Damage Control

Someday, somehow, major-league baseball will return to America. When it does, our national pastime will have one huge public relations problem.The game's relations with the public just plain stink since the strike that ended the season Aug. 12 and even killed the World Series for the first time in 90 years.The latest polls show that 58 percent of the public blame the owners, and 61 percent blame the players.OK, I realize that's more than 100 percent, but it shows how outraged the public is.Things are so bad that Baltimore's annual midwinter baseball jamboree, otherwise known as the Tops in Sports banquet, is suffering.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. -- "But, anyway, down at the Foot Locker . . ."This isn't Lou Holtz or Steve Spurrier taking a potshot at Florida State, the latest crisis zone in college athletics. It's Bobby Bowden himself using gallows humor and his down-home charm in an attempt to defuse what is, thanks to Tonya Harding, America's second-biggest sporting scandal of 1994.After 28 years as a head coach and 239 victories, Bowden nailed down his first national championship, but a year that began in celebration has become one of explanation.

WASHINGTON -- The notion that President Clinton is in danger of meltdown only four months into his four-year term is, on the face of it, a little extravagant. Clinton has always been a tenacious and resourceful politician capable of learning from his mistakes.And it should not be forgotten that those who are saying the sky is falling are the same people who were saying two years ago that George Bush was politically invulnerable.It is equally true, nonetheless, that the new president has reached a critical point in defining his administration.

If anyone knows the sense of panic that might grip the Orioles pitching staff this weekend in Detroit, it's poor Mike Hampton of the Seattle Mariners.Hampton, a rookie left-hander, had never pitched above the Double-A level before this season and made his major-league debut April 17 at Tiger Stadium. It took only 2 2/3 innings, four hits and four runs for Hampton to feel the fury of the Detroit attack as the Tigers blasted Seattle, 20-6.But the Tigers have been presenting this horror show to pitchers with a lot more experience than Hampton, including former Oriole Storm Davis, who was on the receiving end of a 20-4 beating Detroit administered to Oakland earlier that week.

WASHINGTON -- Anticipating more grim economic news this week, the Bush administration has launched a top-level campaign to distance itself from the failings and attach itself to the successes of an anemic recovery struggling for air.The efforts appear aimed at blunting the political damage almost certain to result from spring growth estimates the government will issue Thursday.Private and government economists expect the figures to show that economic growth stumbled in the spring after a moderate first-quarter surge, dampening -- if not --ing -- the president's hopes of persuading voters that hard times are at last giving way to prosperity.

Navy attempts to cover its Tailhook are unraveling, much to the embarrassment of big brass who were only too willing to look the other way when they first heard that 26 women, including 14 Navy officers, were manhandled (we use the term advisedly) at a raucous naval aviators convention in Las Vegas last September.Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III has resigned, as well he should, both because he was personally nearby, if unawares, when the brawl took place and because he was responsible for an investigation that now looks suspiciously like a cover-up.

ABOARD THE USS WISCONSIN -- For the first time since its last port of call, the 1,500 sailors on the battleship Wisconsin were ordered out Sunday night on a general-quarters drill."