E-Mail This Article to a Friend " BATTER UP! " Diamonds on canvas BY MIKE MILIARD

Charles De Simone had established a nifty post-retirement career painting landscapes of golf courses. But when a friend suggested he turn his attention toward the baseball diamond, he had an admirable response. "I said, ‘Well, only if I could make a contribution.’ " After all, who needs more baseball paintings? The glut of mediocre art based on the national pastime is as crowded as the NL wild-card race.

Then De Simone got an idea. At a baseball-card show, he surveyed the galaxy of player memorabilia and had a revelation: why not incorporate those bats, balls, baseball cards, jerseys, and newspaper clippings into paintings that visually represent the careers of the game’s greats?

Even better, those card shows offer something else: the players themselves, pens at the ready. So, on 16-by-20-inch canvases, De Simone painted baseballs — red-seamed, real-seeming baseballs — and lugged his creations to exhibits to get the simulacra emblazoned with the John Hancocks of perplexed Hall of Famers. Then he’d return to his studio and spend the next four or five months fashioning trompe l’oeil paintings (in the style of his hero, 19th-century painter William Harnett) around those autographs.

A native New Yorker, De Simone is a long-time fan; the Giants, mostly, but also, yes, the Yankees. "Going back to the ’40s, I used to go to Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds all summer long," he says. But he loves the game’s greats, no matter whose laundry they wear. Red Sox legends Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, Jimmy Piersall, and Wade Boggs are among the De Simone portraits on view at "Batter Up!" the baseball-themed exhibit that opens at the Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown on Friday. Also exhibited will be works by other artists, including "David and Goliath," Steven Skollar’s oil painting, done up in darkly detailed 17th-century Flemish style, of a Red Sox bobblehead doll toppling his Yankee counterpart; Bill Ciccarielo’s moving visual tributes to the Negro Leagues; photographs from David Prifti and Christine Triebert; and hand-carved sculptures by Lavern Kelly.

De Simone’s almost photorealistic paintings are full of microscopic detail. He remembers showing Warren Spahn his portrait, and the pitcher "could not get over" the fact that it was a painting.

De Simone estimates he’s spent "thousands of dollars" on signatures since he started doing these paintings 15 years ago. "My first autograph was Joe D. He was charging $200 for [five signatures]. That was a bargain at $40 each, but before he passed away, he was charging $175 an autograph."

You won’t catch De Simone working on portraits of Manny or A-Rod any time soon. "My hero was Mel Ott. I used to see DiMaggio, and King Kong Charlie Keller. Players like that, to me, were really dedicated players," he says. "Today, it’s money-driven. It’s business now. We were serious about rooting and winning."

"Batter Up!" hangs September 9 through October 10 at the Rice/Polak Gallery, 430 Commercial Street in Provincetown. De Simone will be at the opening reception on September 9 at 7 pm.