HANDS OF STONE, HEARTS OF GOLD

By Steve Wulf

THERE WERE THREE BUBBAS, TWO POOKIES, ONE Tookie, a Pork Chop, brothers Motorboat and Speedboat Jones, Ted Williams (no relation), Pete Rose (relation), an Evers, a Chance and a lot of stinkers. They came in sizes ridiculously large and incredibly small, ages old and older. They had worn the uniforms of the Brasschaat (Belgium) Braves and Melbourne (Australia) Monarchs. They gave up day jobs like stockbroker and bag boy and minister and fireman and even sportswriter. They all had the same dream, though, the same faint hope that they would appear in a major league box score for the first, or one last, time.

Call them what you will--replacement players, opportunists, scabs--but, hey, they spent six weeks of spring training playing hard and praying even harder. Each would receive $25,000 if he made the opening-day roster and his team actually played a game. But these guys weren't in it for the money, at least not so much as the warring parties were. A few days before the scheduled start of the season, the Florida Marlins' 38-year-old replacement first baseman, Rick Lancellotti, said, "It's like they gave us a Mercedes without the keys. But at least we got to sit in it."

At week's end, it was unclear whether the Seven Months' War is really over or whether The Baseball Encyclopedia would sprout 600 new names this week.

Eventually, the replacement players will be forgotten. They should be remembered, though, and maybe even thanked. They helped keep spring-training cities on life support, they made the major leaguers think twice about continuing their strike, and, most important, they turned back the clock to a time when the players ran everything out and signed everything put in front of them. Before the last spring-training game in Vero Beach, Florida, the mock Los Angeles Dodgers came out on the field and applauded the fans for their support. That's something you don't see every day--hell, any day--in the majors.

Crossing a picket line can indeed be morally repugnant. But this baseball strike wasn't exactly Matewan, not when the players, who average more than $1 million a year, weren't even willing to man their own picket lines. Ostensibly, the players were worried about security, but more probably, they were worried about having to sign a lot of autographs. Disdain for the public is one thing the owners and players have in common.

That contempt had a lot to do with the original, cynical concept of replacement ball. Let's put some has-beens and never-would-have-beens in major league uniforms and see what happens. Well, the fans stayed away--only so many of us remember Butch Metzger, a pitcher who resurfaced 17 years after his last major league appearance. And the baseball was pretty drab, with too many groundouts and too few extra-base hits. "Major leaguers have multiple tools," said Marlin pitcher-stockbroker Steve Fireovid. "Most of us have a tool." Tiger manager Sparky Anderson refused to watch it, and the Baltimore Orioles refused to play it, in part to preserve Cal Ripken's 2,009-game playing streak. But even people like Oakland A's manager Tony LaRussa were impressed with the replacements' efforts. "I might just videotape some of these games," said LaRussa, "and when the regular players get back, show them what it was like when they really wanted to play."

The replacements provided some comic relief, to be sure. There were Seattle Mariners who ate so much of the clubhouse food that manager Lou Piniella had to put them on a diet, and New York Yankees who had to be told it was not O.K. to wear their official hats and jackets to the shopping mall.

But the replacements provided inspiration as well. Dave Graybill, a fire fighter in Glendale, Arizona, and a Mariner replacement, rescued badly burned twin infants from a fire, then 10 hours later pitched two shutout innings. Another pitcher, Dave Shotkoski of the Atlanta Braves, was killed in West Palm Beach, Florida, during a robbery, but even his tragedy yielded a tale of heroism. Braves outfielder--cable installer Terry Blocker walked and talked his way through a bad neighborhood and eventually led police to a suspect.

The Marlins' promotional motto this spring was "You don't know them. They don't know you. But you share something in common: A Love for the Game." Perhaps nobody in baseball--real or replacement--has had that love tested more than Marty Clary, who was once a member of Atlanta's starting rotation and was scheduled to be the Marlins' opening-day starter. Clary's baseball travels have taken him to Parma, Italy, and Puebla, Mexico. It was while he was in Mexico last year that Clary, 33, and his wife suffered a senseless tragedy: their toddler son died after falling out of a third-floor window. "We took some time off to heal after my son's death," says Clary, "but my dream never died. I still have the desire, and the ability, I think, to pitch in the majors."

Nobody really wanted replacement players. But say this for them: they warmed up this baseball season. Here's hoping Clary gets his start someday, the right way.