SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 29 BLEACHER CREATURE

LENGTH: 653 words

HEADLINE: CREATURE LAMENT: HOW DRY I AM

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:
BEER DOESN'T HECKLE people. People heckle people.

Which is why the core Creatures were thoroughly disgusted yesterday at the Stadium, after being singled out and punished with a permanent bleacher-beer ban. It was also why we were gathered at a secret nearby location before the Red Sox game - let's just call it, The Sandbox Suites - to do what had to be done. Namely, drink.

Two bucks at the Associated on 161st gets you a Colt .45. Four bucks gets you two. And so on, and so forth.

"The next thing, they're going to make us all wear ties and start broadcasting the games in black and white," groused Tom Brown from Manhattan, blood-alcohol level unknown, but definitely climbing. "I'm going to bring every four-year-old I know with an Incredible Hulk lunchbox. You can sneak a six-pack in that thing. Maybe I'll get me a hollowed-out wooden leg."

When we had arrived at our beloved bleachers entrance yesterday, there were two new blue signs stuck to the outer wall. One said, "Bleachers are now alcohol free." The other, "Intoxicated fans will not be permitted into the Stadium."

The first was annoying, a breach of our sacred civil rights. The second was just plain ridiculous.

"Now, not only can't I drink inside, I can't drink outside?" said Anthony Griek, honor student at Iona. "I just pray someone tells me I can't go in there, because then there's going to be some real trouble."

Not all of the Creatures drink beer. Some are high on championship baseball. Some use alternative substances, reporting to the Rocky Mountain High location or another nearby park. "Let's just say I have other types of things that keep me busy," said Donald Simpson of Harlem, who might have been talking about a good book for all anybody knew.

"It's just that we're baking out here in the sun, and we need that cold beer more than anybody else," Simpson said. "Some guys put a lot of money aside for beer money this season. This is going to free up a lot of cash."

Then, Donald disappeared, not to return until the first inning.

Tina Lewis of Queens, diva of Section 39, is a tea totaler. But she, too, was not thrilled with the new regulations, if only because they indirectly identified the Creatures as troublemakers.

There had been a few minor brawls a couple of weeks ago, when some Red Sox fans came into the right field bleachers during the Tampa Bay series. But as Lewis pointed out, "Most of the troublemakers were college kids who probably weren't even supposed to be drinking.

"They're just trying to get rid of us. But it's not going to happen," Lewis said. "You cut me and I bleed Yankee blue."

Lewis and Simpson had evidence, a paper trail, of this nefarious conspiracy. It seems the Yankees had sent out letters this week to the Creatures, announcing our beer had been cut off and that we could always exchange or refund our tickets.

That was not going to happen.

"This place used to be wild and wonderful," Griek said. "Now, I don't even know what to say. But you can't stop coming. That's what they want us to do."

Around the stadium, even in the bleachers, Red Sox fans arrived yesterday in full defiance, wearing Boston caps and paraphernalia. Apparently, they felt safe because of the beer ban. They did not seem to understand that our tongues, sober or inebriated, would soon undress their heads and egos.

WHILE SOME CREATURES were being interviewed by local media types, searching for our opinions on the beer ban, the core Creatures were back at the Sandbox Suite, reminiscing about old times. There was the first championship run in '96, when the rows of bleachers alongside the Joseph Yancey track on River Ave., across from the Stadium, made for a great pre-game watering hole.

"Then they gutted it," Brown said. "We call it the catacombs."

Let's hope they never do that to our beloved Section 39. After everything else we've had to endure, it wouldn't really surprise anyone.

LOAD-DATE: May 28, 2000