FEHR IN OVER HIS HEAD AGAINST MCCAIN.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

TEMPE, Ariz. - Maybe Donald Fehr's battle with John McCain for the hearts and minds of the American people isn't the most one-sided matchup in the history of baseball.

I mean, here at the Mariners-Angels game, I just watched Terry Mulholland pitch to Vladimir Guerrero, with the predictable result, a line drive that dented the center-field fence between the 420-foot sign and the Whataburger ad for an RBI double.

But Fehr-McCain is the sort of mismatch that would have a responsible manager sprinting to the mound, waving frantically to the bullpen.

It's late innings in the baseball-vs.-steroids tilt and the sport must feel the lead slipping away. Bad enough when baseball had to defend its weak drug-testing plan against columnists, comedians and precedents set by better-run sports. What now that the pastime's public face on the issue is Fehr, the players' union's obstinate boss, and the voice of the opposition is McCain, the nation's most respected politician?

At a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee in Washington on Wednesday, chairman McCain (R-Ariz.) accused baseball leaders of ``aiding and abetting cheaters'' and threatened Congressional action if they don't get tougher.

In his reply from the witness table, Fehr defended the ``compromise'' that produced the sham of a testing program contained in the 2002 players-owners contract, and he continued to stand in the way of stricter penalties for muscle-building drug abuse.

Fehr also made the provocative statement that ``the program that we instituted has had some effect,'' which I can only interpret to mean he thinks cheaters have been scared straight, which in turn sounds like an admission of a significant problem.

You almost have to respect Fehr's self-confidence, chutzpah, arrogance - whatever - if he thinks he's going to win this public-relations fight.

Fehr argues that agreeing to serious testing and harsh penalties, along the lines of those in the NFL or Olympic sports, would be giving in on matters of privacy and presumption of innocence.

But even those of us who do prize those bedrock American principles see that sports are governed by a somewhat different constitution. Baseball says stealing is legal. Football lets the Rams trespass on Bengals territory. Hockey measures the bend of a stick without presenting a search warrant. What sports call free agency - after six years, you can choose employers - society as a whole calls servitude.

Fehr can talk all he wants about high principles, and he can fight as robotically as he needs for the presumed rights of players' association members.

The fact remains that neither card trumps the requirement that the sport be seen to reward talent, training and dedication and not the lummox rolling the medical dice with the newest drug. For Fehr and for baseball commissioner Bud Selig, it's time to put short-sighted and narrow interests aside and do what's best for the game and future generations of players.

From the testing plan instituted last spring, we've received only the report that 5 to 7 percent of samples came back positive for steroids, enough to require another round of tests this season. From a recent newspaper story, we see that federal investigators in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative heard steroids were given to major-leaguers Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Benito Santiago, Marvin Benard and Randy Velarde.

Without jumping to conclusions, it's fair to wonder if baseball is doing all it should when the revelations that have everyone talking are the ones coming not from the official test lab but from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Selig - I wince when I say this - was correct Wednesday in Washington when he said he echoed McCain's desire for ``more frequent and year-round testing of players (with) immediate penalties for those caught.'''

Baseball tests minor-leaguers year-round and has 15-game suspensions for first violations. Sounds like the sort of plan that would be right for major-leaguers too.

Or else?

Congress getting involved in the rules of professional sports is an unpleasant idea. From almost anybody else on Capitol Hill, the threat itself would be a joke. But when it's McCain talking, you imagine America nodding.

McCain and Fehr in a PR game over steroids? It's Barry Bonds at the plate. It's Chan Ho Park on the mound. It's the fans pounding their gloves in the right-field seats.

You know where this one is going.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Donald Fehr, right, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, was chastised on Capitol Hill during a hearing on professional sports' drug-testing policies Wednesday.

(2) Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, left, said he supports ``more frequent and year-round testing of players (with) immediate penalties for those caught.''

Dennis Cook/Associated Press