for 11 straight years, two short of the record of 13 shared by Bill Dickey and Johnny Bench.

--Using a rough formula provided by Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, about 974 of Carter’s 1,082 RBIs have come as a catcher. That probably places him sixth on the all-time list, behind Dickey (1,209), Yogi Berra (1,144), Gabby Hartnett (1,179), Fisk (1,048) and Johnny Bench (1,259.

While other teams have gotten by with Rick Dempsey and Rick Cerone, the team that had Gary Carter got 20 or more home runs nine times and 80 or more RBIs seven times, incredible numbers for a guy who has gone behind the plate 140 times a season.

In that interview with Esquire magazine, Strawberry took a couple of shots at his manager, Davey Johnson, who has won 388 games in his first four seasons. Only one (Lopez with 389) won more games in an equivalent time.

Toronto Blue Jays’ General Manager Pat Gillick is closely monitoring the physical condition and work habits of disgruntled George Bell, but beyond that, it isn’t clear what the Blue Jays’ alternatives are. The Blue Jays seem determined this time to switch Bell from the outfield to designated hitter, and Bell seems determined to make life miserable for them.

After a recent game, he broke his silence to the media, again blasting Manager Jimy Williams.

“Why is he messing around with the lineup?” Bell asked. “We’ll see in the long run who’s going to be a DH all season. It shouldn’t be me. I’m too young. If they want a DH, go get Cliff Johnson.”

The Atlanta Braves are very worried about left-hander Zane Smith’s sore left elbow. They hope he can pitch through the pain this season, then have the bone spur removed in October. If he can’t, their season might be a disaster before it begins. He had 15 victories last season. The other 23 pitchers on their roster totaled 29.

How young are the Milwaukee Brewers? Robin Yount, Jim Gantner, Paul Molitor and Mark Clear have more major league service (43 years, 53 days) than the other 34 players on their roster combined (43 years, 25 days). Twenty of their 38 players have two years or less big league service. The Brewers’ No. 1 concern is keeping Molitor healthy for an entire season.

One player the Brewers won’t have on opening day is Steve Stanicek, the older brother of the Baltimore Orioles’ rookie leadoff hitter. Their winter goal had been for both to make opening day in Baltimore on April 4, but Steve injured his right knee last winter and has had arthroscopic surgery.

If you’ve read much about the new balk rule, you know it’s not new. Pitchers were always required to come to a full stop when pitching from a stretch, but in the last decade or so umpires became lenient.

Now, they’re promising to enforce the rule again, but can they? Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson said: “There’s no way a guy’s going to be called for a balk in the ninth inning with the game on the line. No league is going to allow its top pitchers to be caught in that bind. They are selling tickets. It wouldn’t be feasible.”

The best bet is that umpires again will be strict in April and May, but that by August they again will call only the obvious ones. An even bigger rules change could be the promise that the high strike will be brought back into the game, but players are cynical about that one, too.

Anderson’s spring enthusiasm knows no boundaries. New Detroit center fielder Gary Pettis had 17 RBIs and 124 strikeouts in 394 at-bats for California last season, but Anderson said, “He’s improved our team as much as any player we’ve ever acquired through trade. He’s better than I thought. We struck a gold mine.” And Chester Lemon is taking his switch from center to right quietly . . . The San Francisco Giants’ roster is so set that Manager Roger Craig says his only big decisions are who’ll hit second in the batting order and who’ll pitch opening day. . . . Seattle reliever Bill Wilkinson is unable to run for about four weeks after a severe case of shin splints. He got them by running in a cheap pair of sneakers; odd for a guy making $110,000.

Oakland’s Don Baylor sponsors an annual golf tournament to benefit multiple scleroris, but he has scheduled it the last two years on the day the seventh game of the World Series was played. He has missed it because he has been in uniform for Boston and Minnesota on the day of Game 7. Hoping the charm works, he has scheduled the tournament for the day of Game 7 again this season.

In their first five appearances of the winter, Boston’s rotation of Roger Clemens, Oil Can Boyd, Bruce Hurst and Jeff Sellers has totaled 14 shutout innings. The Red Sox are amazed that Hurst has recovered so well from a mono-type disease, and they’re also encouraged about reliever Bob Stanley’s recovery from a cut hand. He could be ready opening day.