ALL-STAR GAME : He Will Always Be Her MVP

We rag baseball players so regularly that at times we feel like human pine tar. Too often we neglect to pat one on the back, to applaud the grace with which he has handled himself. I feel this way about, for example, Jeff Conine.

A left fielder for the Florida Marlins, Conine, 28, until Tuesday night lacked celebrity status to such an extent that I would have felt obligated to clarify for certain readers the way his name is pronounced: CO-9. Yet for two summers now, counting this one, the former UCLA athlete has been Florida’s only representative at the superstar-studded All-Star game.

On only the second All-Star pitch he has ever seen, Conine hit a home run to win Tuesday’s game, 3-2, and the Most Valuable Player trophy.

The National League’s manager, Felipe Alou, guaranteed that he would get Conine into this year’s game, having been tipped off that the player had made the 1994 trip for nothing, spending all nine innings on a bench twiddling his thumbs. Conine chuckled good-naturedly prior to the game and said he appreciated it, adding, “I’m a little calmer than I was last time, so hey, maybe I won’t screw up.”

From afar, I have become a fan of Jeff Conine’s, even though I never saw him play a minute for UCLA, where he was a pitcher. He is coming directly to Los Angeles from his All-Star gig for a three-game series between the Dodgers and Marlins that begins Thursday, the first time these teams have met since the season opener.

That was when I heard about Jeff and his friend, Jennifer Bush.

See, there was this 7-year-old girl from South Florida with a serious digestive disorder, Jennifer, the most adorable moppet you ever laid eyes on, who was befriended by Conine at a benefit golf tournament last year for Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital.

Conine’s eyes lit up while he was speaking of her before opening day in Miami, saying, “She is such a darling little kid.”

A few weeks after that golf benefit, as soon as Jeff heard that Jennifer was back in the hospital, he went there to visit her. Looking into those eyes of hers, the ballplayer pulled a Babe Ruth. He promised that once the strike was over, come the next spring’s season opener, he would hit her a home run.

Jennifer had a new hero. Her new favorite player.

She also had her surgery. And she went home.

The dawn of another year came along, and Jennifer got better. Baseball, however, did not. The strike dragged on and on, and the Marlins, along with hundreds of other major leaguers, lingered at home, unable or unwilling to play ball. Little Jennifer Bush herself could not play ball, and now she couldn’t even watch it.

So, she picked up a pencil and wrote a letter to the president of the Florida Marlins, one Don Smiley.

She wrote: “Please, ask your friends to make the strike go away.”

Practically overnight, Jennifer Bush became as famous in her corner of Florida as, well, Jeff Conine. He had been the team’s leading hitter and all-star in the team’s first season of play, and she, this 7-year-old sweetheart from Coral Springs, was being compared to the tiny letter-writer of folk lore who had received the “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” reassurance.

And yes, the baseball strike did end.

And Jennifer went to opening day.

And against the Dodgers that night, in the eighth inning, Jeff Conine connected. Smacked one out of the park. The Dodgers won the game, but afterward, a little girl and a grown ballplayer embraced, in a scene no less sweet than Shaquille O’Neal’s scripted cola commercial on TV.

“Thank you for the home run,” Jennifer said.

“You’re welcome,” Jeff said.

He gave her the ball, which had been returned to him.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Jennifer said.

“OK,” Jeff said.

One night later, he hit another home run.

Conine got fairly emotional after that game, saying that smile on her face made everything worthwhile, that he would never take his own health for granted again.

“I don’t know how many games she can come to,” he said.

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff Conine got some news. For one thing, he had been named the National League’s player of the month, having hit .340 with nine home runs. For another, he had once again been chosen as an all-star, having led the Marlins in practically every hitting category.

He had come a long, long way for a guy who once seriously considered a career of playing professional racquetball. He was a guy the Kansas City Royals had discarded as recently as 1993, leaving him unprotected in the Colorado and Florida expansion draft.

The announcement that he was an all-star, again, really made Jeff Conine’s day.

It also made Jennifer Bush’s. She was in the park that day, doing fine, smiling her beautiful little face off.