BASEBALL HAS THE HERO IT SO BADLY NEEDED.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

Finally, Major League Baseball caught a break.

It's got a poster boy again - not a booking picture.

It's got a hero who plays the game like a big kid - not like a spoiled rock star with his limo double-parked, engine running, outside the stadium.

It's got a guy who actually put money second to stay in a city he loved, with fans he loved.

Not a guy like the one in L.A. who took a walk because he felt $85 million didn't compensate him adequately for all the pain and suffering he'd have to endure squatting behind the plate a few more years.

It's got a hero with a million-dollar smile, who loves kids, and thinks he's the luckiest guy alive to be playing baseball.

Not a guy with a major-league attitude who thinks he's doing us all a favor just by showing up. A guy who figures the game, the fans, the media, the owners and the beer man should be kissing his diamond-studded pinkie ring because he's hitting .260.

Yeah, baseball's finally caught a break to breathe some life into the flagging grand old game.

It's got Mark McGwire as its new poster boy, and a hell of a city in St. Louis to remind us all of how this game used to be played. With a lot more class - out on the field and up in the stands.

Can you imagine what the scene would have been like out in the bleachers in most major-league ballparks today when McGwire finally hit Nos. 61 and 62?

Forget about it. It would have made a soccer riot look like a chess match. People do crazy things when they've got dollar signs flashing before their eyes, and those two historic home-run balls were touted as being worth big dollar signs.

In L.A., we would have seen the biggest pile-on since Rodney King got pulled over by the cops in Lake View Terrace a few years back.

In New York, the lucky people who came up with those balls probably would have been carried out on a stretcher - bruised, smiling and flanked by Brink's security guards.

Sports memorabilia collectors and financial planners would have been flipping their business cards onto the victims' gurneys all the way to the ambulance.

The Home Shopping Network would be going live from their hospital rooms. American Express would have been fighting MasterCard and Visa Gold for the commercials.

Nah, it would have been bedlam out in the bleachers in most cities when McGwire hit the shots heard 'round the world.

But in St. Louis, it was nothing but class, baby. Right down to the guy who caught No. 61 in the bleachers and the groundskeeper who grabbed No. 62 - both of them giving the balls to McGwire without asking for a dime.

Giving them to him because they said they admired and respected him that much, for who he was to this city - a bona fide hero.

When's the last time you saw anything like that in professional sports? Yeah, I can't remember either.

We all knew how the script would turn out these past few weeks, that McGwire was going to break Roger Maris' home-run record before the season was over. That was a given.

What we didn't know is that the big moment would play out like a Hardy Boys movie - a Fourth of July parade down Main Street.

Baseball couldn't have hired Hollywood's best script writers and Washington's top spin doctors to pull it off any better than fate did for free right at home.

And the beauty of it was there wasn't a phony bone in the whole show. What we saw Tuesday night was as real as it gets, and we all knew it.

From McGwire's wild, jubilant trot around the bases, to picking up and hugging his son at home plate, to his salute to Sammy Sosa out in right, to the groundskeeper giving him the ball because, well, because that's how it should be when you're dealing with bona fide heroes.

What we saw in St. Louis was a throwback to a time when baseball really was the great American pastime, and loyalty meant something in this country.

When the fans loved and respected the players because they felt some connection with them, some mutual respect.

Hey, you come out and spend your hard-earned money to see us play, and we'll work our butts off to win for you, the players were saying.

Year after year after year, in the same town, same park. As long as you want us.

Yeah, baseball finally caught a break in St. Louis the other night.

It finally got a worthy poster boy again - not a booking picture.