DEMPSEY'S HIT PROVIDES SOME HOP.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Now that was a Shot Heard `Round the World.

Or so hopes the beefy, red-bearded economics student from Johannesburg, South Africa, who struck the mightiest clout against Roger Clemens on Friday at Scottsdale Stadium.

In a 17-0 victory over South Africa that sent the United States on to Anaheim for the second round of the World Baseball Classic, Clemens allowed one hit in 4 1/3 innings before the game was halted after five by a mercy rule.

The hit was a high-hopping single up the middle by Nick Dempsey leading off the second. Clemens, 43, a six-time Cy Young Award winner who might be capping his great career in this event, appeared to be as ticked off as a man pitching with a 10-run lead could be. Dempsey, 27, a former Dodgers farmhand whose baseball energies now are devoted to promoting the sport in rural South Africa, sounded as thrilled afterward as a losing ballplayer could be.

``It looked like a line drive in the box score,'' Dempsey said in the dugout - and if South Africans have already mastered such baseball cliches, maybe they've got a future in this game after all.

The 11,975 fans filled the spring-training home of the San Francisco Giants, and then some. They saw Team USA trounce South Africa every bit as badly as expected in a game it needed to win after beating Mexico and losing a stunner to Canada earlier in the WBC's Pool B. They saw Clemens strike out six of his 11 batters, they saw Ken Griffey Jr. hit a pair of three-run homers, and they saw U.S. catcher Michael Barrett somehow go 0 for 4 against the vaunted South Africa pitching staff.

They might never understand how much all of this meant to the South Africans, a team with only one professional player that came here to try to popularize baseball back home and leaves feeling successful despite going 0-3.

The South Africans took a lead to the ninth inning against Canada in their opener, which was their highlight until Friday, when they faced future Hall of Famers.

``I think it (the Canada game) opened eyes that, yes, we can compete with some of the best baseball players in the world,'' Dempsey said. ``What I hope happens is we get really big exposure, and the government (of South Africa) pumps money into our sport.''

In South Africa, baseball is far below rugby, soccer and cricket in the national picture. There's no professional ball and no facility as nice as Scottsdale Stadium.

But there are part-time amateur baseball players trying to spread the word in South Africa, namely the collection of construction workers, electricians, plumbers, accountants and raw kids on the team that wore Oakland Athletics-looking, green-and-gold uniforms for the WBC.

And this week there was baseball on South African television.

Dempsey, 6-foot-5 first baseman with features like Mark McGwire (his favorite player) and an expanding waistline, gave the late-night TV households of Durban and Pretoria and Cape Town something to remember. On Clemens' 3-and-2 fastball down the middle, he took a big right-handed cut and topped one over second base.

``I kind of looked at who I was facing and took it all in,'' Dempsey said. ``It was a privilege to face him. I was a bit (too) shy to ask for the ball.''

Before the game, Dempsey had shaken hands with Barry Bonds.

``Maybe that's where the hit came from,'' Dempsey said.

More likely, it was fueled from a sense of mission.

Dempsey comes from the South African equivalent of a baseball family. His grandfather played baseball with American soldiers during World War II while fighting in the British army. His father has been a coach, his mother a scorekeeper.

Dempsey's U.S. career went nowhere. Starting in the Dodgers organization in 1997, he never got beyond rookie ball in Great Falls, Mont. After a spell in the Montreal Expos system, he was released from a Cleveland Indians Class-A team in 2002 and that was that. Now he lives in Johannesburg, studying for an economics degree and coaching baseball in a Major League Baseball-run development program.

His previous biggest hit had been a home run for the South African team that finished eighth in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

``The overall experience was awesome,'' Dempsey said as teammates posed for pictures and autographed WBC baseballs after the game. ``We could be big-leaguers for (a week).''

Said Jason Cook, a 30-year-old construction-company owner (and center fielder) from Pretoria who blooped South Africa's only other hit Friday: ``What I've learned about baseball in the last month (in the United States) is 20-fold what I learned in the last 12 years. We've needed this for a long time.''

Round one of the World Baseball Classic was a success. The United States' loss to Canada might be seized upon by WBC critics as evidence that March baseball isn't serious, but it gave the tournament some early drama and the weaker teams some respect. That the United States survived its opening-round pool, and will open round-of-eight pool play against Japan on Sunday at Angel Stadium, keeps the biggest stars in the event.

Clemens, the biggest star of all, took Friday's start seriously and was rewarded with standing ovations after every inning from fans who feared they were seeing him for the last time. He gave no hints about his future afterward.

Of course, it's really the future of baseball in places like China and Australia and South Africa that the WBC is all about - promoting the game to future hot corners of the world.

If they were listening back home, Nick Dempsey's bleeder up the middle in a 17-0 loss might have been the loudest hit of the spring.