Talkin' New Yawk

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There's lots of gossipy stuff to the Series too. Yankees skipper Joe Torre, who once played for and then managed the Mets until he was canned, is a cancer-surviving father figure no one dislikes, while the Mets' Bobby Valentine--once fired by George W. Bush as manager of the Texas Rangers--is a self-aggrandizing baseball "genius" few can stand. Jeter and Piazza are high-wattage men about town in the mold of DiMaggio, while Yankees head cases Paul O'Neill and Chuck Knoblauch provide riveting entertainment of another sort: you can't take your eyes off them, wondering when they'll blow. Three members of the 1986 Mets championship team are linked to the defending-champ Yanks; pitchers David Cone and Doc Gooden are on the roster, and tormented outfielder Darryl Strawberry, who is trying to recover from his own cancer as well as a long wrestling match with substance abuse, is still in the fold contractually and spiritually.

There are 8 million story angles in the Subway Series, and it's a shame the best won't play out. All of Gotham is upset that Torre is shielding Clemens by pitching the notorious headhunter only in Yankee Stadium, where the American League's designated-hitter rule says pitchers can't bat and therefore can't get plunked. Mets fans know and Yankees fans suspect that Clemens purposely beaned Piazza during a midsummer game in the Bronx, and in this eye-for-an-eye city, there's a law about facing the music. Says Knoblauch of the Series: "I hope everyone comes out of it safe," but he speaks for himself. Speaking for New York is Mike Padden, a legal-aid lawyer who lives in Manhattan, works in Brooklyn, has represented some pretty scuzzy characters from Staten Island, roots for the team in the Bronx, has attended a game or two in Queens and has downed a beer or three at Gallagher's. "Clemens is my guy, but I'd like to see him digging in against Leiter or Hampton," says Padden, popping peanuts. "This Series absolutely should have a bench-clearing brawl. Hey, this is New York. Let's have some fun."

The city hardly has to worry about that these days. Both football teams, the Jets and the Giants, are winning. Hillary's slugging it out with Rick Lazio every day for a U.S. Senate seat. Every night the mayor's estranged wife acts in a play called The Vagina Monologues while the mayor--an over-the-moon Yankees fan who is also fighting cancer--is enthusiastically dating another gal, taking in ball games and showing up at press conferences in a Yankees jacket and cap. "It's the place to be," says Nick succinctly.

"I hear the rest of the country's not watching," says Kahn. Too bad, he figures. If they tuned in, they'd see that "New York is back on top. Like it or not, folks, we're back. It's not true that everybody with a brain moved to Houston or Silicon Valley."

And for whom would Casey, soul of the Series, be rooting this week? "Whoever was paying him," says Creamer. "I suspect that would be the Mets, still trotting him out at 110." They would prop him up on the mound, and the Old Professor would peer in at the Yankees bench. After a dramatic pause, he would flagrantly thumb his nose.

The rumble began in the Bronx over the weekend; it moves to Queens midweek. Bring a helmet.