Copyright 2005 Daily News, L.P.

Daily News (New York)
April 4, 2005 Monday
SPORTS FINAL EDITION
SECTION: SPORTS; BLEACHER CREATURE; Pg. 60

LENGTH: 612 words

HEADLINE: Creatures' reality check: One bolts Bleachers for the TV life

BYLINE: BY FILIP BONDY

BODY:


Everybody is a star these days, so Bald Vinny packed up his T-shirt stand last night on River Ave., maybe for the whole season, and headed off into the sunset, to his own reality TV series.

Vinny is on some YES production called, "The Ultimate Road Trip," which means he will go to 162 games with the Yankees and have his every thought chronicled for the masses. This column wasn't enough of a forum for him, apparently, so Vinny will abandon his saintly girlfriend, Rose, ruin his business and travel like a baseball beat writer until he hates the sport. He will make his way, and his fame, with three fellow Yankee fans on the show.

Rose's father has already warned his daughter that producers have a way of throwing women at men on these reality shows, and Rose couldn't help but notice that one of the regulars, Christa, is not unattractive. She says she is not worried.

"I have his car and his worldly possessions, and I'm a burner," Rose said.

So Bald Vinny disappeared with a camera crew, and that left two gaping holes for Opening Night that needed to be filled immediately. Already, Joe Egan from Connecticut opened a new T-shirt stand in front of Stan's. That vacancy was easy to fill. But there was far greater controversy about the first-inning roll call, a ritual that Vinny would begin each game with his rattling trombone of a voice.

Vinny tabbed as his replacement last night Tone 516, a spunky third-year Creature, a move that was immediately criticized for its audacity. Everybody likes Tone 516, but it was just the idea that Vinny felt empowered to bestow his position to someone else, without the official approval of long-time tribal leaders like Tina Lewis and Sheriff Tom.

"It's not like I'm bequeathing the throne of England to him," Vinny said, after he named Tone 516 as his interim successor recently at Jeremy's Alehouse, a saloon famous for the women's lingerie dangling from the ceiling.

Nonetheless, this was an important responsibility. And, frankly, the roll call did not go smoothly last night. Tone 516 started it with Bernie Williams, just fine, but the whole thing got lost around Tony Womack, who looked very confused at second base. Were the fans chanting for him, or not? Did he tip his cap? Tough to tell.

What can you do? Life goes on. Vinny was too busy shooting and reshooting scenes on River Ave. that, said Mike Donahue, "look a lot like a Mentos commercial."

Most of the other regular Creatures were there in Section 39, uninterested in any reality show besides "Revenge in 2005."

There is something that Red Sox fans should understand: It would have been much worse for the Yankees to lose in 2000 to the Mets, than to lose to the Red Sox last season. A Met victory in the Subway Series might have stood for 100 years, because that other New York team is quite capable of a century-long slump.

But the Red Sox will be here to kick around every year, and will suffer bad endings from now until our sun expands and burns us all to a crisp. "Plus, those guys are 210 miles away," Marc Chalpin said of the Red Sox fans.

Last night, Statman and Debbie the Water Girl and Fernando the Author and Bad Mouth Larry and Diggity Dan and Walkman John and Milton the Cowbell Man came and sat through the cold, to welcome back Tino and to get a glimpse of Randy Johnson in a Yankee uniform.

Johnson looked pretty sharp early on, and it was just good to crunch together in Section 39 and cheer as the Yanks rounded the bases in the third.

Somewhere in the stands, probably in the box seats, Bald Vinny was cheering, too. Cheering for a television crew.

Take one. Take two. Take three, with feeling. Even the great ones have a price. filipbondy@netscape.net

LOAD-DATE: April 4, 2005