WORTH HIS WEIGHT

There is so much more to David Wells than . . . well, those 235 or more pounds that Sports Illustrated wrote about at such length recently--fattening up the article at Wells’ expense, so to speak--that the 37-year-old left-hander was outraged.

On Monday, however, when the Toronto Blue Jay ace was named by his former New York Yankee manager, Joe Torre, to start for the American League in tonight’s All-Star game, Wells refused comment on the article, suggesting that his mound form is far more important than his physical form.

“All I’ve ever asked is for people to respect me as a pitcher,” he said. “All the other stuff they keep bringing up has no real bearing on anything. It’s pure [bull].”

A character with character, Wells is what he is, but as his father, David, up from Savannah for the All-Star festivities said, “The guy who wrote that article must not like left-handers and fat people, but what I would say is, judge not, lest ye be judged.”

The best way to judge Wells is not by the trainer’s scale.

Nor by the heavy metal that blasts from the clubhouse stereo before he starts, nor the uniform shirt he can’t keep tucked in while he pitches, nor the beer and cigars with which he relaxes, nor even those three tattoos--likenesses of family members--on his upper body.

The best way to judge Wells is by his affection for the game and its history, which is why it was such a, yes, body blow when he was traded by the tradition-rich Yankees.

After all, they were the team of his idol, Babe Ruth. And Wells once had worn an authentic Ruth cap--bought for an outrageous sum--to the Yankee Stadium mound, where he pitched in it for an inning before he was ordered to change into a regulation model?

It is also best to judge Wells by a 15-2 record that has helped carry the Blue Jays into a virtual tie with the Yankees for the American League East lead at the break.

As Manager Jim Fregosi said from Toronto, “People talk about his weight, but David is probably the best fielder on the team and one of the best athletes and competitors.

“I liken him a lot to Gaylord Perry [without any of the grease or saliva that helped Perry reach the Hall of Fame] in his feel for pitching, his ability to read and adjust to what a hitter expects.”

The Toronto manager also likens Wells to a former hefty pitcher named George Brunet, a ‘60s teammate with the Angels, who “couldn’t get anyone out when he lost weight, which is why I like David just the way he is. I mean, he’s blessed with a great arm, and his durability has been vital to us. He’s also 37. It’s hard to change a guy’s way of life at 37.”

Not when Wells--anchoring a rotation that includes three talented but inconsistent young pitchers in Kelvim Escobar, Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay--leads the American League in complete games, is second in earned-run average and third in innings. He has walked only 18 in 128 1/3 innings, and his 32 wins over the last 1 1/2 seasons are matched only by Pedro Martinez, who will be a cheerleader in the AL dugout tonight, since he still is on Boston’s disabled list.

“Well,” said Torre, in naming Wells as his starter, “Pedro still may be the best pitcher in the game, but David Wells is having the best year and deserves this. We all know what Pedro can do, but David has his own cult following as well. He’s a character most people can relate to.”

Torre knows. He and the outspoken Wells butted heads more than a few times in New York, where Wells was, indeed, a cult figure among Yankee fans and a guy who envisioned finishing his career in those historic pinstripes, particularly after going 18-4 in 1998, the season he pitched a perfect game.

So much for wishful thinking.

That winter, with Roger Clemens eligible to demand a trade, the Blue Jays sent the two-time defending Cy Young Award winner to New York for Wells, second baseman Homer Bush and relief pitcher Graeme Lloyd. New York fans were outraged, and Wells fled to Florida, needing three days to come to grips with the trade, which obviously he has done.

While Clemens helped pitch the Yankees to a 1999 World Series title, Wells was the AL’s winningest left-hander at 17-9, led the league in complete games and innings, and easily has been the better pitcher over the two years.

Monday, sitting next to Torre during a news conference, Wells was asked if he has been trying to prove a point to the Yankees.

“I don’t think there’s a point to prove,” he said. “I know what I’m capable of doing at any time. Right now, if I wanted to, I could strangle Joe.”

They both laughed, and Torre, his team in a division dogfight with the Blue Jays, said, “If you’ve been trying to prove a point, you’ve done it. You can stop now.”

At 37, of course, Wells could be close to that. He said that if the Blue Jays don’t pick up his 2002 option, he is 95% sure next year will be his last, that he has nothing to prove to anybody.

He was asked about the perception at the time of the trade that the Yankees felt he might be close to breaking down physically. He called that “hogwash,” adding, “The Yankees know and Joe knows that I’m a competitor and I’m going to go out there every chance I get, no matter if I’m in pain or not.”

He said he has moved on and put the Yankees behind him, that he is as focused now as he was in ‘98, and to dwell on New York would be unfair to the Blue Jays.

Besides, that certainly wasn’t his first uniform change. Wells has pitched for six teams, and, in fact, was released by the Blue Jays in 1993, the team fed up with his temper, mouth and inconsistent performances.

Wells acknowledges that he was headstrong then, that he said some things he shouldn’t have, but that both he and the organization learned from it all.

Wells was signed by the Detroit Tigers, where he encountered Sparky Anderson, whom he now describes as his “mentor and the greatest manager in the game.”

Wells said Anderson “pretty much made a man of me, taught me how to go about it mentally, as a pitcher and citizen.

“It didn’t hurt that I had some pretty good company in Kirk Gibson, who is still one of my closest friends and was probably the most feared competitor since Ty Cobb. When you’ve got two people like that who care for you, talk to you, want you to succeed on and off the field, it doesn’t get much better.”

In turn, the Blue Jays finally accepted that “David marches to his own beat and the worst way to control him is to try and control him,” General Manager Gord Ash said.

“I told him at the time we reacquired him that we screwed up the first time, that he knows what he has to do and how to go about it and that we’d leave him on his own.”

Wells has provided leadership by example, although he ripped the team in spring training for having traded Shawn Green to the Dodgers for Raul Mondesi and former Cy Young winner Pat Hengten to the St. Louis Cardinals.

“We got [junk] in both trades,” he said then.

Now?

“I made a fool of myself and have had to eat my words,” he said. “I went on a lot of negative things I had heard about Mondesi, but he’s almost like a second Kirk Gibson. He’s a fierce competitor, and without him I’d hate to think where we’d be.”

The Blue Jays also would be nowhere without Wells, who called his All-Star assignment a challenge and an honor.

But when asked if his 15 wins might project to 30, a plateau no pitcher has reached since Denny McLain won 31 in 1968, Wells said, “It ain’t going to happen. I mean, guys back then pitched every three or four days instead of five. There aren’t enough starts.

“If we were pitching every three days, a whole lot of guys might win 30, but stats don’t mean anything to me anyway. I’ll have time to cherish all that stuff when I retire.”

Likewise, the pitcher who is 156-101 in his career, said the Hall of Fame “isn’t even in my vocabulary.”

In other words: Fat chance, which doesn’t mean he hasn’t one.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

All-Star Game

Today, 5 p.m.

Channel 4

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AL LINEUP

2B Roberto Alomar

Cleveland

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SS Derek Jeter

New York

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CF Bernie Williams

New York

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1B Jason Giambi

Oakland

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LF Carl Everett

Boston

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C Ivan Rodriguez

Texas

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RF Jermaine Dye

Kansas City

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3B Travis Fryman

Cleveland

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P David Wells

Toronto

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NL LINEUP

SS Barry Larkin

Cincinnati

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3B Chipper Jones

Atlanta

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LF Vladimir Guerrero

Montreal

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RF Sammy Sosa

Chicago Cubs

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2B Jeff Kent

San Francisco

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1B Andres Galarraga

Atlanta

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CF Jim Edmonds

St. Louis

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C Jason Kendall

Pittsburgh

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P Randy Johnson

Arizona

Wells-Balanced

Where David Wells ranks in the American League in the first half:

1st: with 15 wins

1st: with an .882 win-loss pct.

1st: with four complete games

2nd: with a 3.44 ERA

2nd: in strikeouts to walk ratio, 5.6

3rd: with 128 1/3 innings pitched

7th: with 100 strikeouts

Also

Girardi Gets the Call

After Atlanta’s Javy Lopez and the Dodgers’ Todd Hundley turned him down, NL Manager Bobby Cox turned to Chicago’s Joe Girardi to fill the team’s hole at catcher. Page 4

ROSTERS: PAGE 4