Oktobriana Dreams: And It's a Houston-Toronto World Series

The last time the Mets won the World Series, there was a punk rock betty named Oktobriana who made a pretty good wage selling Frozade down on W. Broadway. It was very early in the spring of 1986, with the winds still carrying sore throat bacteria, Battery Park Wolfen-style chilblains and the general malaise of being on the threshold of the hayseed larceny that is Daylight Savings Time.

If anyone can move semi-frozen beverage product among the shivering Soho posers, it's an incredibly sexy, 5-foot-4 punk rocker with 20 years logged on the planet and the supply-side economic tendencies of an outer-borough street urchin. Maybe she did well because Oktobriana?who lived in Astoria?had just the right flannel skirts, fishnets and monkey boots. Just the right punk rock badges on her bomber jacket: PiL, the Jam, Kraut, DOA, Minor Threat and the requisite Siouxsie and the Banshees button. The pleasant surprise?the chunk of lemon slice in the frozen ade?was a badge that showed the maniacal grin of the encephalitic Mr. Met. A punk rock betty who likes baseball! Call the pastor!

A Queens childhood and a few older brothers had Oktobriana rooting with all her Manic Panic might for the Tim Teufels, Wally Backmans and Rafael Santanas who wore the traffic-cone-orange polyester piping along the sides of those pinstriped Mets pullovers. She talked nonstop about two things: Vespa scooters and the Mets' chances for paydirt glory during the upcoming '86 campaign. She claimed, between chugs of her own product, that the Mets were going all the way. Even with her excellent Liquid Sky eye makeup and perverse penchant for making out in public, I think I still laughed in her face.

Fourteen years later, October 2000 brought a Subway Series to Gotham. It was then that I tried tracking down the long-lost Oktobriana, just to see if she would again be the good luck charm for the Willets Point Nine as they made their return to the Fall Classic. Search as I did, there was no finding Oktobriana, who once sold Frozade to Gabe Pressman and Meryl Streep within five minutes of each other. James Earl Jones said she was nowhere among the Verizon local and national 411, nada on the e-mail Web searches, nein from an ancient 718 phone number scrawled on the back of a CBGB flier for a Rat at Rat R/Three Teens Kill Four show?saved from way back then. Though I figure she wouldn't take no shit from the likes of Mets bully Armando Benitez, someone who names herself after Billy Idol's tattoo of the Russian Goddess of Revolution probably falls victim to rolling blackouts along the multiple-personality electrical grid.

For all I know she could be living in Houston now with three kids and a banker husband. Maybe she's quietly pulling for the Astros, who play their games inside an overlit paintball terrain that is the new "ballpark" called Enron Field.

If this is true?if Oktobriana is indeed a Houston resident?at least she will once again have a World Championship in her backyard. Astros in six over the Toronto Blue Jays?that's your 2001 World Series result from this humble pushcart. Bullpens and power hitters are the thing. Both squads got 'em. Jays closer Billy Koch is the white Mariano Rivera, and the other Billy?southpaw Billy Wagner of Houston?is the white Billy Koch. The 'stros get the nod because they've got the better catchers, and, therefore, the enhanced pitching staff.

If Houston-Toronto doesn't happen and the team from the Bronx?the one that many Mets fans simply call "the dark side"?if the Yankees win it yet again, then all of baseball will suffer the same fate the crew of the U.S.S. Indianapolis did back in July of 1945. The bomb will have been delivered, the war will be over, but the torpedoed ship will go down and the surviving crew will be torn apart by sharks as they wallow in the sea over a period of four days and five nights. If you're not familiar with the U.S. Navy's greatest disaster, try to remember the tale told by Indianapolis survivor Capt. Quint to Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider in Jaws, during their truncated drinking session below the deck of the Orca. The future of the game, much like Quint's man-overboard ballplayer buddy from Cleveland, will be bitten in half below the waist.

But until that happens, until the postseason Fox broadcasters drop hints about a probable "work stoppage" in 2002, the baseball season should be enjoyed like a promotional giveaway item?think back, maybe, to the Bell Atlantic Mobile shaving kits distributed gratis at Yankee Stadium one fine Saturday three seasons ago.

First, though, I'd like someone?anyone, even Steve Cangelosi or Jim Rome?to call onto the carpet all the idiot sports publications with their columnists, Ivy League wannabes and AOL Time Warner executive-editor types?all the sheep who last March virtually handed the spikey World Series trophy to those losers who play in Boston's monument to fan discomfort called Fenway Park. Still drenched in the saliva of Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Red Sox were supposed to win it all last year. With a shortstop who may or may not have turned off his stove and coffeemaker, switched off the lights and locked his apartment on the way out, and a centerfielder who thinks he's Gideon but instead comes off as an Old Testament version of Jimmy Piersall, the Red Sox continue to be overserviced by the baseball media. Their triple A Pawtucket squad has always been more interesting, just ask Brian Daubach, and, if you're in Tampa and not at a strip club, ask Wade Boggs, that's him over there wearing dark purple and coaching with the Devil Rays.

In any case, predicting baseball is basically the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs...at Jonestown. It's six of one and the whole nine yards of another.

Every Spring Training is the same. The strippers?in the alternate universe of Florida in March?should at least have an objective take on the Bigs. But they always say it'll be Miami (Florida) against Tampa. One even said Cuba would win. It's enough to give you a case of Orlando Rage.

Already this year, with the season yet to come out of the dog track starting box, the 2001 slate is conjuring a Shroud of Turin image that looks to me a lot like a grade-E greyhound. These are the desperation dogs, who, if they fail to finish 1 through 4 in four consecutive starts, are "dropped from further racing at the meeting," according to the cheaply xeroxed track program at the Melbourne Greyhound Park in Melbourne, FL.

None of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, except, of course, the Yankees, has a healthy pitching staff. And there are none on the horizon. The Minor Leagues are scorched earth with nothing but a t-ball future. Until the mound is raised to parking-meter height and the old Civil War-era strike zone is calibrated by motion sensors embedded in the blue exoskeletons of cyborg umpires, pitching casualties will continue to pile up. The Mets don't really have pitching injuries per se, but how to explain Kevin Appier and Steve Trachsel? Glendon Rusch, according to some fans who wear the black, dark blue, white and orange, is the new Steve Carlton, and Rick Reed apparently has a fake ID (instead of a union card) and is actually a strapping lad of 22.

Fact: Mike Hampton is gone, people. And with the consignment store outfield Bobby Valentine has patched together, expect the stylish Tsuyoshi Shinjo, the Japanese outfielder with the giant orange wristbands, to be patrolling the Shea pasture by July.

Arthroscopic-surgery-dot-com has been the hot website among ballplayers for the past several years. Birmingham, AL, is the solid underground bunker at ground zero of the rotator cuff apocalypse ravaging the game. One might imagine a doublewide trailer down there, housing the offices of Dr. James Andrews, who cuts up the shoulders of millionaire hurlers. Meanwhile, out beyond the delta, they're manufacturing condoms?the South has indeed risen again, as promised by John Rocker.

Which brings us to The Year of St. Giles. I'm a huge Brian Giles fan. I hadn't purchased a jersey with a player's name on the back since the days of Dave Parker. But last year I had to break down and buy a gray pinstriped Buccos road jersey, number 24, with G-I-L-E-S across the back. He's a lefthanded batter who routinely strokes towering drives that are way back and out of here. Brian Stephen Giles is not, however, a saint, according to the Vatican.

No, that would be St. Giles, the patron saint of cripples, and that's who is running the show this season. St. Giles Day is Sept. 1 (which happens to be roster expansion day) and his image is usually an old man with an arrow in his knee. From Mo Vaughn's Christian Science approach to sports medicine to Nomar Garciaparra trying to ignore a wicked sore wrist tendon and Pirates pitcher Francisco Cordova's phantom bone spur?the new ballparks should be equipped with classroom skeletons, muscle charts and X-ray light tables. Put them right next to the condiment counter for the benefit of the more hardcore fans who now must endure an endless gurney ride of Hippocratic Oath crap just to follow their teams.

Take the March 12 edition of The Sporting News. In the team-by-team baseball reports in the back of the book, there are no fewer than 28 references to players?most of them starters?either having or coming off of major surgeries this spring. And among the injury mentions: washed-up Cubs closer Tom Gordon's enigmatic toenails (in addition to his surgically repaired elbow). I didn't count Mariner outfielder Al Martin's struggle with a Mr. Magoo-style lack of depth perception. One thing's for certain: Martin was seeing double when it came to marital partners last season.

At least the Yankees have redesigned their tickets. They were perhaps the final franchise to abandon the 70s arena-rock-style dot-matrix ducats with the mod TicketMaster logos and boxy design that made the SAT exam forms look like galleys from Raygun. Gone is the piss-ant arc of mini Yankee logos trailing off the stub. The 2001 admit-ones have a cool pinstripe motif, the now-infamous interlocking N and Y insignia (originally property of the NYPD) ghosted behind the game-day info particulars. At the far right of the ticket, a pair of ribbons proclaims "Twenty Six Time World Champions" flowing above the classy top hat logo, which, of course, is being prodded from below by the requisite three-stripe pylon of Adidas. That fine German sporting-goodsmeister has to be happy about the Yankees docking their own marketing version of the Mir space station to the distant, cash-cow satellite structure that is English soccer power Manchester United. Over there, they call it football and "the beautiful game." Here, most baseball fans just call it a "misapplication of tools." Yes, we all can get along, but we get to use our hands. The Yankees-Devils-Nets-Man U. dancecard is almost as aggravating as the Chuck Knoblauch: Left Fielder television pilot that should be perfect for Fox's own You Gotta See This series.

Blimey or not, freedom of expression is certainly on the 365-day disabled list these days in the Yankee Stadium bleachers. That little slice of ancient Rome remains under martial law?for no apparent reason. It won't be long before fan behavior regulations for that once-lively block of benches will include no exposed ankles for women and hair shirts (with collars) for men. Soon all must adhere to a Devil's Island style SILENCE rule enforced by stadium "security" guards. Last year's shameless destruction of basic fans' rights included the railroading of a sudden alcohol ban that pulled the bait-and-switch on a new crop of season ticketholders. Many fans had gleefully jumped on the first-ever offering of season plans in the bleachers. Less than halfway through the season?guess what, suckers? No beer for you.

The American flag apparently does not fly over the bleachers?the one section that actually sings the damned anthem. The diehard souls out there, a band of which is incredibly organized, got the British cattle treatment long before all this recent foot-and-mouth stuff. The consistent harassment of fans in the bleachers by stadium personnel, Burns Security and the NYPD is one of the most disgraceful things I've seen in a ballpark in some 25 years of buying tickets, attending games and writing about baseball from a fan's perspective.

By contrast, the Pepsi picnic area beyond Shea's left field?that hodgepodge of underutilized seating that resembles a VIP stand from the professional rodeo circuit?is leagues away from the intensity of the rightfield supporters in the Bronx. Maybe a Pepsi picnic area will soon spread its cola contagion to 161st St. and River Ave.? That is, after the smoking ban in all New York bars and the force-feeding of yogurt to a new generation of bedwetting simps who leave the game in the seventh in order to catch appropriate network tv sitcoms.

Shea atmosphere unfortunately continues to slide, especially with the team overachieving and therefore filling up the joint with lame-o's who double-park their bandwagons while the win column is swollen. These are the same fans who get royally pissed off because they finally figure out?in the third inning?that Todd Pratt, not Mike Piazza?got the start behind the plate. Damn that Jeff Torborg!

I've already heard from several Brooklyn hipsters who might abandon their RC Cola Mets tote bags and instead go out to support the Mets Class A squad called the Brooklyn Cyclones, who will play in the shadow of Coney Island's parachute tower this summer. Life Is a Rollercoaster, Eat a Light Lunch is not the slogan of the new Brooklyn club, the bookend franchise to the Staten Island Yankees.

Get a vendor's tray full of spiked egg creams ready for the army of Jack Newfields and Pete Hamills who are bound to turn up with a revisionist take on Class A ball landing in Brooklyn. The Cyclones and S.I. Yanks toil in the New York-Penn League, an ancient substratum of the minors that also includes the New Jersey Cardinals.

For those of you on the way to the Vegas sports book to cash in your March Madness chits, I see the Vermont Expos taking the NY-Penn League crown this year. Steve Balboni's managing. Say no more. That's gotta be good for a C-note. Or at least a round of Frozade.