SECTION: Sports; Pg. 54

LENGTH: 645 words

HEADLINE: STANDING GROUND
AT LEAST YANKEE DIEHARDS WIN TURF WAR

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:


THE WHOLE THING was a nightmare, much worse than I ever imagined.

It began at 6:10 last night, a very bad time in Yankee history, when a tide of light blue from out of the 1964 World's Fair swept over the field, like a fungus.

It was a sight worse than a dozen marching bands, wearing ties, sipping Diet Cokes, juggling beachballs, playing "The Macarena."

It was the Mets, taking over the field in the Bronx for practice. Our field.

In the bleachers, we were momentarily stunned to silence.

"I thought I hated Boston," said Larry Palumbo of Syosset. "That's what I thought until this day, when they let these guys in here."

The Mets were here, all right. The whole, ugly bunch of them. The players. The uniforms. Even a few pockets of Met fans, who actually do exist after all.

"It's just hitting me now," said Tom Brown, a regular creature, leaning over the bleacher railing in disbelief. "But in a way, you have to welcome this. I mean, look at the Met fans who are here in the bleachers, quiet like they're in a library, staring down into their little programs, scared to death."

We calmed ourselves with these thoughts, before the game. But then, Bernie Williams never came out to play center field and Dave Mlicki fooled the Yankees into thinking he was a major league pitcher.

There were plenty of Met fans suddenly, acting like they owned New York, making too much noise. They were taking over entire sections of the Stadium.

Just not the bleachers. There, we knew how to keep them in check.

It turns out Met fans are pretty stupid. It is easy to throw them off their game, to get inside their empty heads and rattle around in there.

We told the vendors not to sell them peanuts. We told security guards to remove them, whenever they stood on benches and blocked our sight. We decapitated a cute little Met bear, and tossed its head around.

"Why not?" said Darrial Crawl from the Bronx. "They did it in France."

Finally, after the sixth, we cleansed Section 39 of all of them, with our persuasive arguments. Ted Ketcham of Ridge, N.Y., got in the face of the haughty Met fan in the front row, and soon both Ketcham and the guy with the wrong cap were being escorted down the rampway.

It was about this time that security cut off all beer sales in the bleachers, perhaps a few innings too late. By the seventh, disagreements between several fans were beyond the point of reasonable compromise.

Nobody was in a good mood last night, not for this one.

"Why did they even start this interleague stuff?" Tina Lewis said. "I can't take it. This is the worst."

Lewis and the gang had gone to Shea on Sunday, to get ready, to root on the Red Sox, of all teams. It was supposed to be a preemptive strike.

"A dump," Lewis said, of Shea. "I got home, I had to take two showers."

Now, one fan suggested, Yankee Stadium would need some Lysol, too.

What a circus. Outside, on River Ave., below a whirring police helicopter, some movie director had chosen this terrible evening to film a scene about the Pope coming to the Stadium. The movie will be called "Piece of Cake." Fake nuns roamed the streets. We were all supposed to be extras, except we weren't cooperating.

"Even the Pope would throw beer at Met fans," one heretical fan screamed at the camera.

The Mets kept pestering us all night, rude guests in the temple that Ruth built. They didn't belong here.

For the record, I behaved myself. But I would not interview a single Met fan. Why should I give them space in my newspaper?

'INTERVIEW ME," said George Chityat of Fort Lee, another Yankee regular. "I'll say I'm a Met fan and that my team stinks and that we can't compare to the Yankees over the whole season."

There's your stupid Met interview. If the Yankees win tonight, maybe I get more generous.

Notes: Bleacher Creature



GRAPHIC: ANDREW SAVULICH DAILY NEWS STORMING THE GATE: Heading for bleacher seat, a Met fan gets some friendly abuse from Yankee fans outside Stadium last night.

LOAD-DATE: June 17, 1997