ALL-STAR GAME : Bringing Game Home : Sharperson Wants to Share It With Father

Shortly before the National League All-Stars leave their clubhouse to line up for the national anthem today, Mike Sharperson will rummage around the gifts and new equipment in his locker until he finds his portable phone. He will punch in a long distance number.

He will hold the earpiece close, so he can hear.

And he will talk loud, so his father, wearing hearing aids in his living room in Orangeburg, S.C., can understand.

“I’ll tell him, ‘Dad, I’m getting ready to go out on the field now,’ ” Sharperson said. “I’ll say, ‘Dad, this is what it looks like. This is what it feels like.’ ”

His father, also Mike Sharperson, is 71. He has spent most of his life teaching his eldest son that there isn’t anything that sweat can’t solve.

He has slaughtered pigs, pushed brooms, fixed sinks, sometimes all in the same afternoon.

About the only thing the elder Sharperson will not do is set foot on a commercial airplane.

Not even after his son, Mike, the Dodgers’ second baseman, called him last week and shouted over the phone that after 11 pro seasons, his sweating had paid off. At 31, he finally made the All-Star team.

“I said, ‘Dad, just this once, fly to San Diego,’ ” Sharperson said. “He said he just couldn’t do it.”

So Sharperson has decided to bring the game to him.

“I am going to videotape everything,” Sharperson said. “I don’t care how funny I look with that camera. Then I’m going to call him on the phone. He may not be here, but he is going to feel like he is here.”

In a way, Sharperson will also not be here. He is still on that cloud where he landed after hearing the news Thursday.

“All I’m going to do is smile and act crazy,” Sharperson said.

He appeared that way Monday during the home run-hitting contest. Most of the other players stayed in their own league’s dugouts but Sharperson was in the American League dugout getting autographs. “This is my first time here, and may be my only time here,” he said. “I’m not going to miss a thing.”

Back in Orangeburg and Martinsville, Va., his best friends are also not going to miss a thing.

It wasn’t long ago that John Butler and Donnie Stroman were talking in solemn tones about the buddy they call “Juice.”

“I remember us saying to each other, ‘Is he ever going to get a break?’ ” said Butler, an accountant. “We did not think he would make it to this plateau. I don’t think even he thought he would make it like this.”

Before leading the Dodgers with a .328 average in the first half of this season, Sharperson thought about everything else.

He has thought about crying. He has thought about quitting.

But this is the same person who, when not invited to high school parties held by wealthy students, would gather up his friends and go to the parties anyway.

“We were the have-nots, but when we showed up, nobody would tell us we weren’t invited,” Butler said. “That’s the way Juice is. Real quiet, but real proud.”

This is also the same person who was drafted three times before his second year at DeKalb Junior College--including twice in the first four rounds--but did not sign because he promised his parents he would finish two years of school.

“We thought he was crazy,” Butler said. “But he won’t back down from his principles.”

Or anything else.

“If nothing else, I hope that because I made the All-Star team, kids today who don’t think they have a chance will decide to keep trying,” Sharperson said.

After five professional seasons, he got his chance as the Toronto Blue Jays’ starting second baseman for opening day in 1987. He lasted 32 games, then, with a .208 average, was sent down.

He was so devastated by the news, even though it was delivered at 4 a.m. after a cross-country flight, that he did not sleep the rest of the night.

“Maybe we didn’t give him enough time,” acknowledged Jimy Williams, manager of the Blue Jays then. “This was a blue-collar guy who really worked his butt off.”

After being traded to the Dodgers for Juan Guzman in late 1987 in a deal involving two players who were then going nowhere, Sharperson thought he would be given another chance. He split time between Albuquerque and Los Angeles in 1988, then batted more than .400 in spring training in 1989.

But he was still sent back to the minor leagues before the start of the season. Except this time, he didn’t go.

He flew home to Stone Mountain, Ga., and made tentative plans to work in a carpet factory. But after a week’s worth of cajolery from wife Diane, he joined Albuquerque in time for the start of the Dukes’ season.

“I was upset,” Sharperson said. “I decided I needed something 9 to 5, a real job. But then with my wife’s help I decided, ‘I have come too close to give it up now.’ ”

He batted .309 at Albuquerque that season before being recalled for the final month. He has not returned since. He spent two seasons platooning at third base with Lenny Harris, and not complaining, until finally getting his chance two months ago when Juan Samuel was injured. Sharperson’s increased playing time and hit total affected everyone, it seemed, but him.

Back in Orangeburg, his mother Ethel had a dream.

“One night I saw Mike in the All-Star game, I just saw it,” said Ethel, who has traveled to San Diego to attend the game. “When he called a week later to tell me he had made the team, I said, ‘I knew it, I knew it.’ ”

Sharperson, however, has not changed his bench-player work habits. He still shows up about 3 p.m. most days for extra batting practice. “Everybody at Lasorda U. is very proud of him,” Manager Tom Lasorda said.

And he still takes countless extra ground balls, sometimes with a tiny glove that would fit a 10-year-old.

The glove, which is supposed to help his concentration, was given to him by Tony Fernandez, the San Diego Padres’ All-Star shortstop.

“That is why everybody is so happy for Sharpie, because he has worked so hard for it,” Darryl Strawberry said.

The only difference in his life is that when people rip the Guzman trade--even though Guzman was left unprotected two years ago--Sharperson can rip back.

“I read so much about how the Blue Jays stole another one from the Dodgers,” Sharperson said. “Well, we’re both in the All-Star game, aren’t we? We both had to work hard over a couple of years to move up, didn’t we? Seems like everybody should be happy.”

The work, said Sharperson, has come easy. He remembers hearing his grandfather talk about the cotton gin. He remembers his great grandmother, who lived until she was 106, talk about the days of slavery.

And he remembers his father, and the one day as a child when he visited the slaughterhouse.

“It was blood everywhere, and my brother and I couldn’t believe it,” Sharperson said. “We asked my dad, ‘Why do you put up with this?’

“He said it was because he made good money and could take care of us. I’ll never forget that.”

Especially tonight.

“I don’t need to be there to see,” his father said. “From where I’m sitting, I will be able see just fine.”