Anyway, from then on, it's baseball. You don't need me to tell you about the game itself. If you care about it, you know the score. If you don't, it's too late. Watch the next game. The teams locked horns and somehow we all knew we were in for a long night. At times everything got kind of silent, and then people would stir themselves into chants and shouts. Later, when the game got hot, when every at-bat was pivotal, people didn't just clap and shout, they screamed. Like babies, like teenage girls at the first Beatles concerts at -- oh yeah, Shea Stadium!

Inside, roaming the halls, instead of garrulous drunks, everyone seemed to be on a mission to grab as many souvenirs as possible. The shirts sold out, the pennants sold out. Everyone has to wear something with insignia on it. It's funny: On the way to the game, wearing my "Wild Card" hat from the '97 playoffs (Yankees lost series -- kind of a reverse good luck charm), I feel kind of idiotic. In the stadium, I am naked without it.

Then more music. More sound. Eminem barks his paranoia as Chuck Knoblauch enters the batter's box; later Frank Sinatra will croon when the game is over ("New York, New York," which rang slightly hollow after the wins Saturday and Sunday, since the Mets are also from New York. Duh). The old disco anthem "YMCA" by the Village People plays after the fifth inning of every game when the grounds crew drags the infield. (I'm not sure what the point of that one is. Maybe it's supposed to be evocative of some fantasy involving studly jocks showering in a locker room.) And the ever-present tap-tap-tap of the late-'70s synthesizer machine clacking over the loudspeakers.

Isn't it ironic that all this sound-making occurs in the heart of the Bronx, the home of hip-hop? But Yankee Stadium is not a hip-hop kind of place. It's a George Steinbrenner kind of place. A white turtleneck, blue blazer kind of place. And Yankee Stadium is hard rock. When the best closer in baseball, Mariano Rivera, strolls slowly to the mound in the late innings, "Enter Sandman" ices the air. It's spooky because he's spooky, like a jack-o'-lantern out to kill your ass.

For me, baseball is about gunslingers staring each other down. That was true big time in Game 2. The last time they had met, Roger Clemens had beaned Mike Piazza, hospitalizing him. On other occasions, Piazza has smacked homers off the future Hall of Famer. So now what happens? This is what makes baseball badass. See, if you think the hardest throwing muhfuh in baseball might mush your brains, it affects your concentration. So how tough is Mike Piazza? How intimidating is Roger Clemens? It's not politically correct? But baseball is the game of Ty Cobb, a guy who used to sharpen his cleats before he tried to ram 'em down your throat.

Speaking of lunatics, my favorite Yankee team was the team of a couple of years back, the team that is still the heart of these Yanks: Paulie, Tino, Derek, Bernie, Scottie and Chuck. Driven and slightly imperfect. In those days there was also Daryl Strawberry with his problems. And David Wells, tattooed and overweight. And Chad Curtis leading the "God squad." A "Dirty Dozen" kind of team. I always thought of cocky Derek Jeter in the smirky John Cassavetes role. And of course, Joe Torre as Lee Marvin, the only guy strong enough, tough enough, to pull this bunch of badly behaved lunatics together to win the prize.

All that's in my head. But that's what it's all about, the theater. Fifty thousand people, millions more watching on TV, projecting themselves onto their favorite players. What makes a player your favorite? Well, he's the guy you'd be if you could be everything you wish you could be. Who has the traits you want? Badass Clemens? Happy-go-lucky and easy Luis Sojo? Steady and silent Tino Martinez? That's the guy you root for.

I guess Paul O'Neill's my guy. Angry. Really angry. And big. He reminds me of the guys I hung out with in high school. We'd drag a case of beer into the woods, spend all night talking about girls and mortal sin. Then when everybody was good and drunk, we'd roll down to the corner and get in fights. Is that Paul O'Neill? Who knows? Probably not. But he's my avatar.

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