HOUSE SPEAKER'S OFFICE NEEDS REVOLVING DOOR NOW.

Byline: Jonathan S. Shapiro Local view

BASEBALL fans hang the letter K on stadium railings every time their pitcher records a strikeout.

In this, the oddest political hardball season in history, Republican leaders are striking out so fast they may start hanging R's out of White House windows pretty soon.

Will the last Republican speaker of the House please turn off the lights?

First, it was Newt Gingrich, resigning his post after his party lost seats in the recent congressional elections.

It was a shocking, unlikely ending for the author of the ``Contract With America,'' a man who not so long ago was thought to be the most powerful politician in the country and a shoo-in at some point for his party's presidential nomination.

It was sad, too. But at least Gingrich got to take some cuts.

Consider poor Bob Livingston. On deck to succeed Gingrich, the Louisiana congressman became the first man in history to strike out before he even got up to the plate. Having admitted to several instances of adultery (the number has not yet been made clear, thankfully), Livingston retired himself before the vote on impeachment. He never even got to measure his office for drapes.

If Gingrich was a ``used to be,'' poor Bob will go down in history as ``a never was.''

Address all future correspondence to the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives as follows: ``Dear Occupant.''

You might expect this kind of turnover at a fast-food restaurant. Or any business run by Rupert Murdoch. But not in the House of Representatives, where incumbents are harder to remove than stains and hang around longer than bad smells. The speaker of the House is the third-ranking member of the government of the most important country in the world. The speaker is the majority leader of an institution where seniority equals power, to get along one must go along, and years of devoted partisanship is supposed to lead to vast amounts of power and patronage.

Not anymore. The House now changes leaders faster than the Dodgers change managers. And recently that isn't easy to do.

The newest speaker-to-be is former Yorkville High School wrestling coach J. Dennis Hastert. In case you need to pick him out of a lineup, he is a dead-ringer for actor Brian Dennehy. He is also a relative rookie with only 12 years of service as a congressman. If you follow politics at all, you know Hastert as the man who used to be one of the acceptable answers to the following trivia question:

Name a guy who is never going to be speaker of the House. Apparently, the Republicans are going for a different kind of leader.

By all accounts, Hastert is a moderate, genial fellow able to work with Democrats and likely to strive for consensus. He is neither brash like Gingrich nor overly partisan like Livingston. In this toxic political climate, there are those who believe he will actually try and work with others to get something down next year.

And if things go badly, he and Gov. Jesse Ventura can start the new Wrestling Party.

In his wonderful book ``The Face of Leadership,'' historian John Keegan described the many qualities that a leader must possess. They include courage, intelligence and vision. Unfortunately, Keegan failed to mention one important quality that a leader must have: the ability to stick around.

Of course, only time will tell if Hastert has what it takes to lead. But if he is there for any time at all, he will prove to be a much better leader than the men he is replacing.

If Bill Clinton proves that cheaters never prosper, the departing Gingrich and Livingston