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The morality play that has become the American League championship series continued Monday, with so much wailing and gnashing of reputations, you’d have thought somebody lost another baseball.

But this time it was the Cleveland Indians. And this time, apparently, they have lost their minds.

On a day when they were supposed to be resting, David Justice ran his mouth, Mike Hargrove was chased down from behind, and common sense took a flying leap.

In a public battle over Justice’s benching in the Indians’ pivotal Game 5 loss to the New York Yankees on Sunday, everybody was right, everybody was wrong, and everybody acted like they belonged in the Dawg Pound.

Justice, the power-hitting outfielder, assembled press to announce that, contrary to a televised report, he never asked to be scratched.

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Justice said from beneath a black knit cap and scowl during another dark day in the Bronx.

Hargrove, the manager whom Justice intimated was slandering him, refused to meet with reporters. But a day earlier, he had said he’d scratched Justice because the player did everything but ask to be taken out of the lineup.

“I felt in talking to him that he could have played, . . . But he wasn’t feeling comfortable with a left-hander pitching,” Hargrove said.

Justice, admitting he’d asked to be moved down in the batting order, said he was furious with anyone who would question his dedication.

Hargrove is acting as if he is questioning exactly that.

None of this would be an issue, of course, if Justice had not been replaced in Game 5 by sad Richie Sexson, a rookie who struck out, flied out and hit into a double play, failing to advance three runners in three at-bats in the Yankees’ 5-3 victory.

Meanwhile Justice, tied for the team lead with seven RBIs in the playoffs, rode the bench until being summoned as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning. He walked, partially because it was apparent he was not going to swing.

“I don’t tell Hargrove how to run his team, but I don’t appreciate somebody coming on, telling everybody in the world that I went up to my manager and asked out of the lineup last night,” Justice said.

The winner in all this? Who else? The Yankees. They can advance to the World Series with a victory tonight in Game 6 against a team that appears more beaten than Joe Torre’s razor.

If the Yankees want to finish off the Indians, though, they had better hurry, before the Indians get to each other first.

In the clubhouse after Sunday’s game, teammates were already sniping at Justice, subtly questioning his toughness.

When stand-up shortstop Omar Vizquel was asked about injuries to Justice and catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., who also didn’t start, he said simply, “Sandy is hurt. . . . I know he really wants to play.”

He said nothing about Justice.

Think how bad it will be tonight, after those teammates realize Justice has questioned their longtime manager.

And think what will happen when Justice steps into a stadium teeming with furious Yankee fans seeking revenge against Indian followers who ripped David Wells’ late mother.

“They can’t get any rougher on us unless they show up with Uzis,” Justice reasoned, hopefully.

We’ll certainly find out.

As usual, there were lessons to be unearthed amid Monday’s chaos, one for Justice, one for Hargrove.

Lesson 1: If you want to play, act like it.

Lesson 2: The most important game of your season is maybe not a good time to be teaching Lesson 1.

The problems actually began last spring, when the occasionally contrary and outspoken Justice was slow returning from knee surgery, avoiding conditioning exercises that Hargrove considered necessary.

He finished with average numbers--21 homers and 88 RBIs--and increasing unhappiness over the Indians’ conservative atmosphere.

But everything seemed fine in the playoffs--where Justice is still best known for a home run that gave the Atlanta Braves the World Series championship over the Indians in 1995--until the sixth inning Saturday.

Then Orlando Hernandez hit him in the elbow with a pitch. Two innings later, Justice was still favoring the elbow and weakly grounded into a double play that ended the Indians’ final chance in a 4-0 defeat.

Late Sunday afternoon, Justice was in the lineup for Game 5 when Hargrove asked how the elbow was feeling.

“I told [Hargrove] it was a little sore but I am all right,” Justice said. “I said, ‘Skip, I think you maybe should move me out of the third slot and probably hit me seventh. . . . If [Wells] makes tough pitches, it is going to be tough on me.’ ”

Hargrove apparently thought Justice was being a baby. He decided he didn’t want Justice in the lineup if he was going to whine about it.

“Skip told me, ‘Well, I have been thinking about playing Richie Sexson . . . so why don’t you just go ahead and rest your arm,”’ Justice related.

At the time, Sexson was hitless in five playoff at-bats, with three strikeouts.

So why on earth didn’t Justice behave like a veteran leader and demand that Hargrove stop with the silliness? Anything to get back into the most important game of the season?

“I have never been that kind of person,” Justice said. “I always accepted whatever the manager says. That is just the way I was raised. I wasn’t raised to go against authority.”

Yet he wasn’t afraid to plead his case when he thought he had been wronged.

“I have built a reputation as being . . . a player who always showed up to play in the big games all the time,” Justice said, noting that when he heard the rumors, “I hurt in my heart.”

Nobody, of course, was hurt more Monday than the Indians.

One of their veteran leaders obviously isn’t tough enough for the manager.

Their veteran manager obviously isn’t flexible enough to know when to give in to a pampered player for the good of the team.

This has happened with Hargrove before. In last year’s World Series, he was so angered when flu-ridden second baseman Bip Roberts took himself out of Game 6, he replaced him in Game 7 with Tony Fernandez, who made a key error in the Florida Marlins’ eventual victory.

So what happens tonight? Justice says he is playing. Hargrove isn’t saying anything.

Meanwhile, the Yankee fans are stitching together “Halle Berry” banners.

“It’s going to be crazy,” said the Indians’ Charles Nagy, who wasn’t smiling when he said it.