BASEBALL'S REPUTATION SUFFERS ANOTHER BLOW.

Byline: Kevin Modesti

Somewhere, this morning, a father gift-wraps a new baseball glove, thinking about the simple virtues the sport will teach his boy.

Somewhere, this afternoon, kids hit and throw and try to outrun baseballs in the summer-in-December weather, delighting in the simplicity of the game.

Somewhere, at any time of day, a motorist sneaks a glance at one of the college, high school and Little League diamonds that will spring back to life in the next few weeks, and marvels at the simple beauty of white lines and close-cropped grass.

It's a special time of year for baseball fans. All of a sudden we are as close to the pitchers-and-catchers reporting date as we are to the last out of the World Series.

Then we read about Adrian Beltre and our reverie ends. Why does The Simple Game have to be so complicated?

This is exactly the kind of thing that turns people away from professional sports.

A team is found to have broken a scouting rule. A player's agent presses the case because it could make his client rich.

The league investigates. The investigation drags on, but not because the facts of the case are in much doubt.

League officials weigh and reweigh their options against economic and political ramifications. Weeks later the league contrives just the right legalese to . . . dump the whole mess in the lap of an arbitrator.

The guilty club gets to keep its ill-gotten property. The agent and the players' union vow to appeal. The process drags on . . . .

If you want to read about home-run champions and promising rookies, you've come to the wrong moment in baseball history.

There are no heroes in the Beltre controversy.

Not the Dodgers, whose representatives in the Dominican Republic altered Beltre's birth certificate in order to sign him in 1994 before the age-16 minimum and before the Yankees and Braves could get ahold of him.

Not Beltre, agent Scott Boras and the major league players' association, who'd like the now-20-year-old third baseman declared a free agent so he can raise his salary from $220,000 in 1999 to something in the $7 million range.

And not the baseball commissioner's office, which replaced justice with economics and politics and ignored the proper - and, yes, simple - punishment.

The Dodgers should have lost Beltre, because they acquired him through nefarious means. When the violation was revealed in mid-November, Dodgers executives expected to lose him.

Instead, when baseball's ruling was announced Tuesday in New York, the team was hit with a combination of fines and scouting restrictions but Beltre remained a Dodger.

Why?

Because the last thing owners want is a 20-year-old who's never batted .280, hit 20 home runs or knocked in 70 in the big leagues going out in the free market and signing a $50 million contract.

And because the next thing Major League Baseball executive vice president Sandy Alderson - who conducted the Beltre investigation - wants is to be the owners' commissioner.

Baseball said it delayed the ruling so it wouldn't interfere with last week's winter-meetings tradefest, confirming the expectation that Beltre would be declared free.

Now baseball has made a ruling that guarantees an appeal to an arbitrator, meaning Beltre remains in limbo as spring training's Feb. 18 opening approaches.

Simplicity? Not anymore.

When I was 10, I read about Denny McLain being suspended for his role in a bookmaking operation. I was confused; what's wrong with a pitcher doing a little publishing on the side?

The 10-year-old fan of today probably understands the complexities of the real world better than I did. Unfortunately, sports don't give him much alternative.

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PHOTO Major League Baseball levied fines and scouting restrictions on the Dodgers, but they get to keep third baseman Adrian Beltre.

Pat Sullivan/Associated Press