BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Money Players Deliver, but Will the Owners Reciprocate?

They played the midsummer classic Tuesday night, but it almost seemed to have as much to do with the games of midwinter.

Isn’t that the way it is in baseball now?

Fourteen of Tuesday night’s players--an All-Star roster in itself--are eligible for free agency when the season ends.

The American League had five batting in a row--Wade Boggs, Kirby Puckett, Joe Carter, Mark McGwire and Cal Ripken Jr.--and all went to the teller’s window in the first inning of the AL’s 13-6 embarrassment of the National League as they collected five of seven consecutive singles off Tom Glavine, producing a 4-0 lead.

In the beat of their bats, one could almost hear the distant ring of a cash register.

If baseball is ailing financially, the theory will be tested next winter when the greatest ever array of free agents hits a market that may not be big enough to satisfy them all.

Said one, Paul Molitor, an American League All-Star and member of the Milwaukee Brewers: “There’s an overabundance of quality players. It’s the basic question of supply and demand. There’s six very good players who will be looking for $30-million contracts. Are their six clubs who will pay it?”

Molitor alluded to Puckett, Ripken, McGwire, Barry Bonds, Ruben Sierra and Greg Maddux.

The All-Star list of potential free agents also includes Ozzie Smith, Benito Santiago, David Cone, Dennis Eckersley and Doug Jones, but it does not stop and start there.

Included among the also-eligible are Doug Drabek, Andre Dawson, Eric Davis, Chili Davis, Jeff Reardon, Tom Henke, Harold Reynolds, Mark Gubicza, Dave Stewart, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker and John Smiley.

How will a market--one that has already produced an average major league salary of more than $1 million and now is said to be split between the clubs that have and those that don’t--respond?

“That’s something we’ll have to wait and see,” Ozzie Smith said. “No one has folded their tent yet. Unless we see someone fold their tent, I don’t know what all the alarm is about.”

Said McGwire: “The market is there, but the question is, will the owners keep it open? If they’re concerned about the money, why did the Chicago Cubs give Ryne Sandberg $7 million a year? I mean, you can’t blame the players. Are we supposed to turn down $7 million a year?

“Look at Seattle now. They’ve been bought out by Nintendo. It’s pretty hard to accept that they still don’t have any money.”

It’s business before pleasure, even at the All-Star game, where free agency and the imposing list of players who are eligible for it has been a persistent subject of conversation.

Only Wally Joyner, among the big big names eligible when the season started, has already signed, remaining with the Kansas City Royals for a potential $18 million over four years.

Kansas City is a small market, but the owner, Ewing Kauffman, is one of the nation’s richest men. If Joyner’s signing, coupled to the preseason re-signing of Sandberg by the Cubs, points to a continuing escalation, it may be only the start.

Ripken has already rejected a reported $30-million, five-year offer from his Baltimore Orioles. Puckett was believed close to agreeing to a $27.5-million offer from his Minnesota Twins before the owner, Carl Pohlad, decided against guaranteeing the fifth year.

Both Ripken and Puckett have said here they are prepared to move on if necessary.

“The best scenario for baseball would be if players of Cal’s and Kirby’s caliber stayed with their clubs,” Molitor said, “but it’s a no-lose proposition for the players, while the clubs have a lot to lose if they leave.”

The veteran Brewer added that it’s hard to know what to expect, because 1993 will be the last year of the national TV contract, and the owners have the right to re-open collective bargaining talks in December of this year, when they may decide to overhaul the salary system.

One thing is certain: By allowing so many quality players to reach the second half of the final year of their contracts, the clubs are bound to pay a greater price.

The performance of proven players is not likely to suddenly disintegrate. The two run-homer by Sierra Tuesday night and the first-inning hits by the five AL players eligible for free agency may prove to be a barometer of what’s to come in the second half.

“I’m thinking of the owner’s box every time I step in the batter’s box,” Boggs said.

Said McGwire, the major league home run leader, when asked if he is sending his Oakland A’s a message: “I’d like to think I am, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Smith is among those who have seen enough. “I played under my option last year and performed well,” the St. Louis Cardinal shortstop said. “I don’t have anything else to prove. Why should I have to wait until August or September (to discuss a new contract)? If that’s the kind of feeling they have for me, why should I have a special feeling for them?”

If Smith plays in his 13th All-Star game next year, it is likely to be in a different uniform. He will definitely not be alone in that.