love ny papers

ep


"so far Johnson has come up big only in height."
"The Yankees could have had Schilling after the 2003 season and turned instead to a booby prize named Javier Vazquez."
"When a reporter asked if Steinbrenner were worried about his team, the Boss replied, 'Get out of here, guys. Leave me alone.'"
Daily News: "This year's race for the American League East championship, the one George Steinbrenner made a mandatory achievement for his $200 million juggernaut of superstars, is over."

- STADIUM NOW BOSTON COLONY

By MIKE VACCARO, NYPost

THE BALL looked like it had a shot when it left Derek Jeter's bat, but somewhere high above Yankee Stadium it lost a few feet, began to die, began to tumble back to earth, where Trot Nixon was waiting. Nixon stood a step in front of the right-field wall, a step to the right of the yellow W.B. Mason sign, finally squeezed it.

Ballgame. Red Sox 9, Yankees 2.

Which is when a strange thing happened:

You couldn't hear the first few notes of "New York, New York" (the Liza version, the one they reserve especially for seven-run losses to the Red Sox). You couldn't hear them because there was a deafening spasm of noise spreading through the grandstand now, and just about everywhere you looked inside Yankee Stadium you could see row after row of red shirts, hear chorus after chorus of satisfied cheering.

It isn't enough that the Red Sox won Game 7 of last year's ALCS and put an end to whatever metaphysical dominance the Yankees and their fans felt they had over the Sox. It isn't enough that the 5,000 or so Sox fans who scored tickets to that game stayed long and partied loud into that October night.

No, now they have become even more emboldened, and they have multiplied wildly. This isn't perception, it is reality: there are more of them now. Time was, finding a visible Red Sox fan inside Yankee Stadium in September was like trying to find a Democrat at a Bush family retreat. And even those who did infiltrate tended to mind their manners unless they were emboldened with a little Anheuser-Busch Courage.

Not now. Not anymore. Walking through the concourses at Yankee Stadium during the top of the fourth inning yesterday, there rose a deep, throaty roar from the other side of the walls. Yankee fans scurried to the concession stands to check TV monitors; such a sound could only mean a Yankee had just made a splendid defensive play.

Imagine their surprise, then, when they saw this instead: Red Sox first baseman John Olerud trotting around the base paths after smoking a ball into the right field stands off Shawn Chacon, extending the Sox' lead to 3-0.

"Why the hell is everyone cheering?" asked a guy in an Alex Rodriguez jersey, and it's a hell of a good question. We have grown used to the sound of Yankees fans engineering hostile takeovers of Shea Stadium during Subway Series. We have even heard the occasional night in the Bronx when Mets fans can out-shout the natives.

But Red Sox fans? Here?

Next thing you know there'll be dogs and cats . . . living together . . . total chaos . . .

"We're running out of games," Derek Jeter said.

Yes. Of all the shocks to the system that the Yankees have absorbed since this rivalry was officially turned on its ear, that's the most pressing right now. The Yankees had all kinds of momentum after Friday night's 8-4 victory. Now that looked and felt and sounded like a vintage Yankees-Red Sox game. No insolent interlopers then. No "Two-ooh thousand!" chants then.