Helen Callaghan

In 1945, a little-known professional baseball player touring the Midwest posed a threat on every trip to the plate, breaking league records with a .299 batting average and stealing 92 bases. But this player, at 5-feet-2 and 103 pounds, wore makeup and a skirt and went to charm school. Helen St. Aubin was a star player for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). St.

In 1945, a little-known professional baseball player touring the Midwest posed a threat on every trip to the plate, breaking league records with a .299 batting average and stealing 92 bases. But this player, at 5-feet-2 and 103 pounds, wore makeup and a skirt and went to charm school. Helen St. Aubin was a star player for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). St.

Casey Candaele is a rookie infielder for the Montreal Expos. When Casey was little--wait, he still is little. When Casey Candaele was a kid, his older brothers would knock him around and rough him up in games of street football and he would rush into the house in tears. His mom would scoot him right back out the door, back to the fray. "It's not that she was insensitive," Candaele says. "She just wanted me to learn that you can't always cry. She's helped me all along.

Tennessee Jackson, in Chicago, and Red Mahoney, in Houston, could hardly contain themselves. The two retired ballplayers, gray-haired and in their 60s, had just received the happy news: The Hall of Fame had decided to include them in a special Cooperstown exhibit, tentatively scheduled for 1989. "This is so wonderful," said Jackson, a reserve outfielder who hit just .220 with three major league clubs in the 1940s. "All of a sudden, everyone wants to know about us."

When the gods come to Earth on the baseball diamond this season, I'm rooting for the thieves and tricksters. We'd know they were stirring things up if, in today's opening-day Dodger game, there were four or five stolen bases and no home runs. That might be a sign that this year we won't have to sit through another mind-numbing chase to break a home-run record that no longer seems to matter.

Finally, Cal State Bakersfield's men's basketball team can revel in the thought of finishing the season undefeated. All season, the Roadrunners said that they weren't concerned with being unbeaten--that they simply tried to improve every game. They won their first game and improved 32 times thereafter. The Roadrunners' 85-72 victory over Troy (Ala.) State on Saturday at Springfield, Mass.