Ken Howell

The best part about the first day of spring training is that it reminds us how little baseball resembles real life. In real life, nobody gets to pretend that all that bad stuff in the past never happened and nobody gets to start all over with just as much chance as anybody else to be a star. But in baseball, that happens every year. It happens on the first day of spring training, a day when everybody has gone undefeated for the last 117 days in a row - and feels like it. On the first day of spring training for the Phillies yesterday, Pat Combs could walk to the mound for the first time in six months and start reminding everybody that he once was regarded as the big hope for the future around here.

On a Phillies pitching staff beset by continuing change and uncertainty, it's clear the team has a solid starter with overpowering potential in Ken Howell. Howell blew away the Chicago Cubs last night at Veterans Stadium with as dominant a performance as any produced this season by a Phils pitcher. He allowed the Cubs only three singles and fanned nine on his way to a 6-0 victory. Howell threw only 95 pitches in the first major-league complete game of his career and his first shutout.

Three years, eight victories and $4.75 million dollars ago, Ken Howell never could have envisioned his Phillies career concluding like this. But there was Howell yesterday, quietly packing equipment into a red canvas bag, preparing to make the trip to Carpenter Complex. As an unpaid, unaffiliated pitcher, he will continue his long-shot comeback from shoulder surgery there. The Phils released Howell yesterday, deciding not to send the recuperating righthander to the minor leagues, but allowing him the use of their facilities for as long as he needed them.

Dr. Phillip Marone performed surgery on Ken Howell's right shoulder yesterday. He ground down a bone spur in a 75-minute procedure and reported no other problems in the shoulder area. Howell was due to return to Clearwater, Fla., today. "He had a growth of bone on the end of his clavicle," Marone said. "We cut some scar tissue out and rotored down that extra piece of bone. " Marone said he expects Howell to begin throwing in about two weeks and pitching in about four or five weeks after that.

Ken Howell got his first victory of the season as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons defeated Richmond, 5-3, in an International League game last night. Howell, the former Phillies ace who is rehabilitating his right shoulder with the triple-A team, went the first five innings, allowing five hits and three runs. He struck out five and walked three. READING 13, LONDON 2 READING - Leadoff hitter Bruce Dostal had a single and a double in an eight-run first inning, which powered the Phillies to a pasting of London in an Eastern League game.

Say you were Lee Thomas, sitting there at the winter meetings. Say you had a chance to trade for a pitcher who threw well over 90 m.p.h. and who had struck out 315 hitters in 302 2/3 innings in his brief tenure in the big leagues. Say this same guy's career record in triple A was Dwight Gooden material (such as 18-3). Say his triple-A record in 1988 had been 10-1, 3.27, in a notorious hitter's park. Let us just ask you now: If you were Lee Thomas, would someone like that have attracted your attention just a little bit?

Jim Fregosi says he isn't worried about Ken Howell. Ken Howell says he isn't worried about Ken Howell. But even Howell, the rehabbing righthander who hasn't pitched competitively for a season and a half because of recurring shoulder problems, concedes he hasn't exhibited the same velocity as the other power pitchers in camp. "I'm not letting it go yet," he said. "I'm probably throwing about 70 percent. I'm a little behind in that sense, but I just don't think I can take a chance.

Ken Howell has an ache in his right shoulder. That much we know. Ken Howell had X-rays taken of that shoulder. They appeared to show a bone spur. That much we learned yesterday. Ken Howell says that, if he really does have a bone spur, he would like to have an operation as soon as possible. That's the third thing we know. But is all this bad, disastrous, catastrophic or practically meaningless? Only one employee of the Phillies can answer that question - team doctor Phillip Marone.

Righthander Steve Ontiveros had an arthrogram and a tomogram performed on his sore elbow yesterday in Philadelphia. Club physician Dr. Phillip Marone reported that no abnormalities were found. "There were no loose bodies. Just some inflammation," Marone said. Ontiveros accompanied the Phillies to Los Angeles, where Dr. Lewis Yocum, who performed surgery on Ontiveros's elbow last October, also will examine him. Before this latest problem arose, the Phillies had expected Ontiveros to be activated Sunday and pitch Thursday night against the Dodgers.

In the clubhouse, Ken Howell was about to take his famous bone spur for one more test - and was still talking about shoulder surgery in terms of when, not if. In the general manager's office, Lee Thomas was still awaiting a final medical ruling - but seemed so resigned to losing his No. 1 starter that he was beginning to think he might have to make a trade. Out on the lush green fields of Jack Russell Stadium yesterday, life for the Phillies went on. Already, guys like Bruce Ruffin and Jason Grimsley were auditioning for the spot on the pitching staff that Howell's expected absence will almost certainly leave.

As decathletes go, Ken Howell says he's a second-day kind of guy. So even though he was in fourth place after Tuesday's first five events, the Liberty senior still felt pretty good about his chances. He was still only 93 points off the lead. After the first event yesterday, the other seven competitors were chasing him. It would remain that way the rest of the way. By the time the dreaded 1,500-meter finale was history, Howell was your Penn Relays champion, with 7,156 points, 242 more than Mount St. Mary's Antonio Morales.

Ken Howell knew why he hadn't been able to come close to matching his career-best pole vault of last year. Missing the landing mat and falling into the box where the pole is planted before liftoff can mess with one's mind a bit. However, in the eighth event of the Penn Relays decathlon yesterday, Howell appeared to regain his confidence. The senior from Liberty vaulted 16 feet, 3/4 inch to break open a close contest, and went on to a 238-point victory in the decathlon. Finishing up on a chilly, windy day at Franklin Field, Howell scored 7,156 points for the two-day, 10-event competition.

It has been obvious for weeks that it wasn't a matter of if, but when. Even Ken Howell admitted that he wasn't surprised after the Phillies announced yesterday that they had released their one-time staff ace. What Howell, who hasn't pitched in the big leagues since 1990, wouldn't or couldn't admit was that his baseball career has been all but certainly ended by the full reconstructive shoulder surgery he underwent last April. "This isn't the end of the road," he insisted. "This is just a speed bump in the road.

Three years, eight victories and $4.75 million dollars ago, Ken Howell never could have envisioned his Phillies career concluding like this. But there was Howell yesterday, quietly packing equipment into a red canvas bag, preparing to make the trip to Carpenter Complex. As an unpaid, unaffiliated pitcher, he will continue his long-shot comeback from shoulder surgery there. The Phils released Howell yesterday, deciding not to send the recuperating righthander to the minor leagues, but allowing him the use of their facilities for as long as he needed them.

The covered bench where relief pitchers sit during games at Dodger Stadium is a small, cramped area tucked behind the outfield fence. "A hut," Phillies righthander Ken Howell calls it. Howell spent three seasons sitting in that hut with reliever Tim Crews while both played with the Dodgers. So the news that Crews and Indians teammate Steve Olin were killed in a boating accident Monday night, and that lefthander Bob Ojeda was seriously injured, hit Howell like a punch in the gut. "When you spend a lot of time in a small place like that with people, you really get close," he said yesterday.

It is true that Ken Howell could have been out of the inning with the game tied except for a costly error by Kim Batiste, playing third. But there's no getting around the fact that the one-time backbone of the Phillies' staff did nothing to advance his comeback attempt yesterday at McKechnie Field during the Phillies' 7-0 exhibition loss to the Pirates. Before he could get three outs in the seventh, Howell gave up six runs (two earned) on five hits, including a homer to pitcher Denny Neagle, and a walk.

The delivery looks fine until he releases the ball. At that point, Ken Howell looks more like a shot-putter than a pitcher. Something unseen clutches at Howell's right arm, preventing him from following through. Ken Howell knows exactly what it is. "My delivery is still a little bit shorter than usual," said the Phillies' righthander, attempting a comeback after 2 1/2 seasons of inactivity with shoulder problems. "I think that's due to a little fear. "I still can't stop myself from thinking that something might go wrong.

The scars start at the top of the right shoulder, then slash downward for a foot, permanent reminders that this part of the body was not designed to propel baseballs at speeds greater than 90 mph. A year ago, the Phillies were figuring that Jose DeJesus would be an integral part of their rotation. Two springs past, Ken Howell was considered the staff ace. These days each carries an identical scar on his right shoulder, an outward and visible sign of where Dr. Frank Jobe's scalpel performed full reconstructive surgery on their rotator cuffs last April.

While the Phillies' last-place season has ended, the bad news hasn't. Los Angeles Dodgers physician Frank Jobe examined Tyler Green and agreed that there was a problem with the No. 1 draft choice's right shoulder, one that more than likely will require serious surgery. Jobe will take a closer look, through an arthroscopic procedure, at the shoulder on Tuesday. "Dr. Jobe . . . will proceed immediately if more formal surgery is required," Phils physician Phillip Marone said yesterday.

As one sore-shouldered Phillie learned he would need an operation next week, another was being cut loose. An arthroscopy on John Kruk's ailing right shoulder yesterday revealed damage that doctors will attempt to repair with more serious surgery next Friday. The Phillies also announced that they will not pick up the option on pitcher Ken Howell's contract next season, although general manager Lee Thomas said he'd like the righthander to come to spring training. Team physician Phillip Marone performed the surgical examination on Kruk at Jefferson Hospital.