Spring Dreaming Time

By Tom Callahan

By about 35 minutes, Detroit figures to beat Cincinnati to the official unveiling of spring next week, further vengeance for Sparky Anderson. Beginning with Tiger and Riverfront, Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Chicago's Comiskey Park, all the old parks are lifting their faces for another baseball season (the older the better). In every one of them, the first pitch on Opening Day will be like the first horn on New Year's Eve.

Spring may not be the favorite season, and baseball may not be the finest game, but they are the only ones associated with renewal or love. The camps in Florida and Arizona will be breaking up over the next few days; most of the spectators will also be journeying home. Does anyone ever go to see the pro football teams work out in July? Would Jim Brown be found there in his old Cleveland uniform? In Winter Haven, Fla., Ted Williams is probably leaning against a batting cage right now. The real Ted Williams.

To warm up their arms and their fans for another year, all baseball players (hopeful veterans and aging rookies alike) are obligated to spend several winter weeks unlimbering in our common past at one or another of God's waiting rooms. The parks are small, the ticket prices low. The outfield fences are let to advertisers. Except in Vero Beach, where there are no fences and frantic Dodgers have to chase forever after Little League home runs. In other words, almost everything is the way it used to be.

At least in sport, this seems the last place where romance is not only allowed but required. A Philadelphian encountered once in the bleachers explained that he had come to Florida by train because, as he said, "sometimes I need to get close to the surface of things."

The Texas Rangers have found themselves a phenom--and no team should be without one--named Pete Incaviglia. He is the brawny image of Hollywood's (as distinct from Bernard Malamud's) Roy Hobbs, varying the normal condition of baseballs flying over fences by hitting one through the fence. Texas is thinking about winning the pennant.

Atlanta is too, so that's every- one. The Braves' logic is faultless. Last year the Braves had the worst pitching in the National League, including the Chicago Cubs, so in the offseason they traded about the secondbest pitcher for a catcher who hits .246. Naturally, they feel like a new team. In this spirit of reborn hope, Rotund Reliever Terry Forster even dropped 40 lbs. But sadly, the Braves may drop Forster.

Bitterly, Phil Niekro, 47 on Tuesday, packed up his Yankee knuckleball and his even-300 victories last week and went home to Lilburn, Ga. When Niekro took up pitching as a trade 27 years ago, he was under the impression that it would be steady work. Nobody thinks of baseball's ever ending, always beginning.