Delino DeShields takes another kick at stardom's can It's been almost four years since Delino DeShields was a gathering force in this city. Young, gifted and proud to be black, he brought a stunning combination of laser-beam intelligence, bristling intensity and fierce competitive fire to an Expos team on the make. A perfect fit. Possessor of a built-in shit detector, he could sniff out phonies a mile away. He didn't talk much, but when he did, people listened, consumed as he was with both winning and the rage of growing up black in a bigoted society. DeShields played baseball with the flair of a flashy point guard and the passion of a young Jackie Robinson. A stranger from the strange land of the American ghetto, he was finally settling in, feeling comfortable in Montreal, when it happened. Crash! Bam! Alakazam! DeShields got jilted. Shipped to Los Angeles for pitcher Pedro Martinez in what was billed as an exchange of two budding superstars. It didn't happen that way. While Martinez developed into the ace of the Expos' staff, DeShields descended into an emotional funk. Riddled with mysterious injuries, bereft of black teammates, an East Coast guy stuck in La La Land playing for the guy who developed back slapping into high art. DeShields played--or didn't play--to a level of mediocrity that shocked and puzzled baseball observers. The word was out: DeShields was a spent force, the once hard-edged stare transformed into the panic of a deer caught in headlights. The swagger was a limp. Where, the baseball experts asked, was the heart DeShields had displayed as an Expo? In Montreal. That's where. DeShields's best friend, Marquis Grissom, knew it, accounting for the hours Grissom spent trying to bolster DeShields's spirits by sagely noting that trades are the manner of professional baseball--profitable and impersonal. Other friends knew it. DeShields, at least publicly, refused to cop to it, always citing injuries as the reason for his poor play. DeShields knows better now. He was in Montreal last week, playing for St. Louis, a team providing him with his last kick at stardom's can. As Deshields stared into his Olympic Stadium locker, Grissom's name was mentioned. Grissom had cried the day the Expos unloaded him in the Great Fire Sale of 1995. After arriving at the rational conclusion that trades were more about money than rejection, Grissom then got on with his life by leading his hometown Atlanta Braves to two World Series appearances. But a not-so-funny thing happened to Grissom this spring. He was traded to Cleveland, where--plagued by injuries, the shock of the trade and learning about new pitchers--he wears a frown that makes DeShields appear like Mary Poppins by comparison. The perpetually effervescent Grissom appears to be one glum guy these days. "Now he finally knows how I felt," DeShields said, an unmistakable reference to Grissom's shock and pain. And to his own. The cat was finally out of the bag. No wonder DeShields had played poorly in L.A. Mending a broken heart--as anyone whose ever been there can attest--is a full-time job. To his credit, DeShields remains no different from the rest of us. One wonders now what kind of player DeShields would have been had he been able to continue to throw his enormous heart into the team to which he was wed emotionally. We're getting a glimpse this season. DeShields is having a terrific year. Once again, he is a force on a baseball diamond. The wound--finally--is almost healed. DeShields has a bus to catch and delivers a parting advisory. "Stay real," he warns. It's a code DeShields has always tried to live by, even as people stroked his ego and the paychecks grew. It's a code that might have cost him on a ballfield, but so what. He won the battle. Never lost a whit of his soul. How many of us can say that? SAY HAIG! Let's hear it for the baseball owners. Finally, they stumble into a workable concept of realignment along geographical lines with some meaning restored to the regular season and they can't agree on a game plan. Why am I not surprised?... Ken Dryden forms a gang of four to run the Maple Leafs and the Toronto press is all over him. Bet Dryden in this mismatch.... Anybody get the feeling Paul Kariya is waiting for the Rangers to solve his contract problems with Anaheim?... Just what team will Ted Nolan be coaching by Christmas? Word from Rosemere, where local NHLers stage their pre pre-season workouts, is that Jocelyn Thibault is looking, well, tentative in the nets. Maybe it's time the Canadiens let the kid get on with his life by trading him for the defenseman it needs... Praise be to Claude Brochu for his relentless optimism, but how could he tell Jack Todd last week that the new stadium is a virtual lock three months after he threw down the gauntlet? The horse first, Claude. Then the cart... What a treat Blackman is on Sunday mornings in The Gazette. When the fastball is hopping, he's still as good as you get...Hang tough, Nick. There's a lot of people out here pulling for you.