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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mid-September Night’s Dream Attracts 15,224

George Vecsey New York Times

In mid-September, Yankee Stadium resembles a summer resort, deserted after Labor Day. The weather is hauntingly soft, the shadows are romantic but nostalgic, the people have gone back to their real lives. The season is over.

There is a baseball race, but the great majority of New Yorkers do not care. This is the legacy of the ghastly labor stoppage of 1994, when the wonderful owners and the wonderful players managed to kill not one season but two.

The Ywere played the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night in their personal quest to keep the season going, to qualify for this strange hybrid called the wild card spot.

It is impossible to say the wild card has failed. I distrust it, most baseball purists dislike it, but in theory it offers action, competition. The 15,224 fans who showed up in Yankee Stadium on Monday night cheered like cultists as the Yankees hung in there for a 9-2 victory. The blame for the empty seats lies with the owners and the players, not with the fans who stay away.

“I hear players talking about it,” said Buck Showalter before Tuesday’s game. ” ‘Surprised’ is not the word, but they notice it. You can say it’s because school started, or it was Monday Night Football. It’s the fans’ call. They’re the ones who have to find a parking place, spend that kind of money on a school night.”

Asked if the fans were staying away because of the strike, Showalter said, “That’s certainly a possibility.” He also conceded that fans might be oblivious to the wild card.

If you read the standings and use your imagination, it looks like a pennant race. On Monday night, the Yankees looked grim and professional, the way a team is supposed to look as the days dwindle down. Wade Boggs took a base even though his hamstrings are twanging. Randy Velarde filled in admirably for Tony Fernandez at shortstop. David Cone willed his weary arm into another eight innings.

The players reminded me of other determined players I have seen in the darkening hours of a pennant race: Jackie Robinson diving on his aching knees and elbows to spear a line drive in 1951; Bob Gibson proving his greatness on a tired arm in 1964; Thurman and Graig and Reggie and Goose goading each other in the mid-70s; Whitey Herzog and Davey Johnson body-slamming each other with double-lineup-switches and pitchers in right field, great National League strategy in the mid-80s.

But in those years, the home fans cared. There is no indication that New Yorkers are involved in this wild card race, and the malaise extends all over the baseball map.

Only 29,515 fans - “only” is a fair word - showed up to watch Randy Johnson grind out eight innings in Seattle’s victory over Texas on Monday night. On Tuesday, the residents of Seattle were voting on a proposed tax that would build a real ball park rather than have the Mariners play in their morbid dome. Otherwise, the Mariners might desert one of the country’s most attractive cities.

“Let’s hope everybody who came tonight is old enough to vote,” said the Mariners’ manager, Lou Piniella, who can remember when Yankee Stadium quivered with excitement at this time of the year.

In Seattle, people have to be reminded, over and over again, that the Mariners are in their first race for anything. But New Yorkers have a better nose for something-for-nothing. Life in New York is a wild card race. It’s like jumping the turnstile. It’s like the conductor not punching a ticket on the commuter train. It’s like the bargain price on a headset from a street vendor who explains, “A whole carton just fell off a truck.”

A place in the playoffs is going to fall off a truck for somebody, but most towns don’t care. Cleveland, which has the best record in baseball, can’t even luxuriate in the first baseball championship since 1954. For their troubles, the Indians get only two home games in the first round.

Seems the owners drew up the schedule for the playoffs without rewarding the team with the best record. That extra home game keeps basketball teams playing hard right through the end of the regular season. The owners have slapped Cleveland in the face. They have cheapened their product. Yet again.

A baseball pennant race has always been one of the special events in American sports. Each game, each play, becomes more magnified. But on Monday night, while the Yankees rallied for a victory, the Stadium was mostly empty. So is the season.