COMMENTARY : BASEBALL'S TRINITY REMAINS AT ODDS OWNERS, PLAYERS AND UMPIRES MEET EVERY SPRING WITH DIFFERENCES.

Byline: Bill Conlin Philadelphia Daily News 

The pitchers are stretching out their fragile arms. The hitters are dialing in their lethal swings. The writers and broadcasters are practicing their dumb questions to players and managers who will respond with cliches, non sequiturs and non-answers.

This spring, however, Major League Baseball's spin doctors have added a new cycle to a routine that has changed little since Roosevelt - Teddy Roosevelt - was president.

This spring, the tortured trinity of players, owners and umpires is celebrating its new partnership.

I'm waiting for Bud Selig, Don Fehr and Richie Phillips - the Pastime's Larry, Curly and Moe - to show up at one of the Florida or Arizona training camps. They will stand at home plate, arms draped around each other's shoulders. They will beam at the applauding fans and chorus in unison, ``We love you, man . . . ''

Sorry, Bud, you're not going to get my Bud. . . . Until that day, however, better keep the hard hats handy. And don't discharge the wartime consigliores just yet.

As the exhibition season limps toward the one-week milepost, the umpires have bought into the new partnership by declaring war on the players.

With an eye toward Major League Baseball becoming a truly international sport in the next century, Selig's executive council has declared the Nolan Ryan of Japan, right hander Hideki Irabu, the exclusive property of the San Diego Padres. Irabu was obtained from the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan's Pacific League in a deal for a couple of Padres prospects. Irabu forced the deal by threatening to retire and the Padres made the trade even though the pitcher said he will only play for the New York Yankees.

As if the burgeoning Yankees' feud with the Padres wasn't enough disruption - not to mention an ongoing spring-training saga made in tabloid heaven - George Steinbrenner threw Major League Baseball's already chaotic effort to market itself like the NBA and NFL into turmoil Monday.

Even as Greg Murphy, the snails-pace hired gun the owners brought in to land a huge contract with Nike, Reebok or whomever, plodded toward a deal, The Boss jerked the sheets.

Acting alone in the best bandit tradition of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Steinbrenner did a sweeping deal with Adidas that will pay his ballclub a reported $95 million over 10 years.

You don't need the abacus Bill Giles uses to figure his payroll to discern the Yankees just bought themselves a couple more big-ticket free agents each season, or a guarantee they will be able to look agent-from-hell Scott Boras in the beady eye and buy a June draftee nobody else can afford. The sheer immensity of first-round bonuses will force the Lords of Baseball to permit, sooner than later, the trading of draft picks. Why should the NFL have all the fun?

With the Adidas deal kicking in immediately, before he sells a ticket or a hot dog, Steinbrenner will have about $70 million available for his payroll just from the sportswear company and his lush local cable-TV contract.

Now you know why Giles and others of his diminished financial clout cry themselves to sleep and dream of taxpayer-financed stadiums built on land donated by their city fathers.

The Yankees' unilateral Adidas deal is another backhanded slap to Murphy's battered mug. Murphy is the marketing guru the owners hired to connect them to the next century. I guess they are content to miss the 20th century completely. Murphy's sluggish negotiating pace has infuriated owners in need of instant cash fixes. And when their marketing whiz handed them a $232 million joint deal with Nike and Reebok, it was voted down by owners who were expecting much more.

Ironically, the guy who negotiated the sweetheart Adidas deal for Steinbrenner was former MLB Properties chief Rick White. Red faces abound.

Ain't love grand?

And who has more love for what they do than those porcine Sunshine Boys of the umpires union? Simmering over a perceived lack of support by American League president Gene Budig in the wake of last season's Roberto Alomar spitting incident, the umpires struck back Monday.

No more Mr. Nice Guy for Cowboy Joe West, Fumin' Bruce Froemming and Balkin' Bob Davidson. ``Umpires will no longer bend over backwards to keep players in the game,'' union chief Phillips said, indicating arguments will be briefer because those who initiate them will be long gone. Union prez Jerry Crawford and veep Don Denkinger released a joint statement that concluded, ``Tolerance in baseball is leading to total anarchy.''

Love is a many-splendored thing. . . . MLB officials warmly applauded the deft timing of the umpires' declaration of war, which came on the eve of a series of summit meetings of a blue-ribbon panel that will study player-umpire issues. Look for some kind of magic-bullet theory to explain the jutted-chin, in-your-face arrogance of umpires who double-dare a player to act up after ringing him up on a pitch 6 inches outside.

It is hardly worth mentioning in this discussion of baseball's tightly woven family values that when the Baltimore Orioles inquired about moving their spring-training base from St. Petersburg to Sarasota, Jerry Reinsdorf told good buddy Peter Angelos to take a flying fluff at the moon. Angelos, who incurred Reinsdorf's wrath by refusing to field a replacement team during the strike, probably will move the Birds to Dunedin. The Blue Jays, leaving Dunedin, apparently are more than welcome in Sarasota. The White Sox are moving to Arizona, where Reinsdorf has cut himself one of those freebie deals one-horse towns are so eager to bestow on major-league teams.

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Photo: Owner George Steinbrenner upset other owners when he did a sweeping deal with Adidas that will pay his ballclub a reported $95 million over 10 years to furnish the Yankees pinstripes.

Daily News File Photo