Fantasy Baseball Takes A New Twist

One of the lures of baseball is that the game chases most rational minds out of the heads of those who follow it.

Every realist knows that 40-or-so games into a 162-game season is a worthless yardstick - and yet the compulsion to build arguments around it is overwhelming. Let’s see … if Ken Griffey Jr. has 18 home runs at the one-quarter-season mark, that projects to …

Seventy-two home runs.

Meaningless? Of course, but who can resist? And so as most of baseball hits that quarter-post about the time weekend play began, we put pencil to paper and saved you the time of watching the rest of the major league season.

Get on with the gardening - here’s the projections for 1997, based on mathematical probabilities and the willingness to embrace the absurd.

Tino Martinez will finish the year with 232 hits, 64 of those home runs.

Deion Sanders will steal 92 bases, and his Cincinnati Reds will go 47-115.

The Pittsburgh Pirates will win the National League Central, Kansas City will win the American League Central and the San Francisco Giants - with Barry Bonds hitting .261 - will win the N.L. West.

Larry Walker will bat .402 with 52 home runs and 164 RBIs and N.L. baseball writers won’t give him the Most Valuable Player Award because he plays 81 games in Coors Field. Ex-Mariners pitcher Mike Morgan goes 0-16 with the Reds.

St. Louis wins 72 games and the New York Mets win 83.

Cecil Fielder hits 12 home runs. Tony Clark hits 56.

Pedro Martinez will go 24-0 and the Montreal Expos still finish third. Roger Clemens will go 24-0 and the Boston Red Sox (66-96) will insist they didn’t miss him. Clemens’ Toronto teammate Erik Hanson won’t win a game - and still be paid $3.5 million.

Alex Rodriguez will hit .314 with 20 home runs and 84 RBIs and steal 32 bases.

The Atlanta Braves win 108 games. The Chicago White Sox and Cubs - combined - win 116.

Bret Boone, Greg Vaughn, Ellis Burks, Mike Bordick, Ryne Sandberg and Bernard Gilkey all hit less than .200 for the season. Todd Worrell saves 44 games with a 4.96 earned-run average and Lee Smith saves 12 with a 2.13 ERA.

Randy Johnson becomes the first 20-game winner in Seattle history and loses the Cy Young Award to Angels rookie Jason Dickson, who wins 24 games.

And Griffey? He bats .344 with 72 home runs and 188 RBIs.

Quotable

Milwaukee’s Cal Eldred gave up four tape-measure home runs to the Oakland Athletics last week, then articulated the experience: “Facing that lineup makes you want to puke.”