SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 77 BLEACHER CREATURE

LENGTH: 601 words

HEADLINE: NOTHING CIVIL ABOUT THIS WAR

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:
The rivalry is growing, stirring resentment, creating a charged, volatile atmosphere unseen around Yankee Stadium for years.

I refer not to the Anaheim Angels, who are barely a blip on our radar after last night's 8-6 come-from-behind victory, but to the increasing tensions between Section 39 and Section 37 in the right-field bleachers.

"If you ask me, these guys are getting a big head and overstepping their bounds," says Ironhorse Justin, a Section 39er.

It is almost painful these days to look over at Section 37 and see the sad gimmickry that has taken hold. There is the Ric Flair guy, screaming, "Whoo!" There is the guy leading cheers, Israeli Joe, who reportedly is not even Jewish. There is the fellow who stands up and swings his belt around whenever "Cotton-Eyed Joe" is played during that endless seventh-inning stretch. There is the Ron Coomer Fan Club.

"Jealousy. Envy. That's what it is," says Little Mike. "That's why they're doing these things."

Then there is Laura, another one from Section 37. She has had the audacity to get on the Section 39 Web site and to suggest, with no apparent irony, that the Creatures should watch Games 3 and 4 on a television set in a bar that is not Jeremy's Ale House.

She calls Jeremy's "a jinx."

"This is a war they can't win," says Tony Capone, who is proud to announce he passed a Breathalyzer test when he was stopped in his car after the Game 1 celebration. "They've got to know their role."

Apparently, they do not. They have been booing Sheriff Tom lately, if only in jest. They have attempted to usurp the roll call, to no avail.

Worse, they are not alone in this rebellion. The Creatures were forced to inform Section 41 recently that, no, they were not allowed to perform The Wave, a box-seat invention. And in the left-field bleachers, a different legend is growing in almost mythological bounds. They call the man Farrell Allen, and his good works are chronicled by Sandalio Lopez.

According to Lopez, a sworn disciple, Allen has become a religious figure of sorts, a miracle worker, out in the left-field bleachers. He refuses to curse. He won't heckle anybody with personal insults. "Nothing but stats," Lopez reports.

Lopez insists "The Farrell Factor" has caused a great spell to descend upon all visiting left fielders, from Rickey Henderson to Jeremy Giambi. Farrell is allegedly responsible for making Henderson crash into the wall and get carried off the field on a stretcher.

"At one game, he arrived two batters late in the first inning," Lopez reports. "As he approached his usual perch, a child turned to his father and said, 'Dad! See, I told you he would come!' Farrell turned to the boy, smiled and nodded."

This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes the core Bleacher Creatures in Section 39 want to puke.

"The left-field bleachers, it's like a big lounge over there," Tom Brown says. "They even have a tree. They sit so far away, if they want to heckle anybody, they have to send a letter."

Don't get us wrong. There are some good Section 37ers, some of the real originals: Norma and Chico and Evie and poor Statman, who sits in the middle of this craziness with his headphones on, trying to encode another game.

But we are clearly heading toward Civil War, just as the games are getting more important.

"These people have got to understand," says Sheriff Tom. "When somebody carries a plate of nachos up the steps in Section 39, it's bigger news than anything that happens in Section 37.

"If you blow up a keg of dynamite in the woods, only the squirrels care."

E-mail: fjbondy@netscape.net

LOAD-DATE: October 3, 2002