BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Mets’ Pitching Scrapbook Empty

It was the week in which Dwight Gooden brought the scrapbook to life.

It was also the week in which Paul Wilson, a potential successor to Gooden in the New York Mets’ rotation, continued to struggle.

The new Met scrapbook remains empty.

The hope and promise of a young and powerhouse rotation, expected by some in the game to revive memories of the Gooden and Tom Seaver eras, is still there, but injuries and the realities of a force-fed learning process at the major league level have slowed development.

The Mets, who open a three-game series at Dodger Stadium Monday night, are 17-23 with a 4.52 earned-run average, ninth best in the National League.

Wilson faces the San Francisco Giants today with a 1-3 record and 6.90 ERA after eight starts. The former Florida State star is 23, in only his third pro season, the first player selected in the 1994 June draft, a $1.5-million bonus baby who led the minor leagues in strikeouts last year but is still searching for control and consistency at this higher level.

“It’s frustrating being on the losing end, but I don’t feel anything has changed from an attitude standpoint,” Wilson said, relaxing at his locker in San Diego on Wednesday. “I’m not giving in or backing down.”

On Tuesday night, Wilson gave up eight runs, eight hits and five walks while making 92 pitches in 3 2/3 innings against the Padres.

It was a game in which Rickey Henderson was on base five times, the veteran leadoff man playing with Wilson’s mind as he has with more experienced pitchers’.

“I was probably more concerned with him than I was with the hitter,” Wilson said. “I’ve always been able to grow off my setbacks and successes, but I’m still learning about myself at this level, dealing with a lot of first experiences, not always sure of what to do, how to react.”

The Mets’ expectations were based on Wilson’s heat-delivering potential, successful rookie seasons by Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher and the expected improvement of Bobby Jones and Pete Harnisch.

But Pulsipher, 22, has had reconstructive elbow surgery and is out for the year, replaced by journeyman Mark Clark (2-5), a major loss.

Isringhausen, 23, is 2-4 with a 3.66 ERA, struggling to find the form that produced seven consecutive wins to wrap up a 9-2 debut as a rookie last season.

Jones, 26 and in his third full season, is 3-1, but has a 5.10 ERA.

The veteran Harnisch, 29, is 3-2 with a 4.39 ERA, still building stamina and strength after shoulder surgery in the aftermath of a 2-8 campaign that ended in August.

Sitting in his Florida office in March, Manager Dallas Green had said his young guns represented the foundation of a staff that “has a chance to become one of the best in a long, long time.”

He sat with a reporter in his San Diego office on Wednesday and said, “We’ve played only a quarter of the schedule, and I sense some of you people are giving up on the kids already. I’ve always been told that I don’t have any patience, but I think it’s some of you who don’t have the patience. I mean, I never anticipated that Paul or any of the others would come in and win a Cy Young Award in their first year. Anyone anticipating that isn’t a very good baseball person.

“Common sense tells you that he and the others will struggle at times, learning to pitch and win at the major league level. That’s the name of the game now. How many young pitchers get the benefit of four or five minor league seasons any more?

“I mean, this is not a game won in a day. It’s won over the long haul. I think what everyone failed to look at was the youth and inexperience.”

No one, of course, could anticipate the costly loss--in talent and personality--of Pulsipher. In addition, Wilson and the others have been handicapped by an inconsistent offense and bullpen, and the absence of a veteran anchor, Green said, to stop losing streaks, and help get the rotation through tough times, compounding the pressure on younger pitchers.

Asked if he has talked to Wilson and colleagues, trying to ease that pressure, Green said, “You can’t talk baseball. At this level it comes down to performance. We can assist their preparation, but they still have to do it between the lines. Paul, Izzy and the rest of them have to learn to live with that, cope with it. I can’t do it for them. They have to do it themselves.”

At the same time, he added, they need to be given some space, recognition of where they are in their development and the probability that “what we’ve seen so far with good games, bad games and in-between games will continue for the rest of the year.”

Maybe not. Maybe the touted Wilson will step up and become the consistent anchor as a rookie.

If so, Green said, “he has to understand that he doesn’t have to throw 102 miles per hour, he can win by throwing 92 and putting it where he wants it.

“Power pitchers have to learn that. If there’s been any surprise, it’s that his control hasn’t been as good as we expected, but that’s part of it too.”

In the media madhouse that is New York, where Met fans hunger for another winner, there are frequent comparisons between the young Wilson and the young Gooden. Along with references to his bonus and No. 1 draft selection, it’s part of his albatross.

“I can’t follow anybody else’s path,” he said in San Diego. “I have to set my own course. I didn’t set any goals because I didn’t have any feel for what this experience would be like.

“I probably have been trying to be too perfect, too dominant, instead of just relaxing and letting my stuff work for me, but that’s natural.

“If you were to ask the Braves, guys like [Tom] Glavine and [John] Smoltz and [Steve] Avery, I think they’d say, ‘Hey, we took our lumps early, but it made us better pitchers; we’re still here and doing well.’ I’m confident that five years down the road I’ll be where they are now.”

The scrapbook is open.

BELLE’S DEFENSE

Arn Tellem, the Los Angeles-based attorney/agent who represents Albert Belle, says, “it’s time for the media and others to get off Albert’s case and leave him alone.”

No problem, but will Belle leave the media alone, recognizing that reporters have an industry-guaranteed right to be on the field and in the dugout and clubhouse? Will Belle desist from throwing a baseball at a photographer trying to take his picture from a distance while doing his stretches and desist from verbally intimidating reporters in the dugout?

Belle was fined $50,000 Feb. 29 for a profane tirade at NBC’s Hannah Storm during the World Series. He was ordered to undergo counseling and perform community service by American League President Gene Budig Wednesday after throwing a baseball that hit a Sports Illustrated photographer on April 6.

“If the league had done a nickel’s worth of investigating, it would have known that Albert is already one of the most active athletes in community service,” Tellem said. “The league would also have known that Albert has been attending and hasn’t missed counseling sessions he began on his own [and which he was also ordered to attend as an adjunct to the $50,000 fine for his World Series tirade].

“This was all about the league’s own image and quenching the media’s thirst because the man doesn’t give interviews and wants to be left alone to focus on baseball. If it wasn’t for [the league] satisfying the media, none of this would have happened. The photographer didn’t file a complaint. There was no fine or suspension. The league conceded it was a media issue by not fining and suspending him. I mean, if Gene Budig genuinely cared about Albert Belle he would have handled this privately and not issued an order.

“Albert is the best player in baseball. He’s putting up Ruthian numbers. It’s time to leave him alone.”

RED STORM

In the Sports Illustrated article that might contribute to disciplinary action against Cincinnati Red owner Marge Schott, she takes demeaning shots at three of her own players: Hal Morris, Mark Portugal and Jose Rijo.

All replied heatedly, but Morris, who rejected higher offers from other teams and took a nearly 50% pay cut from $3 million to $1.6 million so that he could stay in Cincinnati, may have said it best.

Referred to by Schott in the article as “that stupid, stupid man” as she watched him boot a ground ball, Morris said:

“I haven’t read it, but maybe I am stupid. Stupid for staying around here.”

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--Schott is not the only one who can put foot in mouth. Chicago White Sox Manager Terry Bevington drew complaints from women’s groups this week when he referred to the media hype over resumption of what has been something of a heated rivalry between the White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers as “women’s stuff, gossip.” Of the complaints that followed, Bevington said:

“It’s nonsense. I don’t have the time. What I said had nothing to do with women [in a degrading way]. It’s just that a woman takes an eight-minute call and turns it into 30, talking about soap operas and stuff. A man gets on the phone and gets right to the point. The point here is, there’s no more of a rivalry than with any other team. There’s nothing to make an issue of, but if some group thinks so, I’m not afraid to take them on.”

--At a time when baseball needs its top stars, David Justice has now gone down for the season because of a dislocated shoulder, joining Kirby Puckett, David Cone and Brett Butler on a list of players who could be out for the year or longer. In addition, Randy Johnson, the Seattle Mariners’ Cy Young Award winner, is now on the disabled list with a 5-0 record and a bulging disk that pinched a nerve in his lower back.

Johnson, expected to sit out at least the rest of the month, said the discomfort has been persistent. “I’m off to one of the best starts of my career, but I realize I haven’t been pitching healthy,” he said. “I have to do what’s best for everyone concerned, and right now, in this condition, I’m not helping either the team or myself by continuing to try and pitch.”

--Baltimore Oriole Manager Davey Johnson batted Cal Ripken Jr. seventh on Tuesday, the lowest he has batted since Oct. 3, 1982, his rookie season. Ripken is batting .243 with one homer and 18 runs batted in. His slugging percentage of .345 is 108 points lower than his career mark coming into the year. Is this a man headed for regular days off after he passes Sachio Kinugasa’s world record for consecutive games of 2,215 on June 14 in Kansas City?