COMMENTARY : After Lockout, No Walkout by Fans : Baseball: Frustration and anger apparently didn’t last long after delayed spring training. Attendance is climbing at a rate that would set another major league record this season.

Baseball fans have recovered quickly from the anger and frustration they displayed during the owners’ 32-day spring-training lockout. They are attending games at a rate that would set a major league attendance record for a sixth consecutive year.

Though 15 of the 26 clubs reported a decline in attendance through Sunday, overall major league attendance increased slightly. It was up by 47,133, or 0.6%, over 309 dates as compared with the same number of dates last year. Major league clubs drew a record 55,173,096 fans last year.

“Given everything, I’m pleased with the numbers,” Commissioner Fay Vincent said by telephone from Washington. “Attendance is up and that’s despite numerous doubleheaders and bad weather. I don’t think the lockout caused any effect on attendance. I didn’t think it would, not since my first day in spring training and the response I heard from the fans. They were glad to have baseball back.”

Said New York Mets Vice President Al Harazin: “I don’t doubt there are a few people out there who are teed off because of the lockout. But I don’t see that in terms of macro numbers. There just aren’t enough of them to show up in the numbers.”

American League attendance is up by 252,788. Virtually all of that increase is attributable to the Toronto Blue Jays, who are playing their first full season at the SkyDome.

National League attendance is down by 205,675. Much of that can be blamed on the Mets, who have suffered the biggest decline in attendance of any major league team.

“As I read the numbers, the American League has been helped by Toronto being so powerful,” Vincent said. “They weren’t playing in the SkyDome at this time last year. The National League has been hurt by the Mets, who are traditionally one of the biggest draws, so I wouldn’t worry about that. They’ve had some bad weather. I know; I’ve sat through some of their games.”

Here is how each California team’s 1990 attendance, through Sunday, compares with its 1989 attendance through the same number of dates:

Dodgers -59,353

Angels +103,090

Oakland +74,833

San Francisco +47,032

San Diego +8,935

Through Monday’s games, Mets pitchers Frank Viola, Dwight Gooden and David Cone ranked 1-2-3 among the National League strikeout leaders. Only once before have three teammates finished a season in that order. That was in 1961, when Dodger pitchers Sandy Koufax (269), Stan Williams (205) and Don Drysdale (182) completed the trifecta.

That Dodgers staff produced three current major league pitching coaches (Williams of Cincinnati, Larry Sherry of San Francisco and Ron Perranoski of Los Angeles) and one manager (Roger Craig of San Francisco).

There have been only 20 cases when teammates finished 1-2 (without ties) in their league in strikeouts, most recently in 1987 when Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott of Houston did it. In only eight of those 20 cases did the club with the two strikeout leaders finish in first place.

Expos Manager Buck Rodgers recently wrote an article for one of Montreal’s French newspapers, titled, “The Story Behind Mound Searches.” He was asked to write the article after he ordered umpires to check Houston pitcher Dave Smith and then the Astros countered by ordering them to search Expos pitcher Dennis Martinez. But the pitcher Rodgers most incriminated was the Yankees’ Pascual Perez, who formerly pitched for Rodgers in Montreal.

Rodgers made one reference to the hair gel Perez uses. Then he wrote, “To come back to my friend Pascual, who so many managers suspected (of doctoring the baseball), let’s say I never directly asked him the question. If I don’t know something, I don’t have to lie when I talk about it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

“But according to my own observations, if he came back into the National League, I would be the first guy to have him checked.”