GEE. THANKS. Vartan Gregorian, who was on the jury of the WTC Memorial Competition, uses that event as a springboard for a panegyric to New York City at OpinionJournal. It is hard to know why it is there, for while OJ's national politics are well-known, its journalistic politics are less comprehensible, at least to me. Gregorian was once President of the New York Public Library and seems like a decent, intelligent fellow. The Bushies like him, too, but nobody's wrong about everything.

Gregorian's comments, however, are less interesting than the OJ readers' responses to them. Some are gracious ("May New York City continue to reflect the glowing lamp of Lady Liberty"); others take a more combative tone. A couple of New Yorkers complain about the WTC plan Gregorian helped to affect. Russell Seitz of Cambridge, MA tweaks the former nabob of NYPL for closure of the Library's smoking rooms, which Seitz feels amounts "to a denial of public accommodation for the life of the mind."

A few, though, are really spooky-weird in a way that will be familiar to any who have heard conservatives discuss the City for any length of time. From Pensacola, FL, Joseph Revell takes a Falwellian tack:

One hopes that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't notice the "proud, self-confident city that cannot be bowed" headline that leads off this fine article. If He reads just the headline and skips the article He might decide New Yorkers need to be taught a lesson in humility. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem"--and of New York City! We do, out here in the hinterland. New York City is our city too!

One gets the feeling Revell wants to claim New York as "our city, too" in exactly the same way abusive parents assert dominion over their children. L. Gregory of Georgetown, TX, is less threatening, but equally condescending:

New York is indeed a magical place, but it sometimes forgets its true roots are in the heart of America. One of the main reasons for its remarkable survival of 9/11 was the strength it drew from all the citizens in every corner of America. The terrorists didn't just attack New York, they attacked all of us. We all contributed to its recovery, one way or another, and New York needs to remember it didn't stand alone that day...

Hold it right there, Tex. Y'all "contributed to its recovery" how? By sliding back a small chunk of the money we daily pour into the Federal coffers? By talking a good game while cutting funding to our police and firefighters and anti-terrorism efforts? If we "forget" our "true roots in the heart of America," it may be that you have made the memory unpleasant to us.

A lot of people think New Yorkers are arrogant and standoffish. The above examples may help explain why we seem so.

SHOW UP AT SHEA. Went this evening to a Met twi-night double against the Braves, arriving in the seventh inning of game one. Attendance seemed much lower than the reported 21,476 (Shea can hold 55,601); the patrons were gathered in clusters all around the ballpark, responding only weakly to all but the most spectacular events (e.g., the firing of Pepsi T-shirts into the stands). The couple behind me did their own feeble "Let's Go Mets" hand-clap at odd intervals, as if by force of habit; in front of me a couple encouraged their three young children in coordinated cheers, which they delivered with shrill glee, unmindful of the lack of spirit amongst the grown-ups in their section. Some drunk young men were occasionally inspired to bellow ("YUH DON'T BELONG IN THE BIG LEAGUES!"); many serenaded Chipper Jones with his less all-American Christian name; all booed Jae Seo lustily in game two. He seo sucked. He let in five runs and walked the Braves' pitcher. He intentionally walked "Lar-ry" Jones and then gave up a two-run double. All this despite the frenzied thunderstick encouragement of a bunch of Koreans gathered behind a "KING OF THE MOUND" banner in the right field mezzanine.

They've lost 11 of their last 13 games. You live with the Mets long enough and you get used to it. You may complain; the ticket buys you the privilege. (In the Post, a lovely photo recently appeared of two upper deck fans, one with a bag over his head, the other holding triumphantly aloft a sign that read, YA GOTTA BELIEVE -- WE STINK!) In the last days of such seasons, Shea is a desolate and miserable place. We still show up at Shea, though, because this is our team. There are worse qualities than loyalty, and ineptitude isn't one of them. Yankee fans flash their rings; Mets fans regard the fabled '69, '73, and '86 seasons almost as defeated races regard sacred myths, as bulwarks against despair, something to keep our souls alive from September swoon to glorious April, when again anything will be possible. We're kind of Irish. We gather in this grim council flat of a ballpark, with its hideous neon ornaments and aluminum siding and concrete ramps bounded by piano wire, and despite the bloodshed unfolding before us dream that Cuchulain and Michael Collins may someday hoof the mound.

Can't anyone here play this game? Wait'll next year! Ya gotta believe.

POMO POLITICS. The Ole Perfesser lays out for his acolytes the latest conservatarian dodge on gay marriage, comprising hundreds of poorly-chosen words reducible to, "I don't really give a shit, so why should you?"

There are many thrills and chills along the way (including approving quotation of a reader who blames the failure of the gay marriage movement to -- get this -- Roe v. Wade), but the fascinatingly deformed heart of the argument is: gay marriage is the wave of the future (a "generational thing"), but the Republicans are going to run everything forever and you better be nice to them if you ever want any of these rights you've been bellyaching about, generation landslide or not:

...attacking Bush on gay marriage may solidify the Democratic base, but it probably costs swing voters, at least in the short term. Second, that sort of thing can only serve to alienate Republicans, even those who are supportive, or at least not opposed to, gay marriage. [who they? -- RE] Given that right now it seems likely that we'll see a Republican Congress, and probably a Republican White House, in the coming years, that's probably poor planning, at least if you want actual change and not just an interest-group rallying cry...

It's possible to package gay marriage as a move toward traditional values and away from 1970s style hedonism (not that there's anything wrong with that). But again, you have to make the case, not call names, if you want to win people over.

Offensive as the politics of Reynolds and his crew are, it's this postmodern approach to issues that's most disturbing. You want gay marriage? Wait for it; it'll turn up, eventually, if it was meant to be. And don't get on my case if I support its professed opponents, because that's just name-calling.

Actually post-modern is probably the wrong word for it. Reynolds' POV was popular in his neck of the woods 150 years ago, when it was applied to the manumission of slaves.

ALTERNATE EXPLANATIONS FOR NORTH KOREA'S NON-NUCLEAR MUSHROOM CLOUD:

• Smoke from barbecue of 100,000 chickens, held in honor of Dear Leader.
  
• Even Dear Leader's farts are impressive, observable from outer space!
  
• Exhaust from Jajus backed up on Dear Leader Expressway during massive Dear Leader Day holiday weekend traffic jam.
  
• Slave labor camp smoke-break, synchronized nationwide -- a testament to Dear Leader's organizational skills.
  
• Massive cloud-sculpture representing nuclear explosion is gift to Dear Leader from the thriving downtown Pyongyang arts community.

If none of these pan out, it was nice knowing you guys.

PINHEAD. Finally saw the Ramones doc, End of the Century. It isn't so much artful as artifactual. It owes a lot to the "oral biography" form George Plimpton invented with Edie (and bears more than a historical resemblance to the punk chronicle Please Kill Me). This technique absents the filmmakers from the responsibility of a POV; they just dump a lot of clips, interviews, and supers on the table, and leave us to savor whichever juicy bits we prefer.

There are a lot of juicy bits, though, and even the fellow among us who was more or less unacquainted with the band enjoyed it. Of course, if you love the Ramones, the juice is more bittersweet.

I already knew a lot of their history, and I knew something, too, about punk aesthetics and the rigors of rock life. But the movie added details that made that -- all of that -- a bit clearer to me.

For example, I'd heard Johnny was the taskmaster of the band, but I didn't realize how completely he was devoted to his Will to Power: how everything about his life -- from the musical discipline to his own personal behavior -- was given over to a maniacal vision of domination. (I thought they were kidding with the Nuremberg theatrics of their big shows, but now I'm not so sure -- at least in his case.) And I came to believe something I'd always known by instinct: that a band pretty much needs an asshole who's always cracking heads and barking out the master plan; otherwise, as Johnny put it, "everybody just flounders around."

It also seems that Johnny's genius (I really think that's the word) at directing his bandmates' gifts and energies into a beautiful rock machine was also a personal catastrophe for everyone involved. Legs McNeil says in the film that Joey had to become a rock star because the poor, gawky, pathologically introverted guy "would have stood out anyway." Maybe. And maybe Dee Dee was better off playing bass than sniffing Carbona and boosting cars. (He might have OD'd sooner, too.) But our gain -- their magnificent albums and shows -- sure looks like their loss in the movie.

If you've been in a band for more than a little while (five years was my longest sentence) you know what the wear and tear can be like. If you're not completely empty-headed (and a lot of people do get through on that; we are talking about musicians, after all), interpersonal relationships tend to devolve into Eugene O'Neill territory very quickly. After a few years of working in an office with a guy, you will probably have learned almost nothing real about him. But if you tour a couple of times with the same guy, you will know more about him than his mother does. Factor in the painful sensitivity of creative people, and drugs and alcohol, and women, and financial hassles, and you get the House of Atreus plus hearing loss.

So watching Dee Dee gabble was very entertaining, and Joey's presence is always sweet, and it was a pleasure to hear inside dope from Tommy and Marky and all the affiliates, but Jesus Christ, I half-think it would have been worth losing Rocket to Russia if these guys could have become sheet-metal workers and obtained houses in Queens and maybe 401Ks and raised dull children and gotten together at holiday picnics and laughed about the dreams they'd once had of forming a great band. And Rocket to Russia is one of my favorite things on earth.

Because they all seemed fucking miserable. The moment when Johnny is asked if he cared when Joey died and he stammers behind huge violet shades, "Maybe, because of some weakness in myself… Maybe, because he was part of the Ramones, and the Ramones was something I loved… if someone threw something at him, I would go after the guy…" is about as depressing as it gets.

That doesn't mean I can’t enjoy their music any more. I, too, am a pinhead. I pissed away all my chances at normalcy and it is far, far too late to get them back, and the bushels of words and music I pour into the resulting hole have their charms, but they don't come close to filling it. Nonetheless, I still have enough soul left to wish better than that for others.

OH SHUT UP PROFESSOR."Powerline notes that the Kerry campaign is playing the Creedence Clearwater song Fortunate Son, as a subtle dig at George W. Bush's National Guard service... It's a great song. But, of course, the song was written by John Fogerty, who served stateside in the Reserves... Does the Kerry Campaign think that John Fogerty betrayed his country by not serving in Vietnam?"

See, that Kerry is such a flip-flopper he plays music by guys who didn't go to Vietnam.

When they ran out of rocks to throw, they threw pebbles, and when they ran out of pebbles they threw dirt, and when they ran out of dirt -- well, they'll never run out of dirt.

I JUST THOUGHT THIS NEEDED A LITTLE WIDER DISSEMINATION:



Used without permission, but I think Atrios will understand. Attaturk, a newly-established typewriter expert, has more.

Can't tell where this claim that embarrassing Bush documents are forgeries will end up, but it sure is interesting how fast it got into print via the Old New Media network (John Podhoretz -- yeah, that figures), and how the story has now changed from (unsubstantiated) These are obvious forgeries if you know how to look at 'em to (substantiated) Hey, Ma, we're in the papers!

As Attaturk also pointed out, "Amazing how the Freepers are able to get this Forgery Spin into the Media in less than 24 hours, yet it took them 3 Fucking Weeks to beat down the Swift Boat Smearers with a boatload of written documentation contradicting them."

Capitalization aside, I get where he's coming from. Forget the old saw that ends with "...before Truth gets its boots on." I suspect Truth is still in bed, or in its grave, as liars run rampant, screaming and ringing hand-bells as hard as they can.

PERSPECTIVE. I see someone's doing something about the Sudan:

A draft resolution introduced by the United States to step up pressure on Sudan over the crisis in Darfur met strong opposition at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

The 15-nation council was divided over the US proposal, with Pakistan, Algeria and Russia voicing objections to it and European Union countries such as Britain and Germany throwing weight behind it, council diplomats said.

One could expect that sort of opposition from our soulful-eyed sometimes-ally Russia and our erstwhile buttboys in Pakistan (they get a lot of oil from Pakistan), but support from Germany! Who'd-a thunk it? Aren't they our enemies again? I mean they backed our invasion of Afghanistan, but didn't their lack of cooperation in Iraq put them into what the great minds among us call the Axis of Weasels?

And whither their partner-in-crime France? "Chile, Benin, Romania, France and Spain made positive comments," reports Reuters. "However they said France also questioned the need for sanctions threats at this time." Close, but no Chardonnay. Never fear, another round of funny nicknames will bring them around.

For those who joined us late, the United Nations is a deliberative body prone to the same sort of Byzantine political reversals as the U.S. Congress, where members of the famously pecunious Republican Party regularly vote to balloon our deficits.

In such situations, if you don't you work with the members, they don't work with you.

If this is unimportant, why are we even in the U.N.? Swing votes? Or do we really not take this genocide very seriously? (Hint: our lead dog in the operation is the long-invisible Colin Powell.)

Bonus question: Can we afford an invasion?

WELL, AT LEAST THE MAYOR'S WHITE. The heavy precipitation in our area today caused several subway lines to be delayed and one line, the M, was knocked out of service.

I'm showing my age with this, but I remember when the subway ran normally even during rainstorms. And now the MTA wants to raise fares.

You realize, of course, if Sharpton were mayor the City Journal would now be decrying our descent into chaos.

I LOVE A PARADE. Yesterday's West Indian American Day Parade in Crown Heights -- huge crowds, hopping music, booming soundtrucks, jerk chicken and pigeon peas, many happy people waving many flags (reflecting the hyphenated divisiveness with which I hope to destroy this country!), and, best of all, sturdy girls in skimpy costumes -- put me in such a persistent good mood that nonsense like this --

I said elsewhere that Democrats don't care about foreigners, and indeed this does seem to be the case: the party that prides itself most upon inclusiveness seems curiously indifferent to the fates of strange peoples in faraway countries of which they know nothing.

-- still seems to be happening on another planet.

GALLEONS OF SPAIN OFF JERSEY COAST. Tbogg has fingered a few recent examples of the "You can't fact-check an anecdote" genre, whereby National Review writers say Mister, I met a man once and proceed to recount some flattering tale about their own kind. The variants cited by Tbogg involve "reader mail" -- a perfect double-blind for this sort of operation: not only do you get an extra layer of protection against detection, you also get to frostily inform challengers that, while the identity of your correspondent cannot be revealed, you can personally vouch for his authenticity and veracity, and all the proof any man should need is the word of a paid political operative. Then, as your challengers sputter in outrage, you run off to audition a new Swift Boat Veteran for Truth or something.

Well, two can play at that game! Here is a letter from a Very Trustworthy Person whose name is none of your business, forwarded to me by an equally unimpeachable source, who found it in a hollow log to which he was directed by God Himself:

I am continually amazed at the level of quiet support for Kerry here in Fritters, Alabama. Though some few of our citizens regularly drag his flaming effigy along the dirt track we call Main Street, among the mobs that turn out to watch these spectacles I see many who are not literally flaming from the eyes with hatred, and even some that decline to hurl their own feces at the effigy. These fine men and women I'm sure will support our candidate in November.

Just the other day I spoke to a schoolteacher, who told me, "During the Convention I was beaten, spit on, and gang-raped by Republicans for teaching evolution. Though I have always voted for Republicans in the past, I shall mark my ballot this year for John Kerry." I smell a landslide.

I have many old but equally authentic letters that can also be used in a pinch.

LOOK OUT LIARS AND YOU HIGHLIFE SCUM.... In the New York Post, Ryan Sager, echoed by Republican operative Perfesser Reynolds, pretends to misapprehend last week's New York protest against Fox News:

It's enlightening to see just what the hard left's message is in this election. In two words: "Shut up"...

There, the crowd of protesters — many of the same people who have cried foul every time they've been denied a permit or asked not to lie down in the middle of an intersection — chanted this free-speech mantra at a news organization:

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

I moved through the crowd asking protesters to reconcile their demand to be heard with their demand that people who disagree with them shut up...

Later -- much too far down for the topic-sentence readers who get their news from the Post to see it -- Sager affects to learn "that the shut-up chant was meant to mimic how Fox News host Bill O'Reilly treats his guests."

No Sherlock, shithead. I attended this protest and the idea was clear as glass to anyone of normal intelligence -- presumably including Sager -- who observed it.

(It was a fun little protest, BTW, which drew cheers from midtown gawkers, especially when the cheerleaders danced and the Bush-effigy truck came around.)

You'd think by now I'd be more phlegmatic when these guys flat-out lie to advance their agenda. It does bring up my phlegm, but not in the way Ben Jonson intended.

THE INFORMATION. Michael Ledeen, normally involved in expanding our military adventures to new countries, has turned to media criticism. He thinks Zell Miller at the RNC went over a treat, and that this reflects a change in the state of the media:

[Marshall McLuhan] stressed that tv was "cool," and that "hot" personalities would do badly on it...

But I think that era is over now. First of all, because of the net, which has diversified our sources of information so dramatically. We no longer need the networks or the various Post's and Times's. We can just log on. And secondly, tv has gotten a lot hotter. Probably a lot of that is due to MTV and other such, but in any case the screen is now a much less antiseptic thing than it was a generation ago. People now argue and fight on tv, the decibels are higher, and the broadcasters are changing their style. They are competing for audience rather than monopolizing it. And so they change.

We may argue whether the content of television programming is generally "less antiseptic" now than it was in the days of Playhouse 90. But it is observably true that televised political discourse is significantly more jacked-up now. I just saw a promo for Hardball prominently featuring the ravings of Miller on that show. You certainly didn't get that in the days of Lawrence Spivak.

One night reasonably ask whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly Ledeen thinks it's good:

I suspect that when the cultural history of this period is written, the two big names will be Rush and Drudge, both of whom dramatically undercut the power of the Old Media, and gave the American people something they desperately wanted: the information that the Old Media monopolists didn't want to reach us.

Leaving aside the gruesome idea that the "cultural" achievements of our era will be exemplified by Matt Drudge, is it true that the Old Media filtered information?

Of course it is, in a way. No one with a Huntley-Brinkley sized public megaphone amplified the infidelities of, to name one example, Martin Luther King -- certainly not with the heavy funding, political acumen, and persistence of such efforts today. Had there then been a vibrant talk radio and screaming-head TV circuit, equivalent in reach and temperment to our own, we might have had television ads from the White Citizens Councils for Truth testifying to King's failings. These folks might eventually have wound up on Meet the Press and, sticking to their talking points, brushed aside all egghead talk of racial equality by asserting that no one of such dubious character -- one who had flourished his credentials as a clergyman, no less -- deserved a hearing from the American people.

Or imagine a similarly powerful popular movement, enabled by citizen's band or ham radio, operating at the time of the Watergate Hearings. The prior racial insensitivies of Sam Ervin might have been bigger news than the malefactions of the Plumbers, and a rowdy group of Republican operatives crying "Shut It Down!" outside Ervin's committee room might have helped direct the tide of events a different way.

And if a fellow like Rupert Murdoch were able to obtain a network like Fox ten, twenty, or thirty years earlier than Murdoch himself did, all sorts of scenaria are enabled. At the very least, our diplomatic relations with China would have been accelerated.

We could discuss for a good long while the extent to which "Old Media monopolists" deprived us of "information" (which is not always, I hasten to add, a synonym for truth), but our findings would not be of much use. That genie is out and its bottle is broken. Ledeen has a point. The temperature is rising. We will see soon enough whether this results in incubation or incineration.

SKILLS. I teach English on Saturdays. I think I'll print some of these out to instruct my more advanced students on the proper use of similes:

The Bush twins came out and embraced their dad, but it was an affectionless embrace, like those brief pats the American girl gymnasts gave each other after a routine...

But a volcano is stationary, like Dennis Hastert after a big lunch.

Memo to Jim Lehrer: Take naps on those days when you have to stay up late. There's no excuse for doddering from question to question like someone sitting in front of Floyd's barber shop.

Years ago, I read an account of a brief players' strike by the Detroit Tigers, which had obliged management to field a pick-up squad for a few games. Some contemporary sportswriter said the new outfielders' approach to fly balls was "like kittens going after bees." That scribe's name is lost to history, but James Wolcott is now posting regularly, and, as of today, on our blogroll.

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT. When I stepped out of work this evening, what a wonderful feeling of calm I got from Times Square. That may sound strange if you weren't around for the RNC. Even a dozen blocks up from the Garden, we had thousands of extra cops hanging around this week, and even if you like cops that's an eerie thing, especially with the flight of many citizens during the Convention further disturbing the usual police-civilian balance. The protest-related tensions made things weirder still. Customary disturbances like the tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center are one thing, but five days of virtual occupation are something else again. Now it's over, the barricades are coming down, and it feels like our New York again.

Matthew Yglesias admits that the Convention made him a little nuts*. I could say the same for myself. I normally enjoy visitors, and it was depressing to harbor a resentment toward so many of them, even if they are Republicans. (I don't hate Republicans, I just like it a lot better when they're not around.)

Well, they're gone now, and Labor Day weekend is upon us. Back to the usual tolerable tension levels.

*UPDATE. Here's a more eloquent account of RNC blues by Alex at Broken Type. (I don't think he's quite over it yet, though.) Thanks for the tip, Margaret.

MORE REASONS TO HATE OUR RECENTLY-EXPELLED OCCUPIERS. Reason #356: Even the Republican ass-sucking New York Post had to admit that the delegates were tight with a buck -- especially when it came to tipping.

This is of course the traditional difference between New Yorkers and outlanders on that subject; we figure, "If I can't afford to tip, I can't afford the restaurant"; they figure, "Ah spent too much on this here meal to give anything to that funny-boy what brung me mah food."

UPDATE. OK, that was unfair. Maybe RNC delegates are lousy tippers, but that doesn't apply to everyone from outside the zone. I worked in New York restaurants for a number of years, and old generalizations die hard. If you want to know who really doesn't tip, go here.

DOOR. ASS. FIGURE IT OUT. From the excellent if erratic Matt Yglesias, among the Republicans:

Overheard in a hotel lobby: "I get the feeling these New Yorker liverals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it." (No, fuck you).

Could you hicks maybe catch an earlier flight out of town? Pretty fuck you please?

HOLY SHIT. I've given the Big Stiff a hard time in the past, but check him out now:

For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as Commander in Chief. Well, here is my answer to them: I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and who misled the nation into Iraq... The Vice President even called me unfit for office last night. Well, I'm going to leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified than two tours of combat duty... Let me tell you in no uncertain terms what makes someone unfit for office and unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit for duty. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care for four years makes you unfit to lead this country. Letting the Saudi royal family control the price of oil for Americans makes you unfit to lead this country.

Give 'em Hell, Kerry.

BUSH SPEECH REVEALS THE KINDA SWEET THING ABOUT LILEKS:

Okay, part two is different. I kept thinking: 1943. Between the dark beginning and the first cracks of light. 1943.

Have you bowled? Then you know the guys who try to win by throwing the ball as hard as possible. They get bedposts. You want a strike, you roll it down the middle and curve off left or right at the last minute. Most of the pins go down. A few wobble, and look like they’ll remain standing. Then they fall, too.

“He said United States!” Gnat said while watching the speech. “We have that puzzle!” That we do, child. That we do.

The kinda sweet thing about Lileks is: for all his cultural references, he has yet to realize what self-parody is.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE. Scumbag ex-Mayor Giuliani is on the Letterman show, saying, between self-referential remarks, that the job he's most interested in now is "Manager of the New York Yankees."

Let us try to imagine it:

In the absence of a cabaret license, Manager Rudolf Giuliani bans "The Wave" from Yankee Stadium. Fans who attempt to start up the longtime ballpark favorite, and even those who merely wiggle in their seats, are arrested and quickly taken to holding facilities on Arthur Avenue. "It should have been done a long time ago," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani orders fans not to allow their cheers to rise above 140 decibels. Waves of arrests follow. "A cruel man, but fair," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani orders the arrest of hundreds of fans for flouting the Open Container Law. "Bad enough a beer costs eight bucks," says one spectator as he is beaten by police, "but this?" "Heads will be broken," says boss George Steinbrenner, "but if that's what it takes to win a pennant, okay."

With the Yankees trailing badly in the American League East, Manager Giuliani exercises his plenipotentiary powers to arrest Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez for pitching inside. "This is why we brought Giuliani to Yankee Stadium," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani institutes Cheney Night at Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Indians twi-night doubleheader. Ticketholders are required to sign a loyalty oath before entering the Stadium. "The man knows what he's doing," says boss George Steinbrenner. "Have you forgotten September 11?"

To couteract declining attendance at Yankee Stadium, Manager Giuliani ships in Rikers Island inmates to fill empty seats. In the seventh inning of a 10-1 Red Sox rout, Giuliani pulls Daryl Strawberry from the stands to pinch-hit. After Strawberry hits into a double play, Giuliani pleads with a judge to add five years to his sentence. "I loved that Strawberry kid," says a tearful boss George Steinbrenner afterwards. "But justice is justice."

Manager Giuliani has cost the Yankees over $100 million in legal fees and settlements in a single season of overturned arrests and resulting punitive damages. "Maybe I was wrong about Giuliani," says boss George Steinbrenner. "Maybe it's time to exhume the corpse of Billy Martin and strap it to the back of Sweet Lou Pinella."

Manager Giuliani announces that he is leading a team of Federal prosecutors looking into corruption charges against boss George Steinbrenner. "Nobody fucks with Rudy Giuliani," says the Manager, warning reporters that this is off the record.