SECTION: Sports; Pg. 68

LENGTH: 601 words

HEADLINE: MET FANS BRING OUT THE WORST

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:


IN THE BLEACHERS last night, we came to a very important decision while the Yankees redeemed themselves: We hate Met fans even more than we hate Met players.

This makes sense, when you think about it. Met players often don't have a choice about the team that drafts them, or trades for them. They probably all want to be Yankees, but can't say anything until their contract expires. Met fans choose to root for the Mets.

There were more of these Met fans last night in the bleachers than there were for Game 1. Let them in your stadium, they multiply like rabid rabbits. They buy tickets for seats that don't even exist, then stand along the rails so the regulars can't see.

I look at these people under the light blue caps, with that glassy, cult-like look in their eyes, and I guess I just don't get it.

Can you imagine what it would be like to go to sleep and wake up a Met fan?

"I'd rather get shot in the knee, or watch endless reruns of 'Happy Days,' " said Tom Brown of Manhattan, a Section 39 regular.

The whole series has confused us bleacher creatures about a lot of things. Signals are mixed. Some people are walking around with Red Sox caps, with Oriole caps, taking advantage of the chaos like looters during an earthquake.

We no longer feel completely comfortable confiding in our bleacher neighbors. Who knows what they are really thinking, or where their allegiance lies?

Michael Leff of Brooklyn wandered over to another section, and all of a sudden he spotted some guys he always thought were his friends. They were wearing Met caps.

"This is my house, and they wore them here," Leff said, deeply hurt. "I can't trust them anymore."

I understand how kids can be Met fans. They don't know any better. Maybe they are being raised in a dysfunctional Met family. Maybe a friend convinced them to experiment with rooting for the Mets, and then they got hooked.

But the adults have no such excuses. They are old enough to reject the twisted values at Shea, where 1986 is considered somehow more relevant than 1996.

"I'm convinced John Gotti had something to do with 1986," said Steve Krauss, from S.I.

Before the game could even begin last night, before the Yankees could score four runs in the second inning, we had to exorcise the bad aura from Game 1.

Tina Lewis came in from Queens, where she had been unable to sleep the night before, replaying the nightmare of Monday in her head. She immediately argued with a woman in a Met jersey who plopped herself down in the heart of the bleachers.

Then, Lewis screamed at the Yankees, her Yankees, during batting practice:

"Shame on you, Yankees!" Lewis said. "You lost to the Mets."

Soon, Milton Ousland showed up with a new cowbell. The old one was discarded in disgrace, even after it won a world championship last October. It had lost to the Mets, so Ousland went to Manny's Music and purchased a shiny, $ 30.75 replacement. He kept the receipt, just in case it didn't work.

Since the bleachers were oversold and the novelty of this series was wearing thin, Section 39 wasn't such a great place last night to watch a baseball game.

Everybody was standing in everybody's way. Tempers flared. The ice cream vendor refused to accept food stamps. Soon, the aisles became a regular runway for security raids.

WE PROBABLY didn't show the sympathy for Armando Reynoso that he deserved.

Sorry about that.

Today, it's Cone vs. Reed. Then, the Mets leave Yankee Stadium. The light-blue fans go back to Shea, where they can lead their secret lives again.

Notes: Bleacher Creature

LOAD-DATE: June 19, 1997