Jeff Bagwell HOUSTON'S INSPIRATIONAL LEADER.(Houston Astros)(Brief Article)

Astros' star keeps his focus on team goals as he seeks to match his performance of last season

SOMETIMES HE CAN SEE THEM looking, or perhaps feel then is a more accurate way of putting it. After all, he's Jeff Bagwell and to the younger players in the Astros' club-house that means something.

Of course, it means something to Bagwell, too, just maybe not what we on the outside might think.

Mention a future place in the Hall of Fame to him and he'll blush--really blush--and quickly change the subject.

Talk about the money or the celebrity or his stature in the game or his responsibility to lead the way with his bat and his demeanor and what you get is that part-terrified, part-just-surprised look of the deer in the split second that the headlights come around a dark corner.

"I always have enough on my mind trying to get myself ready when I come to spring training," he said last March. "So I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm supposed to do to fill some kind of role or image.

"I'm a professional ballplayer and what I see as my responsibility is to be ready to, play. All the rest of that stuff, being a star or whatever, is never something I've been interested in."