SECTION: Sports; Pg. 85

LENGTH: 887 words

HEADLINE: IT'S FAN AGAINST FAN  WHAT MAKES YANKEE, MET BOOSTERS SO NUTS?

BYLINE: By FILIP BONDY DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

BODY:


Yes, we know already. They hate each other. But in a season when both New York teams made the playoffs, and are now one step closer to a Subway Series, it is only natural to ask: Who are they really, these rabid, rival rooters of the Mets and Yankees?

Is there a DNA code, a socioeconomic, behavioral or racial trait that determines which fan cheers for which baseball team here in New York? Is it environmental, or is it genetic?

That depends on which ballcap you ask. The Democratic Mets supporter claims that all Yankees fans are Republicans, and points to the First Fan, Rudy Giuliani, as proof. The Yankees fan from Brooklyn says all Mets fans are from the burbs and notes that Shea Stadium opens up toward the Island, not the city skyline.

Everyone agrees about one thing: The other guys only show up when their team is winning.

"I love Yankees fans as demanded by Christian charity," said the Rev. Bob Longobucco, a Met fan and priest from Bayville, L.I., now serving at St. Mary's Church in Oneonta, N.Y. "They're created by God. They have dignity. As people, they're wonderful. But as Yankees fans, they're a cross to bear.

"I've always thought it was so much easier to be a Yankees fan."

Boil down a Mets fan to his essence, or at least to his demographic stereotype, and you will find a middle-class Long Islander in an SUV, with a vague family lineage arcing back toward the Dodgers or Giants. He or she is almost always white, at least inside Shea Stadium, and very quick to turn on his or her own team (see Mike Piazza, the jeering season).

When the Mets first opened for business in 1962, there was enough of a National League link to Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson that the team quickly gained support in the minority community. That sense of identity, however, was gone by the '80s, when the Met roster turned virtually all white and the once-conservative Yankees integrated themselves with black and Latino players and coaches.

This week, a Daily News poll showed the Yankees have twice as many supporters as the Mets within the city limits. A lot of that has to do with two championships in the past three years.

But there is more to it. Shea's ambience, loud and plastic, can't compare with the historic strains of Yankee Stadium. The Bronx location, no matter how reviled by George Steinbrenner and Giuliani, is far more central to the entire metropolitan population.

A sampling at Yankee Stadium provides a pool of humanity more closely mirroring the city. There is a greater gap between rich and poor supporters and a more diverse racial spectrum.

The rich and powerful come here, because it is a hot ticket during winning times. The poor and downtrodden loyally move to the back of the building, happily watching the game upside-down from the bleachers. Yankees fans firmly believe they own the championship banner and rented it out reluctantly for only two years to the Mets.

"We could take the next 150 years off, and they still wouldn't catch up," said Chris Cartelli, a Yankees bleacher creature from Larchmont, Westchester.

It is precisely this kind of attitude that grates so harshly on sensitive Mets fans like John Longo, a corporate headhunter in Manhattan.

"Yankees fans think they are somehow a part of royalty," Longo said. "By the mere fact that they root for the team, they think they have Yankees blood in their veins. That seems asinine to me. And they couldn't be more pompous than they are now."

Point, counterpoint.

"Met fans try to dis tradition," said John Elezovic, a Yankees fan from Queens. "But the whole time, they're desperately grabbing onto someone else's tradition. They're the ones who want to build the new Ebbets Field."

It is an opportune time right now, during postseason '99, for each side to charge the other with a bandwagon mentality, because both sets of supporters fancy themselves riding juggernauts.

"Yankees fans are front-runners, with little or nothing going for them, who must rally around a store-bought team and bash Mets fans to feel good about themselves," said David Schwartzberg from Manhattan.

Point, counterpoint.

"They boo their team faster," said Tina Lewis, a restaurant worker and Yankees fan from Queens. "I didn't even boo Bobby Meacham. We know our baseball a lot better. Way, way better. To be honest, they're just not as smart as we are."

Are Yankees fans really more loyal, or do they just have less reason to abandon ship?

"A Yankees fan never will jump back and forth between favorites like a cheap ham radio," Mike Donahue said.

He will, however, occasionally be moved to temper tantrums, when the welfare of his team is at stake.

"We know how to boo another team without throwing batteries," said Stuart Miller, a writer and Mets fan from Brooklyn. "Yankees fans are a step below [New York] Rangers fans on the evolutionary scale.

"Tell George [Steinbrenner] that Yankee Stadium is scary, not because of the people in the surrounding neighborhoods. It's because of the people in the stands."

Was that another example of sociobehavioral snobbery from the Mets fan, in answer to the Yankees' traditional wholer-than-thou rosters? Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe we just like one team because it's amazin', and the other because it looks so darned good in pinstripes.



GRAPHIC: DAVID HANDSCHUH DAILY NEWS HERE THEY COME Mets fan stream off subway on their way to Shea to watch their team stun the Diamondbacks on Todd Pratt's HR in 10th inning yesterday. JON NASO DAILY NEWS DAVID HANDSCHUH DAILY NEWS STARTING YOUNG P.J. Martino, 4, is dressed to thrill as he takes in excitement of Mets' playoff game with grandfather Bob Armbruster (l.) and dad, Pete Martino, yesterday at Shea.

LOAD-DATE: October 11, 1999