BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Forget Griffey’s Homers: Here’s the Stuff We’d Miss

Who needs pre-strike sniping between owners and players when you’ve got:

--Oakland Manager Tony La Russa sparring with Ruben Sierra and Rickey Henderson as the Athletics try to prove that 20 games under .500 puts you in the thick of the American League Worst.

Sierra, who has rebounded from a bad start to have an All-Star season modestly worthy of his $24.5-million contract, riled La Russa by wondering publicly what had happened to the contending team he was traded to in 1992--”This is worse than Texas (was)”--and saying, “I can do my job, but I can’t make a team win. I can look good, play good, make my numbers, but I can’t make the team win. I’m only one person.”

Said La Russa: “I don’t like it when a guy wants a contract and says, ‘I’m the big guy, you better sign me,’ and then once he gets the contract he is just a regular guy. If you have a big contract, you have a big responsibility. I don’t like it when they say I am only one player, as if they’re (journeyman infielder) Jeff Schaefer. That doesn’t get it.”

Henderson scratched himself from last Sunday’s lineup in Texas, missed an additional three games because of an allegedly bad back and disputed La Russa on who decides if and when he should be put on the disabled list.

“He ain’t putting me on the DL,” Henderson said. “I make the decision. Nobody else. Nobody knows my body but me.”

Said La Russa: “If he thinks he decides, he’s so full of . . . about reality.”

The manager also suggested Henderson might not be hurt.

“I don’t like to be part of a guy being on vacation,” La Russa said.

--Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Jeff Russell defending Manager Butch Hobson, who is expected ultimately to be replaced by Montreal coach Tim Johnson or Cincinnati coach Bob Boone, and questioning General Manager Dan Duquette’s knowledge of chemistry. Russell implied in particular that the reeling Red Sox haven’t been the same since Duquette traded popular Billy Hatcher and Paul Quantrill to Philadelphia for Wes Chamberlain.

“We don’t have any chemistry,” Russell said. “I know that (Duquette) never took a chemistry class. We were OK until the guy in the office started making deals. Butch is doing all he can, but it seems like every day we come in here, we’re looking over our shoulder to see who’s going next.”

Well, did he take chemistry or not?

“Sure did,” Duquette said. “Nailed the final and aced the course. I’ll compare my grades to Russell’s any day.”

--Bret Saberhagen nursing a tender hamstring and bruised feelings, and accusing the New York Mets of “pushing me around” and “screwing me around since Day 1” by juggling his starts to diminish his chances of earning incentive bonuses based on innings pitched.

“If you have a No. 1 or 2 or 3 guy, I’d think you want him out there as much as possible,” said Saberhagen, who also joined John Franco in criticizing management’s failure to improve the team and stop the June slide. “It’s getting to be the same old mess as last year.”

General Manager Joe McIlvaine said he felt no obligation to respond, and normally tempestuous Manager Dallas Green said only that it’s a free country.

--The Cincinnati Reds virtually pointing Kevin Mitchell, eligible for free agency when the season ends, toward the door by signing Ron Gant to a contract that could pay him $3.5 million next year and will pay him $10,000 a game for any game he plays this year after he recovers from his broken leg.

“Any games he plays this year is pure bonus,” General Manager Jim Bowden said. “We got a bargain. It’s easier to sign an injured Ron Gant than it is to sign a healthy Gant. If we wait until November and he’s healthy, a player of his caliber will be worth $6 to $9 million on the free-agent market. If we can get that player for $3.5 million, it’s a wise decision.”

And cheaper than re-signing Mitchell, who would be left without a position in an outfield of Gant and the unrelated Sanderses--Deion and Reggie.

“I guess the Reds don’t want me back,” said Mitchell, who already has expressed a desire to return to the San Francisco Giants or San Diego Padres.

“Does it affect my thinking (on 1995)? Of course. I want to play and be happy, but it doesn’t discourage me and isn’t a problem for me this year. I’m happy the man got a job and another chance. I’m happy for Darryl Strawberry as well.”

--Baltimore Oriole owner Peter Angelos, while promising to lighten up on beleaguered Manager John Oates if the admittedly tense Oates finds a way to lighten up, switching his attention to General Manager Roland Hemond and going ballistic when he hears Gant has signed with Cincinnati.

“You can’t print my reaction,” Angelos said. “I thought we were on top of that situation.”

It is now thought that Angelos will revamp his front office at the end of the season by bringing back former club president Larry Lucchino and trying to lure Baltimore native John Schuerholz away from the Atlanta Braves to be general manager. Hemond, who thought it was more prudent, physically and fiscally, to trade for Dwight Smith of the Angels than sign Gant, will reportedly retire, giving up the final year of a two-year, $600,000 contract.

--Andre Dawson of the Red Sox throwing the ball at pitcher Todd Stottlemyre of the Toronto Blue Jays--he missed and the ball sailed into center field--after being hit on a two-strike pitch, and Stottlemyre being ejected when he hit Dawson again with his first pitch on Dawson’s next at-bat. Stottlemyre then reacted to the ejection by throwing everything not nailed down in the dugout onto the field--bats, helmets, sunflower seeds and a tub of Gatorade.

“What (the umpires) are saying is that a hitter can fire anything back at a pitcher, but a pitcher can’t throw inside,” Stottlemyre said. “I mean, I get kicked out because they think I was throwing at him, but he stays in even though he definitely throws the ball at me. It doesn’t make sense.”

Amid the rising temperatures of a hot summer week, Toronto coach Gene Tenace laughed and said Stottlemyre probably will be fined $100 for each item he threw onto the field.

“He’s lucky one of those sunflower seed bags didn’t break or it would have been even more expensive,” Tenace said.

IN YOUR FACE

Will Clark won’t say it, but it is a season of vindication for the 30-year-old first baseman who got the five-year, $30-million contract from the Texas Rangers that he couldn’t get from the San Francisco Giants. He has returned the following dividends: a .356 average before Saturday’s game against the Angels, 20 doubles, 10 homers and a league-leading 67 runs batted in.

To this point, said Clark, who appeared in a career-low 132 games last year because of knee and groin injuries, it’s a most satisfying season. But he refuses to measure it against the offensive struggle of the Giants and rub it in.

“If I was that way, I’d be talking about it already,” he said. “I’m not that type person. I’ll just let my numbers speak for themselves. I still have a bunch of friends there and I wish them well. They have too many good players not to get it going.”

Clark, however, said he was surprised by the Giants’ signing of Strawberry. In the meantime, he said, he had nothing to prove except to himself.

“I was back to my old standards in September (when he batted .379 to finish at .283) and I only wanted to prove I could keep it going,” he said. “I came out of spring training on the right foot and have been fortunate to sustain it.”

ANTITRUST

The refusal of the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve a bill that would have partially lifted baseball’s antitrust exemption and applied antitrust laws to the historically troubled labor relations stemmed, chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) speculated, from “a keen and undefined resentment” in Congress to both owners and players and an unwillingness by the legislators to be portrayed favoring one or the other.

Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), sponsor of the bill and leader of the attempt to remove the exemption, acknowledged after the 10-7 committee rejection Thursday that he lacks the votes and doesn’t expect the issue to resurface soon.

It was a victory for the owners and a defeat for the players, who had thought that passage of an antitrust bill might have enabled them to avoid a strike at some point after the All-Star break.

Given antitrust protection, the union could have decertified, as the NFL players union did, and gone to court to challenge the owners’ attempt to declare an impasse in the negotiations and unilaterally implement a salary-cap system. Now, however, a strike remains the union’s only leverage against that possibility, and the eighth work stoppage since 1972 is almost a certainty.

Said Biden, hitting the nail on the head: “I have found the owners not particularly concerned with anything except self-interest, and I think the players are right up there with them.”

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* BEEFING UP: Most headlines involving former Dodger Pedro Martinez focus on the number of batters he has hit, nine, and the number of brawls in which he has been involved, three, as a Montreal Expo. Often overlooked are his 6-3 record, 2.81 earned-run average, National League-leading strikeout ratio of 9.6 every nine innings and second-lowest opponents’ batting average, .212.

The 155-pound right-hander has told Manager Felipe Alou that he intends to be stronger next year after working with weights during the winter.

Is Alou worried about having a pitcher work with weights?

“It doesn’t bother me,” Alou said. “I think he’s concerned about all those guys charging him on the mound.”

* FIRING LINE: Chicago White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler reacted to the inconsistency of relief ace Roberto Hernandez and 12 losses in 15 games by firing bullpen coach Dewey Robinson. Schueler replaced Robinson with triple-A pitching coach Rick Peterson, saying Chicago relievers needed a better mental approach and that Peterson “knows how to get in their head.”

The 12 defeats in 15 games cost Chicago the American League Central lead, but Schueler said, “It could happen to any club. It’s going to happen to Cleveland. They ain’t that good. Besides, they haven’t proved they can beat us yet.”

The White Sox are 3-1 against Cleveland with eight games scheduled for late July.

* POST-MITCH: Since May 30, when Mitch Williams departed, the Houston Astro bullpen has made 47 appearances and was unscored on in 39. The bullpen was 3-1 with six saves in six opportunities, and John Hudek had given up one earned run in 10 innings of 10 appearances as the No. 1 man.

* REVERSAL: After beginning the season 8-1, Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals has lost six in a row, giving up 57 hits in 29 1/3 innings. Pitching coach Joe Coleman said Tewksbury altered his delivery while battling a recently stiff back and hasn’t been able to readjust.