HOURS, NOT MOMENTS, IN TIME.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Unmatched in its flair for the indelible image, baseball has been posing for snapshots all month, outdoing itself in the instant when Alex Rodriguez and Bronson Arroyo and the themes of autumn collided on a first- base line in the Bronx.

This is not a column about that single play Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium - it's about all of the singular plays from Bobby Thomson to Bill Buckner to Kirk Gibson that set baseball apart - but the latest greatest incident is a nice place to start.

A four-color splash in virtually every American newspaper Wednesday morning, it showed the symbol of Yankee riches, Rodriguez, reduced to slapping lamely at a ball like a panicky little girl fending off a spider. It showed an everyman emblem of Red Sox struggles, Arroyo, going from nobody to bum to history as the ball flew out of his dislodged glove for a costly error before a rare umpires' reversal redeemed him. It might have shown the Red Sox's hard-luck legacy turning around as fate smiled, propelling Boston into the seventh game of the American League Championship Series, which it won Wednesday night.

It's that kind of moment - the Dodgers' climactic Steve Finley blast, the Angels' disastrous Chone Figgins gaffes, the Red Sox's David Ortiz game-winners and Johnny Damon grand slam - that has made the 2004 pennant drive impossible to tune out.

It's that kind of moment that keeps fans' attention away from football's grander displays of physical courage and basketball's splashier athletic feats at this time of year.

It's that kind of moment that baseball does better than any other sport.

For every Joe Montana-to-Dwight Clark pass, Franco Harris Immaculate Reception and Rams-Titans goal-line tackle that football has burned into the memory, baseball has Giants Win the Pennant, It Gets Through Buckner and Look Who's Comin' Up film clips by the dozen.

For every John Havlicek steal, Derek Fisher shot at 0.4 and Michael Jordan anti-gravity dunk, baseball has enough highlights like Willie Mays robbing Vic Wertz, Yogi Berra embracing Don Larsen and Bob Welch fanning Reggie Jackson to fill a shelf of photo albums.

Why?

Part of it is the bright side of baseball's supposed weakness - the game's generally low-wattage style, the players' frequent standing around, the long stretches of quiet build-up. When a pivotal moment occurs, it stands out from the gray background, more so than the 104th point of a basketball game.

Part of it is baseball's visual simplicity - a man throws a pitch, a man hits it, a man catches it. The images are easily stored in the mind's eye and described, hence the sport's appeal to writers, unlike the complicated swirl of bodies that creates a touchdown.

And part of it is a baseball game's unique setting in space (a ballpark with its own look and dimensions, as different as Yankee Stadium from Fenway Park) and time (there is no game clock, so Sunday's game went on until Ortiz's 12th-inning homer at 1:23 a.m. EDT Monday). You remember the corner of the park and the shape of the shadows when a baseball moment occurs, impossible on all those look-alike basketball courts.

In the Lakers' locker room after a recent exhibition game, players coming back from the showers turned their chairs toward a TV set tuned to a Yankees-Red Sox game that was (naturally) tied in the late innings.

The players would study a pitch on the screen, then lower their heads and pull on a sock. Look up for another pitch, down for the other sock. Then a pitch, then a shoe. Afraid of missing a moment.

Kobe Bryant dressed while looking at the TV over the heads of the assembling reporters, most of whom were facing him.

``Home run!'' Bryant shouted suddenly, his eyes widening theatrically, and the reporters spun toward the TV to find nothing of the sort.

``Gotcha!'' Bryant said with a grin.

That's what keeps us on baseball even as basketball cranks up and football hits midseason form.

In basketball and the rest, it's rare that a great moment appears from out of nowhere and burns itself into the memory.

In baseball, it happens anytime two good teams lace the gloves on, and every time Alex Rodriguez knocks one off.