BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : NATIONAL LEAGUE : In the Aftermath, Bonilla Looks Ahead

Bobby Bonilla appeared to choke back tears Thursday when asked the one question he dreaded.

Was this his last game in a Pittsburgh Pirate uniform?

“I was just sitting down drinking an ice tea and I started thinking about that, thinking really hard. . . ,” Bonilla said. “Crazier things have happened. I might be back. . . . It looks like I won’t be, but I might be.”

Bonilla, who will be a free agent this winter, batted .304 during the playoffs but had no home runs and only one run batted in.

“More than anything, I will miss the city and the fellas,” Bonilla said. “This place has been just great.”

Already, his teammates were preparing for his loss.

“I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know we won the East Division this year like we have won it in the past--with pitching,” Andy Van Slyke said.

Two Atlanta Braves who have postseason experience in Minneapolis’ Metrodome say the National League champions are going to struggle with the environment during the first two World Series games against the Minnesota Twins.

“The worst problem for players who have not been there before is the noise,” said injured Brave catcher Mike Heath. “If we thought it was loud in Atlanta or Pittsburgh, that’s not even close to the Metrodome.

“To hear each other on the field, you have to talk right in somebody’s ear. It’s the only way.”

Terry Pendleton, the Brave third baseman, called the noise unbearable.

“I remember some of the guys wore ear plugs--but I tried it and it was like being underwater,” said Pendleton, who played against the Twins with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1987 World Series. His team lost all four games in the Metrodome.

Tom Glavine, the Braves’ best pitcher during the season but surpassed by Steve Avery in the playoffs, said he is glad the Cy Young Award voting is done before postseason play.

Otherwise, he acknowledged, Avery could win the award, possibly instead of him.

Glavine is 0-2 in the playoffs after going 20-11 during the regular season.

Avery is 2-0 in the playoffs are going 18-8 during the regular season.

“If they voted after the playoffs, Steve would definitely pick up a few votes. . . . Things might be different,” Glavine said. “I’m glad it’s only based on the regular season. That way, everybody gets a fair chance. Guys who pitch two or three good postseason games do not pass up guys who did not get into the postseason.”

Glavine said he has played in Minneapolis once.

But not baseball. It was hockey, Glavine’s first love. In high school, he played for a Massachusetts all-star team against a Minnesota team.

“Played them at the Met, beat them two out of three games,” said Glavine, who was drafted and pursued by the Kings before signing with the Braves in 1984. “I always wondered what would have happened if I had kept playing hockey. I don’t second-guess myself, but I always wonder.”

These are the first playoffs in several years in which the umpire selections were based on a grading system. In previous years, crews were rotated into the playoffs. The change was an important part of the umpires’ union’s four-year contract, signed this spring.

Judging from the first six games of the National League playoffs, it was a welcome change. From deftly handling the missed third-base situation in Game 5 to the good strike 3 call by Bruce Froemming that ended Game 6, the umpiring has been better than in most postseasons.

There have been a couple of missed calls, but none that have directly affected an outcome.

“I’m very pleased,” Commissioner Fay Vincent said. “It was a tough thing to get through during negotiations, but I told them, ‘Let us handle the selections this time, and after four years if you don’t like how we are doing it, then we can negotiate it again.’ I think this method is appreciated by both the umpires and the players.”

Avery, who set a league championship series record Wednesday when he completed 16 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings and became the National League Championship Series most valuable player, admitted that his sudden fame has already changed him.

When Avery, 21, was growing up in Michigan, his hero was Jack Morris, then with the Tigers. Before Game 7 Thursday, he said that it would not be a great thrill to meet Morris if the Braves make the World Series.

“How can you be excited about meeting Jack Morris when you get to meet Jane Fonda?” Avery said.

When asked if he is still asked for his identification when buying liquor, he said: “Not since we won (the division title). But since we won, I can’t even go out anymore because everybody knows me.”

The Pirates, who were shut out three times in this seven-game series, played 87 regular season games before they were shut out three times. . . . This is the fourth consecutive year the National League West team has advanced to the World Series.