GOODBYE GLASS SLIPPER; A YEAR PAST CINDERELLA SEASON, PADRES CAMINITI IS STRUGGLING.

Byline: Eric Noland Daily News Staff Writer

It was the kind of season ballplayers dream about only deep in the night, when every pitch toward the plate looks like a giant marshmallow and the bat feels like a feather, when every dive for every grounder is perfectly timed, every throw is a bullet to the target.

Until last year, Ken Caminiti of the San Diego Padres might never have imagined any of this could become reality. And through a boozy haze a few years back, he might not have even been able to pull the dreamy images into focus.

Caminiti still isn't quite sure what to make of it or what came after. A streaky hitter throughout his career, he went on a tear last year and never let up. It carried him to the National League Most Valuable Player award.

Nine months later, he is on the disabled list with the strained right hamstring and the Padres are in last place, 6-1/2 games behind the fourth-place Colorado Rockies.

It seems like a long time since the final weekend of last season, when the Padres snatched the National League West title away from the Dodgers and Caminiti left tread marks up the front of those white-and-blue Los Angeles uniforms.

Over a three-game sweep, the San Diego third baseman went 6 for 11 (.545), drove in two runs, scored four runs, produced a game-winning double in an extra-inning game, hit a home run and was walked four times (twice intentionally).

As the Dodgers, in their first look at the Padres in 1997, open a three-game series here today, they will probably be pleased to hear that the Padres are down and Caminiti is out.

Even before the hamstring put him out of the lineup, Caminiti was having a tough year. He was batting just .241 with four homers and 18 RBI, a long way from last season's .326 average, 40 home runs and 130 RBI.

But don't bother asking him to dissect the crash of '97. He's still puzzling over the crush of '96.

``It was all a really weird deal for me,'' Caminiti said. ``I was in a lot of pain early. I was so frustrated, I just wanted to quit. I kept showing up, and things all of a sudden just started happening.''

Caminiti's feats were all the more remarkable considering the physical condition he was in. The pain he mentioned? It was from a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder, an injury suffered in the season's first week while diving for a ball. He received cortisone injections and played on, waiting until the season ended to undergo the required surgical repair.

Sure, Caminiti throws with his right arm, but he is a switch-hitter, and he batted .312 with 25 home runs from the left side of the plate. Also, that weakened left arm had a Gold Glove hanging on it at season's end.

Much was made of Caminiti's willingness and ability to play through often-excruciating pain - he says he couldn't raise his left arm above his head. But here's an intriguing theory, from a Padres teammate. First baseman Wally Joyner believes Caminiti's phenomenal year occurred not in spite of the injury but largely because of it.

``I don't know if he'd admit that,'' said Joyner, who also spent time on the DL this year with a sprained right ankle. ``But an injury like that causes you to relax more. `I am hurt. I can only do so much. This is all that I can do.'

``The key for healthy guys is to stay within yourself. You know, you always hear that. But an injury says, `Hey, I'm not myself, therefore I can't overextend myself. What am I forced to do? Just try to put the ball in play.' You realize what your boundaries are and, because of the injury, you're forced to stay within them.''

Actually, Caminiti admits that he subscribes to this view. He feels it also might explain why he's had consequent struggles at the plate this season.

``Yeah,'' he said, ``there were certain pitches that I could hit last year, and I knew it. The year before, I was hitting pitches at my neck, up high. Last year, I couldn't catch up `to that pitch. I kept trying and trying and trying.

``So I realized, `You can't hit that pitch anymore, because you have zero upper-body strength. Don't swing at it.' It cut down my strike zone, and I really had to concentrate on getting a good pitch.''

Caminiti smirked and looked toward his shoe tops. ``Right now,'' he said softly, ``I'm swinging at pitches over my head again.''

He can probably be counted on to pull himself out of his difficulties, which some have attributed to a pain-free but still-mending left shoulder plus a battle with the hamstring and elbow injuries. Any recovery might not be in time to carry the Padres to the top, as he did last season, or to put up MVP numbers again.

But Caminiti has demonstrated in his personal life that he is fully capable of recognizing an objective and then applying a gritty persistence toward its achievement.

A modest hitter early in his career, with Houston, his production began to soar about the time he let go of a bottle in 1993.

``I think he's stronger and in better physical shape than he was when he was 24-25,'' said Padres manager Bruce Bochy. ``Some of the activities . . . he's gotten control of his life.''

Caminiti's battle to overcome alcoholism has been well chronicled, and, yes, he agrees with Bochy that his career has been one of the beneficiaries of sobriety.

In his early 20s, he said, ``I didn't have the body. I lifted weights, but nothing serious. And I was drinking a lot, so I was soft. I had that fog. (He draws out the last word, his eyelids drooping.)

``I was trying to give my best, but I don't think you can give your best when you have the typical baseball night life. It was really easy: On the road a lot, away from your family. `Let's go to the bar.' That's what it was all about, or what I thought it was all about. I was just really misinformed, a little kid who didn't know which way was up.

``That caught up with me, and I'm glad I caught on to it.''

Today, Caminiti would also like to `get back to the kind of surge he had in 1996. He can probably draw some encouragement from the fact he was particularly hot late in the season, batting .360 with 28 home runs and 81 RBI after the All-Star break.

He smiles slightly at the pleasant memories. ``Best streak I've ever been on,'' he said. ``I just felt so relaxed. I saw the ball so well, and it seemed like I got a good pitch every at-bat. I had a lot of things going right.''

As if in a dream.

NO-BRAINER

Last season, San Diego Padres third baseman Ken Caminiti became only the fourth unanimous National League Most Valuable Player in the 66-year history of the award, joining Jeff Bagwell (Houston, '94), Mike Schmidt (Philadelphia, '80) and Orlando Cepeda (St. Louis, '67). A partial accounting of the 1996 vote:

Player, Team 1st 2nd 3rd Pts.

Ken Caminiti, SD 28 0 0 392

Mike Piazza, LA 0 18 7 237

Ellis Burks, Col 0 5 4 186

Chipper Jones, Atl 0 2 7 158

Barry Bonds, SF 0 0 4 132

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Chart

Photo: (color) A strained hamstring is one reason the Padres Ken Caminiti, last year's National League MVP, is hitting just .241 with four homers and 18 RBI so far this season.

Daily News File Photo

ChartL NO-BRAINER (see text)