ALL-STAR NOTES : Bonds Says Dodgers Aren’t Good Enough to Get Him

Barry Bonds, the most prized potential free agent this winter, has eliminated the Dodgers from his list of top choices because of his concern over the team’s lack of direction.

Bonds, the Pittsburgh Pirates left fielder who would like to play near his Rancho California home, said the Padres are still his top choice.

“The Padres are definitely my first choice--can you imagine putting me between Gary Sheffield and Fred McGriff?” Bonds said during the All-Star game workout Monday. “But I’ve been getting some hearsay. They might not want to pay me, I don’t know.”

Bonds heard right. Padre officials have already said that Bonds is out of their price range.

Bonds’ concerns about the Dodgers do not involve money.

“The Dodgers have history but . . . I just don’t see the Dodgers in the up-and-running stage yet,” Bonds said. “You wonder if they are going this way or that way. You don’t know what direction they are going. It’s hard.”

Bonds said his other top choice would be the Atlanta Braves, but he is also interested in going to New York to play for the Mets or Yankees.

“I would love to play in Atlanta; they are a great team,” Bonds said. “The main thing is, I want to be with a team like I’m with now. I want a team where everybody tries. I don’t want to go to a team with a bunch of babies.”

Bonds said he has not ruled out the first-place Pirates, although it seems unlikely they can produce more than $30 million to sign him.

“I’m not counting Pittsburgh out,” Bonds said. “I’ve just said I wouldn’t deal with them during the season.”

There already is one break in recent All-Star tradition: Atlanta pitcher Tom Glavine will become the first pitcher to start All-Star games in back-to-back seasons since former Philadelphia pitcher Robin Roberts did it in 1954-55.

Glavine (13-3) will oppose Texas right-hander Kevin Brown (14-4) as the NL attempts to win for the first time in five years.

“It will probably take a while (to sink in),” Glavine said. “I didn’t realize it had been that long since somebody had done it. My name is in some pretty good company. It’s something I can always be proud of.”

Glavine, the 1991 NL Cy Young Award winner, pitched the first two innings of last year’s game in Toronto, holding the AL scoreless. He struck out three, walked one and allowed only one hit.

Glavine, 26, will be more relaxed this season, and part of that, he said, is because he is more comfortable with success.

“I know people’s expectations of me have changed,” he said. “But I can’t put all of those things on myself. I just have to go out and do my best. I have to stay away from that stuff and realize I’m a human being and I have to try to keep doing the things that made me successful.”

Brown, who went to a sports psychologist over the winter, has been successful because he has found consistency in both his sinker and mechanics.

“I think I trust myself now,” Brown said. “I don’t worry about how I throw the ball. Last year, I got sidetracked and tried to change my mechanics. I never got confident in myself.

“It’s hard getting guys out when all of your focus is in yourself rather than how to get a guy out.”

Brown, 27, from McIntyre, Ga., pitched three seasons for Georgia Tech after making the team as a walk-on. He said he never envisioned himself as a major league All-Star.

“Honestly, until recently, I can never say I did,” Brown said. “Until my sophomore year in college, I never thought of professional ball.”

Good wood: Joe Carter, in tribute to Toronto teammate Dave Winfield, who was left off of the All-Star team, used Winfield’s bat during the home run contest.

“He may not be here physically, but I brought him here in spirit,” Carter said. “To me, he’ll always be an All-Star.”

There will be a lipstick-sized camera inside of first base tonight as another new wrinkle by CBS television. The camera will be visible only by a tiny piece of plexiglass on the side of the base.

“The technology is not new, we’ve done this in race cams,” said Lou D’Ermilio, associate director of information for CBS sports. “But it will give us some good shots of guys leading off first base, or guys diving back, It won’t protrude or affect play in any way.”

This is Jimmie Reese’s 75th year in baseball, but tonight’s All-Star game will be only the second he’s attended.

Reese, the Angels’ conditioning coach, was named the AL’s honorary captain to commemorate his lengthy service as a player and coach. For him, the best part was the All-Star gift: a batch of cigars presented by AL Manager Tom Kelly.

“I don’t smoke them, though. I just chew them,” said Reese, who will be 91 in October. “That’s my only vice. At my age, what else am I going to do?”

Doug Jones, the Houston Astros’ relief ace who could have been signed this winter by anybody with a few hundred thousand dollars, said he was approached by the Dodgers.

“But everything depended on whether Jay Howell accepted their arbitration offer and returned to the team,” Jones said. “When he did, that fell through.”

Jones, who signed a contract with triple-A Tucson but never pitched a day there, has 19 saves. That is more than the Dodgers bullpen combined.

“I always knew there was nothing wrong with me,” said Jones, who was not offered a contract by the Cleveland Indians after representing them at three All-Star games. “I didn’t get a chance to pitch much last year because they didn’t have the lead much. Coming back like this does not surprise me.”

David Cone, the New York Mets’ pitcher who will be a free agent at the end of the year, said he would not be surprised if he is traded before the end of the season if the Mets continue to struggle.

“Based on what I’ve heard, I’ve prepared myself to leave New York,” Cone said. “To have us continue to flounder would be miserable enough, but to be traded from New York, it would not be a happy day.”

Andy Van Slyke of the Pittsburgh Pirates said he was surprised to be voted in as a starter for the first time.

“Somebody told me I had been voted in and I said, ‘Yeah, me and Ross Perot.’ I think everybody who voted for me really wanted to vote for Darryl Strawberry, but when they put their pencil to the punch hole, they realized Darryl was not playing.”

Kelly promised he’d get Mark Langston, the only Angel player on the AL squad, into tonight’s game. Langston and Bryan Harvey were chosen for last season’s game at Toronto but didn’t appear. “We’re going to try and save Mark and match him up against one or two left-handed hitters, like Will Clark,” Kelly said. “We’ll get him out there for a batter or two.”

Langston, one of the last AL arrivals, hoped Kelly would keep his word. “As long as I get in there this time, it doesn’t matter when he puts me in,” Langston said. “I just want to play.”

The Angels were also represented by trainer Ned Bergert and bullpen catcher Rick Turner, who pitched to AL hitters in the home-run competition. “I’m knocking some of those boys down,” Turner joked. “I’m throwing breaking stuff. Wait--I don’t have any breaking stuff.”

With giving up homers the idea instead of preventing them, Turner had a good source for advice in Angel pitcher Bert Blyleven, who has yielded 421 in his career. “Bert and Scotty Bailes were fighting me,” Turner said. “They said they’d do as good a job here as I could.”

Kelly was jovial Monday, except when the subject of his All-Staradditions came up.

“As much as I’d like to have everybody on the team, I can’t because I have to work within the parameters of the system.” he said. “Cecil Fielder should be here. So should Kevin Appier, Mike Bordick, Dave Fleming, Dave Winfield, Brian Harper, Mickey Tettleton and Manny Lee. And how about that kid Albert Belle? And how about that kid in Texas, (Juan) Gonzalez? There’s a whole bunch of people who should be here. If there were 40, there would be 50 you’d say should be here. As much as I wish I could take everybody, I can’t. They only let you have 28.”

Having three members of the last-place Cleveland Indians on the AL team surprised some observers, including one of the three players.

“Sandy (Alomar) is one of the best defensive players in the game, and the fans voted him, and Charles Nagy is having a great year, but for me, I didn’t know,” said second baseman Carlos Baerga, the third member of the trio. “I had the numbers (.323, 12 homers, 53 RBIs), but I knew it was going to be hard to take me and Chuck Knoblauch. I’m happy they took me. I wanted to come here very much.”

Nagy (11-4) was awestruck. “Just coming in on the bus with all these guys, like Roger Clemens, Dennis Eckersley, Mark McGwire, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I never thought this would ever happen. With these two guys here, Sandy and Carlos, it shows the direction the Indians are taking.”

Cal Ripken, Jr., the top vote-getter in fan balloting, said he can’t afford to spend time thinking what he’ll do when he’s eligible for free agency after the season.

“As an act of self-preservation, I try to get rid of major distractions, and it’s a distraction,” said Ripken, last year’s All-Star MVP. “I have this (consecutive games played) streak I have to deal with, and to think about free agency is another distraction I don’t need.”

However, he acknowledged he’d like to stay in Baltimore, where he’s spent his entire career. “In the ideal situation, if you had to choose how your life and career would go, you’d probably choose that storyline,” he said. “It doesn’t always work out that way and it’s not always your choice. I’ve always been optimistic that it will work out for the better, whatever the better may be.”

Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn, who has won four NL batting titles, finally met former Boston great Ted Williams.

“It was great,” Gwynn said. “Somebody had sent him one of my bats and, when he got it, he couldn’t believe I use a bat that small (32 1/2 ounces, 31 inches).

“Someone from ESPN was there and told me, so I thought, ‘Uh-oh, he’s going to bag on me for using a little bat.’ ”

He didn’t, but he did quiz Gwynn. According to Gwynn, the conversation went like this:

Williams: “Tony, you swing down on the ball.”

Gwynn: “Yes, sir.”

“What percentage of your hits go to the opposite field?”

“Sixty percent.”

“I can’t argue with that. Where do you think most opposite-field hits go, in the air or on the ground?”

“In the air.”

“Right. Ground balls are better. You swing down on the ball, so you have a chance to get a hit. You’re a damn good hitter.”

Reggie Jackson’s first-inning grand slam against former Cardinal Bob Gibson led the AL to a 7-2 victory over the NL in the old-timers’ game.

“It was really nice,” said Jackson, who happened to be sharing a locker with Gibson. “It was a little ‘hit-me’ fastball. It was lovely, in front of all of these people. It almost felt like the real deal.”

Said Gibson: “We don’t call those pitches. When he came up, I said, ‘Pull the ball.’ The idea isn’t to get people out.”

Thirteen American Leaguers are participating in their first All-Star Game. Four of them are 23 or younger.

“I think there is a lot of young talent, in the AL East, especially,” Kelly said. “That’s why the AL East is going to become dominant again. The last five, six, seven years, the AL West was dominant.

“It runs in cycles. The East dominated until 1987, then the West. Things have evened out this year, and next year the East will be dominant. I really think that.”

Tony Fernandez took it easy Monday after colliding with teammate Kurt Stillwell on Sunday. Fernandez suffered bruised ribs.

“I thought I broke my ribs at first,” Fernandez said.

Stillwell, who underwent a CAT-scan to check for abdominal injuries, suffered major bruises to his abdominal muscles and bruised ribs, according to Padre team doctor Jan Fronek. Fronek does not think Stillwell will miss any time.

Never in All-Star history has anyone qualified in two such diverse positions in successive seasons as Houston’s Craig Biggio.

He was an All-Star catcher last season, an All-Star second baseman this year.

“He picked it up like that,” teammate Pete Harnisch told Newsday. “I knew he would. I had seen him play shortstop in high school.”

Astros Manager Art Howe evidently had the same confidence when he approached Biggio with the proposed relocation in the final week of last season, knowing full well he had not played an infield position in seven years.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” Biggio said. “The bottom line is, if this was what it was going to take for the team to win, then that’s what I was going to do.

“The hardest part was just feeling comfortable,” he said. “It’s a major transition, going from receiving the ball to having balls come off the bat at different angles, bad angles. God knows and I know I’ve got a lot to learn out there.”

The Astros believe the switch will lengthen Biggio’s career and reduce the wear on his legs; he averaged 22 stolen bases the previous three seasons and has 19 already this year. “That has yet to be seen, but I know I feel a lot better,” he said. “At second base, there’s a different wear and tear, but it’s not as demanding. As catcher, you might have to block two, three, four balls a night. You multiply that by 162. . . .”

Short hops:

* Chicago’s Ryne Sandberg on the turf at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium: “It’s fast. You almost make the same adjustment as if your were playing on artificial surface.”

* The first player from either team to arrive, keeping his usual tradition, was San Francisco’s Will Clark.

* Detroit infielder Travis Fryman on his anonymity: “ESPN has only said it half-a-dozen times already, that (former major league pitcher) Woodie Fryman is my father. We’re not even related, so believe me, that’s not my father.”

* More anonymity: Fernandez did not have his elevator pass, so the elevator operator wouldn’t let him downstairs until Fernandez sought out another elevator operator that he knew. Gwynn couldn’t get into the players’ parking lot until he convinced an attendant that he was a player. And they play for the host team.

* Numbers: This is the 15th year in which the All-Star game has been played the same year as a Presidential election. The NL, in summers prior to a Presidential election, has a 13-2 lead while the Republicans and Democrats have split 14 decisions. . . . The NL is 6-0 in years when an incumbent president has been re-elected. . . . Fernandez and Jones became the 45th and 46th players to appear in All-Star games for both leagues. . . . Texas catcher Ivan Rodriguez becomes the first player in All-Star history to be born in the decade of the 1970s. He was born on Nov. 20, 1971.