SECTION: Sports; Pg. 93

LENGTH: 534 words

HEADLINE: BLEACHER CREW IS AT A LOSS

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:


I AM IN THE surreal land of puppets and overflowing portable toilets. I am in the right-field bleachers again, on an illogical night when the Yankees lose to the Indians, 7-5.

Bill Panagiotou of Oakland, N.J., has brought his dummy, Groucho, dressed in Yankee pinstripes. Tom Brown of Manhattan counters with his hand puppet, Drunken Knight, who is spewing profanities at Manny Ramirez. People are parading around the nearby box seats in Muppet costumes. Puppet night, for Game 2. And why not, when your staff ace makes you wish for Kenny Rogers?

I am just trying to hang in here, as things go bad. I am hoping I don't have to go to the bathroom, and most of all I am hoping that Rob Andre doesn't swing his cigaret at my arm again. Andre is my neighbor in seat 22, row B, and he has burned me twice already.

"You put me in the Daily News yesterday," he says, over and over. "I bought 30 copies. Daily News rules."

All in all, a tough night, except for the puppets. You take what you can get.

"I used to sit in Section 13, behind the dugout," Groucho is saying, through Panagiotou, a very poor ventriloquist. "But times have changed."

The dummy can only afford the bleachers now. Which makes him no dummy at all. He is a smart guy, like the rest of us in Section 39.

"When I was younger, all I wanted to do was sit in the good seats," says Fred Myricks of Brooklyn, a puppet fan with a Dr. Seuss hat. "Now I just want to sit in the bleachers."

So Myricks and all the puppets sit back and watch the Yankees blow a three-run lead to a team that doesn't belong on the same field.

And this time, it isn't our fault. We are loud. We are mean when we have to be.

And still, the fourth inning goes terribly wrong. At moments like these, I hate October. I am a journalist in exile, seeking refuge among my only friends.

From the moment I arrive at these playoff games, I am a rumpled, societal leper.

I am not allowed in the press parking lot, so I must search the Bronx streets for a form-fitting spot.

I reach the press entrance. Somehow, I have no credential. I don't have access to either clubhouse, home or visitor, for player interviews.

Mike Lupica, sitting in the press box with his parking pass and his clubhouse access, mocks my very existence.

The turnstile keepers on River Ave. study my $ 11 bleacher ticket each night as if it were a forgery pretending to be a Picasso. They turn the paper over and over, hold it to the light.

"Believe me, it's real," I tell them. "Why would someone print counterfeit $ 11 tickets when they could print counterfeit $ 25 tickets?"

They don't answer. They turn the ticket over again.

The security guards check my computer bag. They debate whether I am allowed to bring a laptop into the bleachers, as if I would hurl a $ 2,000 machine at Manny Ramirez.

I can't let them get to me. The cigaret burns. The security guards. The Indians. Lupica.

At least I am not the Seattle Mariners. "It would have been nice to play Seattle for old times' sake," Tina Lewis says. "Too bad for them."

The Yanks go to Cleveland now, even. The puppets and I are busy planning for the Orioles.

Notes: Bleacher Creature

LOAD-DATE: October 03, 1997