A TIME TO HEAL, A TIME TO PLAY LESSONS FROM '89 SERIES HELP.

Suddenly they really didn't want to play anymore. They weren't certain how they could. The significance of their game had wilted.

They thought of the devastation around them, the lives lost, the rebuilding ahead. There was a renewed sense of community, a pulling together, a re-examining of lives.

And then 12 years ago, they went out and played baseball.

Not just any baseball, but the World Series. The Fall Classic, rattled by a Bay Area earthquake that took lives and left a country shaking.

Twelve days passed before they resumed that suddenly limp '89 World Series between the A's and Giants, before players tried to distance themselves from where they stood at Candlestick Park as the world shook around them.

``It was strange,'' said pitcher Rick Honeycutt, the former Dodger then with the winning A's. ``After the earthquake, the World Series didn't seem nearly as important as it did when it started.

``Everyone still went out and did their job, but I think their mind was probably elsewhere. It seemed like a very hollow victory. You win the World Series, something you always dream about doing, and it just seemed kind of meaningless at the time.''

Yet baseball came back, played its games, did its small part to restore normalcy. As it knew it must.

As it will again Monday, after another numbing tragedy broadcast live to the nation. As it knows it must, no matter how heavy the heart.

Baseball was the first major sport to postpone its games after Tuesday's terrorist attacks, and it will be the first to resume. Some players won't feel ready. Some might still question playing a game at a time thousands of lives have been lost.

Ex-Dodger Brett Butler, San Francisco's starting center fielder in '89, said he empathizes with those feelings but knows something else.

``It's their obligation to go back,'' Butler said. ``There was sadness then, pain, all the same type of things there that are here.

``The difference is that was a natural catastrophe, compared to a terrorist attack. This is war. It's more than we are not going to let them get to us. We are going to show them that we are strong as a nation.

``And part of that strength is getting back to a normal way of life as quickly as you can in what we do, whether it's Wall Street or firefighters or the government or the game of baseball. That's what we have to do.''

This is the first time baseball has stopped play because of something besides labor strife since that 1989 earthquake. Only this time, the grieving and suffering comes equipped with another emotion.

``This is similar because of the tragedy, but the earthquake was not controllable,'' Honeycutt said. ``It was an act of nature. This was someone intentionally taking lives. That one you didn't have the anger.''

When the earthquake ended, there were aftershocks to deal with, but you knew the great danger had passed. Now you think it has.

The 1989 earthquake claimed 62 lives. This time, thousands of painful handbills paper the New York streets pleading for news about, or memorializing, a loved one.

Honeycutt said the A's made psychologists available to players and their families before play resumed. There is nothing in the baseball handbook on how to deal with this.

The A's actually returned to their spring training home in Arizona to work out and re-focus before the World Series started over in Oakland. Yet Honeycutt said the easiest part actually might have been the playing.

``The one thing that you have is a sense of family within the team,'' he said. ``When you got to the ballpark, you had your friends and a common goal. The field was kind of like your space. We could handle the competition part. The toughest part is really away from the field.''

So maybe it will be slightly easier than most players seem to fear. That in giving a wounded nation a few hours to take in a ballgame and try to put out of their minds replays of hijacked jetliners ripping into the World Trade Center, they also will make it slightly easier for themselves.

Butler said it is the perfect time for players to re-examine their faith, to recommit to family, to be thankful for their skill, and to reconnect with fans.

This time tragedy did not cause baseball to pause in the middle of the World Series, but it was at the climax of the season. At a time when their focus should be at its sharpest.

``I'd tell players to be glad for the ability to play and then go out there for the last two or three weeks and just bust it, do the best that you can,'' he said. ``Do all you can to bring back the entertainment in this world that we desperately need, and more with a personal touch to the fans they come in contact with.

``This will kind of help bring part of our country together. And I think that's what we're trying to do, bring the country back together through the entertainment of playing the game.''

It's both simple and grand. It starts Monday, baseball again finding its way back from tragedy. Taking one more small step forward, for a country that aches for every step back.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

When the earthquake hit Candlestick Park during the 1989 World Series, members of the Oakland Athletics, including Mark McGwire (25), immediately thought of family members in the stands.

Associated Press