For N.Y., Baseball Becomes the Factional Pastime

As he boarded a No. 4 train bound for Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Danny Manzo adjusted the bill of his Yankee cap and spoke lyrically about the war ahead: “See those jerks wearing Mets caps in the back of this car?” he snapped. “Their team is gonna be history. Yanks in five.”

Across town, on a No. 7 train rumbling toward Shea Stadium, Randy Sullivan buttoned his Met Windbreaker and smirked at the mere thought of Yankee fans. “These people are full of themselves,” he sniffed. “Mets in four.”

Although many here are sharply divided in their baseball loyalties, the city is thriving on a family feud that gets noisier--and nastier--by the day.

In the hours leading up to Saturday’s opening pitch, the Big Apple has gone bonkers over the first Subway Series in 44 years: Streets and subways are filled with people wearing Met and Yankee caps. The Met and Yankee clubhouse stores on Fifth Avenue had to be closed three times by fire marshals because too many people jammed inside, scooping up $100 jerseys and other pricey mementos.

As the anticipation grows, the city’s tabloids have cranked out one World Series special section after another, with more to come. Talk radio is crackling with Big Apple baseball chatter, and WNBC-TV created a cyber-series Web site called “Trash Talk” where rival baseball fans can dish.

Store windows are filled with makeshift Met and Yankee shrines, and some of the city’s most venerable landmarks are getting into the act: On alternating nights until the series ends, the Empire State Building will be lit in the colors of the competing teams. And the famed marble lions guarding the entrance to the New York Public Library, Patience and Fortitude, will wear Met and Yankee caps for the series.

“This city will go crazy,” Yankee manager Joe Torre predicted when his team won the pennant Tuesday night, and most observers think that the current excitement, however intense, may only be a prelude to the real feelings that erupt when the series finally opens at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.

Met and Yankee partisans are itching for the fight to begin, and some find it odd that city officials are sponsoring a “unity” rally today in Bryant Park behind the New York Public Library. “Are they nuts?” asked Manzo. “Like, I’m going to stand in a park with a bunch of Mets fans?”

He and other Yankee fans would probably outnumber them. According to a Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday, state voters back the Yankees over the Mets, 47% to 34%, with women backing the Bombers by an even bigger margin than men. There is a telling generational split, said pollster Maurice Carroll: Fans over 65 who rooted for the old Brooklyn Dodgers or New York Giants in their youth split evenly in their support for the Yankees and Mets, but younger voters overwhelmingly favor the Yankees.

“This doesn’t surprise me,” said retiree Albert DiLauro, who grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and only gradually switched his loyalty to the Yankees. “I think the Mets are a fraud they invented to make up for the departures of the old Dodgers and Giants. But I can see how other people my age would support the Mets, because it’s a link to the past.”

When it comes to Yankees versus Mets, parents and children have been split asunder, while friends eye each other warily across the Baseball Divide. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a die-hard Yankee fan, set the tone this week when he suffered through a “unity” news conference with city officials praising both teams. “Enough is enough,” he cracked, putting on his Yankee jacket and breaking up the room.

Forget the pious statements from some civic cheerleaders that New Yorkers will be happy no matter who triumphs. This is war, pal, and if anything unites New Yorkers it’s that their bragging rights on being the center of everything are stronger than ever. The Subway Series, said Giuliani, “will give New York an opportunity to be even more arrogant.”

Not to mention outrageous. No wonder New York is the city that never sleeps: It can’t stop talking about itself.

“New York, New York, New York,” mused Francine Ziff as she stood in line with an armful of Derek Jeter jerseys in the Yankee team store. “It’s like we’re the center of the world now. We all love baseball--that’s the bottom line.”

Not exactly. As you roam the streets of New York these days, the question is: Which Side Are You On? And like the Jets and the Sharks in “West Side Story,” the answer you give (and the reaction) depends on the neighborhood.

“You’re in Mets territory,” said Angel Rivera, a teacher’s aide, as he rode the No. 7 train into Flushing, Queens. Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker immortalized the subway line when he included it in his denunciation of New York and Met fans. Today, Rocker is forgotten and Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens is public enemy No. 1. Clemens hit Met catcher Mike Piazza in the head during an inter-league game last summer, and fans have neither forgotten or forgiven.

“I dare him to pitch in Shea Stadium,” said Ken Okrun, sprinting down Broadway in a Met cap, trying to catch a cab. “Someone should step up and teach that guy a lesson.”

(The Yankees announced Thursday that Clemens would be pitching in games at Yankee Stadium but not at Shea Stadium.)

The level of intensity is surprising, given that the Yankees and Mets have not had a long history of competition. Apart from recent midseason Subway Series and spring training games, they existed in different worlds for many years.

“It’s not fair to compare them, really, because the Yankees have been such a superior team, and the Mets only came into being in 1962,” said Phil Dwan, a Wall Street broker. “A true Yankee fan probably didn’t even know they were around until they started winning games years later.”

Spoken like a true Yankee fan, countered Sylvia Graubard, who was scanning the racks for the very last Mike Piazza jersey in the Met team store. “I hate the Yankees, my goodness, I do hate the Yankees,” she said. “They think they’re so superior. They need to be taught a lesson.”

Graubard would love to see it happen in person, but like most New Yorkers she’ll have to watch the games on television. With the exception of 5,000 tickets that will go on sale Saturday for three games at Shea Stadium, all other series tickets have long since been sold. Scalpers have had trouble scaring up ducats--which are selling on the Internet and through brokers for $1,000 apiece and higher. One ticket agency said it has been offered bleacher seats for $500 to $600.

It’s the kind of statistic that makes DiLauro pine for the last Subway Series, in 1956, which he attended. The subway was 15 cents then, not $1.50, and New York’s National League ballpark in the series was Ebbets Field, long since demolished. As he waited patiently in line behind 76 other customers at the Yankee store, he smiled at the memory.

Then he jerked back to reality.

“I’ve got a 14-year-old daughter and she’s rooting for the Mets,” DiLauro said with incredulity. “I don’t know what to do. But it’s something you deal with in a family.”