SECTION: SPECIAL; Pg. 20 BLEACHER CREATURE

LENGTH: 656 words

HEADLINE: BRONX IS NOW A DRY COUNTY MET FANS IN OUR BLEACHERS A SOBERINGTHOUGHT

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:
NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE to put up with Mets fans this weekend in the bleachers, we have to put up with them while we're sober.

At least, in theory.

Ever since the permanent beer ban, we persecuted Creatures under the iron fist of the new Prohibition laws at the Stadium have been forced to gather before games at a secret nearby location - let's just call it, The Sandbox Suites - to do what has 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," grouses Tom Brown from Manhattan, blood-alcohol level unknown but always climbing. "I'm going to bring every 4-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 arrive at our beloved bleachers these days, there are two new blue signs stuck to the outer wall. One says, "Bleachers are now alcohol free." The other, "Intoxicated fans will not be permitted into the Stadium."

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

"Now, not only can't I drink inside, I can't drink outside?" says Anthony Griek, honor student at Iona.

Not all of the Creatures drink beer. Some are high on championship baseball. Some use alternative substances. "Let's just say I have other types of things that keep me busy," says Donald Simpson of Harlem, who might be talking about a good book for all anybody knows.

"It's just that we're baking out here in the sun, and we need that cold beer more than anybody else," Simpson says.

Simpson has a way of disappearing between innings, and returning in a better mood. Must be the book.

Tina Lewis of Queens, diva of Section 39, is a tea totaler. But she too thinks Yankee officials unfairly have identified the Creatures as troublemakers. It wasn't a Creature who tumbled from the upper deck last month. It was a box-seat moron.

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

The Yankees sent letters to the Creatures when this ban began, announcing our beer had been cut off and saying we can always exchange or refund our tickets if we wanted.

That is not going to happen.

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

Which brings us to the Mets. The Mets, and their Pepsi Picnic Area fans, would like nothing better than to invade Section 39 in the right field bleachers and call it home for a long weekend. And that isn't going to happen, either. For one thing, many of us now have season tickets. We can walk up to these bozos and say, "Pardon, me, Mr. Met, but that is my bench you are infecting."

Tina is already planning the annual subway series fumigation process, which generally begins about the third inning of the Sunday game.

It is always amusing to watch the Mets crawl into our Stadium for a midseason game, roach-like, always far behind the Braves, always worried that a few more losses could cost them the wild card. Last time we looked, they were in yet another epic struggle with such powerhouses as Montreal, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Colorado.

A couple of defeats in the Bronx could cost them dearly.

SO WE WILL WATCH their repulsive fans sweat it out in our home. We will remind them that it required a trip to Atlanta by the Yankees to send John Rocker to the minors. We will heckle them with our witticisms, which will grow more sober and pointed with each inning, as the pregame buzz wears off.

It is not a perfect world in Section 39. But when the Yankees are nursing a late-inning lead over the Mets, and Mariano Rivera is on the mound, there is really no longer a pressing need for intoxicants.

LOAD-DATE: June 9, 2000