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THE ball zipped through the in field and slipped beyond Luis Castillo's glove, meaning the best-case scenario and the worst-case scenario in New York baseball in 2008 were about to collide brilliantly with one another.
Terrific and terrifying would take a few swings at each other under the last rays of Sunday sunlight, before the clouds would burst. Derek Jeter was on first base; with the Yankees trailing the Mets 3-1, his run was meaningless. Alex Rodriguez was now ambling to the plate, taking half-hacks with his bat.
This was the very definition of meaningful.
Behind home plate, up to the left, in Section 524, the front lines of terrific and terrifying were all on their feet now, abandoning their green seats. Most of the folks here wore various incarnations of Mets paraphernalia. That's where you saw - and heard - the terror.
"Come on Billy!" one of the more hopeful ones, wearing Billy Wagner's own No. 13, pleaded loudly at the Mets reliever, staring blankly at home plate. "Don't kill me again!"
Maybe a quarter of them were clad in pinstripes, or road Yankee grays, wearing some form of interlocking "NY" somewhere on their person. This was where you saw - and heard - terrific.
"Over the picnic area?" one of them, wearing a Giambi jersey, asked his buddy. "Or dead centerfield?" This is who Rodriguez is, now, today, in the summer of 2008, at what is surely the absolute peak of his prime. This is the kind of confidence he inspires on one side of town, the kind of dread he stirs on the other. Who would you rather have at the plate as the tying run in any game (but especially a Subway Series game) if you root for the Yankees? Who would you least want to see if you back the Mets? And here it was. Here he was. Earlier, in the top of the fourth, serving as something of a warm-up act for his own main event, Rodriguez had battled Oliver Perez for nine pitches, Perez winning that round, recovering from a 3-and-0 count to whiff A-Rod swinging.
Now, it was the ninth inning. Now it was Wagner, with all those recent goblins doing their invisible dance around him. Now it was Jeter, wild-pitched immediately to second base, and it was A-Rod, at the plate, waving his bat. Terrifying. Terrific. All of it. Right here.
"This is torture!" screamed a voice from the orange-and-blue faction.
"LET'S GO YANKEES!" came a small, but sturdy, chant.
Wagner looked in for the sign. Took his stretch. Stared Jeter close to the base. Fired.
And A-Rod swung. And this is what you heard in Section 524:
