Baseball Notes : Mets Will Not Trade Strawberry While His Value Is at a Low Point

Nearly one year has passed since Darryl Strawberry said he wanted to move his show home to Los Angeles and the Dodgers, and no more than 15 seconds have passed since the last frustrated New York Mets follower declared trading Strawberry is essential if the team is to rebound from this unbecoming season. Neither an eventual move by Strawberry to the Dodgers via free agency, nor the trading of him by the Mets, would be a solution, and neither is going to happen.

Strawberry was naive to think life as one of Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda’s huggees would be substantially different from what he has experienced thus far in the major leagues. It might be different for Willie Randolph, but not for Strawberry. His every move and his every word would be recognized and examined as it has been here since 1983. Such is the relentless and unforgiving side of his celebrity. Strawberry would have to play baseball on another continent under an assumed name -- or in Seattle -- to be relatively inconspicuous. And if that were possible, his remarkable athletic ability would quickly distinguish him and focus attention on him all over again.

At the same time, the Mets recognize that moving Strawberry would be unwise, particularly after this, his first truly poor season. His trade value is diminished -- granted, only slightly, but still diminished. And even under favorable trade circumstances, which club possibly could offer the Mets equal value for a 27-year-old left-handed slugger who already has hit 214 major-league home runs? Fred McGriff and Will Clark are the only players in the game who can provide the sort of lefthanded-hitting offense Strawberry provides, and neither is being pushed out of his town. Besides, dealing exclusively in potential, neither approaches Strawberry.

Yes, the Mets could try to deal Strawberry for a package of talent that might import a suitable replacement for Roger McDowell, a real center fielder and-or a full-time catcher, but the absence of Strawberry’s left-handed power would destroy the balance of the batting order, to say nothing of reducing the team’s public appeal.

So he stays. Yes, we all know he could be better. So does he. But until this season, what he had provided was certainly acceptable. He is likely to provide more very acceptable seasons.

At times, the Mets and their followers may think they can’t live with him. But they need only to look at the team’s current position in the standings to recognize they can’t live without him. He hasn’t been Straw-some, as Lenny Dykstra used to call him, this season. As a consequence, the Mets rank behind two teams with personnel clearly inferior to their own. In a convoluted way, Strawberry’s value never has been more obvious.

The Bird Is the Word

It has the sound of a sporting goods manufacturer or, perhaps, a new Japanese sports car. Instead, it is a means of identifying, with one word, the two former Mets now playing for the Blue Jays -- Lee Mazzilli and Mookie Wilson. “We both got letters from someone in New York,” Wilson said. “I think they said their little girl was disappointed that we were gone and when she got a new pet -- it was a bird -- she decided to call it ‘Mazzookie.’ ”

Tinkering With Chance

Commissioner Fay Vincent urges caution when people think of altering the game. “I think I’m wise enough to know,” he said recently, “that if you don’t understand all there is to know about something, you approach it with considerable care and very great skepticism in terms of any tinkering.”

Coca-Cola may be nearly as much an American institution as baseball. Vincent worked for Coke when the company executed the marketing mistake of the decade and removed traditional Coke -- now called “Classic Coke” -- from our supermarket shelves. “I was there,” Vincent said candidly. “Non-voting, but there. It was a mistake. It was planned ... to make the change, but it wasn’t planned to come out the way it was.”

The resulting mess reinforced the lesson Vincent had learned about tinkering.

And that mess might never have occurred, Vincent said, if his predecessor as commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, had been working at Coke.

“Bart loved this,” Vincent said, holding a can of Classic Coke, “but he loved it in bottles, those traditional 6 1/2-ounce bottles. He wouldn’t drink from a can. I got him on the board. Bart and I went on the board of Coca-Cola Enterprises when it was started. I recommended him, and Coke put him on the board. This was the biggest bottling company in the world. They loved Bart. But he kept saying, ‘I want it in a bottle. Those bottles are terrific.’

“And when they came back with them, he was triumphant. He said it’s something to do with the compression going up through the neck. I’d say, ‘Bart, you’re so full of baloney.’ He used to keep Coke in his office. I drink from a can, because he was wrong. ... Bless his heart, he was wrong.”

Before Giamatti became commissioner and Vincent joined baseball, they lunched with Mets vice presidents Joe McIlvaine and Al Harazin. “We sought their advice,” Vincent said. “They said, ‘Take care of the game. Be interested in what goes on on the field. We need people who care about the game.’ And they urged us to attend games. That was never a problem.”

Some observations

If the Baltimore Orioles lose this thing by one game, you think they might recall the game they lost to the Yankees in Baltimore on June 14 when the decisive hit, a double by Ken Phelps, was lost in the fog? ... If the Orioles were to play a team other than the Blue Jays next weekend, there would be a chance that the division championship could be clinched by a team being swept. Wouldn’t that be appropriate for the American League East, the Sub-Division?

It’s difficult to experience Wrigley Field and the SkyDome in a fortnight and justify in your mind that the primary purpose of each arena is baseball. They are no more alike than buttons and ice cream. You get the feeling three Wrigleys and a Metrodome might fit inside the Blue Jays’ new home. If the SkyDome represents the future of baseball arenas, well ... it could be worse. It certainly is a better place than the Kingdome or Astrodome ... Many players have trouble picking up pitches in the newest dome. “You feel like you can never get close enough to the plate,” Rance Mulliniks said ... Undoubtedly, there will be some debate when the people responsible for naming things decide how to identify the Orioles’ new home, to be completed in 1992. A wonderful name already exists. The stadium is to be built in an area called Camden Yards. Why not use that? There also is some support for Babe Ruth Stadium, but Ruth’s name is too readily associated with the Yankees. Hope they stay away from those awkward and municipal names, such as Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

Give Wade Boggs credit for candor. Before the Boston Red Sox’s game in Toronto last Tuesday night, he conceded he would not win the batting championship and said gaining his 200th hit was foremost in his mind. At least he didn’t try to convince anyone the Red Sox still had a chance. None of which is to say Boggs had begun functioning independently of his teammates or that he had stopped trying to win. In the fourth inning that night, he disputed a call at third as if the pennant were on the line, and, nine innings later, when he realized his fly ball to left would travel far enough to drive in the go-ahead run, he was pleased. The pursuit of 200 would have to wait.

No baloney, there’s been no salami. The St. Louis Cardinals haven’t hit a grand slam in 438 games, more than 2 1/2 seasons. But then it’s difficult for a team to load the bases when its primary MO is to first-and-third opponents into submission. The Cardinals’ most recent grand slam was hit May 24, 1987, when Jack Clark hit what umpire Charlie Williams called a fair ball inside the left-field foul pole at the Astrodome. Even some Cardinals thought the ball might have been foul. The most recent undisputed slam by a Cardinals player was hit one week earlier. Tom Pagnozzi took Guy Hoffman deep in Cincinnati ... Did Lenny Dykstra really call some Philadelphia talk show and, without identifying himself, defend the Phillies’ side of the Juan Samuel trade?

Exclamation Points

--Mookie Wilson on whether he would want to manage when his playing career is complete: “Only if they told me I had one year to live.”

--Whitey Herzog on whether he would play in the senior league this winter: “Why? I was no good in my prime.”