He's 35, the hits have come a little less frequently this year, and one day soon, Andy Tracy may have a tough decision to make: start over again in the low minors or leave organized baseball.

Tracy is a first baseman and designated hitter for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Phillies' triple-A affiliate.

He is in his 14th year in the game, and except for short stints with the Montreal Expos and Colorado Rockies, a few months in Japan, and four at-bats with the Phils last year, all his time has been spent in the minors.

And he may never make it back to the major leagues.

But Phillies officials say they see a promising future for him - as a coach or manager. They say that they like his personality and leadership potential, and that his limitations as a player might make him a better teacher if he chooses that route.

"I'd like to play a couple of more years," Tracy said recently, sitting in the dugout before a game against the Rochester Red Wings. "It's up to the organization," and whether it wants "to keep me around that long, if my body holds up and I'm producing."

"I do want to coach, at the pro level or at the college level," he said. However, "pro ball would be starting all over again" in the low minors, "and that would be tough."

Tracy jokingly has compared himself with "Crash" Davis, the aging minor-league catcher played by Kevin Costner in the classic baseball film Bull Durham.

For the 1 percent of baseball fans unfamiliar with the movie, Crash has had a brief time in "The Show" and is hanging on for two reasons: He wants to hit a few more home runs, and the organization wants him around to catch and babysit a strong-armed but dim-witted rookie pitcher.

When the pitcher is called up to the majors, Crash is released, signs with another minor-league team to hit one more "dinger," then quits to await a possible managing offer in Georgia.

Tracy, who is listed at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, looks as if he'd fit in as well as Costner on a movie set. He talks about wanting to hit his 300th minor-league home run, and he has 245 of them. His manager, Dave Huppert, said "he's like having an extra coach on the field."

Mike Compton, the minor-league field coordinator for the Phillies, said Tracy has "tremendous clubhouse presence, a tremendous passion for the game. You can see him working with some of the younger players on the bench, talking to them. He's a mentor, a prototype.

"We kid him, 'Whenever you hit that 300th home run, we're going to make a coach out of you.' "

Years ago, minor-league veterans such as Tracy hung on primarily because it beat going back to the coal mines or the mills. Now, many of them are college graduates - Tracy has a degree from Bowling Green State University - and those at the triple-A level with six years in baseball generally make about $10,000 a month.

"For half a year, that's pretty good money," Compton said. For those that stay in the team's area, he said, there are ample business opportunities. "They can give lessons, give hitting clinics. They're making $75, $80 an hour."

Tracy doesn't plan to settle in the Lehigh Valley. He said he would return to Columbus, Ohio, where he moved because of his wife's old job with a department-store chain, or coach or manage where the Phils send him.

Tracy and his wife have a 2-year-old son and a newborn daughter, and he said that "I'd have to talk to her. If she doesn't think it's good for our marriage, she'll tell me."

But if Compton has his way, Tracy will stay with the organization. An ex-catcher who hit .164 in 47 games for the 1970 Phillies, Compton buys into the theory that marginal players such as Tracy often make the best managers.

"Some of the best players have been the worst teachers," Compton said. "They could do things naturally, and they didn't have to learn to do them. It comes too easily. They can't understand why you can't make that play.

"The fellows who were the 20th to the 25th men on the big-league roster really had to work on playing the game," and had to "experiment with techniques."

But Compton added that "major-league experience does give them more credibility."

Huppert, the manager, also had a brief stay in the majors: 17 games as a catcher in the 1980s with the Baltimore Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers.

Tracy has done far better in the majors than Compton or Huppert, with 140 games and 13 home runs. He even has a World Series ring from last year as one of five players on the Phils' postseason "extended roster," reserves who could have been activated had anyone gotten hurt.

But this year he has struggled at times. Going into yesterday, he led the team with 14 homers and 54 RBIs in 66 games but was hitting .255.

After a recent 6-3 loss to Rochester, he and the other players undressed slowly in the locker room, unhappy about both the defeat and the arrangements for the coming road trip.

It was after 10 p.m., and they would have to be back at the park at 3 a.m. for the bus to Philadelphia International Airport. They would play in Indianapolis the following evening. And this was triple A, not the low minors.

"I guess I'll go back to the apartment and set the alarm clock," Tracy said, sitting in his sweatshirt as other players ate or changed clothes.

Reporters clustered around the hitting star of the game, former major-leaguer David Newhan, who had brought the team close with a two-run homer in the ninth inning and slapped a gorgeous hit-and-run single through the vacated shortstop hole in the third to set up another run.

Infielder Miguel Cairo beamed when a visitor to the locker room mentioned seeing him play for the New York Yankees two years ago.

The predawn bus departure would not have happened in the majors, and Tracy was aware of it.

But for him, the dreams of stardom in the major leagues, really big money, and a long career there - at least as an active player - are past.

"Sure, I wish I had six years in and $10 million," he said. "Obviously, I wish I was a better player. But I think I've done everything I can do. I've done it [reached the majors], and nobody can ever take it away from me.

"I've tried to max out my talents, and I didn't leave anything on the table."