SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 70 BLEACHER CREATURE

LENGTH: 680 words

HEADLINE: FLUSHING OUR TROUBLES AWAY

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:
IT SHOULD HAVE been a moment of sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. Instead, our beloved Yankees' 37th pennant last night was tainted with orange and blue, with a hatred that knows no bounds.

We will have to win our fourth championship in five years against the Mets, unworthy opponents with onerous and odorous fans.

Tina Lewis, core Creature, had come to the Stadium sick for Game 6, for victory over Seattle, with an upper respiratory infection she caught while watching the Mutts win the pennant on television. The germs had come right through the screen and now she did not look well, at all. "I was trying to sleep it off, and then all these people were honking their horns, celebrating," said Lewis, who has the misfortune to live about 10 minutes from Shea in Queens. "I was waking up in a sweat, having nightmares of Met fans everywhere. Orange. Blue. I am numb. I don't like this one bit."

Tina couldn't believe what she saw on Monday, when the Met players jogged a victory lap around their stadium, just like the Yankees always do, and their fans started banging cowbells, just like Milton in the right-field bleachers. It made her think how it would feel, in the one-in-a-New York-Lotto chance that the Mets actually won the championship.

"You gonna cover my funeral?" she asked.

Luckily, that will not be necessary. Because as all of us know in Section 39, the Mets have about as much hope of beating the Yanks as they do of playing in a stadium that does not deserve to be condemned. Which means no chance at all.

"They wanted us, well here we are," said Big Donald Simpson. Donald, another Section 39 regular, also had the misfortune of being awakened by a Mutt fan. His brother, Danny, called him at 7:30 yesterday morning in a feeble attempt to torment Donald.

"Unfortunately for him, I work with the phone company and his service is about to be cut off," Simpson said.

Simpson is so certain of victory, he has told Danny he will wear a Met cap for the rest of the year if the Yankees lose to them. And why not? If such a surreal event ever would happen, it would be a little like one of those after-the-bomb-drops movies. Like, "On the Beach" or "Dr. Strangelove."

"Life as we know it would no longer exist," Donald said.

Chuck (looks like Knoblauch) is due for knee surgery in November. If the Mets would win the championship - and, again, I cannot emphasize enough that is not going to happen - then he would ask his anesthesiologist to keep him under until the following October, when the Yankees would win their next title.

"I was trying to imagine what it would feel like if the Mets ever win," said Chuck, who had to pop a Rolaids after the Mets beat the Cards. "I think it would be a little like when my dog, Higgins, died, when it takes weeks to get over it. Weeks."

The Filip Creature believes this too, with all my heart, and will stop this column until further notice, if the impossible should happen, if the Yankees ever lose to the Mets. Because what would be the point of living, of writing, of taunting?

But why are we even dwelling on such a ridiculously implausible scenario?

Instead, we should all be doing something positive and proactive, like Mike Donahue, who was out scouting the Shea Picnic Area during the Cards' series for a planned attack during Games 3 through 5.

Donahue decided the Shea bleachers looked like a fake movie backdrop. He could barely endure past the pathetic wave that inundated the stands in the middle innings. Still, he jotted down a few Pepsi Picnic Pal notes, which will be made public before Game 1 of the Series.

DONAHUE HAS BEEN good before with the scouting reports. When he called the Seattle residents "waffle heads," most of us didn't understand him. But then, there I was in a downtown Seattle hotel over the weekend, and sure enough there were two waffle-making machines available every morning for guests in the lobby.

There will be no such waffles, or waffling, in Section 39. Just a countdown: Three days, until the Mets invade the Bronx and are met with the appropriate disinfectant.

GRAPHIC: KEN MURRAY DAILY NEWS BRING 'EM ON Yankee fans don't seem to be worried about impending date with Mets last night after Bombers win 37th AL pennant.

LOAD-DATE: October 18, 2000