SECTION: Sports; Pg. 88

LENGTH: 609 words

HEADLINE: NEW CREATURE CREATION

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:


JEFF MAIER CAN SIT IN the bleachers any time he wants.

It is an invitation rarely extended to fans in the right-field box seats, whom we normally consider our worst enemies. But the creatures will make an exception for this kid from Old Tappan, N.J., and not just because he is 12 years old.

Maier helped turn Game 1 into a perfect day by doing what all of us always want to do: He interfered with the Orioles without throwing a single battery at anybody. "I feel pretty good," said Maier, as well he should. He grabbed a ball away from Tony Tarasco, who grabbed right field away from Bobby Bonilla.

Great deal all around.

The day had begun for all of us very differently, with Bonilla warming up smugly in right and with relations strained between our warring fan regions in the Stadium.

Three bleacher creatures challenged some ritzy box-seaters to a fight, only to discover that there was no way to step outside, settle things and then re-enter the stadium.

So we made a fragile peace, and immediately were rewarded with two gifts from above.

First, left fielder B.J. Surhoff lost Tim Raines' fly ball high in the autumn sky in the first inning, with Raines ending up on second base.

Then, as if by some cosmic link, a woman in the lower deck heeded suggestions and flashed her breasts to the bleachers.

The creatures owned a lead, and a tale to tell our mutant offspring.

"Never saw that before," said Larry Palumbo from Syosset, and he wasn't talking about the muffed play.

The game would not be so smooth, so easy, because the Orioles were feisty and because Bonilla wouldn't stop smiling at us in right field.

I thought I hated Juan Gonzalez, the home-run machine from Texas. But I hadn't seen the smirk up close.

Bonilla's knowing grin travels right through Section 39 and straight on back to the No. 4 train. It never, ever stops.

"Wild-card garbage," we chanted yesterday.

Bonilla smiled, tipped his glove to us.

"Ex-Met reject," we chanted.

He smiled some more.

"You know why he laughs at us?" said Joey Lopez, who is wiser than his years. "He's from the Bronx. He knows us."

Other players shrink from us. They respect the Bleacher Creature, and what his words can do to a player's confidence. They wear batting helmets, and never look behind them for fear of what they might see.

Not Bonilla. He was once out here, screaming his own humiliating phrases and bon mots at gray-uniformed villains.

Bonilla seems to enjoy it when we raise our middle fingers, when we offer our profane toasts.

"It's quite amusing," he said before this game.

"If they come up with something original, I'll laugh," Bonilla said.

We came up with plenty original yesterday. Most of it I can't print, even on our new, creature-friendly internet site, Mostnewyork.

We tried to rattle Bonilla, mixing our metaphors and attaching some action verbs where they had never been utilized before.

Bonilla kept smiling, until he dropped Bernie Williams' drive to right against the wall in the seventh and was taken out for defense.

Last laugh to us.

"If we beat the Orioles in this series, that'll be the only way to stop the smile," said Mike Milianta, from Stony Point. "If we beat them, that'll disappoint him."

We're one-fourth of the way, thanks to Jeff.

Meanwhile, I must warn you, the creatures are telling me to paint them with a harsher brush. They say they no longer are presenting a fearsome image, because I have humanized them too much.

"I'm going to have to spill more beer on you," Palumbo told me.

No need to do that.

Note: Bleacher Creature (Heading)



GRAPHIC: ILLUSTRATION BY ED MURAWINSKI

LOAD-DATE: October 10, 1996