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By Gary Hoe nigWinners draw crowds, and there was an enthusiastic crowd of about 20,000 at Shea Stadium Wednesday that was there as much to see the visiting San Francisco Giants as they were to root for the hapless Mets. The Giants, a dull, mediocre team for the past six seasons, are surprising everyone by staying near the top of the National League West despite the opposition of two of baseball%u2019s strongest teams, the Dodgers and the Reds. They have doubled their home attendance as a result, and have thus revived one of baseball%u2019s weakest franchises.They Giants are doing it with that peculiar amalgum that always seems to characterize surprise pennant contenders: Young players and old players, players playing over their heads, good players playing up to their best and%u2014most importantly%u2014incredible pitching. This is a team whose average age is 24 and that boasts no less than five born-again Christians (topping a record held by former Nixon White House staff members). But its leaders are a 40-year-old slugger who is just this side of over-the-hill, and a 29-year-old pitcher who was so disenchanted with baseball under Charlie Finley that he thought about quitting for good.The 40-year-old is, of course, Willie McCovey, once the National League%u2019s most feared hitter, and a man still not taken lightly at the plate, even if he hobbles rather than runs down the basepaths. McCovey was officially washed up two years ago. After 16 years with the Giants, he had been traded to San Diego, where he was used sparingly and eventually released. Though he seemed perfect for the designated hitter role, not many clubs were interested in an aging hitter with a high salary who didn%u2019t like playing part-time. McCovey went the free agent route in 1977, but unlike his greedier peers, McCovey wanted only to get backhome to San Francisco, where, he said, his loyalties would always lie. He signed for $50,000, and turned out to be the best buy in the whole free agent market. He hit 25 home runs, drove in eighty runs and hit over .280. The Giants, however, went nowhere in 1977.This year is a different story. Although McCovey is only hitting in the .230%u2019s, he has 12 home runs (one was his 500th lifetime) and 64 r.b.i.%u2019s, and he is tied for the team lead in game-winning hits. And the Giants got hot in May and have been at or near the top of the dividison ever since. The principle reason has been their pitching staff, blessed with top-notch young starters and two proven relievers, and led by Finley%u2019s former chattel, Vida Blue.Blue was the remarkably voluble young man who broke into baseball by winning 24 games with an E.R.A. under 2.00, and who was as verbally entertaining off the mpund as he was competent on it. Then came the Oakland follies: the contract hassles, the team feuding, its eventual breakup, and Finley%u2019s two abortive efforts to see Blue to sell Blue to the Yankees and the Reds. Blue freely admitted that the joy was gone from the game, and despite two other 20-game victory seasons, he was never as good as he had been earlier. He often told friends that he would rather quit than continue in indefinite servitude to Finley.Then he was traded to the Giants, for seven young players, just before the start of the 1978 season. Though Blue held out for a contract renegotiation before coming to training camp, he soon reconsidered and joined the team. By the All-Star break he was the National League%u2019s top pitcher, and his record thus far is 16-6, with an E.R.A. of 2.64. What%u2019s more, he has taken to coming out of the dugout duringGiant games to lead the fans in cheers, something heTH E GIANTS%u2019 McCOVEY: At forty, he is still making animportant contribution to a pennant-contending team. (MauroM arinelli photo)was able to do even at Shea Wednesday, where a contingent of unreconstructed Giant fans was delighted by between-inning appearances by Blue. The game, it appears, is fun for Blue once again.Whether the Giants can actually go the route this season is another story. Their pitching is as strong if not stronger than any in baseball, but the team does not score a lot of runs. Jackie Clark, the team%u2019s best player, is without doubt a coming star of considerable magnitude, but beyond him and Bill Madlock, a two-time batting champion who has been fighting a nagging injury most of the season, there isn%u2019t much. John (The Count) Montefusco, the team %u2019s brash young righthander, said it best when he claimed that, on any given day, the Giants could score as many as two or even three runs. Even the best pitching can%u2019t win consistently with that kind of support.Still, the team has shown a knackfor coming back when they seemed ready to fold, and for winning games they shouldn%u2019t win. And it would be fitting if they slipped ahead of the fat-cat Reds and haughty Dodgers, who played all season as if the Giants were a temporary mirage. Like McCovey, who is a firm believer in the work ethic, and Blue, who believes baseball is a game worth having fun playing, the Giants are throwbacks of a soft, to a perhaps illusory time when players were more than media-hyped sales devices and seemed to care a little more about team standings than Dow Jones averages. Though that image is a romantic one, it is that romanticism that sustains fan interest in baseball despite the rampant egoism and greed that publicly permeates the current game. The Giants represent a particularly pleasant form of that baseball fever so fervently hyped by baseball%u2019s executives, and so little understood by them.McCovey, Blueand Kids PropelGiants Into NLWest RaceMets Pushovers ForCoast Pennant ContendersThe Mets spent the week being kind to contenders, and they were a little kinder to the San Francisco Giants than they were to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers left town Sunday, after winning two of three, with a two-game lead over the Giants. After the Giants swept three from the Mets, that lead had evaporated. Pending the results of Wednesday%u2019s game between Montreal and the Dodgers, the two West Coast teams are now tied for first.The sweep was a classic example of the Mets%u2019 worst stretch of theseason, v/n i.iuuuuj ...6r.t, tr.eyhanded the Giants an extra-inning game with two bad plays in the final inning. On Tuesday, they quickly fell behind and were never seriously in the game. On Wednesday they wasted a fine pitching performance by young Tom Hausman, who outpitched Bob Knepper of San Francisco only to see Knepper get the 2-1 victory when the Mets bullpen failed once again.Skip Lockwood managed to pick up the loss Wednesday despite pitching to only two batters in the ninth. He sustained a groin injury and had to leave the game after walking John Tamargo. Dale Murray came in, and so no one would notice the absence of Lockwood, who had been finding ways to lose games consistently for the last month, Murray quickly fashioned the Giants winning rally. After Pog%u201cr Ma*70fir successfully sacrificed pinch runner John Lemaster to second, Murray walked pinch hitter Mike Ivie intentionally, fearful of Ivie%u2019s four pinch home runs this season. Marc Hill, a significantly weaker hitter than Ivie, then hit for Knepper.Murray fell behind on the count, and then delivered a fastball that Hill smacked into right center for the game-winning double. Gary Lavelle, the ace of the Giants bullpen, got the Mets out quickly to earn the save, his thirteenth.The Mets blew an opportunity to take the lead in the eighth, when poor young Hausman was removed for a pinch hitter. Bobby Valentine led off with a single, and was bunted along by Doug Flynn. Len Randle, batting for Hausman, bounced out, but Elliot Maddox, a hot hitter of late, slammed a single tn left Sergio Ferrer, who was running for Valentine, steamed around third and headed home, but a perfect throw by Terry Whitfield just nipped Ferrer at the plate.The Mets actually had Knepper on the ropes in the second, when they scored their only run of thegame. Two Giant errors, a walk and a hit left two on with one run in and no outs. But Knepper retired the side without allowing another run. The win raised Knepper%u2019s record to 13-9. Lockwood is now 7-12.The Mets now temporarily leave the glamourous world of pennant races for a series at San Diego. They are as low now as they have been this season. The homestand just concluded contained losses as tough as any the team has experienced in its slide to the bottom. Joe Torre faces a monumental task in preventing a total em otional collap se bv his young players during the coming trip to the coast, where the Giants and Dodgers must be faced again. %u2014G.H,Cosmos ZipPortlandGiorgio Chinaglia, angered at not winning any post-season N.A.S.L. honors, opened the scoring in the first period, and Dennis Tueart, Steve Hunt, Franz Beckenbauer and Ceninho added second-period goals as the Cosmos defeated the Portland Timbers, 5-0, at Giants Stadium Wednesday. The Cosmos will now meet the Tampa Bay Rowdies in Soccer Bowl 1978 at Giants Stadium Sunday.Chinaglia, though named to the All-Star team, was overlooked for S.A.S.L. offensive player of the year and most valuable player despite breaking several league scoring records this season. In other league cities, Chinaglia is regarded as overrated because of his superb supporting cast. Both teammates and other observers mentioned that Chingalia played Wednesday as if he had something to prove.Carlos Alberto, the league%u2019s defensive player of the year, played his usual steady game, and Werner Roth hounded Timbers%u2019 star Georgie Best from the opening whistle. Jack Brand played another superb game in goal, although the Timers rarely threatened to score. Brand shut out the Timbers in the' first game of the series at Portland Saturday night, and has now posted shutouts in his last three playoff starts.The Cosmos only led 1-0 with 14 minutes remaining in the game, despite having controlled the play for most of the game. But Tueart and Hunt put the game out of reach with back-to-back goals, and Beckenbauer soon followed with a goal on a free kick. Despite the big lead, the Cosmos never stopped pressuring Portland, and Ceninho scored with less than a minute to play. The Cosmos seemed anxious to avoid a sudden-death overtime mini-game, which would have decided the conference championship had the Timbers managed to win the regulation game.Catfish, YanksTop Angels, 6-2The up again, down again Yanks went up and down Tuesday night when they defeated the California Angels, 6-2. They moved to within seven and a half games of Boston, who, like the Yanks last weekend, suffered Kingdomitis and lost to the last place Seattle Mariners, 5-2. But they also dropped to third place when the Milwaukee Brewers swept a doubleheader from Cleveland, 3-2 and 5-4. The Brewers are now seven games back of the Red Sox.The most encouraging aspect of Tuesday%u2019s game was the continued steady pitching of Catfish Hunter. Remember when the media word was that Hunter might never pitch for the Yanks again? Since coming off the disabled list in July, Hunter has won five straight decisions, and though he is not quite the Hunter of old, he is capable of making an important contribution if the Yanks make a serious run at the Red Sox. Hunter allowed only six hits in pitching a complete game Tuesday.Mickey Rivers returned to the lineup Tuesday after the latest chapter of his running battle with management. Rivers didn%u2019t play Saturday-he was a late scratch from the lineup because he said he needed a rest%u2014and then showed up almost two hours late for Sunday night%u2019s game. Manager Bob Lemon fined Rivers and Roy White, who came in with him, $250 each, despite Rivers%u2019 protest that he had been caught in traffic.21, TH E PHOENIX, Aiwust 24.1978