TO SOME, CHEATING IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

A Hall of Fame pitcher, an honest-to-gosh legend, was talking last week about the evil of steroids, the shame of the game's whole chemical-cheating culture.

``We just want to get it out of baseball,'' he said, his white mustache dancing as he presumed to speak for old-timers everywhere. ``To clean it up.''

I might have automatically nodded along with this highly ethical stand if the man making it had been almost anyone except Gaylord Perry.

Perry was standing amid the hum of the Anaheim Convention Center on the first day of the National Sports Collectors Convention, where he had come to sign autographs. He was wearing a beige cap with an All-Star Game logo. He's 6-foot-4, and I'm not, so I could see the underside of the cap's bill.

``Anything on that hat?'' I said, leaning closer.

``No, no,'' Perry said, laughing. ``Never put it on your cap -- that's the first thing the umpire wants. Never put it on your glove -- that's the second thing he wants. By the time they've looked at those, they're ready to go back behind home plate.''

``So where do you put it?''

``I don't remember.''

Gaylord Perry was the most famous spitball pitcher of the era after spitballs were outlawed in the 1920s. He called his book ``Me and the Spitter,'' unsuccessfully sought an endorsement deal with Vaseline, and made an uproarious mound-top pantomime out of fingering his cap and ears and hairline and anywhere else the grease might be hidden.

It's hard to know how many of his 314 major-league victories, and his two Cy Young Awards, he owed to the way those slippery substances made balls dart and dive, and the way the uncertainty affected batters.

So the instinct is to call Perry, now 67 and living near Asheville, N.C., a hypocrite if the pitcher who built a singular career on the application of foreign substances condemns players who build record-setting careers on the injection of foreign substances.

But there's a difference, isn't there? Fans scorn the chemical abusers, proven or suspected; we want them kicked out of the sport, whether it's baseball, football, cycling or track and field. We smile when we think about spitball pitchers, bat-corkers and sign-stealers; their kind of cheating sounds so, well, innocent.

We laughed at Joe Niekro's hapless attempt to toss away an emery board when he was searched on the Anaheim Stadium mound. We winced at Rick Honeycutt's ill-fated attempt to doctor baseballs with a thumbtack taped to a finger, a plan that went awry when he carelessly rubbed his forehead and drew blood.

We marveled at Gaylord Perry's success in getting away with hiding what seemed like the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez on his person before finally getting caught and suspended in his 21st season in 1982.

When Jason Grimsley sneaked through a Comiskey Park ceiling crawl space to pinch teammate Albert Belle's corked bat from the umpire's room and replace it with a legal bat, he gained a place in the game's folklore. When the same player admitted using human growth hormones, though, he got a spot on the retired list.

Of course, one big difference is that, unlike loading up a baseball, juicing up the biceps can hurt you.

``What the old-timers I talk to are afraid of is what it (steroids) can do to your health,'' Perry said. ``(Mark) McGwire couldn't continue to play because of his knees. (Barry) Bonds is having a lot of trouble; I don't know if he can play another year or not.''

But health implications aren't the only difference. I mean, people get plenty worked up about those wicked juice cheaters without ever mentioning the potential for liver damage.

Let me suggest the real reason Gaylord Perry, eighth in career strikeouts, is in the Hall of Fame, while Mark McGwire, seventh in career home runs, might never be:

Doctoring a ball without being detected while standing on a mound in front of 40,000 people requires the sort of finely honed skill, wit and nerve that defines a great baseball player. Proceeding to admit it bespeaks an admirable audacity.

Jamming a needle in your backside while hiding in a clubhouse bathroom stall is the act of an oaf, a dullard and a coward. Denying it in the face of scientific evidence suggests the shrinkage the experts warn about is already in effect.

``Not too many guys know how to do that,'' Perry said of throwing spitballs. ``Not too many guys know how to steal signs or cork bats.''

But anybody, apparently, can buy a bottle full of extra-base hits. So, steroid freaks, here's how you can rescue your reputations:

Announce that you're moving the chemicals out of the locker room and onto the field. Hide the needles, the bottles and the creams in your caps, your batting gloves, or wherever it is that Gaylord Perry stashed the stuff. Administer the stuff between pitches with sleight of hand worthy of Penn Jillette.

If you can do it without anybody noticing, you're smarter than you look. You get the fans' respect. You get the Hall of Fame.

Just be careful how you rub your forehead.

heymodesti(AT_SIGN)aol.com

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(color) To some, pitchers using Vaseline to throw spitballs isn't on the same level of cheating as those who have injected steroids.