For days after the Mets and Yankees clinched their league's pennants newspaper headlines screamed "Subway Series," or "Two Tokens to Paradise," and "the Big Apple Showdown."

The Yankees own the Bronx while the Mets are loved in the Queens. Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan are spilt... "This will give New York an opportunity to be even more arrogant," said mayor Rudolph Giuliani. "We'll be able to go around and say we have the two best teams in baseball."... And so it goes.

"It's going to turn this city upside-down," Yankee first baseman Tino Martinez said. "I can't imagine what it's going to be like. We're going to have to stay indoors until it's over."

"Someone had the ridiculous idea of whoever wins the Series letting the other team celebrate with them, said Mets' reliever Turk Wendell. "It's not meant to be that way. If that's the case, why the heck should we even play the games."

"We just want to win... that's the bottom line," said Yankees' star shortstop Derek Jeter.

The popular ex-White Sox and now a star third for the New York Mets Robin Ventura said, "I always thought I would've been in a Sox/Cubs World Series before I'd be in this one. That's what makes this one kind of weird." Baseballhistorian.com - Internet News Services

The whole city is in a New York baseball-high. Everyone's wearing New York caps - hotel doormen, street vendors, construction workers, kids - everywhere you look. "NY1 TV" reports 51% are Mets'fans, and 51% are Yankee fans.

Attended Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. The fans are super-nice, knowledgeable, polite - and that's on the crowded subway. In the stadium it's the same. No teasing of Mets' players or fans. Even the organ plays music cheering on the Yankees, unlike other areas of the country where the music blares of teases and put-downs against the opposition.

Perhaps 30% were Mets fans in Yankee Stadium... They cheer "Mets, Mets, Mets"........ Yankee fans cheer: "Let's Go Yankees", "Let's Go Yankees"! ... or "Tino" or "Jeter" or "Bernie"

Never once did we hear - nasty cheers against players. Perhaps, when you're champions, you act like champions. When, you're losers, your act like losers.

And New York's Major 'Hizzoner Giuliani declared all New York's subways will be free of charge before, during and after the games - 'What a city!'

'The New York Daily Newspaper' handed out 1,000s of free copies of a 96-page 'Subway Series Special'... What a deal!... What a newspaper! - Any other city's newspapers around the country would charge three-times their regular price for a special edition of their team's World Series.

On Page 2 -(By Mike Lupica) - The headlines scream:

The Whole City's Going to Tonight's Game:

DEREK JETER CAME first to the batting cage, then Chuck Knoblaugh, then the others who make up the top of the order, David Justice and Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez. They had been stretching in the outfield, and now they came in from the sunlight out there, into the shadows behind the batting cage, as if briefly stepping out of a spotlight.

This was all business with them now, the business of one last dress rehearsal. These were Yankees in Yankee Stadium on the last day before another World Series would open there. It seems sometimes that the Yankees have played everybody and beaten everybody at this time of the year. They have never played the Mets in the Series, until tonight.

Tonight the Stadium will be a splendid combination of a baseball Opening Day and a Broadway opening night. It doesn't matter whether you are lucky enough to have a ticket to the Stadium or not. The whole city goes to a baseball game tonight, and tomorrow, and keeps going when the Series goes to Shea.

Timo Perez will step into the batter's box and Andy Pettitte will pitch, and when the first pitch is in the air, the Stadium will be a wonder of special effects, a tunderclap of cheers followed by the flash of cameras from all corners of the place. The buildup will finally be over. After that, it will be baseball, all we could want.

Sunday morning, we won't talk about the last Subway Series in New York, just the game last night. That's as far back into the past as anybody will want to go. The baseball conversation will be as loud as the traffic, bright as Times Square in the night.

Underneath the Stadium, Mets' starting Game 2 pitcher, Mike Hampton finished a television interview in the Madison Square Garden studio and stopped on his way to the visitors' clubhouse, behind third base. Hampton was asked if he had ever attended a World Series game before. He grinned, shook his head.

"Tomorrow's my first," he said. "The second one I see, I'm pitching in."

Baseballhistorian.com - News from New York City

The NY Daily News gave out free newspapers... and we're giving them free publicity... please, check out their web-site - www.nydailynews.com

The 'New York Post Newspaper' baseball souvenir section wraps around its main paper -And it's only 25 cents! No wonder we love New York!

Page 3... By George King, Post Baseball Writer:

After 44 years, there is no need for the World Series to leave New York, easily the greatest city in the world. Across the next 10 days, the center of the baseball universe will shift between Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium with spilled blood throughout the five boroughs and the suburbs. And when it's over, nobody knows how long it will take to get back to normal.

Starting with Game 1 tonight at Yankee Stadium, the mania begins. Al Leiter, the Jersey Shore lefty who grew up a Met fan but broke into 'The Show' as a Yankee, starts for the Mets. Pettitte, who is over-shadowed in his clubhouse by the galaxy of stars collected and developed by George Steinbrenner, goes for the Yankees who are trying to become the first team since the 1971-73 A's to cop three straight World Series titles.

"It's definitely going to be history, it's a great lift for the game and a great shot in the arm in general for the city," Mike Piazza said. "I heard of rumblings of this when I first came to New York. Now to see it come true is a lift itself."

Piazza is among the top 10 stars in baseball, a group that includes Derek Jeter. Joe Torre, the Yankees' manager, place in the Hall of Fame was secure before Pettitte's first pitch to the pesky Timo Perez. Edgardo Alfonzo may not get the ink Piazza and Jeter do but if you start a team today, he is on it.

"There is a unique feeling of excitement and electricity," said Mets' manager Bobby Valentine, after walking the Manhattan streets yesterday.

That juice will be at an all-time high by 8:15 tonight when the Mets begin to try and take back New York, a city, that despite the Yankees' 25 World Championships, has long been considered an NL town.

Jeter, has three World Series rings and has a chance for a fourth in five big league seasons, understands what's on the table for The Bombers, who are 6 1/2 to 5 1/2 favorites in Las Vegas.

"In the eyes of the fans you can take those three rings and shove them under the door," Jeter said. "This is the one that matters."

Andy Pettitte, who is 0-1 with an 18.00 ERA in two home World Series starts, both against the Braves. In four career World Series outings, Pettitte is 2-1 with a 4.98 ERA. "If we win, we are supposed to win. If we lose, than the Mets did an unbelievable job."

In order for the Mets to win, Leiter and Mike Hampton have to pitch well. Much has been made of the Mets having an edge because of the two lefties, but unless they are razor sharp, it doesn't matter what arm they throw with.

"It's only an advantage if the pitcher is able to make quality pitches," said Leiter, who is 1-0 with a 6.11 ERA in five World Series games (two starts). "If you look at a well-pitched game, it's generally a pitcher who stays away from the middle of the plate, is able to switch speeds and keep it away from the fat part of the bat."

Eventually, we will have a winner and we will be faced with the onset of winter without baseball. One team goes up the Canyon of Heroes, the other hides out until late February when it resurfaces in Florida to answer questions about what went wrong. Until it's decided, this will be 10 days nobody should ever forget.

Check out the New York Post's web-site at www.nypost.com

Baseballhistorian.com - 2000 World Series Preview

The Mets are in the 2000 World Series in a large part because of Zeile's hot-hitting versus the St. Louis Cardinals in this year's National League Championship Series. He was 7-for-19, a .368 average, with three doubles, a homer, and eight RBIs.

Sitting in Yankee Stadium was quite an experience and talking to New York fans was a real pleasure. By the time Game 1 concluded after 1:00 a.m. New York time, the Yankees rallied to tie the score off Mets closer Armando Benitez in the ninth and won it on a two-out hit in the 12th by Jose Vizcaino, an ex-Cub player.

The game was filled with various bizarre plays. Todd Zeile stood at home plate and watched a foul ball roll fair near the third base bag for a groundout. Clearly, if Zeile runs, the Mets have runners at the corners.

Then later in the game, Zeile and teammate Timo Perez couldn't believe their eyes when with Timo on first, Zeile's liner missed being a homer by an inch - the ball bounched to left-fielder David Justice, who threw to cutoff man, Derek Jeter. Jeter's perfect throw nailed Perez at home plate.

"I slowed down going around first because I thought it had disappeared into the stands," Zeile said. And so did Perez rounding second base.

Series Single Game records tied - Mets catcher Todd Pratt became only the fourth player to be hit by a pitch twice in a game... Vizcaino tied a record with 4-hits - going 4-for-6. Mets reliever Glendon Rusch became the 14th pitcher to heave two wild pitches in one game. And the Yankees tied a record by leaving 15 runners on base.

The Yankees set a new Series record by winning their 13th consecutive game dating back to the '96 World Series with the Atlanta Braves.

Rocket's Red Glare puts Mets in a Trance

New York - No wonder hitters don't know what Roger Clemens will do next.

One day he is playing football in Central Park like just another privileged New Yorker. The next he is throwing lumber around Yankee Stadium like a contestant on one of those late-night "world's strongest man" shows on cable television. The only thing you can count on is that on game days the five-time Cy Young Award winner will be one expresso short of former Indiana's basketball coach, Bob Knight.

For the second start in a row, Clemens pitched the New York Yankees closer to a third consecutive World Series victory. He used intimidation, as usual, but his method was usual in a 6-5 victory in Game 2 of the Subway Series.

Although, he knew he would be watched closely on Sunday because of his July 8 beaning of Mike Piazza, but nevertheless flung a broken bat just past Piazza in the first inning.

Luckily, Miss Manners was not listed among the celebrities on a chilly night in the Bronx.

Clemens held the Mets to two hits in eight shutout innings. He struck out nine, walked none and hit one batter.

The Yankees took a 6-0 lead into the ninth, but the Mets rallied against relievers Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera, bringing the tying run to the plate. Piazza hit a two-run homer off Nelson. Jay Payton followed with a two-out, three-run homer off Rivera before Kurt Abbott took a called third strike to end the game.

Four pitches was all it took for the bad blood between Clemens and Piazza to start boiling over again. On a 1-2 pitch, in the very first inning, Clemens shattered Piazza's bat. The ball went foul up the first-base line and the bat split into three pieces, with the barrel heading toward the mound. Clemens fielded the business end on a couple of hops and angrily threw it off the field. That might have been fine had the bat not almost hit Piazza, but it did. It sailed just in front of the Met catcher as he headed toward first.

Piazza veered left, walking toward Clemens. The pitcher Took a couple of steps toward Piazza but seemed to welcome the intervention of the umpires. Benches emptied, with Mets manager Bobby Valentine leading the way. There were no punches thrown.

Clemens appeared to be shouting that he thought the bat was the ball. If that's really what he thought, why didn't he throw it to Tino Martinez for the out at first.

Coaches Need To Flash 'Run Hard' Sign - Game 1 Misplays

Oct 23, 2000... by Phil Mushnick... New York Post News

Perhaps the most startling facet of Game 1 of the 2000 World Series is that it can be shown as a 'Things You Don't Do' basic training film to every single major leaguer, and it won't change a darned thing.

Pursuing the base directly in front of you in a timely fashion, be it during a spring training game or the World Series, will remain optional, a matter of modern taste, style and mood.

The Mets lost Game 1 of the 2000 World Series for the most inexcusable of reasons. For all the hype of a Subway Series, players couldn't be bothered to run from here to there. The Mets, from Jay to Z (Payton to Zeile), 'presumed too much.' It presumed everything from home runs to foul balls. And it presumed wrong.

After extremely telling isolated TV replays showed that both Timo Perez, on first, and Todd Zeile, the batter, erroneously Presumed that Zeile had homered - a presumption that saw both men ease up on the basepaths and Perez eventually being thrown out at the plate in the sixth of a 0-0 game.

These weren't poor base running 'decisions', they were conditioned responses. Far too many leaguers now reflexively eschew running in order to stand and watch, based on where they 'figure' the ball will wind up.

Beginning in the late 1970s with home run poses, such behavior is now both conditioned and epidemic, costing teams more ballgames than fielding errors.

Face it: Had Zeile, on two occasions, Perez and Payton been running as they should have - hard, on contact - we would've been slightly shocked by their great regard for sound fundamentals.

Yet, no major league team has been free of basepath malingerers, poses, preeners and presumers in the last 20 years. In fact, their numbers proliferate.

And, not even a World Series game can serve as a wake-up call.

Date: 00-10-25... By John Balazs for baseballhistorian.com

Late Night News... The battlefield shifts to Shea Stadium for Game 3.

Led by the power-bat of third baseman Robin 'the Batman' Ventura and starting pitcher Rick Reed's compelling six innings, the 'Amazin' New York Mets stormed back to win Game 3 of the 2000 Subway Series, beating the Yankees 4-2.

Robin 'the Batman' Ventura proved Yankee starter Orlando 'El Duque' Hernandez was human after-all. Ventura was the only Met not to strike out in the first two innings. He led off the 2nd inning with a home run, putting the Mets up 1-zip. Ventura went 2-for-3, and added a double to go with his homer.

With 2-outs in the 3rd inning, Yankees' David Justice doubled-in Derek Jeter from first to knot the score at 1-1.

Rick Reed, the former replacement pitcher during the 'baseball strike' a few years back, fanned 8 Yankees and allowed only 6-hits and 2-runs, before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the last of the sixth.

The Mets showed that 'Two Can Play This Game,' by scoring twice in the last of the 8th inning off Hernandez, who lost for the first time after going 8-0 in postseason play. With one out, Todd Zeile singled just past shortstop Derek Jeter's outstretched arms. Benny Agbayani followed with a run-scoring double. An infield single by Jay Payton put runners on the corners. Yankee reliever Mike Stanton yielded a sacrifice fly to pinch-hitter Bubba Trammell, to put the Mets up 4-2.

John Franco, the third of four Mets relievers pickup the win by pitching a scoreless 8th, and closer Armando Benitez collected the save.

'El Duque' Hernandez, the Yankees' starter, fanned 12 Mets in 7 1/3 innings, yielded 9-hits and all four runs.

Time of Game: 3:39, Attendance 55,299

World Series 2000... Denny Neagle and four Yankees relievers notched still another victory over the New York Mets. This time they squeezed past their arch-rivals by the score of 3-2.

Derek Jeter, the Yankee shortstop who was moved to the leadoff spot in the batting order, jumped on the first pitch of the ballgame off Bobby Jones and slammed it for a home run. In the third inning, he also hit a long drive to right-center that hit on the warning track and bounced high off the wall for a triple. Jeter then came home on Luis Sojo's ground out to Mets' second baseman Edgardo Alfonzo, giving the New York Yankees a 3-0 lead.

The Bronx Bombers kept up the pressure on Bobby Jones in the second inning, with one out, Paul O'Neill blasted a triple down the first base line for his second triple in two days. After Jorge Posada was intentionally walked to set up a possible double play, Scott Brosius hit a sacrifice fly to center-fielder Jay Payton for the Yankees second run.

With 55,290 looking on in the pleasant weather of Shea, the Mets rallied for two runs in the bottom of the third. Timo Perez, the Mets right-fielder led off with a ground single up the middle of the diamond. Two batters later, Mike Piazza lined a 1-0 pitch from Neagle for his second homer of this series, making the score Yankees 3, Mets 2.

Relievers David Cone, Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton and closer Marino Rivera protected the one run lead for Neagle, who was quickly hook in the fifth inning when Piazza stepped up to home plate. With two outs, Cone got Piazza to hit a high pop to end the inning. Nelson allowed only 1-hit, no-runs in 1 1/3 innings to pick win. Rivera pitched the final two innings to gain the save. He struck out two, allowed just 1-hit in the final two innings. Time of Game: 3:20. Baseballhistorian.com - Internet News... October 26, 2000

The Boss may have mellowed over the years, but volcanic eruption is likely if his Yankees lose to the Mets in this World Series.

Interim pitching coach, Billy Connors, a close friend of Steinbrenner, said his pal definitely is ill at ease of the prospect of losing to the Mets.

'Oh, boy' Connors said with a smile. 'He wants to win.'

Connors said The Boss is not as anxious as he might have been 10 or 15 years ago, but still is fired up to show the Mets who came first and stands last.

'The Mets are a different oddity,' Connors said.

Steinbrenner has escalating levels of emotion, depending on the opponent. The Indians are a favorite victim of the Cleveland-native Steinbrenner, as are the Devil Rays (he now lives in Tampa). But the Mets are an altogether different breed of enemy.

Could the new, softer, more patient Steinbrenner blow his top like The Boss of old if the Yanks fail? 'We'll have to see,' Connors said ominously. 'You never know.'

Connors tells a story to illustrate Steinbrenner's keen desire to beat the Mets - It was spring training of 1990 and the teams played an exhibition game at Yankee Stadium. At the time, the Mets were the hot commodity and the Yankees were on the outs. 'He wanted us to put up a heck of a game,' Connors recalled. Doc Gooden, then a Met, remembers that the Yankees - under orders from The Boss - set up their rotation every spring so the best hurlers would face the Mets.

In that spring game, Connors was the Yankee pitching coach and the gem of the spring had been young Alan Mills, who was a Single-A product. The rookie had impressed everyone by not giving up a run. Mills was tapped to start against the Mets and went into the ninth with a shutout. In that inning, Met catcher Mackey Sasser hit a home run off the right-field foul pole to win the game for the Mets, 1-0.

'Whoo-ee The Boss was hot,' Connors recalled. 'He wanted to get rid of the kid.'

But Connors talked The Boss back to reality and Mills made his major league debut with the Yanks that year.

'You have to understand, (Steinbrenner has) got that football mentality,' Connors said. 'He wants to win. He does everything for his club first class. He does all he can to help the team win. Some people don't like when he gets angry, but that's part of it. You've still got everything you could want and need to win. Sometimes he has a tough time being patient. He wants to see results.'

If the result isn't a Yankee win this World Series, expect The Boss to see red.

New York - Give him a few more years, when he has retired from the big arena of roaring crowds, TV lights, and George Steinbrenner, and maybe you'll find him one day in a quiet corner of Central Park sitting across from another son of Italy, taking his opponent's knight with a pawn.

Perhaps, as he contemplates his next move, he will remember how well he played the game when the pieces lived and breathed and wore pinstripes, but still responded so beautifully to his every command.

Back in the days when he was Joe Torre, hollow-eyed grand master of the New York Yankees.

'The game is still fun,' Torre had said, even before the Yankees edged the Mets, 3-2, to close within a game of their third straight World Series title and fourth in five years under Torre's watch. 'The chess game you play, and making decisions.'

'But getting to the postseason, I think, is very satisfying. That's basically why you put on a uniform. I've done it for 30 years, and it certainly has been, overall, a great deal of satisfaction for me.'

For all the majesty of Derek Jeter, who hit the first pitch of the game for a home run and tripled - eventually scoring the decisive run - on his next at bat, or the steel-trap efficiency of the Yankee bullpen, which shutout the Mets on two singles over the final four and a third innings, a big part of this win, a big part of this Series belongs to Torre, who began his career as a manager on this side of town, as a player-manager of the Mets in 1977.

Bobby Valentine, the current manager of the Mets, used four pinch hitters in the seventh inning alone last night, and an inning later pinch run for his hottest hitter, Todd Zeile. The Mets came up empty.

Through the first four games of this series, Torre has seldom made a move that went unrewarded. The one exception may have been Game 3, when he bowed to the wishes of his brave starter, Orlando Hernandez, and allowed him to pitch the eight when his strength may have been waning. But who truly would fault Torre for placing his faith in the previously unvanquished El Dugue?

Everything else, however, tried by Torre and his trusted Yoda, Don Zimmer, could not have had a happier outcome.

'Certainly, it makes you feel good,' Torre said. 'When you're managing during the season, you're doing things to help you in the long run. When you get into a short series, you're doing things today and for today... Yeah, you definitely manage differently. Don Zimmer taught me that my first year in '96, especially in dealing with pitchers.'

Baseballhistorian.com - 2000 World Series - Newspaper Clipping

Another resounding pitching performances by starter Andy Pettitte and relievers Mike Stanton and Mariano Rivera enabled the New York Yankees to win "The Scrabble In The Apple" en-route to their 26th World Baseball Championship.

Home runs by Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter and a two-out, seeing-eye single by Luis Sojo in the top of the ninth inning which broke a 2-2 tie vaulted the Bronx Bombers to a 4-2 victory over their arch-rivals, the New York Mets.

The Shea Stadium crowd of 55,292 sat numbly as the Yankees celebrated winning their third straight World Title, and their fourth in the last five seasons.

Mets starter Al Leiter and Yankees Andy Pettitte were locked in a 2-2 game through seven innings, before Yankees' manager Joe Torre summoned Mike Stanton and ace closer Mariano Rivera from the bullpen. Stanton and Rivera each pitched a hitless inning.

Mets ace Al Leiter, was cruising along until the fateful ninth inning, when he walked catcher Jorge Posada and Scott Brosius singled, sending Posada to second. Sojo's grounder up the middle of the infield scored Posada and Brosius continued home on center-fielder Jay Payton's errant throw that caromed off Posada and flew into the dugout. Mets' manager Bobby Valentine brought in reliever John Franco to record the final out of the inning - nonetheless it was too late - the horses were out of the barn already. Mariano Rivera closed the door on the Mets in the last of the ninth, coming in to save the win.

Derek Jeter who batted .409, smacked two home runs and drove in six runs, was voted the Series' Most Valuable Player.

And so it goes... The Yankees maneuvered through a tough October championship schedule, winning 11 of 16 games. They started the playoffs by beating the pitching-rich Oakland A's in the final game of a five-game series. Then they knocked off a powerful Seattle Mariners team in six games in a best of seven American League Championship Series to advance to the World Series.

Both teams were the sole focus of baseball fans and the media set the stage for sensational headline news by playing up the first Subway Series since 1956 - 'The Scrabble In The Apple.'