Jeffrey Treats the Orioles With Kid Gloves

He is a pitcher and center fielder on his Little League team in Old Tappan, N.J., and he said:

“I’ve made some good catches but never one like that.”

How do you figure?

They doubled the security at Yankee Stadium Wednesday night, partly to prevent any incidents involving Roberto Alomar, and this innocent-looking kid in the first row of the right-field bleachers finds a way to beat the security and beat the Baltimore Orioles.

“I hope Baltimore isn’t mad at me,” Jeffrey Maier said.

“I don’t think they should be mad. I’m just a 12 1/2-year-old kid going for the ball.”

Armed with his black glove and attending the opener of the American League championship series, young Jeffrey went for it and got it, reaching over the right-field fence to glove Derek Jeter’s high fly as Tony Tarasco, his back to the fence, reached up in anticipation of making it.

“The ball disappeared on me,” Tarasco said later, comparing Maier’s magic to Merlin.

It also disappeared on umpire Richie Garcia, one of the American League’s best, who had only one responsibility in this game, which was to call plays in right field, but blew it. Garcia admitted as much after watching the replay of what he called an eighth-inning home run, tying the game and preventing the Orioles from winning in nine.

New York won in 11, 5-4, on a legitimate home run by Bernie Williams, long after reporters had descended on the bleachers to interview Maier and fans there had hoisted the youngster on their shoulders while others shouted, “put him down, we need the kid to make another catch.”

How strange.

Here was a crowd of 56,495 spitting an obscene chant at Alomar every time he came to bat.

Here were zoo zealots pegging a batting helmet, batteries, coins, an empty Coke bottle and other dangerous objects at Alomar and his teammates during the eighth-inning argument with Garcia.

And here they were toasting one of their own for interfering with the game.

“I saw the interviews and the kid being treated like a hero,” ejected and dejected Oriole Manager Davey Johnson said.

“That didn’t make me feel good either.”

Jeffrey Maier was giddy by contrast

“Wow,” he said. “This is unbelievable. I never thought anything like this would happen to me. I feel bad for the Baltimore fans, but I feel good if I helped the Yankees.”

Terrific. Maybe he can do it again if he has an opportunity.

Actually, he wouldn’t have had this one, but the youngster who was going to attend Game 1 on that ticket couldn’t go when rain forced rescheduling, and friends called Jeffrey at the last minute Wednesday.

So here he was, in the bright lights of TV cameras, surrounded by reporters with notepads, soon to be invited to appear on Letterman and an array of other TV shows, saying one minute “I didn’t reach over, the ball just dropped in my glove,” but then contradicting that, saying, well, maybe he did reach out for it.

A somewhat similar incident happened in Game 2 of the division series between the Yankees and Texas Rangers in the left-field corner here.

A fan in foul territory reached over and snared a drive hit by Juan Gonzalez. Umpires called it a home run, and replays supported them.

Replays showed Garcia made a mistake, which he admitted. The correct call, he said, wouldn’t have been a home run. However, he didn’t think Tarasco would have made the catch.

He viewed the replay and said the ball would have hit off the wall, leaving it up to plate umpire Larry Barnett to decide whether Jeter should be credited with a single or double.

Johnson wasn’t appeased by Garcia’s concession. He protested, basically on the absence of security that allowed front-row fans to be standing and in position to interfere with fly balls.

“[Stuff] is always happening in New York,” said Bobby Bonilla, who had been the right fielder before bruising his shoulder when he crashed into the fence an inning earlier.

Maier was the happening on a night Alomar was expected to be--and still was, to an extent.

“The New York fans are good fans,” Alomar said. “They make a lot of noise and support their team.

“I don’t care what they yell at me or how loud they boo me, but I don’t think they should be throwing things at me or my teammates.”

Alomar said he felt the breeze of foreign objects while on deck, but it was during the eighth-inning delay that the barrage was heaviest.

Alomar stayed at second base. The outfielders got pelted.

“I wasn’t going to go out there,” he said.

The tabloids here have had a field day with Alomar’s Bronx appearance in the wake of his spitting incident. He registered at the team hotel under an alias and did not travel on the team bus Wednesday night.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani urged fans to turn their back on Alomar in silent protest, but who listens to a publicity-seeking politician?

The jeered Alomar, forever haunted now, said he was focused, but he made a second-inning error that led to an unearned run and struck out three times in five at bats on a night when plate umpire Barnett gave him nothing.

It was also a night when the Orioles went through six pitchers, wasted several scoring opportunities and presented the Yankees with at least two runs defensively.

“It should never have come down to that play,” first baseman Rafael Palmeiro said of Jeffrey Maier’s catch in the eighth.

Some catch. The kid had the ball jolted loose as he was pulling it in and didn’t get the souvenir on a night he will otherwise never forget. The night he was the Babe in the House that Ruth Built.