Reds and Pirates Would Just as Soon Erase the Memories : NL playoffs: Cincinnati faces comparisons with the Big Red Machine. Pittsburgh hears of the “We Are Family” team.

CINCINNATI —  It hangs on a wall in the manager’s office, its bright colors shining through the cigarette smoke, high above the lineup cards and souvenir baseballs and everything else associated with the team inhabiting the adjoining clubhouse.

It is a painting of a postgame celebration by the 1975 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds.

As if Lou Piniella needed to be reminded.

“We’ve been hearing about the Big Red Machine all year, and it’s unfair,” said Piniella, manager of the 1990 Reds. “The fans never forget about that team . . . but it’s time. It’s time to take a good look at what is going on now.”

A couple of hundred miles away, high on a wall in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ clubhouse, the television set is tuned to a baseball game that has seemed to last all summer. This is because every time the players look, the same team is playing.

That team is the New York Mets.

As if the Pirates needed to be reminded.

“You know, all we heard about all year was the New York Mets,” R.J. Reynolds said. “Every time you watch ESPN, they had the Mets. All we heard was how the Pirates were going to fall apart. Everyone jumped on the Mets’ bandwagon.”

He paused, adding: “I guess we showed everybody what we are made of.”

The opponents in the 1990 National League championship series, in winning pressure games and disproving countless critics, have done nearly everything this season except remove the chips from their shoulders.

For one team, that process will begin at 5 PDT tonight in the opener at Riverfront Stadium.

The Reds, champions of the West, were the first NL team since the implementation of the 162-game schedule to be in first place from start to finish. They have the league’s most explosive offense and an intimidating bullpen.

Yet, all they keep hearing is how their emotional manager throws tantrums--and bases.

And how their owner, Marge Schott, is the type to take a playoff T-shirt from shortstop Barry Larkin and fit it on her St. Bernard. Last weekend, incidentally, the dog relieved himself near the visiting dugout in the middle of the Reds’ division-clinching celebration.

But more than anything, they keep hearing about the last Cincinnati team to play in a World Series, the one that won consecutive World Series in 1975 and ’76.

To these Reds, those Reds have become the Big Headache Machine.

“If you aren’t careful, you can let those comparisons get to you,” said Larkin, a Cincinnati native who has spent his life hearing about those glory years. “You can’t go out there and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to play like Dave Concepcion.’ You just can’t do it. You’ve got to be yourself.”

Said Piniella: “All summer, I heard how this was a team and a manager out of control, how this was a team that could not do it. It was almost like we weren’t even in first place sometimes. Well, we’ve got that monkey off our backs a little bit. We have done it. And now we’re ready to keep going.”

Flying into town late Wednesday was a Pittsburgh team facing different sorts of biases.

The Pirates, champions of the East, probably have the league’s most valuable player in outfielder Barry Bonds. And probably the league’s Cy Young Award winner in 22-game winner Doug Drabek. And definitely the league’s best outfield in Bonds, Bobby Bonilla and Andy Van Slyke.

So why are they always scowling?

Because few outsiders will let them forget how, with virtually the same team in 1988, they choked down the stretch to the Mets. And how they blew a six-game lead this September and almost did it again.

Then there is the long shadow cast by the last Pirate team to win a World Series, in 1979, the one known by its theme song, “We Are Family.”

These Pirates have no such theme or likable leader such as Willie Stargell.

They have, instead, a wiry, cigar-smoking manager who worked in the minor leagues for 11 years before finally receiving his first chance. And from Jim Leyland, they have picked up an attitude.

Earlier this week in the Pirates’ clubhouse, a newspaper clipping was lying on a trunk, ready for tape and posting. The clipping contained an underlined quote by Rob Dibble, who with Randy Myers and Norm Charlton form the core of the Reds’ bullpen. Dibble had said: “We’ve got the best bullpen in either league, and we feel that will make a difference.”

When asked about the Reds’ bullpen, Van Slyke said: “Those three guys put on their jocks the same we we do, don’t they? I think we have just as good a bullpen; it’s just nobody hears about it.”

Leyland said: “Everybody is looking for a secret. Well, there’s no secret here--none of that clubhouse chemistry stuff. We just have a bunch of guys playing well.”

It is because of that strength throughout the lineup that the Pirates are favored.

The Reds’ outfield of Eric Davis, Billy Hatcher or Herm Winningham, and Paul O’Neill can’t compare to the Pirates’ outfield, led by Bonds, who finished with 33 home runs and 114 runs batted in.

Larkin, who hit .300, is more impressive than inconsistent Pirate shortstop Jay Bell. But Pirate second baseman Jose Lind may be the most important player on the team. “He has made at least five plays that have saved us games,” Leyland said.

Lind’s counterpart, former Dodger Mariano Duncan, could have trouble with Pirate pitching, as two of Pittsburgh’s three scheduled starters are right-handed and he is batting .229 against right-handers. He will play every game only because Bill Doran is sidelined with back problems.

If nothing else, Duncan will finally have a national forum to continue his season-long bashing of the Dodgers.

“You know what I like about this team?” Duncan said Wednesday. “When we celebrated winning the division, we could put champagne on everyone. With the Dodgers, if you get champagne on Mike Marshall, something bad (is) going to happen.”

The Reds might hold the edge at third base, where Chris Sabo has quietly hit 25 homers while the Pirates’ Jeff King still can look as if he’s in his first full season. But there are doubts about rookie first baseman Hal Morris, who has looked so bad at the plate lately that Piniella has considered benching him. The Pirates’ Sid Bream has been consistent most of the season.

The catching, matching Joe Oliver’s great arm for the Reds against the leadership and clutch hitting of Pittsburgh’s Mike LaValliere and Don Slaught, is probably a push.

The Reds’ biggest advantage, and their biggest hope, lies in the bullpen. The Reds have lost only five times when leading after seven innings, and have lost only eight times when they scored four or more runs.

In 12 games against the Pirates, the Reds won the six games when they scored four or more runs, and lost the six games when they didn’t.

While the Reds were being swept by the Pirates in four games at Riverfront Stadium Aug. 17-19, neither Dibble nor Myers made an appearance. Myers, who has 31 saves, has not allowed the Pirates an earned run in 4 2/3 innings this season, while Dibble is 1-0 with one allowed run in five innings.

Bonds is hitting .190 against the Reds this season, King .160. A big reason is the bullpen, which should be even better because of the two weekend days off ordered by CBS-TV.

“I don’t like the time off, but it allowed us to put Norm Charlton back in the pen, and that makes us that much better,” Piniella said of the game’s premier left-handed middle reliever, who made 16 starts late in the season.

“It’s no secret,” Piniella added. “We’d like to score early and get the game to our bullpen.”

Helping the Reds reach the bullpen will be a three-man rotation that has pitched well lately but has been mediocre most of the season, especially against the Pirates.

Jose Rijo, tonight’s starter and the Reds’ hottest pitcher, is 0-1 with a 3.78 ERA against the Pirates; Tom Browning, Friday’s starter, is 0-0 with a 3.86 ERA against Pittsburgh.

And don’t think the Reds’ starters aren’t a bit intimidated by the Pirates: Their staff issued 59 walks to the Pirates this season, the most to any team.

The Pirates will counter with three starters--Bob Walk, Drabek and Zane Smith--who are a combined 3-2 with a 2.53 ERA against the Reds.

But despite the protests by Van Slyke, the Pirates’ bullpen does not match up. Bill Landrum, a left-hander, leads with 13 saves, but his right-handed counterpart, Ted Power, has allowed the Reds six runs in four innings.