Easy as Big Apple Pie

Best baseball team in history? A question nobody can answer.

Best baseball team you’ve ever seen? A question everybody can answer.

At 8:24 p.m. Wednesday, that answer came as quickly as 24 gray-shirted men with no names on their backs collided in a joyous pile on a pitching mound, hugging and crying and praying.

If you were watching this week, this month, this summer . . . even if you are 80 years old and once watched Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig . . . that answer is easy.

The best team you’ve ever seen? It is surely the 1998 New York Yankees.

To an unreal season they applied a surreal touch Wednesday on a night that was celebrated with champagne and cigars, but felt like beer and pretzels.

With no stars and devoid of glitter, the Yankees swept the San Diego Padres out of the World Series in four games with a 3-0 defeat that ended their season-long race toward history with a sort of triple crown.

They beat the Padres’ best pitcher in the biggest game of his life.

They beat the Padres’ best pressure hitter with the bases loaded in the eighth inning.

They beat the Padres in San Diego in front of the largest baseball crowd in the city’s history, 65,427 at now-dormant Qualcomm Stadium.

“We had high expectations from the fans, the media, our owner . . . we had nothing to do but lose,” said Chili Davis, pausing to savor a sip and a puff.

“But we didn’t.”

Not when it counted. Never when it counted.

Their 125 victories is the most for one calendar year in major-league history. Their 11 victories in 13 pressure playoff games may be the most impressive in major-league history.

There’s even magic in their winning percentage, derived from an overall 125-50 record.

Yep. It’s .714. On the 50th anniversary of Ruth’s death, you have to think the big lug would be proud.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Manager Joe Torre said. “I’m going to wake up in the morning and look at that record in the newspaper and think, it can’t happen.”

The ending was as perfect as the entire summer for a team that only worked well when it worked together.

They scuffled for five innings against Kevin Brown, then scratched him for three. They staggered briefly when the Padres loaded the bases in the eighth inning, but then Mariano Rivera retired Jim Leyritz on a fly.

Finally, two outs in the ninth, Scott Brosius picked up a grounder from Mark Sweeney, threw it to first baseman Tino Martinez, and within moments the entire team was one indistinguishable pile.

The same indistinguishable pile they have been in since their season began in Anaheim, appropriately, on April Fool’s Day.

Appropriately, because that was one of the few days they lost.

“I don’t know if we have any Hall of Famers on this team,” Torre said. “But I do know we play as a team.”

And so in the final chapter of one of its finest seasons, baseball offers the sort of lesson that will last us until next spring.

After the players unpiled, they remained on the field and did an unusual thing for million-dollar New Yorkers. They hugged each other.

Not those cheap, high-fiving half hugs, but real hugs, burying their faces in each other’s shoulders, all of them, two by two.

Chuck Knoblauch hugged Derek Jeter. Joe Girardi jumped into the arms of Paul O’Neill. Tino Martinez grabbed Rivera.

And so it went until they adjourned to the clubhouse where, after their initial champagne showers, they joined in their first chant as champions.

“Straw-man, Straw-man, Straw-man,” they chanted, hoping the words would carry over a TV microphone and into the living room of ailing teammate Darryl Strawberry.

“Darryl is one of the reasons we’re here, and as soon as I can find a phone, I’m calling him,” said Jeter, fighting through the mob.

The biggest reason they are here, of course, is them. All of them.

The 1998 New York Yankees have the face of Brosius, nondescript but not easily fooled, not respected even Wednesday when Martinez was twice intentionally walked so Brown could pitch to him.

The second time, his single made it 2-0, and this morning he is the World Series MVP who said his biggest moment had nothing to do with his two homers.

“The third out, throwing the ball and knowing it’s going to end the game and the season,” he said, typically.

They have the body of Bernie Williams; long, sleek, perfect for running out every grounder, taking every extra base.

They have the patience of Joe Torre, the expressionless manager who was stunned Wednesday when his players actually thanked him. They have the courage of Orlando Hernandez, whose experience as as Cuban refugee allowed him to shrug as he pulled them from the brink in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians.

They have the will of David Wells, unafraid to fight everyone from George Steinbrenner to his teammates, finally rendered as awe-struck as a child.

“My career could end today,” he said Wednesday, standing drenched in the middle of the field long after the game ended. “This is the storybook ending I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

They have the class of O’Neill, who dislikes the limelight but accepted its burden throughout the playoffs, answering questions that teammates couldn’t, supporting and pushing them at the same time.

“We better enjoy this,” he said, chewing on a cigar. “Because this will be the best team any of us have ever played on.”

And they have the fire of, yes, Mr. Steinbrenner, once again The Boss of all baseball.

Late Wednesday, standing in the middle of steamy clubhouse, spreading his arms beneath a white turtleneck drenched brown, he proclaimed, “This is the greatest team that’s ever been.”

I’m not telling him to shut up. You?