RESULT SHOWS NUMBERS, NOT PENNANTS, REWARDED.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

For those who hope to stride past the velvet ropes to baseball immortality, the dress codes just became clearer.

If you want to see and be seen in Club MVP, you'd better get duded up in the fashionable threads of a playoff team. But if you want to dance in the exclusive Hall of Fame, it's all right to come as you are.

As arbitrary as it appears, that's the message of a pair of recent votes by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

In November they turned Mark McGwire away from the National League Most Valuable Player Award in favor of Sammy Sosa, apparently because McGwire failed to ``lead'' his St. Louis Cardinals to the playoffs while Sosa ``led'' his Chicago Cubs to the wild card.

But in the Hall of Fame vote announced Tuesday, the writers honored Nolan Ryan and Robin Yount along with George Brett even though Ryan and Yount usually were more like McGwire than Sosa when September came and the pennant drive began.

Luckily for them, the unwritten rules of the Hall of Fame encourage being yourself, no matter the company you keep, as long as you cut a distinctive and memorable figure.

In the end it didn't matter much that Ryan and Yount - and even Brett to a lesser degree - will not be remembered as Mssrs. October.

Yount played 20 seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, ``leading'' them to two playoffs, one pennant (1982) and no World Series championships. One of the playoff appearances was a cheapie resulting from the 1981 strike. The overall image is of Yount slaving away for non-contenders.

Ryan pitched 27 seasons for four teams, making it to five playoffs, one pennant and one World Series title. His playoffs, like Yount's, included the '81 strike season. As for the World Series, it came with the '69 New York Mets, for whom Ryan played only a minor role. In his greatest seasons, Ryan couldn't overcome the mediocrity of the Angels, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.

Even Brett wasted much of his prime on losing Kansas City Royals teams. In 21 years, he made it to seven playoffs, which is more than his share, and won two pennants and one World Series ('85).

But ultimately, a baseball player's greatness, more so than other team-sport players', is measured by the quality of the individual and the quantity of his deeds.

Many of the same writers who missed that point last fall, voting Sosa over McGwire as MVP despite McGwire's superior production, got it right this week, electing three perfectly deserving Hall of Famers.

It's the first time since the original Hall of Fame class in 1936 that three players were elected in their first year of eligibility. And each is there for the right reason, because he is one of a kind, the best or the most of something.

Ryan: not the greatest pitcher of his day, but the prototypical fastball pitcher of the expansion era; an inspiration to the middle-aged, racking up 71 victories, four strikeout titles and two no-hitters in his 40s; and the only man to strike out 5,000 batters.

Brett: a fantastic combination of fire (see the pine-tar incident) and grace (the template for a left-handed hitter); a 3,000-hit club member; and the only man to win batting titles in three decades, the first at age 23 in '76 and the last at 37 in '90.

Yount: a big-hitting shortstop before that was in vogue; a 3,000-hit man; a prodigy who played less than a season in the minors before joining the Brewers at 18; and one of only three men to win MVPs at two positions.

Yount's second MVP, in '89, was earned as he played for a fourth-place team. That was before baseball writers adopted their current, simplistic definition of ``valuable,'' in which making the playoffs makes you a saint and missing the playoffs makes you a selfish showboat.

Maybe playing for the losing Brewers did hurt Yount in the Hall of Fame vote, just not enough to make a difference. While Ryan and Brett topped 98 percent, Yount squeaked in with 77 percent, just 2 percent above the threshold.

And maybe Carlton Fisk, who was the best-supported of the unelected in his first year on the ballot, was hurt by having given us only one great postseason memory, the '75 home run and dance at Fenway Park. But a better guess is Fisk, a tower of New England stoicism, the most durable catcher of all time, will make it in 2000 when the company isn't as dazzling.

Ryan and Yount made it, playoff regulars Tony Perez and Steve Garvey missed out. So it's about the man, not the team.

If Mark McGwire is never the MVP, he can always settle for the Hall of Fame.