OLD HANDS OF THE WEST GIANTS TRY TO REGAIN DIVISION WITH EXPERIENCED ROSTER.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - We got it on good authority this week, from one of the few living things at the San Francisco Giants' spring-training camp older than Barry Bonds, that the slugger's bad knee and worse PR will not stop him from doing serious damage to the National League West in 2005.

The source is a 20-foot tree, on the other side of the grassy bank beyond the right-center-field fence at Scottsdale Stadium, defoliated by Bonds' fourth and last batting-practice home run Wednesday morning.

Batting practice or not, it was a portentous shot by a man in post-knee-surgery rehab. The tree took the punch in the upper branches and dropped its leaves in awe.

It seems Bonds wasn't lying at his start-of-spring press conference, at least in the part where he predicted, ``I'll be out there again, doing it again.''

Dodgers fans, when your heart tells you Bonds is on the wane, don't believe it. Bonds will be ready to go when the Giants and Dodgers open the season April 5 at SBC Park.

And when you run your finger down the Giants roster and see a bunch of geezers with one foot in the broadcast booth, don't believe that either. The Giants have gone around the other end of the age curve and entered a new sort of prime.

``I think we all know this team is basically built for this year and probably next year. It's not built for down the road,'' first baseman J.T. Snow said.

It's that knowledge that will make the Giants hard to defy in the West.

Average age of the eight everyday players: 35.6 years. That would give the Giants the oldest opening-day lineup in baseball history. Appropriately, manager Felipe Alou is a creaky-gaited 70.

Snow is the right man to explain the meaning of all this. To Los Angeles-of-Anaheim sports fans, he's forever the kid, the son of Rams receiver Jack Snow, 24 when the Angels got him in a trade with the New York Yankees after his 1992 major-league debut. Except now, the perpetual kid is telling stories about the old days.

``When I broke in with the Angels, there were guys like Chuck Finley and Mark Langston who were 34, 35,'' Snow said at his locker. ``I thought, `Man, those guys are old.' It must have been frustrating for the older guys, because young guys do make mistakes and need time to find their way. Now I'm in that situation, I can see where veterans say, 'I want to win now''

Experience brings an immunity to anxiety.

``I think veteran guys if they're going bad, don't panic,'' Snow said. ``When you're young and you have a bad month, you think you're never going to pull out of it.''

On the other, liver-spotted hand, age creates a healthy urgency.

Alou won a World Series with Florida in 1997. Grissom won a Series with Atlanta in 1995. Five others in the Giants' hoped-for opening-day batting order have been to a Series and lost. The same goes for No. 1 starter Jason Schmidt and closer Armando Benitez, both 32. Durham hasn't been that far.

After the Giants went 91-71 and came up two games short in the West, finishing behind the Dodgers for the first time in eight seasons, general manager Brian Sabean went 4 for 4 in addressing major needs over the winter.

Sabean signed Vizquel, the Gold Glover, to exorcise the position where Cody Ransom booted away the division at Dodger Stadium; signed Benitez to anchor the Robb Nen-less bullpen that fell down in the ninth inning on that fateful final Saturday; signed Matheny, another Gold Glover, to reopen diplomatic channels from catcher to pitcher after a year of A.J. Pierzynski; and signed Moises Alou to stand tall in the pivotal spot in the order behind Bonds.

The nine Giants on the opening-day lineup card will include seven one- time All-Stars. Still, there are worry wrinkles here.

Behind Schmidt, the rotation finds Brett Tomko and Kirk Rueter coming off inconsistent 2004 seasons, and Jerome Williams, 23, and Noah Lowry, 24, trying to pitch their way in from the children's table.

The outfield coverage depends on three sets of legs that have been pounding the turf for so long, they broke in when Jose Canseco was the king of baseball. Snow, a platoon first baseman last season, if a good one, is slotted as the No. 3 hitter.

Then there's the inevitable health concern, led by the realization that if Bonds' knee problems recur, or if his pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron slows for any other mysterious reason, the Giants' offense shrinks faster than a balloon poked with a hypodermic needle.

What won't go wrong: The Giants won't tremble if it's the Dodgers by four games at the All-Star break. The Giants won't say, oh, well, there's always next year.

That's a nuclear combination in the mental-edge department, enough to shake the trees up and down the NL West.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) At 40 years old, Giants outfielder Barry Bonds is part of an everyday lineup where the average player age is 35.6 years old.

Robert Laberge/Getty Images

(2) Omar Vizquel, left, watches Barry Bonds take batting practice before a spring training game.

Ben Margot/Associated Press

Box:

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