Down I went to the lowest level of the New York subway system, down where movies like “Mimic” imagine giant killer cockroaches, down where Roger Clemens’ bat out of hell surely was hatched.
Three stairways down from Broadway the internationally known No. 7 train departs from Times Square. When I told a New York friend I was taking the 7 train to Shea Stadium, he said with a straight face, “Be careful. You might get hit by a briefcase.”
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Of course Atlanta pitcher John Rocker’s redneck description of the train’s riders turned him into the most volatile talk-show topic since Tonya Harding and turned the Queens-bound 7 into the media king of trains.
But as I boarded I realized I didn’t know the difference between “local” and “express.” Would an express stop at Shea? I asked the first guy I saw, a construction worker. He just stared. Either he didn’t speak English or had no use for first-timers asking stupid questions.
“Shea?” I said. “World Series?” Blank stare. So I tried an Asian man in a coat and tie. He smiled helplessly and shook his head. “Mets-Yankees?” I said. More head shaking. He did not understand.
Please, I haven’t gone off my Rocker. Not quite. I mention this only because I’ve come to the conclusion New York isn’t nearly as nuts about this Subway Series as the New York media would have us BELIEVE! Don’t “Shea” and “Mets-Yankees” translate into any language? Or did I manage to find the only two guys in Gotham who wouldn’t know baseball from curling?
No, for measuring up to “Armageddon” hype, this has been the Subpar Series. The shock for this visitor from Chicago has been how reserved the ballpark crowds have been, especially at Yankee Stadium. Comiskey’s standard 25,000 screamers can generate more electricity in May or June than these people did in late October. This felt more like the House that Ruth Buzzi built.
This triggered a pride-stinging memory of a conversation I had at Comiskey Park with another buddy, Charley Steiner. Before doing a White Sox-Cubs game for ESPN Radio, Brooklyn native Steiner told me, “No offense, but this isn’t in the same league with Yankees-Mets.”
I didn’t argue until after Saturday night’s Game 1, a 12-inning win for the home team. Sunday I told Steiner that Mets-Yankees in the World Series can’t hold a birthday-cake candle to Sox-Cubs in midsummer. I told him that outside college football and basketball, I had never experienced anything like Sox-Cubs intensity–on the field and in the stands.
“OK,” he said, “so a lot of yuppies can drink a lot of beer and make a lot of noise at Wrigley. These are very sophisticated baseball fans. Once they settled into the game, they got quiet because it was so tense. They were thinking about what was going on.”
You can’t emote and think at the same time? Just as stunning was that, after nine innings of Game 1, maybe a fourth of Yankee Stadium went home. Yes it was around midnight, way past kids’ bedtimes. But can you imagine any family leaving an extra-inning World Series Game 1 between the Sox and Cubs? It would take a death in the family–maybe the immediate family.
Could you conceive of any Red Line rider during a Sox-Cub World Series not knowing if the train stopped at Wrigley or Comiskey? It wouldn’t matter if the question were asked in pig-Latin.
Shea’s crowd created a fair buzz before Tuesday night’s first game in Queens. But even an on-field appearance by the Baja Men, “singing” their ballpark hit “Who Let the Dogs Out?,” didn’t get much of a woof before Wednesday night’s first pitch. The loudest thing about Shea is the Jersey-style retro rock blasted between innings.
Maybe too many executives and celebrities control tickets. This crowd basically sat back and watched as the Yankees won Game 4. Very few chants between rival fans. No roaring with each pitch. No unusual voltage. The trumped-up “hatred” between fans is good-natured. Cubs fans versus Sox fans often is not.
The truth is that New York is too spoiled and arrogant to get too crazy about Mets-Yankees. Yankees fans act as if their team has played in 95 of the last 100 Series. Even the Mets have played in four in 31 years. Of course neither Chicago team has won a Fall Classic since something like Lincoln was president.
So please New York, quit telling us how sublime this Subway Series is. The only thing it has over Sox-Cubs is a better known train.