It’s Just Your Average Trip to New York

It should come as no surprise to any student of urban affairs in this country that a bunch of out-of-towners from Boston got mugged here Monday night.

It was a strong-arm robbery. They never knew what hit them. Their assailants were wearing these funny blue-and-orange costumes but it was too dark to tell if they were wearing masks or not. The victims think they all had these scars on their cheeks and they may have been wearing tattoos and earrings.

The victims from Boston were standing on a street corner in Queens minding their own business when the attack came without warning.

It’s what you get in this town when you go around flashing a big roll of bills or wearing a gold watch. You’re fair game. The Boston Red Sox never had any more of a chance than any other bunch of rubes who go out after dark. This is a tough town to go for the top in. What’s the old saying? “There’s a broken heart for every light on Broadway?” The Boston Red Sox added to the total Monday night. It’s all very well to shake your fist at all those skyscrapers and Great White Way and say “I’ll lick you yet. I’ll own this town.”

New York just yawns. “Sure you will, sucker.” This is the town where Texas Guinan used to heckle the customers “Hello, suckers.” The Red Sox must feel she was talking to them.

They lost the seventh game Monday night. But they lost the World Series Saturday night.

It was a second-guesser’s delight, this Series. The guy with the first guess had no chance at all. The consensus of the guys who get a second look at the cards was that the Boston Red Sox made a blunder comparable to going through Central Park in a mink coat at 4 a.m. when the manager left a semi-crippled first baseman in the game in an extra inning with a two-run lead Saturday night. They had the New York ruffians in a virtual armlock at the time. They let them out. And you know what happens when you let go of a New York thug. Any parole officer can tell you.

The Bostons are just lucky they didn’t buy any watches here. The con artists in orange-and-blue did everything but get them to put their life savings in a bag for the old pigeon drop. They’re going home in a barrel anyway. They’re not the first persons to come into this town in a limo and go home on a bus.

You might say this Series was won by New York’s Knight in shining armor. Knighthood was certainly in flower in Game 7 as Charles Ray Knight hit the key home run and several other hits in the 8-5 Mets win.

This Knight of the Round Ball came into this joust as the guy who was married to a famous golfer, Nancy Lopez. He came out of it as the best-known athlete in the family for a change. She comes out of it as a lady married to a famous ballplayer, while he went from Mr. Lopez to Mr. Knight with one swing of the bat and she went from being Ms. Golf to Ms. Knight.

For the Mets, it was good Knight. For the Red Sox, too, for that matter.

But, you have to think that if this Knight of the woeful countenance was the MVP of the Series, he wasn’t entirely the difference in the pivotal game Monday night.

That honor was at least shared--and maybe even taken over--by a broad-backed, well-fed guy, a pitcher who started this tournament as a forgotten man.

If there are anybody’s fingerprints on the Red Sox’ neck, they may be the ones belonging to Charles Sid Fernandez of the Honolulu Fernandezes.

Sid is a starting pitcher by profession. And a good one. Sid is also a major league eater which is why he was in the orange-and-blue of the New York National League club in the first place.

Sid was actually the property of the Dodgers for much of his career where he used to strike out 128 batters in 76 innings and 137 in 84 innings or 209 in 153 innings. But what he did to home plate was nothing to what he did to the blue plate. Sid could strike out a dozen oysters before he started to get parts of the cow out, too.

The Dodgers let Sid go to the Mets for a pizza to be named later. They got couple of bodies for him but they thought Sid’s body might make up for them and by the way outgrow any uniform they could make for him in the meantime.

Sid struck out 180 batters in 170 innings his first year and 200 in 204 innings this year. He was 16-6 this season, lasagna and all.

The Mets weren’t exactly counting on him as the post-season tourneys began this month. He got in games mainly as a mop-up specialist. This is the baseball equivalent of the charwoman who mops floors after the office has gone home for the night. But when Sid got in a second game of the Series--after Dwight Gooden had given up four runs and, as it turned out, the victory--he slammed the door on the Red Sox with a five-strikeout, three-hit shutout.

They put him in Monday night after starting pitcher Ron Darling had given up two home runs, four other hits, three runs and a walk and a 3-0 lead. Sid promptly retired seven Red Sox in a row. He struck out four of them and never allowed a base runner. When he left, the 3-0 deficit had become a tie and Red Sox Manager John MacNamara was later to say that, “He beat us. He kept us off the scoreboard when we had a 3-0 lead and hoped to add to that lead and bury them.” Sid doesn’t rely on junk pitches, just junk food. Sid throws his weight around. Sid throws heat.

The game was played on a night that would delight the heart of Jack the Ripper. Mists of fog shrouded the skyscrapers of Manhattan, rain speckled the pot-holes of the mean streets and Shea Stadium at game time had the aspects of Wuthering Heights. You expected to see hounds roaming the moors.

Baseball was supposed to be a July Fourth game, played in weather where a glass of beer or a dish of ice cream would taste good and a crowd was in shirt sleeves or bare-chested or wearing straw hats and mesh two-toned shoes. That’s the garb the game was designed for, not gloves, overcoats, earmuffs and wool scarves. And umbrellas.

So, they played the most important game of the year in this icy island in the north Atlantic on a late October day more suitable for ice dancing than for the boys of summer to decide the championship of a sunshine game.

Abner Doubleday would have needed smelling salts. Pop Anson might have refused to take the field. By game time, the rivals didn’t know whether to take a glove or a canoe or a sled.

Whatever the elements, the Mets are the boys of October. The Knight was theirs. The sidewalks of New York belong to their Sid. As for the Red Sox, they can go home and say it’s a nice place to visit--but you better take a shower with your wallet in your hand. They play rough. Lok at it this way. It ain’t Dubuque. It ain’t even Quincy.