THE WORLD SERIES : OAKLAND ATHLETICS vs. SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS : Players Wonder If World Is Ready for Series : Giants: Amid repairs being made at Candlestick Park, team returns to the field but can’t escape the memories.

Like most in this bewildered city, the San Francisco Giants returned to work Thursday, not quite sure what they were doing there.

That this Bay Area World Series will be forever tarnished by Tuesday’s earthquake was confirmed in the short time it takes one to speak his mind.

Said outfielder Brett Butler: “This World Series, you can take it or leave it.”

Outfielder Pat Sheridan: “We just want to get this over with, and get home to our families and the off-season.”

Third baseman Matt Williams: “Right now, the World Series is pretty unimportant to us. Whether that will change, I don’t know. I know it’s going to take a long time around here to get things right.”

Six more days is not considered a long time, yet that’s what major league baseball is giving the Giants and Oakland Athletics. Next Tuesday, at Candlestick Park, the Series is tentatively scheduled to resume with the A’s leading, two games to none.

The starting time and ticket details are still not official, but it doesn’t matter to most of the Giants. The only people they have to worry about are themselves, because most of their families and friends left town after Tuesday’s quake.

“Anybody want to buy 13 tickets?” pitcher Don Robinson shouted as he walked into a quiet clubhouse early Thursday afternoon before a workout that included an intra-squad game.

“I got 20 tickets for somebody!” first baseman Will Clark said.

Clark’s relatives returned to New Orleans because they couldn’t miss any more time away from their jobs. Others’ relatives flew to winter homes, fearing another earthquake or aftershocks.

The World Series, once a chance to celebrate reaching the height of their profession, has become for many Giants just a lonely wait for the end of the season.

“Everybody says that once we start playing, it will be fine,” Sheridan said. “Well, it’s not fine. People are still dead. And their families aren’t going to enjoy this World Series, I guarantee you that.

“People think by us waiting a week, it will solve everything? It won’t.”

Sheridan’s family has returned to Detroit, shaken.

While the right fielder was preparing for his first start of this Series Tuesday, his 3-month-old daughter, Paige, was at the hotel with his mother-in-law, Sylvia Wiacek. After the earthquake, Sheridan and wife Melanie frantically tried to call the hotel through a cellular phone in teammate Atlee Hammaker’s car, but continued to get a busy signal.

So they jumped into a car and fought heavy traffic for an hour to travel the five miles to the hotel.

“It seemed like we were in the car for days,” Sheridan said.

They ran into the dark lobby, where his mother-in-law was holding the baby and crying.

“And that was it,” Sheridan said. “I’m not leaving my baby away from me next week. My wife agreed. So they all went home.”

The Giant organization did its best to downplay the drama Thursday during the first of at least three workouts during the five days off before the Series begins again:

--Manager Roger Craig announced that Don Robinson and Scott Garrelts would be his starting pitchers for Games 3 and 4. Robinson was last Tuesday’s scheduled starter. Garrelts was sidelined with a sore shoulder after a poor start in Game 1 but said the shoulder feels fine.

--Craig cracked a joke: “I’m not afraid of our stadium--but I’m going to manage from second base.”

--Robinson cracked what was supposed to be a joke: “I’d be glad to start the first game back, because another earthquake could hit and I would still just concentrate on the batter.”

--Third baseman Ken Oberkfell re-told a joke: “The first thing someone said in the dugout after the earthquake was, ‘Is this what Craig meant by shaking up the lineup?’ ”

But if everybody was so loose, then why, during a meeting before the workout, was the possibility of another tragedy brought up?

“We talked about what would happen to the stadium when 60,000 people start stomping and swaying,” catcher Terry Kennedy said. “But (club officials) said that 60,000 people ain’t like a 7.0 earthquake. And we believe them.”

Not that the players don’t feel helpless in believing them.

“Really, we’re all just part of the current,” Kennedy said. “We’re just going along with what is happening.”

Said Butler: “You’ve got to trust somebody. If they claim they have gone over this thing with a fine-tooth comb, then we have to believe them.”

To the background sounds of a jackhammer repairing crumbled steps in the upper deck Thursday, stadium manager John Lind repeated that everything was safe.

“There is not a doubt in my mind that this stadium is fine,” Lind said. “We are just doing cleanup work--nothing structural. We’re fixing hand rails and steps and light fixtures, but nothing major.

“We told baseball, we could have the place ready in three days on the liberal side, and seven days on the conservative side. We are definitely being conservative.”

But when the players take the field Tuesday, they said they are definitely going to be careful.

“It’s going to be eerie at first,” pitcher Steve Bedrosian said. “None of us want (officials) to say, ‘Yeah, we think we can play,’ and then have something falling in. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

At least one self-proclaimed master of concentration does not agree with him.

“There will be people looking around in the stands, I guarantee it,” Clark said. “But if players are looking up in the stands, they are going to get hit with a ball.”