BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Piazza’s Start Is Among the Elite

In a season of numbing numbers, Mike Piazza rolls on, continuing to bury the sophomore jinx.

Some of it can be gauged by tape measure, but there is this remarkable yardstick as well:

Excluding his September call-up in 1992, Piazza began the weekend series against the Philadelphia Phillies having produced 271 hits, 54 home runs and 184 runs batted in during his first 1 1/2 seasons in the majors.

Those figures surpass the totals compiled by each of the 11 Hall of Fame catchers during their first two years in the majors.

Thus, the Dodger catcher is half a season ahead of baseball’s most honored catchers--although he could lose some of that edge if there’s a strike.

Only the two-season statistics of Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella really compare to Piazza’s 1 1/2-season statistics.

Bench had 41 home runs, 172 RBIs and 311 hits in 1968 and ’69. Berra had 34 homers, 189 RBIs and 258 hits in 1948-49. Campanella had 53 homers, 171 RBIs and 248 hits in 1949-50.

Piazza, before the Philadelphia series, had already hit 28 more homers than Hall of Fame catcher Roger Bresnahan totaled in his 17-year career and 43 more than Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk in his 18-year career.

“That’s flattering, but I’m not concerned about comparisons,” Piazza said. “I don’t believe in setting goals or following my numbers during the course of a season. I think you can get caught up thinking, ‘I’m ahead or behind where I should be, I’m above or below my level.’ And either way that’s not good.”

Not good?

“Mike is the best right-handed hitter in the league right now,” Dodger hitting coach Reggie Smith said. “He has so much strength and power that he makes his own holes. I mean, what does he have already . . . 19 homers, 72 RBIs. Most catchers would be happy to have those numbers at the end of the year. Combine that with his average (.337 through Friday night), and you’re talking about something you’d look for from a five-tool player, someone with the ability to run and who doesn’t face the demands of catching.”

Piazza appeared in 149 games as National League rookie of the year last season, which he remembers only as a blur. He is headed for another 140-plus appearances but is more relaxed, more settled into the major league routine.

Familiarity, Piazza and Smith both believe, will continue to make him an even better hitter, but the challenges and expectations will rise along with that.

“How long can he keep it up? As long as he’s healthy,” Smith said. “People say, ‘Wow, what will he do when he knows the pitchers and the league?’ You have to wonder.

“I don’t think any hitter really knows himself or the league until he’s had 1,500 at-bats.

“Mike literally believes he can hit every pitch and every pitcher every time up there. You want him to believe that, but he’s so intense and gets so upset at times when he makes an out, that he also has to learn to temper and control that.

“He has to be able to leave the batter’s box and put on the catcher’s gear.”

Piazza has shown the ability to do that, but how much longer will it be required? The Dodgers wince every time he’s in a collision at the plate, and the suspicion lingers that he eventually will move to another position--first base, perhaps. They have drafted a high school catcher in the first or compensation rounds of two of the last three drafts.

“I won’t worry about it until it’s presented to me,” Piazza said of a possible move. “I enjoy catching, and the reason I don’t like the idea of moving is that I’ve put so much work into improving and still have more to do.”

In the meantime, catcher Piazza will start for the National League in the All-Star game, his statistics even more impressive considering he was batting .086 with one home run before the second weekend of the season, when he went seven for 13 in Pittsburgh, all singles.

“The thing I’m most proud of is what I did in that series,” Piazza said. “I learned I could adjust, cut down on my swing, try to hit singles to center field. It was a turning point. That series served to kick-start the season for me.”

It didn’t hurt that Tim Wallach was moved behind Piazza in the batting order and went on a tear. Nor has it hurt that Piazza, unlike Bresnahan or Schalk or some of the other Hall of Fame catchers, has been able to face expansion-diluted pitching in a livelier-ball era, but that’s not to diminish the remarkable early steps that the 62nd-round draft choice has taken toward joining them in Cooperstown.

BALLOT BOX

All-Star teams will be announced on NBC this afternoon. Starters again were selected by fans in a popularity process that normally has little to do with the performances of that season. According to the tabulations announced this week, and which probably have not produced a change in leaders since, voters seem to have paid attention in the American League but not the National.

The American League leaders were Frank Thomas at first base, Roberto Alomar at second, Cal Ripken Jr. at shortstop, Wade Boggs at third, Ivan Rodriguez at catcher and Ken Griffey Jr., Kirby Puckett and Joe Carter in the outfield.

Only two arguments: Chuck Knoblauch over Alomar at second and Albert Belle over Carter in the outfield.

The National League leaders were Gregg Jefferies at first base, Mariano Duncan at second, Ozzie Smith at shortstop, Matt Williams at third base, Piazza at catcher and Barry Bonds, Lenny Dykstra and Roberto Kelly in the outfield.

The way it should be: Jeff Bagwell at first base, Bret Boone at second, Barry Larkin at short, Williams at third (but only narrowly over Wallach), Piazza at catcher and Moises Alou, Dante Bichette and Tony Gwynn in the outfield, with apologies to Marquis Grissom, among others.

* BEAT GOES ON: Cal Ripken Jr., facing the Angels this weekend, has drawn within 152 games of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games record of 2,130. The Baltimore Oriole shortstop is enjoying another big season: .308 average, 57 RBIs, 11 home runs.

“Nobody is writing to tell me he’s killing us by playing every day,” Manager John Oates said. “Nobody is telling me I have to give him a day off. I used to get 10 letters a day and I could always tell which ones they were. No name. No return address. It’s funny, but they stopped writing.”

CAP RAP

Attorney’s for the owners’ Player Relations Committee spent much of the week trying to walk officials of the players’ union through the 27-page, single-spaced, salary-cap proposal presented by the owners two weeks ago.

It was no walk in the park.

“We don’t feel any better about it,” said Lauren Rich, the union’s assistant general counsel. “There are specific areas of grave concern, but we’ll discuss those with the PRC next week.”

In the meantime, she said, there are three fundamental issues that trouble the union about the cap. The union says:

--It hurts, rather than helps, competitive balance.

“It inhibits a general manager’s flexibility,” Rich said. “A GM won’t be permitted to make decisions based on field considerations. Those decisions will be made by accountants using salary as the determination. It will affect clubs at both ends of the cap.”

--It destroys free agency.

“As we understand it, 12 to 14 clubs would have been above the cap this year,” she said. “That means the free-agent market would have been cut in half, and how many of the remaining clubs would have actively pursued a free agent?”

--It inhibits the growth of revenue by guaranteeing a profit to the clubs.

“If you are guaranteed a profit, how hard do you work to increase it?” Rich asked. “It removes the competitive drive and increases the incentive for clubs with allied businesses (such as radio-TV) to hide revenue by shifting it to those businesses. Every dollar that’s hidden represents a saving (to the club) of 50 cents (the players’ share under the 50-50 split of the owners’ proposal).”

The union, of course, has other concerns. A cap, in general, restricts salaries, the union believes, and this proposal would lower the percentage the players now receive for compensation from 58% to 50% of industry revenue. It also would eliminate arbitration.

The union will present its own proposals within the next two weeks. They are generally designed to preserve the status quo and will be filed in the nearest waste basket if the owners, as they insist, are genuinely united in support of a cap.

The alleged unity will be tested when the union sets a strike date--its only leverage against the owners declaring an impasse and unilaterally imposing a salary-cap system. That date is expected to be between Aug. 16 and Sept. 30, threatening the owners’ postseason TV revenue.

However, it is now unlikely that a date will be set at a meeting of the union’s executive board July 11, the day before the All-Star game. Rich said the union might not have presented its proposals to the owners by then.

“Even if we have, they will not have had time to react,” she said.