FROM THE FIELD : SEARCHING FOR PROGRESS.

Byline: MARC J. SPEARS

Opening Day granted me the opportunity to see Boston's Mo Vaughn, the renovation progress on Anaheim Stadium and the new-look Angels.

Those sights, however, took a back seat during my first game as a baseball-beat writer when Larry Whiteside entered the press box.

In the 50th year since Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color barrier, working alongside the Boston Globe baseball writer was an honor. Baseball Hall of Fame writer Wendell Smith, who helped Robinson get discovered, was actually the first African-American sportswriter to have a byline on a major non-minority-owned paper when he joined the Chicago Herald-American in 1947. But Whiteside was the first African-American to cover baseball exclusively as a beat when he followed the Athletics for the Kansas City Kansan in 1959.

``It was difficult,'' said Whiteside, now 59. ``The reaction was negative not only from the other writers, but from the players who weren't accustomed to blacks covering them. It was difficult getting around the ballparks. The staffs weren't used to me being on the field and for a while I was frequently stopped by guards who wanted to throw me out.''

In 1964, Whiteside left Kansas for the Milwaukee Journal, where he ended up covering the Brewers. After turning down a job offer by an L.A. paper in 1973, he joined the Globe the next year to cover the Red Sox.

Whiteside now helps cover the Red Sox in a smaller capacity for the Globe.

In 1994, 47 years after Smith's breakthrough, only one African-American reporter - Brad Turner of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune - was listed among the 268 baseball beat writers in the Major League Baseball media guide. Today, there are only four, including myself.

``Blacks aren't really exposed to the baseball beat,'' Whiteside said. ``Younger blacks are usually funneled in other areas, particularly to the NBA. The baseball beat is an area where your true writing skills can come through. Most successful writers, black and white, have come up through the baseball beat.''

During his illustrious 19-year playing career, Angels first-base coach Dave Parker played on a Pittsburgh team in the mid-'70s that started all minorities at one time. He remembers coming across only four black baseball-beat writers in his career and feels that more minorities are desperately needed to be hired as coaches and front-office people.

Hall of Famer Rod Carew, the Angels' hitting instructor, is baffled by the lack of black baseball writers. Carew expressed displeasure with how minority players are perceived in many stories and how many writers are always looking for a rags-to-riches theme.

``Black writers are the only ones who can sit and chat with other African-Americans and really relate to them,'' Carew said. ``I can't understand why there aren't any more. It is something that needs to be looked at and has gone unnoticed.''

During the season opener, Whiteside received the utmost respect from every writer and player he knew. That is a far more positive response than his debut back in Kansas.

So at least in that respect, I guess some progress has been made.