DATE: Monday, August 18, 1997               TAG: 9708180197

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Molinaro 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

FOOTBALL IS READY TO GIVE BASEBALL WILD WAKEUP CALL

In a couple weeks, baseball encounters its summer nemesis - football - head on.

For the longest time, football has been the monster that swallowed September. Major League Baseball's stretch run does not do well in head-to-head competition with a fresh season of the National Football League or even college football.

Baseball loses a large part of America in September, at least until the playoffs get under way in October.

That's what baseball's wildcard system is all about, saving some of September for itself. Saving baseball from football.

With the wildcard, baseball attempts to be more like football. The gimmick seems to be working, but how well?

As challenges go, this one may be hopeless for baseball. America's obsession with the NFL seems complete. If not, how do you explain the presence seemingly everywhere of Terry Bradshaw, the Gomer Pyle of broadcasting?

The NFL did not come by the nickname No Fun League for nothing. But pro football's dullness and the cookie-cutter sameness of each team do not discourage the gamblers, the NFL's core audience.

To be fair, for thousands upon thousands of sports fans of all types, football on TV constitutes a Sunday worship service.

An everyday pastime cannot be expected to contend with one heavily-promoted, over-dramatized ``gridiron war'' on Sunday afternoon or Monday night.

Football is an easy game to hype. Miss this game and you must wait a week for your fix. Miss a baseball game? No problem. There's another one the next day.

Baseball can't compete with that. Baseball has no choice, though, but to try. With six weeks to go in the regular season, the game seems fairly well positioned for a solid effort.

In the American League East, for example, September's schedule is full of juice.

After Labor Day, the first-place Orioles have eight games remaining with the second-place Yankees. The eight games will be played in a span of 11 days. Odd scheduling. But it creates a playoff atmosphere that anticipates October.

In the National League, it would not hurt if somebody could give the Atlanta Braves a push. Though the Florida Marlins linger stubbornly in the Braves' rear-view mirror, you get the sense that Atlanta can turn it on whenever it wishes.

That leaves the Marlins to fight it out for the wildcard with the Mets and Dodgers. The wildcard keeps more cities in contention. But it is not the perfect solution to baseball's September slump.

An argument could be made that, in some instances, the wildcard saps drama from the regular season. What's at stake, really, when Baltimore and New York tangle? Both are the class of the AL. Both will reach the playoffs, one way or another.

The wildcard gives both the Birds and Yankees a safety net. Their September games would be even more riveting, wouldn't they, if only one team - the division winner - were eligible for postseason?

But this is nit-picking. Baseball has a larger problem - keeping its game front and center while America clicks back and forth between a couple of football games.

Baseball has transformed its October with playoffs and wildcards. Baseball in October is intense, a good show.

It is baseball's September song that needs amplification. About Labor Day, baseball labors to be heard over football's din.

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