SECTION: WRAP; Pg. 18 BLEACHER CREATURE

LENGTH: 536 words

HEADLINE: NOT MET WITH CHEER

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:
THE BLEACHER CREATURES respectfully would like to know how Roger Clemens got away with it. Roger threw a foreign object at Mike Piazza, was spotted in the act by law enforcement, yet was not removed from the Stadium.

He did everything but heckle Timo Perez in right field with one of our songs. This is what the Mets get, and we figure it is mainly because of their fans. You try to treat them like human beings. You really do. But there is always something very strange about Met fans, something repulsive and off-putting. It is as if they are a mutant race of primates, isolated in a penal colony in Queens so they don't reproduce and overrun the rest of the world.

"It's like they're cartoon characters," Milton Ousland was saying. "They get all excited. They scream, 'Let's go Mets.' They're orange. They're not real."

All you had to do was look at them again last night when they came to the Bronx for Game 2, for their second pounding. They should not be allowed out in public, at least not in New York, certainly not in Section 39.

There was, for example, the man sitting alongside his 10-year-old son, whose face was painted with the Met colors.

"Why doesn't the father just paint a birthmark on the kid's face, and maybe put some braces on him?" wondered Mike Donahue, core Creature. "That stuff won't come off without gasoline."

Then there was the woman with bright orange shoes.

There were Met muppets, and big-headed Mets with pea brains. It was a real freak show out there. Only the knowledge that the Yankees will clinch this series at Shea, and that we Creatures would be dancing in celebration on the No. 7 subway platfrom in Flushing, made any of this bearable.

"Every year, every time they come in here for a new series, we get new Met fans here," said Chris Cartelli. "You look at the jerseys they wear, there are no Seaver jerseys, no Dykstras. They're all black and orange. There's just no heritage there."

Game 1 had gone smoothly enough on Saturday, once Benitez blew up in the ninth and the idiots in the stands were silenced. There were only a few minor incidents. One guy kept walking up and down the right-field bleachers in his Met outfit, taunting the Creatures in Section 39 for as long as the Mets held their lead.

Which wasn't long enough, was it?

Tina Lewis was forced to yell at regular intervals at the people standing on the steps, in front of her seat, telling them to get out of the way. She wanted to see something besides their fat, Met-loving rears.

Anyway, the Creatures who were fortunate enough to get our hands on a few extra seats were outside the Stadium early last evening, trying to make a few dollars selling tickets (we don't like the word "scalping" because it carries negative connotations) while hoping to avoid the Anthony Suite set aside for us in the local jail.

WE ARE NOT ripoff artists. Milton the Cowbell Man was hoping to sell $110 tickets for $500, a reasonable markup you might see anywhere. But it wasn't easy, because the cops were everywhere, and many of them were Met fans.

You could tell, because they looked like cartoon characters and weren't thrilled at the final score. They never are, when they come to the Bronx.

LOAD-DATE: October 23, 2000