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Friday, June 16
Queens-to-Bronx trek involves two trains


NEW YORK -- The Yankees and Mets might make this a true Subway Series -- strap-hanging as they shuttle between games of their two-ballpark doubleheader next month.

Discussions are under way among the teams and New York City to have subway trains take the teams from Shea Stadium to Yankee Stadium for their day-night doubleheader July 8.

For the millionaire players, a Subway Special probably would be a token appearance in the underground. Buses, cars and limos are the preferred ground transportation of major leaguers.

"It'd be different; it'd be something new," said Yankees catcher Jim Leyritz, who used to take the subway to the ballpark in the Bronx. "I'm sure they're going to come up with a lot of creative things to do for something that hasn't happened in 97 years."

The last time major league teams played two games at different ballparks on the same day was Sept. 7, 1903, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, baseball's statistician. That was a year before New York City's subway system opened.

The New York Giants won 6-4 at Brooklyn's Washington Park in the opener, then lost 3-0 in the afternoon at the Polo Grounds.

To make up last Sunday's rainout at Yankee Stadium, the Mets and Yankees agreed that after their regularly scheduled game at Shea Stadium at 1:15 p.m. on July 8, they would play the makeup at Yankee Stadium at 8:15 p.m.

"There are discussions," Transit Authority spokesman Al O'Leary said. "Whether or not it will work, I don't know. It's probably more of a question of whether the players will go for it. We can do it."

To make the trek by track from Shea in Queens to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx involves two trains. The players would get on a special No. 7 train outside the right-field corner at Shea Stadium, take it to Grand Central, then change to the No. 4 line, which would leave them outside the left-field corner at Yankee Stadium.

Or they could get off a stop later, at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, and switch to the D train, which also stops outside Yankee Stadium.

Players, used to free travel, probably would cry foul if they had to whip out MetroCards to pay their $1.50 fares as they go through the turnstiles.
 


ALSO SEE
N.Y. double play has Shea by day, Bronx at night