Howe Heads to Camp, Carries Explanation : Baseball: Yankee pitcher will be the first major leaguer to join a team, but only because of probation requirements.

Pitcher Steve Howe, whose baseball career was resuscitated by the players’ union after seven drug suspensions, is expected as soon as today to become the first major league player to be in spring training camp.

Howe is on probation for attempting to purchase cocaine two years ago, and under the terms of his plea agreement must be with his employer, the New York Yankees, principal owner George Steinbrenner said.

Gene Orza, associate general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Assn., confirmed that Howe will be in camp. “He’s there because of issues related to his parole that require him to leave home. He must be with the team.”

Howe, who will join the Yankees in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., becomes the first player on a 40-man roster to be in spring training, although it’s uncertain if he’ll ever be in uniform.

“We’ve been told he won’t be playing in any games,” Orza said. “He might not even put on a uniform. I don’t suspect he will become a replacement player.”

Steinbrenner said Howe will primarily work in the team’s ticket office.

Howe, scheduled to earn $2.3 million this season, could not be reached for comment. He did not return telephone messages left at his Whitefish, Mont., home, and was not registered at the Yankees’ spring training hotel.

Howe’s agent, Dick Moss, was traveling to Hawaii and also could not be reached for comment.

Howe, 36, the National League’s 1980 rookie of the year while playing for the Dodgers, was permanently suspended from baseball June 8, 1992. It was his seventh drug violation, including three with the Dodgers.

Ironically, the players’ union filed a grievance saying the penalty was without just cause. Arbitrator George Nicolau agreed with the union, and ruled Nov. 12, 1992, that the penalty was too severe. Howe was reinstated once again.

He signed a two-year, $4-million contract with the Yankees in December of 1992, with an option for $2.3 million in 1995. The Yankees exercised the option in lieu of paying a $200,000 buyout.

Howe will continue to undergo stringent drug testing while in camp, according to a Yankee official, and he will be expelled for life if he tests positive or skips a test.

Howe, who spent the first seven years of his career with the Dodgers, including the 1984 season when he was suspended the entire year, was brought up respecting the sanctity of unions. His father worked the day shift at the General Motors truck and coach plant for 25 years in Pontiac, Mich.

“It’s an unwritten rule in our family to support unions,” Howe said during the final week of the 1994 season.

“If you didn’t want to live like an American, go to Russia. That’s what this country was founded on.”