BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : When Tests Lapse, Howe Does

For a two-month period last winter, the random testing of Steve Howe, as prescribed by the 1990 agreement that allowed him to return to baseball, stopped.

Under auspices of the commissioner’s office, Howe had been tested several times a week and, during some periods, as frequently as every day. Why the two-month hiatus last winter?

Deputy Commissioner Steve Greenberg said he could not discuss it because it could be raised in Howe’s appeal of the lifetime ban handed down by Commissioner Fay Vincent. Vincent’s decision stemmed from the guilty plea Howe entered in Montana to a charge of attempted possession of cocaine.

“I can only confirm that Howe’s testing did stop for two months, but I can’t explain the reasons until the appeal has been heard,” Greenberg said.

Arbitrator George Nicolau will hear the appeal, beginning Monday, and it is expected that the break in testing will be offered as one aspect of what Howe’s legal team believes to be mitigating circumstances.

Dick Moss, Howe’s attorney, is expected to present this argument:

If Howe did try to buy cocaine in violation of the after-care program outlined in the 1990 agreement with Vincent, the commissioner’s office contributed to that violation by its lax testing in the two-month period before Howe’s December arrest in Montana.

“No one is absolving Steve Howe of his responsibility, but testing is an acknowledged deterrent (to drug use),” a source said. “Howe’s own medical people informed the commissioner (when Howe petitioned for reinstatement in 1990) that without frequent testing the possibility of a chemical relapse was very high.”

Do Howe’s people suspect that the sudden absence of testing suggested a set-up, and that the commissioner’s office was working in concert with the FBI, through whose informant Howe allegedly attempted to buy the gram of cocaine?

“All we’re saying is that the two-month break in testing was highly unusual and may have contributed to the alleged violation,” an attorney working with Moss said.

Could Howe’s seventh suspension be overturned? No one on either side seems to think that’s likely, but Nicolau could modify the length. To the extent that Howe, 34, would still be young enough to make another comeback? Only time will tell.

Howe’s remarkable return with the New York Yankees after almost two years of inactivity underscores the artistic and financial waste of his career.

In 57 games over parts of two seasons with the Yankees, Howe had a 6-1 record with nine saves and a 1.93 earned-run average. He struck out 46 and walked 10 in 70 1/3 innings.

But, as Vincent wrote in the decision that made Howe the first player to be suspended permanently for drug abuse, the talented pitcher had “squandered his many opportunities” and “there must be a severe sanction . . . in order to maintain a meaningful deterrent.”

“Ultimately,” Vincent continued, drawing a corollary to his lifetime ban of Pete Rose, “it is this deterrent that protects . . . baseball from the kinds of threats represented by individuals who cannot deal with the temptations of gambling and of substance abuse.”

MILESTONE

Charlie Hough, who made his major league debut with the Dodgers in 1970, registered his 198th victory Monday, pitching a complete game at 44 in the Chicago White Sox’s 7-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians. Hough has given up only seven earned runs in his last 40 innings and should be better than 3-3. However, he is thankful to still have a uniform and be approaching victory No. 200.

“It’s not big enough to throw a party, but it’s very nice, considering where I started,” Hough said, meaning he was winless in his first three major league seasons as a relief pitcher and did not leave the bullpen for good until 1982, his 12th year.

He has 145 victories in the last 10 1/2 years, notching 10 or more in every one except 1991, when he was 9-10. Against the Indians, he sat in the dugout while the White Sox batted, filing fingernails to aid in the delivery of the knuckleball.

“The release is so critical that I still never know how it’ll react from pitch to pitch,” Hough said. “If I could shoot it from a gun with no spin I’d do it.”

Doesn’t he ever tire?

“Only when I have to back up third base,” he said.

So is 300 possible?

“I’m going to have to get a little hot,” Hough said. “Has anyone ever won 40 back to back?”

HOUGH AND PUFF

As Hough rolls on, the White Sox had to bite a bullet this week, moving Wilson Alvarez into the rotation and optioning Alex Fernandez to their triple-A Vancouver team in the hope, Manager Gene Lamont said, that Fernandez can develop the aggressiveness that will allow him to avoid the big inning. Call it a wake-up call.

Fernandez, 22, was 3-7 with a 4.23 earned-run average this year, 17-25 in parts of three years and ultimately may have paid a price for the absence of a minor league foundation. The former University of Miami star was Chicago’s No. 1 pick in the 1990 June draft and appeared in only eight minor league games before he was promoted that year.

“I feel like I’ve done a good job of learning up here,” Fernandez said. “I feel like I’ve pitched better than my numbers. No one is happy about being demoted, but there are only two ways to handle it. You can go right down the drain or come right back up, and I’m not going to go down the drain.”

SOUR SAX

The acquisition of Steve Sax left the White Sox thinking they had two formidable weapons at the top of the lineup, but before Sax was dropped from second to seventh with a batting average in the .220s the other day, he and leadoff man Tim Raines had delivered consecutive hits only six times.

“Every out hurts,” Sax said. “I’m so frustrated that I feel I could eat the side of a deer.”

He refuses, however, to blame controversial hitting coach Walt Hrniak.

“I’m not hitting .220 or whatever because I switched teams or because of Walt Hrniak,” Sax said. “It gnaws at me when people point fingers. I’m the one swinging the bat. I have to take responsibility. Walt Hrniak is trying to help, and like everyone else here, I’m using what I think fits.”

ADD SAX

His 11 errors are four more than he made all of last year with the New York Yankees.

Said Ron Schueler, the White Sox’s vice president of major league operations: “Steve is obviously pressing, and there are times he takes his hitting on the field with him.”

BAD BLOOD

Houston Astro coach Ed Ott watched a loose missile named Rob Dibble lead the Cincinnati Reds’ charge at Pete Harnisch after a pitch by Harnisch sailed in the direction of Reggie Sanders’ head the other night and figured, “live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Dibble had a headlock on the Houston catcher when the 5-foot-10, 200-pound Ott, a former high school wrestling champion, escaped and applied a headlock on Dibble.

“I watched him turn red, then purple, then blue,” said Ott, in Los Angeles this weekend with the Astros. “He was about to turn black when I let him up. The man doesn’t know how much damage he can do with a 100-m.p.h. fastball and I wanted to teach him that life is very valuable.”

Ott suspects, however, that Dibble didn’t absorb the lesson.

“He told me that he was going to blow my head off when he left the field,” Ott said, adding that it wasn’t the first such threat by Dibble. In a brawl at Houston last year after Dibble had thrown at Eric Yelding, Ott said Dibble yelled at him, “I’m going to kill you.”

“I don’t know where this started, but he’s now threatened me twice, so I have to think we haven’t heard the end of it,” Ott said. “He’s very tough with a baseball in his hand, but he ain’t Bo Diddley without one. I mean, it’s too bad. He has the potential to be one of the greatest relief pitchers ever, but his antics and personality keep getting in the way.”

CHANGE OF HEART

As a former catcher, Baltimore Oriole Manager John Oates admits he handled pitchers who scuffed or doctored the ball. In his three years with the Dodgers, Don Sutton and Tommy John often were accused of it. Asked if there was a moral consideration, Oates said:

“I wrestled with that and talked about it with my wife, but I honestly felt that catching guys who did it was fun.”

Oates, however, said the fun stopped the other night when he accused Tim Leary of the New York Yankees of using sandpaper to scuff the ball. Baltimore catcher Chris Hoiles is out of action for six weeks because of a broken wrist, the result, Oates believes, of Leary’s losing control of a scuffed ball.

“There’s nothing funny about that,” Oates said. “There’s nothing funny if the pitch gets away and hits a guy in the head.”

And what would he tell pitchers on his own staff if he knew they cheated?

“I’m not going to deny a guy a living. I would tell them they’re on their own, but I don’t condone it,” Oates said.