The reason he dove headfirst is that he did not want to leave his stash of cocaine in his locker or his jacket while he was in the game, so he carried it with him in a vial while he was running the bases.

Some players have carried the effect of the drug with them on the field: the heightened sense of self-awareness, the grandiosity, into which drug abusers retreat. Lost in themselves, they can think only of protecting their stash. Or perhaps while they are thinking about whether they can manage a snort in the bathroom before the next inning, they are picked off first base flat-footed. Their brains are fried; their competitive edge is gone, perhaps never to return. There are hardheads who believe that all druggies are alike, that all abusers should be banned, that rehabilitation is a fraud, that reform is suspect. At very least, the witness of Tim Raines and Lonnie Smith is evidence that some players can make it back, day by day, but their testimony should scare the daylights out of their colleagues, and the rest of us.

One need only read about the investigations and arrests in several cities, of players being called in to testify, of the list of players who have sought rehabilitation, and the agreement by John McHale, the president of the Montreal Expos, and Tim Raines that eight or nine members of the Expos were on drugs a few years back, to know there has been an epidemic.

Donald Fehr, the acting executive of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said yesterday: ''As far as I can tell, the epidemic peaked several years ago. It became known that cocaine is more dangerous than people had thought.'' Lee MacPhail of the owners' Players Relations Committee also said yesterday that he believed the problem was declining.

The failure of the Montreal Expos to achieve their World Series potential in the early 80's is too recent to forget. I remember being in the Montreal dressing room before a game in 1980, and receiving an impassioned interview from one of its players, whose verbal skills were in better shape than his motor skills. I never even considered he might be on an induced high, but I remembered that interview on the day he dropped out of the league a few years later. For those of us who wouldn't know cocaine from celery salt, awareness comes slowly and surprisingly. In these pages yesterday, I learned that relief pitchers can time their cocaine usage late in the game to be soaring when they are called upon to save a lead.