It seems certain that at some point in the free agency era, a player has outright refused to take the field the way Alfonso Soriano refused to take the field for the Washington Nationals in what was supposed to be his spring debut with the team on Monday. I couldn’t tell you when it’s happened, though, and after a call to the research center at the Baseball Hall of Fame, I can tell you that no one there can remember such a thing happening, either.

Nor can they or the commissioner’s office name any players who have ever been put on the disqualified list, as the Nationals have threatened to do with Soriano. Consider that it would take about two minutes to find a comprehensive list of players who have successfully pulled off the hidden ball trick and you’ll have an inkling of how odd all this is.

The Soriano situation isn’t very complicated. During the off-season, the Nationals sent the Rangers’ Brad Wilkerson – a cheaper, younger, and arguably better player – for the former Yankee, planning to put him in the outfield both because they already have Jose Vidro, an expensive All-Star second baseman, and because Soriano is an awful fielder (he led all big league second basemen with 21 errors last season).

Amazingly, no one asked Soriano if he was willing to play the outfield. Had they, his answer would have been “no,” presumably because he’s a free agent after this season and his market value, he thinks, will be higher as a second baseman than as a left fielder. All spring – most of which he’s spent on the Dominican bench at the World Baseball Classic – he’s insisted he would only play second base, and so when Nats manager Frank Robinson penciled him into the lineup in left on Monday, Soriano simply didn’t leave the dugout.

Soriano is obviously in the wrong, on two levels. First, within reason, you have to do what the manager tells you to do, and no one would dispute that playing left field is within reason. Second, just as a practical matter, Soriano is wrong if he believes playing second base will enhance his market value. Everyone already knows he can’t play there with any reliability.

The thing to do would have been to feed the press some Bull Durham quotes: “I’m honored to play this great game,” he should have said, “and to play for a Hall of Famer like Frank Robinson. I know my numbers are going to take a hit in this big ballpark, and ideally I’d like to play second base, but there’s no ‘I’ in team,” etc, etc.

He should also have quietly insisted on playing center rather than left. Had he proved even to be no worse there than at second, he would have improved his market value while doing a lot to repair his reputation as a selfish and somewhat boneheaded player.

As is, though, Soriano has picked this fight with the wrong team. For one, his manager is the famously stubborn and tempestuous Robinson, who isn’t going to back down, especially not when he’s right. For another, General Manager Jim Bowden reports to Major League Baseball, which still owns the Nationals. (Imagine how hard it’s going to be to believe this in 50 years.) That’s incentive to take a hard line, especially when your credibility is at stake.

According to Bowden, Soriano is going to be written into the lineup in left for today’s game against the Cardinals, and if he again refuses to take the field the Nationals will ask commissioner Bud Selig to place him on the disqualified list. Should Selig agree, Soriano will not be paid and will not accrue service time, meaning that should he refuse to play left for two years and then relent, he’d still have to play out a year before being eligible for free agency.

At press time, neither the MLBPA nor the commissioner’s office had gotten back to me to run down exactly what the disqualified list is, how one can be placed on it, or how a grievance process would work. Apparently the definition is to be found in the internal MLB rules, which aren’t available to the public.

The best reference to be found on them is the late Doug Pappas’s Web site; Pappas, the chairman of the Business of Baseball Committee for the Society for American Baseball Research, knew more about this sort of thing than most people who are paid to know about it. According to an article on his site detailing a review he’d made of those secret rules, “the disqualified list includes those who play with or against a club which, during the current season, has had a connection with an ineligible player or person.” This would seem too vague to be believed had I not once read the Basic Agreement between the union and MLB; Pappas’s summary has the air of truth about it.

So what will happen if Soriano again refuses to play where his manager tells him to? He’ll become an object of historical curiosity, allow himself to be branded by every talk show host in the country as the exemplar of all selfish, stupid ballplayers, and start a mysterious process which will perhaps clarify exactly what that passage I cited above means. The best thing for the game would be for Soriano to continue to make a fool out of himself. The best thing for him would be to suck it up and hand out those Bull Durham quotes. It’s never too late to grin and bear it.

tmarchman@nysun.com