The baseball gene by TERRY HAIG The Expos play their Home Opener tomorrow night. The Mets are in town and all they did last year was go to the Series. Mike Piazza, Al Leiter and a whole bunch of new free agents. The Expos haven't finished higher than fourth in four years, haven't won as many as 70 games since '98. Thirty-three years and counting and the Expos still haven't won anything. But whoa, it's Opening Day and I gotta stay positive. The Nature of the Beast. Like they used to say in those New York lotto commercials, "Hey, you never know!" But of course we do know. Too many pitchers coming off arm problems, too few guys not knowing how to draw a walk ahead of Vladimir Guerrero, ham and eggers on the bench and in the bullpen. The odds on the Expos winning anything this year, I would guess, are slightly less than those rubes on Broadway itching to take their shot at Three-Card Monty. Still, it's Opening Day and I'll be there--in the company of my addicted, delusional fellow travellers. The fruitcakes who remember exactly where they were when Rick Monday sent the Team of the '80s to the moon with that horrible homer, the ones who remember exactly where they were that Sunday afternoon when Casey Candaele hit his one and only home run as an Expo, the ones who couldn't give a fig about exactly where they were when Alex Rodriquez signed his quarter-of-a-million-dollar contract this winter. We're the hardcore, the ones who bliss out at the sight of Guerrero galloping around the bases hell-bent on a triple. We're the ones who decided not to let schnooks like Gary Sheffield and Frank Thomas, who think they're underpaid at nine million bucks a year, spoil our fun. We're the ones determined to ignore greedy corporate bullies like Rupert Murdoch and George Steinbrenner, whose refusal to share the wealth has left the Expos without a hope in hell of winning a damn thing that means anything. We're the ones who know that when all is said and done, baseball--the game, not the business--remains a cerebral and magnificent joy, a game played by actor/athletes improvising on the same script every night. Still, I almost decided not to show up this year--perhaps a hangover from the longest February in the history of the world. Or perhaps it was fear that I lacked the stomach to withstand another season like the last three. Masochism has its limits. So, too, does the required willing suspension of disbelief to be an Expo fan. In the end I couldn't do it, couldn't stay away. I've rooted too long and too hard for too many years for this team to quit on them now. The baseball gene runs too deep in my family to walk away. My maternal grandfather pitched semi-pro, a fact that likely explained why my mother allowed me to cut school twice a year, no questions asked: Opening Day and for any seventh game of a World Series. If a seventh game was about resolution and the end of summer once and for all, I learned at an early age that Opening Day was about believing. "This is the year the Giants finish ahead of the Dodgers," my mother would explain--a giant leap of faith, given the Dodgers' lineup in those days. Sure enough, twice in four seasons, my mother was right on the money. >>> Opening Day used to be pretty heady times around here. The Gary Carter/Andre Dawson teams of the late '70s and early '80s appeared genuine contenders until crunch time arrived. The Expos of the early '90s were even better. Peopled by the likes of Delino Deshields, Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom and Pedro Martinez--big personalities and stellar ballpayers all--they were running away from the Braves when the strike hit in '94. Opening Day optimism became a thing of the past in the spring of '95, when Claude Brochu hosted the first of his now-infamous fire sales. Approaching seasons now tend to be viewed more with trepidation than optimism. We set our sights lower now, grateful for small victories: an upset win over a contender, a gorgeous bunt, a Jose Vidro double, a Javier Vazquez shutout, and this year, a graceful end for Tim Raines. But let no one pity us. Let the world note that we still have--at least for now--the wondrous Guerrero, whose exuberant quest for the bountiful cuts to the quick of the game and makes anything seem possible. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else tomorrow night. Comments? terryhaig@hotmail.com.