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Getting along Fans in Big Apple behave while their teams slug it out
Updated: Thursday October 26, 2000 4:53 AM
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Subway Series is one stop from ending -- a ride that New York Mets fans have found disappointing and a bit shorter than expected. The Mets lost 3-2 early Thursday at Shea Stadium, leaving them one defeat short of losing the first all-New York World Series since 1956. For New York fans, it was good news for some, bad news for others. "We'll need a miracle," Todd Shenk of White Plains said of his Mets' prospects trailing 3-1 in the series. The opposing view? His friend, 30-year-old Yankees fan Lenny Miller, offered a reminder: If the Mets manage to win Game 5, nemesis Roger Clemens is waiting in the next game at Yankee Stadium. Ouch. The lifelong friends attended the game together -- typical of the good will that has run throughout this series between fans of the cross-city rivals. The sellout crowd of 55,290 was again impeccably behaved Wednesday night. Unlike Clemens, who hurled a shattered bat across the infield, the fans at both Yankee and Shea Stadium have gone wild without getting crazy. Though bitter rivals, fans on both sides have shown grudging respect for the opposition and the heavy police presence.
Living proof was offered by Paul Sarris of Litchfield, Conn., a Yankees cap on his head and two small children -- sons Paul, 7, and James, 9 -- standing by his side before Wednesday night's fourth game. Any worries about heading into Shea in their Yankees paraphernalia? "Not at all," Sarris said. "This is a New York thing. Nothing is going to happen. We've been here since 3 p.m., just hanging out and walking around. What could be nicer than this?" A clearer example of the World Series detente came from sisters Melissa and Amanda Hutt. Melissa was resplendent in a Robin Ventura Mets jersey. Kid sister Amanda was a picture in Yankees pinstripes. They walked together. They chatted with each other. They were -- UGH -- actually civil. "This is not L.A.," Melissa said when asked about the peaceful coexistence of the fans. "It's New York. We have two teams, people root for both. Deal with it." On this, the sisters found common ground. "No problems," Amanda agreed. "Nothing bad at all." It's been that way throughout the Subway Series: plenty of talk on both sides, but thankfully little action. On the first night at Shea Stadium -- Game 3 in the series -- police reported just 15 arrests: 14 for unlicensed peddlers out to make a quick illegal buck, and one for scalping. In Game 2, when Clemens was demonstrating his bat-tossing technique, just a single fan among the 55,000 in Yankee Stadium was cited for disorderly conduct. (Clemens, while fined $50,000, did not receive a summons.) After the first game, a mellow police Capt. Tom Fahey stood outside Yankee Stadium, smiling in a light blue NYPD windbreaker. "Quiet," the police spokesman said. "A few arrests for scalping, but no fights and no big incidents." The mild behavior stands in marked contrast with the action in recent years in and around other major sporting events. Championships in other cities have produced riots and violence. Los Angeles was the scene of a riot this year after the Lakers won an NBA title, and the same thing happened repeatedly last decade in Chicago and Denver. When the Pistons won their second straight NBA title in 1990, seven people in Detroit were killed and hundreds were injured by gunfire, stabbings and brawling. In 1999, after Michigan State lost in the Final Four to Duke, more than 10,000 people ran amok in East Lansing, with 132 people arrested. Not in New York. The Yankees have won three of the last four World Series; each time, New Yorkers celebrated with a parade through the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan. The response was the same when the New York Rangers ended a 54-year Stanley Cup drought in 1994.
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