FALL GUYS HISTORY SAYS LEAGUE WILL SACRIFICE PLAYERS TO END ERA OF PERFORMANCE ENHANCERS AND REDEEM ITS IMAGE.

Byline: JOHN KLIMA

BASEBALL

It was at the winter meetings in NewOrleans in 2003 when Dusty Baker mentioned something I never forgot. He didn't say it in front of a crowd, and there was a hint of sadness in his voice -- as though players were ignoring something that he felt could help them survive.

"I wish players would pay attention to the history of the game," Baker said. "I wish they would understand who came before them and what went on."

Had the players learned to watch for the signs, they would have seen what is coming now: the steroids scandal that is working to completion and the human growth hormone wars that will soon signify that baseball will purge itself of this era by purging players.

If this language seems harsh, it is because it is accurate. This is a basic rule of baseball: Somebody has to take the bullet. After the 1919 World Series, it was the players. So, too, will it be in 2007. In times of scandal, it is not the leagues nor the clubs nor the media or fans that pay the most. It is the players, in money, in dignity and in legacy.

The leaks to the national media, mostly in New York, are troubling, and one has to wonder where they are coming from. If we're talking about as many as 45 players, that's at least one from each team, because not every club has players buried under expensive multi-year contracts. Could it be that some clubs are picking and choosing who they want to expose, which players and contracts they want to be rid off, which players whose off-the-field behavior they have grown tired of?

This could be the culmination of the era, resolved the way all baseball feuds inevitably are, with blood. This is a vindictive old battle, players vs. clubs, MLB vs. union, and one of the few occasions when baseball can strong arm all of the clubs to a point where it is beneficial for them to stand up, as owners did when they hired Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, to hide business, money, and power under the mask of morality.

Suddenly, the HGH wars are a new way for clubs to get even with players who have disappointed them while looking as if they are taking the moral high road. Clubs will do anything if they get a taste of money, especially if it is money that they have already spent and fear they have lost. A player embarrassing himself is one thing. Humiliating his owner with fervent denials is another.

Suddenly, a player who is publicly painted as a moral disgrace becomes expendable. Not even a productive player can be considered safe right now. Can you say it's entirely a coincidence when players mentioned suddenly go into hiding on the disabled list?

The wording of contracts is also going to come into play. In 1920, Joe Jackson signed a three-year contract with the White Sox for $8,000 a year. After Judge Landis suspended the players, thus voiding Jackson's contract, Jackson sued the White Sox in 1924 for the remaining two years of his contract, contending that the White Sox signed him after he and the other seven players had been found innocent of conspiracy charges.

Author Gene Carney noted in his book, "Burying the Black Sox," that Jackson contended that the White Sox never told him that they had included the standard 10-day clause in his contract, a version of which exists today, allowing clubs to terminate a contract within 10 days for behavior detrimental to a club, such as drugs.

The case went to trial and a jury sided with Jackson, 11-1, but as Carney detailed, White Sox lawyers miraculously procured Jackson's grand jury testimony that had vanished in 1920 and which did not agree with his later account. The judge threw the case out. The law sided with the baseball establishment and overruled the people. Jackson settled out of court and never played again.

And this sequence is playing out again. Performance-enhancing drugs were accepted behavior, like gambling before it, a collective crime accepted and embraced, even when some writers and officials called for it to stop. The players should have solved this behind closed doors instead of cowering behind their powerful union. Don't cry wolf with blood on your lips.

As the Black Sox grand jury testimony was leaked, so too are information leaks springing up as players come into the line of fire.

"The people who leaked the grand jury testimony thought they were doing baseball a favor," Carney said. "They thought they were doing a public service."

Perhaps in time we will learn where these leaks are coming from. But that time will be years from now.

Gambling ended when it became more valuable to have it out of the game than to have it in the game. So too will it be with HGH. Paint enough villains and a cause is created. Create a cause and you have your way. It's like climbing the ladder against a hitter, burying him with high-and-tight fastballs, each one more dangerous than the last.

Bud Selig brought George Mitchell into this to clear his name as much as to cleanse the game. Like many veteran baseball men, he is keenly aware of his place in history, and wants to polish the plaque before he has got one. He is exonerating himself. Bud is willing to take his bullet -- but unlike some of the players -- he's going to be standing when it's over.

The chances are better that players who are in the declining years of their productivity will be singled out, but don't rule out younger players.

Carney wonders why, for example, Barry Bonds has been viewed differently than Roger Clemens.

"I don't know," Carney said. "It does seem selective, though."

Baseball handles its scandals the way it handles its marketing campaigns, with poster boys, working under the belief that the public wants to a see a face with the problem, and that players are too stupid to comprehend otherwise. It's another basic rule of a baseball life. If something can't help you, it can only hurt you.

Selective is a good phrase for this. Witch hunt is another. The spin will be morality but the truth will be as menacing as a purpose pitch after the last warning. The players are all alone in the box here, and if their union caves into blood testing for HGH next year, wedged in by the baseball establishment, the federal government and public opinion, then Major League Baseball will have won.

The players have grown wide and complacent over the years, the protection of their union as firm as a witness protection program. The union is too powerful to allow for players to be banned for life -- as the Sox were -- but not powerful enough to protect all of them from being railroaded.

Baker was more right than he knew.

The players should have learned their history, because in times of scandal, it's not the front offices or the league and the clubs, not the media, and not the fans that pay. It is the boys on the field, whose invisibility has been lifted, who will be summarily singled out and pushed away like the Black Sox before them.

SEEDS ON THE DUGOUT FLOOR

The Chicago Cubs began play Thursday with the best record in the National League since June 2. They are 52-40 and have the third-best overall record in the majors after the New York Yankees and Angels. One reason has been a much-improved bullpen. Reliever Carlos Marmol has stranded 35of 39 runners and had a 1.45 ERA entering the weekend.

Cubs rookie catcher Geovany Soto, the Pacific Coast League Player of the Year, hit his first major league home run Sunday at Pittsburgh. Soto hit .353 with 26 doubles, 31 home runs and 109 RBIs in 110 games at Triple-A Iowa.

Meanwhile, the team chasing the Cubs, the Milwaukee Brewers, decided not to recall the top three pitchers from its Triple-A Nashville team, which included 16-game winner Adam Pettyjohn, PCL Pitcher of the Year and league victory leader R.A. Dickey, and reliever Steve Bray. Dickey, a knuckleballer, won 13games for Nashville and Pettyjohn won 12. Bray was that club's best reliever. The Brewers traded left-hander Joe Thatcher off that team to San Diego for Scott Linebrink. Thatcher is in the Padres' bullpen and saw action against the Dodgers last week. While the Brewers' pitching staff has fallen apart, you have to wonder why they felt two veteran inexpensive pitchers with major-league experience couldn't help them down the stretch.

Boston slugger David Ortiz became the ninth left-handed hitter in major league history to produce five consecutive seasons of 30 home runs and 100 RBIs. He joins Lou Gehrig, Rafael Palmeiro, Babe Ruth, Carlos Delgado, Jim Thome, Jason Giambi, Ken Griffey Jr. and Todd Helton. Ortiz is also tied with Jimmie Foxx for most consecutive 30 homer seasons in franchise history, after Manny Ramirez.

Red Sox rookie outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury had hit safely in each of the first 11 games he had played since his recall from Triple-A Pawtucket on Sept. 1. Ellsbury hit .400 in his first 40 at-bats, collecting 16 hits.

Cleveland became the first team in the major leagues this season to have three 15-game winners. C.C. Sabathia, Fausto Carmona and Paul Byrd have each won 15 games or more. It's also a tribute to the way the Indians have been built. Sabathia was drafted, signed and developed by the Indians. Carmona was a waiver-wire pickup taken at the suggestion of the pro-side scouting staff for the Indians. Byrd was a free-agent acquisition after he spent the 2005 season pitching in hard luck for the Angels.

Alex Rodriguez is not only having a redemption year for the Yankees, he's also putting his name up with the franchise's elite. When he hit his 50th home run, he became only the fourth Yankee to club more than 50 in a season, joining Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Mantle hit 54 in 1961, the same year Maris hit 61. Ruth hit 60 in 1927, 59 in 1931 and 54 in 1920 and 1928. Rodriguez also has a chance to record the most RBIs in a single season since Joe DiMaggio drove in 155 runs in 1948. Rodriguez had 140 RBIs through Thursday. Don Mattingly had 145 RBIs in 1985, the second most since 1939. Rodriguez won't catch the DiMaggio of 1937, who drove in 167.

Keep an eye on Indians second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, who hit safely in his first 11 games. He also hit safely in 17 of his first 21 games.

Former Dodgers GM Dan Evans is among 12 candidates interviewed for the vacant Houston Astros job. The Astros will probably have a GM in place by the World Series, when the club is supposed to have in-house organizational meetings. Regardless of who gets that job, look for a few things to happen. One, the club will likely ransack its scouting and minor-league operations. That GM will also have to deal with an intrusive owner in Drayton McLane.

-- John Klima

SEVENTH-INNING STRETCH

Thome has the power -- now

There was a time when it wasn't certain that Jim Thome would hit for power. He was considered a line-drive hitting first baseman in the minor leagues, and though it was expected he would hit for average in the majors, it wasn't a foregone conclusion he would hit for power. At Double-A in 1991, Thome hit .337 but hit only five home runs. But the power gradually came. In 1994, he hit 20home runs for Cleveland and was in the big leagues to stay. Perhaps an analogy can be drawn between Thome and Dodgers first baseman James Loney, whose swing and hitting ability isn't questioned, but whose power potential always has. Time will tell, but as Thome began play Saturday one home run shy of the 500mark, it does bring home the point -- power requires patience to develop.

Pedroia front-runner

Here's another reason why Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia has to be considered a front-runner for American League Rookie of the Year honors. Through Thursday, Pedroia was leading all major-league rookies with a .327 batting average. That made him the seventh best rookie since 1940. The major-league record for highest batting average by a rookie second baseman is held by Jim Viox of the 1913 Pittsburgh Pirates. Pedroia has also played exceptional up-the-middle defense on a first-place team, hit leadoff and produced in an otherwise hostile environment. He also has continued to hit in the second half and into September, when many young players fade.

Brewing up history

When Milwaukee hit three consecutive homers to begin a 10-3 victory last Sunday at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, it was believed to be the first time in major-league history three home runs were hit by the visiting team to begin a game. Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy and Ryan Braun (Granada Hills) connected off Cincinnati pitcher Phil Dumatrait. Braun, the front-runner for National League Rookie of the Year honors, has been exceptional. However, he can't pitch.

-- John Klima

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, 4 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 2) From right to left: Boston pitcher Curt Schilling, then-Baltimore first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, former St. Louis first baseman Mark McGwire and outfielder Sammy Sosa listen to testimony in a 2005 House Committee hearing investigating steroid use in baseball. Above: "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

(3) Jim Thome

(4) Dustin Pedroia

(5) no caption (Lou Piniella)

Box:

(1) DAILY NEWS RANKINGS

(2) SEEDS ON THE DUGOUT FLOOR (see text)

(3) SEVENTH-INNING STRETCH (see text)

(4) ON DECK

- John Klima