Shea Stadium

Eighty-four people were arrested for scalping tickets to the Mets' home opener against Montreal yesterday at Shea Stadium, police said. Officers confiscated 186 tickets and arrested the 84 people selling them, said police spokesman Sgt. Ray O'Donnell. Those accused of scalping were issued summonses. One person also was issued a summons for resisting arrest, the spokesman said. Tickets for $6 bleacher seats were being sold for $20, and $11 seats were going for $100, O'Donnell said.

It's a Yankee Stadium love fest at the All-Star Game this week, but where's the love for similarly decrepit Shea Stadium? The Mets will blow up Shea after this season, but few people seem to care much about it. "I love Shea," said Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones, who falls in the minority. "Shea is one of my favorite parks. " So much so that he named his third child Shea. "I'll be sad to see it go," he said. "There are certain parks you see the ball really well.

The first thing you, the TV viewer, and they, the Shea Stadium fans, will notice when Game 3 of the National League LCS begins at lunchtime today will be the absence of a roof. That the LCS has moved back outdoors after two games in the sterile, windless atmosphere of the Astrodome, will be readily evident to both you at home and to those unlucky enough to be shoehorned into the latter-day WPA project that is Shea. Early on, ABC's announcing team will talk about the wind. In the Dome, the only extenuating factors in Games 1 and 2 were man-made.

Toronto's Brett Lawrie was suspended for four games after he angrily threw his batting helmet Tuesday - and it bounced off umpire Bill Miller. Lawrie, outraged at ball and strike calls, is appealing and can play until there is a decision. The 22-year-old was in the starting lineup Wednesday night against the New York Yankees - with the same umpiring crew in town. Miller was at third base. Lawrie received the loudest cheer in pregame introductions and the umpires were booed when their names were posted on the scoreboard.

Rick Wise still remembers the roar of the crowd after he walked a batter with the bases empty in the second inning of a three-run game. After all, the Shea Stadium crowd had finally found something it could cheer about. In the first game of the doubleheader, future Hall of Famer Jim Bunning hurled a perfect game as the Phillies downed the Mets on Father's Day 1964. As the World's Fair buzzed outside and those inside the stadium focused on Bunning's performance, Wise picked up his first career win as an 18-year-old rookie in the second game of the doubleheader.

Misty and overcast, this was not the best weather for baseball, but at Shea Stadium yesterday, the sentiment still was: "Let's play two!" And they did: first the Yankees and the Angels at noon, then the Mets and the Cubs at night. It was the first time in this century that two regular-season games were played by four teams in the same stadium on the same day. More than 40,000 came to Shea yesterday to see the Yankees, rendered temporarily homeless by the collapse Monday afternoon of a 500-pound steel expansion joint at Yankee Stadium hours before a scheduled night game.

Mark Portugal said all the right things. About how he made some mistakes. About how he made some other pitches that the Mets simply hit. Maybe the most telling fact, however, was this: Portugal is a savvy veteran who knows the drill. Win or lose, he's usually waiting at his locker for the inevitable media onslaught afterward. Yesterday, many of his teammates had cleared out by the time he finally made it to his locker after giving up five runs on 11 hits in 5 2/3 innings.

The Phillies aren't in the World Series. OK, we Philadelphians are used to that. But- Yuck! Spit! Ew!- the Mets are. Could there be a bigger insult to this painful baseball season? Probably not, beleaguered fans, but there is something that might ease your hurt. You can stick it to those New York fans. The only tickets available for the Subway Series are for Games 3, 4 and 5 at Shea Stadium. The Yankees, in a move of sheer hubris, started selling their World Series tickets a week ago, before they even beat Seattle, and their games are sold out. Now here's the part where you can make Mets fans pay. Those Shea tickets will be sold only by phone, starting at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

The Phillies have benched shortstop Desi Relaford for a couple of days. Rightfielder Bobby Abreu was scratched from the lineup because of a tardy arrival at Shea Stadium. It would appear the Phillies' patience isn't bottomless, after all. Relaford made his 19th error of the season Monday night, kicking a routine grounder. So he was benched yesterday because, well, because. . . "We've kind of run out of other things," manager Terry Francona said before the Phillies rallied to beat the Mets, 3-2, last night.

Fans are set to return to Yankee Stadium tonight for the first time since a 500-pound steel joint crashed onto seats along the third-base line on April 13. No fans were in the ballpark at the time and no one was injured, but the stadium was closed. Repairs were made to the stadium, and city inspectors gave the building a thorough check and were scheduled to make a final pass over the 75-year-old Bronx stadium before this evening's game against the Detroit Tigers. The Yankees played a home game last week at Shea Stadium - home field of the New York Mets - and a series against the Tigers was moved to Detroit.

Toronto's Brett Lawrie was suspended for four games after he angrily threw his batting helmet Tuesday - and it bounced off umpire Bill Miller. Lawrie, outraged at ball and strike calls, is appealing and can play until there is a decision. The 22-year-old was in the starting lineup Wednesday night against the New York Yankees - with the same umpiring crew in town. Miller was at third base. Lawrie received the loudest cheer in pregame introductions and the umpires were booed when their names were posted on the scoreboard.

Rick Wise still remembers the roar of the crowd after he walked a batter with the bases empty in the second inning of a three-run game. After all, the Shea Stadium crowd had finally found something it could cheer about. In the first game of the doubleheader, future Hall of Famer Jim Bunning hurled a perfect game as the Phillies downed the Mets on Father's Day 1964. As the World's Fair buzzed outside and those inside the stadium focused on Bunning's performance, Wise picked up his first career win as an 18-year-old rookie in the second game of the doubleheader.

As Roy Halladay probably knows, the last Phillie to throw a perfect game ended up in the Hall of Fame and the U.S. Senate. It's too early to predict what the future holds for the bearded righthander, who Saturday night became just the second Phillie and 20th big-league pitcher to achieve perfection. But if he's anything like Jim Bunning, the perfect game might change his life forever. Immediately after Bunning's perfect game against the Mets in the opener of a Shea Stadium doubleheader on Father's Day, June 21, 1964, the pitcher appeared on national TV. His recognizability quotient shot through the dugout roof.

Charlie Manuel said yesterday what most people have been thinking since the Phillies acquired Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco in a deal with the Cleveland Indians prior to the trade deadline. "As far as our division goes, I think we're the best team in our division, and if we can't do it, that's our fault," Manuel said before last night's game. "Because I think we definitely have the talent and now we have the starting pitching, and if we get our bullpen straightened out a little bit, let me tell you something, we should be able to not only win our division but go deep in the playoffs.

WASHINGTON - Just before noon today, Harry Kalas got off the Phillies team bus and walked into the visiting clubhouse at Nationals Park. As always, Kalas said something nice to everyone he encountered, then stopped, pulled out a pen and wrote down the lineup which had been posted on the wall. Lineup in hand, the Hall of Fame broadcaster rode the elevator to the press level and began preparing for a 3 p.m. game between the Phillies and Washington Nationals. He never got to call the game.

Closing it out The second straight September swoon by the gagging New York Mets is being treated as some sort of strange disease that erupts every fall at Shea Stadium. But it is really very simple, if you read the numbers. The Mets' bullpen stinks. In fact, it is the entire reason the Mets are floundering behind the resurgent Phillies. The Mets are 2 1/2 games behind the Phillies. But, according to Bill James Online, the Mets would be a staggering 10 1/2 games ahead if games ended after six innings.

It's a Yankee Stadium love fest at the All-Star Game this week, but where's the love for similarly decrepit Shea Stadium? The Mets will blow up Shea after this season, but few people seem to care much about it. "I love Shea," said Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones, who falls in the minority. "Shea is one of my favorite parks. " So much so that he named his third child Shea. "I'll be sad to see it go," he said. "There are certain parks you see the ball really well.

The streak that had New York Mets fans convinced that their team had a mental block against their rivals ended in hideous fashion for the Phillies last night at Shea Stadium. Too many walks. Too many errors. The Phillies have not played three innings as poorly as the first three innings of last night's 8-2 loss to the Mets in quite some time. Kyle Kendrick allowed seven runs (one earned) and six walks in 2 1/3 innings. The Phillies committed four errors in those early innings - three in the third - as the Mets snapped their losing streak to the Phillies at nine.