BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Badly Conceived Pension Stunt Reveals True Colors of Owners

The pension-payment dispute was strictly symbolic. The players’ union will eventually get its money. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly bad public relations gaffe by the owners during a bargaining situation in which the public is always ready to blame the high-salaried players, right or wrong. Now, as union director Don Fehr accurately said, “This should prove to everyone just who is pushing this fight.” . . .

He has bolted past Cleveland’s Manny Ramirez as the leading candidate for American League rookie of the year, but Bob Hamelin is more than that. He has filled the power void in the middle of the Kansas City Royals’ lineup, what Manager Hal McRae calls the missing link of the last few years.

“I don’t want to put any labels on a rookie,” McRae said. “I don’t want to say he’s our big guy because we’ve got a lot of average guys who know how to play, but he’s taken a lot of pressure off the middle of our lineup.”

The Royals’ designated hitter has been particularly influential in the 13-game winning streak his team took into a weekend series with the Seattle Mariners, clubbing six of his 23 home runs and collecting 13 of his 61 runs batted in. Back surgery slowed Hamelin’s progress after he came out of UCLA as Kansas City’s No. 2 draft pick in 1988, but he and his team seem to be on the same fast track now. Only the likelihood of a work stoppage mars their challenge of the Chicago White Sox, whom they beat four times in their streak, and the Indians in the AL Central, a wild-card threat at the least.

McRae said he’s doing nothing more than taking one game at a time and, of course, has no control over a schedule that may end after a three-game series with the Angels that begins Monday night in Anaheim.

“The confidence level here has never been higher,” he said by phone. “We feel we can compete with anyone. If the season shuts down next week, we’ll still be in decent shape. That’s all we can do.” That, and hope it resumes. . . .

If anyone understands what a work stoppage means to Matt Williams, Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. in their pursuit of sacred records, it’s Mike Schmidt, the former Philadelphia Phillies third baseman who hit 31 homers with 91 RBIs and 228 total bases in 1981 despite losing two months because of the midseason strike.

“I’ll always wonder what I could have accomplished,” Schmidt said. “I was off to the best start of anybody in the National League at the time, but you can’t lose sight of your livelihood. Players have to remember that a guy can make $7 million now because guys supported the union then. It’s something I had to deal with, something they have to deal with. It’s a fact of life for the players..”..

Interesting. Phillies CEO Bill Giles acknowledged that the owners have consistently lied to the players, but not this time, of course.

“I know we’ve cried about this for a hundred years,” Giles said of the economic problems. “There’s no question the owners are partly to blame. Collusion was wrong, and we’ve basically been as wrong as the players. We’ve said we wanted to change the system in the past, but we’ve never been as serious as we are now.”

Trust em? “Sounds like the same bull . . . to me,” Phillie player rep Darren Daulton said. “They keep saying they want to work together, want to be partners, then they pull what they pulled this week (with the pension payment), and you think about the three collusion cases, and you have to say, ‘What makes this different?’ You have to say, ‘If we didn’t believe them before, why now?’ ” . . .

FINAL PITCH

They may not be the last of the good guys, but they’re among them. Charlie Hough, 46, retired a week ago. Now a myriad of shoulder problems, including a badly torn rotator cuff, has forced Rick Sutcliffe, 38, to think about it. “I just don’t know yet,” the St. Louis Cardinals veteran said. “I’m pretty stubborn. I won the comeback-player-of-the-year award three times. They said nobody else had even won it twice. But the way it sounds, I may need surgery just to go fishing. I’ve been praying the last few days, looking for an answer. I keep getting one, but it’s not the one I want to hear. Hopefully, the good Lord will change his mind.” . . .

The Cardinals lost 17 of their first 22 games after the All-Star break and dropped 12 games under .500 for the first time since 1990. An 8-20 July was their worst in 24 years. “We’re just not very good,” Ozzie Smith said. “It’s probably time for a major overhaul. As major as you can make it.”

A major overhaul would probably not include the 39-year-old Smith. His 400th plate appearance of the season Tuesday automatically rolled over his contract at $3 million for next year. He’ll be back for his final season even if he may have wanted to go out elsewhere. “There’s no justice, is there?” he said with a laugh. . . .

The Atlanta Braves have finished the last three years with three different closers--Alejandro Pena, Jeff Reardon and Greg McMichael--but the imminent work stoppage has thwarted trade aspirations and forced the Braves to consider breaking up their vaunted rotation by moving John Smoltz into that role.

As the Braves begin to lose sight of the Montreal Expos in the National League East, the bullpen has converted just 24 of 37 save chances, and McMichael has blown nine. Smoltz, meanwhile, had an 0-3 July, is 6-10 as the only Atlanta starter with a losing record and is 50-46 since 1991, not that impressive considering the Braves are 125 games over .500 in that span.

Moving Smoltz would allow Kent Mercker (9-3, 3.42 ERA) to retain a regular starting spot. “I’ll do anything the organization wants,” Smoltz said. “I believe in the manager (Bobby Cox). He has believed in me maybe more than I believed in myself in certain situations.” . . .

HURTING . . .

It appears that the Oakland Athletics have finally experienced too many injuries to sustain their valiant comeback in the wretched AL West. Their best hitters--Brent Gates, Mark McGwire and Geronimo Berroa--have each gone on the disabled list since July 17. Oakland has made 14 DL moves this year and currently has eight players on the list. The only regulars who have not gone down are Terry Steinbach, Ruben Sierra, Mike Bordick and Stan Javier. The ultimate barometer is McGwire, battling heel injuries for a second straight season. The A’s, through Thursday, were 24-23 with him, 23-37 without him. . . .

Then there’s Rickey Henderson, who has stuck the hometown team with that two-year contract through 1995. Henderson has been on and off the DL, in and out of the A’s lineup. Now he has apparently given up on another season. Why not? He has already compiled five home runs, 19 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. Since July 31 of last year, when traded to Toronto, he has nine homers, 35 RBIs and a .236 average in 135 games, including that 8 for 47 in the postseason. . . . Among the recent labor comments of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf: “Something positive can happen if Don Fehr wants it to happen. Or maybe if Marvin (Miller) wants it to. I’m not sure who makes the decisions over there.” What gall. Who in the world has made the ownership decisions that have contributed to seven work stoppages in 22 years: The commissioners? The ever changing chief negotiators? The owners amid their self-interest whims?

Who was making the decisions this time when it took 18 months for the big markets and small markets to agree to a revenue-sharing formula so that a salary-cap proposal could finally be made to the union? It’s been consensus by committee under interim commissioner Bud Selig, and while Miller’s ghost still hovers over a union that is reluctant to give back, decision making is a lot clearer, simpler and faster than with the often splintered owners. . . .

Haywood Sullivan, who sold his interest in the Boston Red Sox to co-owner John Harrington for $36 million in November, would like to buy in with another franchise, but he will have trouble getting approval now after saying he is opposed to revenue sharing and that a salary cap “is just a substitute for people who can’t handle their business, for people who have trouble running their business.” Sullivan predicts there will be ownership opportunities, as there were after the last work stoppage in 1990. “There were a lot of changes then, and there will be more this time,” he said. . . .

WHAT PRESSURE

Matt Williams, the San Francisco Giants’ Gold Glove third baseman, has made seven errors since the All-Star break and five in the last nine games through Thursday. Asked before Wednesday’s game with the Cincinnati Reds if the pursuit of Babe Ruth and Roger Maris had affected his defensive play, the normally impassive Williams knocked over a cart filled with laundry, pounded a wall with his fist and stormed through the clubhouse yelling an obscenity. “Probably reacted in a way I shouldn’t have,” he said later. . . .

That was Kevin Mitchell of the Reds lounging in the Giant clubhouse this week, chatting with former teammates in what has been a yearlong campaign to re-ingratiate himself--the two people, Al Rosen and Will Clark, who most wanted Mitchell out are both gone--and re-interest the Giants in his availability as a free agent. Mitchell said the Giants have “an awesome lineup that could be awesomer next year.” On Barry Bonds, Williams and Darryl Strawberry in the middle, he said: “They’re dangerous and they know they’re dangerous. Might as well give ‘em a machine gun and send ‘em to Ruwaiti.” Ruwaiti? Mitchell’s atlas places it somewhere between Rwanda, Kuwait and Haiti . . .

The Reds outscored the Giants, 30-14, to register their first three-game sweep at Candlestick Park since 1975 and finish off a 6-1 trip that gave them breathing room in the NL Central. Nevertheless, Red Manager Davey Johnson shared Mitchell’s impression of the Giant lineup and said of Strawberry, his former New York Mets outfielder: “I knew how to pitch him when he was up all night. I don’t know now.” . . .

Deion Sanders dismisses rumors that he’ll return to the Atlanta Falcons during a baseball strike. “I’m too important to this team to risk injury, so I won’t take that risk,” the Reds’ leadoff hitter said. Prime Time was 13 for his last 67 through Thursday with one RBI.