Sports: Subway Series inspires the Web to offer coverage as big as N.Y.

Subway Series inspires the Web to offer coverage as big as N.Y.

By GREG AUMAN

With the Mets and Yankees opening the ultimate crosstown rivalry Saturday, several sites are offering New York-size coverage. Everything's bigger, it seems.

Baseball's official home, mlb.com, has video highlights of the 10 greatest World Series moments. It's all there, including Bill Buckner, Kirk Gibson, Carlton Fisk, Tug McGraw and Bill Mazeroski. If you're not fired up for the Series after a few of those, you risk losing your citizenship.

Both teams' official sites have stepped up as well. Yankees.com has a "Time Machine" retrospective on past Series champions and the results of an "Only in New York" photo contest. For the latter, cardboard cutouts of coach Don Zimmer were placed all over New York to be photographed. The second-place shot has Zimmer buried up to his head at the beach.

Mets.com isn't as strong, but metsonline.net, an unofficial site, fills in nicely, with a replica outfield scoreboard on its main page. A fun "sounds" page has Vin Scully's call from Game 6 of the '86 Series, the original "Meet the Mets" song from '63 and the infectious "Who Let the Mets Out?", a two-minute parody that even tosses in a reference to former Rays outfielder Bubba Trammell.

For a thorough history of the Subway Series, with linescores from every game, check out mrudolf.tripod.com/subway, which has 4-7-D -- the route from Yankee Stadium to Shea -- as its main image, with a subway map as its background.

ESPN.com offers the "Ten Most Ignominious Moments in Mets History" and its lineup of the best players to play for both teams. With Casey Stengel as manager and Yogi Berra catching, they're at least good for a memorable quote.

Not to be outdone, CNNSI.com has video clips from an interview with New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who grew up in the shadow of Ebbets Field but somehow became a Yankees fan. He proudly touts his city as the "baseball capital of the world," and in an election year, it's refreshing to see him take a clear view on what is surely a divisive issue for his constituency.

"I can't help it," he says. "I was a Yankee fan before I was a mayor. ... People have to just accept it."

HERE WE GO AGAIN: The Series offers a chance to watch baseball with and without the designated hitter, but it's easy to see which option Palm Harbor's John Fontana prefers. Fontana runs a site (abolishthedh.ipfox.com) devoted to ridding the game of what many consider its greatest evil.

There are links to features from both sides of the DH debate, and you can add your name to a list of more than 500 on a petition urging baseball to let the pitchers bat again. Last we checked, there wasn't a Jose Canseco or Harold Baines among the signatures.

CHATWATCH: Former FSU receiver Ron Dugans, starting as a rookie with the Cincinnati Bengals, chats at 12:45 p.m. today at NFL.com. ... Four-time PGA Tour winner Chip Beck chats about this weekend's Presidents Cup at 7 tonight at pgatour.com. ... Former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton, author of the controversial Ball Four, chats at 7 p.m. Monday at chat.yahoo.com.

TID-BYTES: A CNNSI.com poll asking visitors which team they wanted to win the Series had 33,000 votes Thursday afternoon: 37 percent chose the Mets, 26 percent the Yankees and an impressive 36 percent "Fuhgeddaboutit!' ... Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp's official site, big99.com, has a link to the NFL's online balloting for the 2001 Pro Bowl. ... Putting the latest rage in perspective, ESPN.com asked what the best stadium song is. Who Let the Dogs Out? thankfully did not win, taking 24.6 percent. It finished second to a much more established bad song, Queen's We Will Rock You.

- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, send an e-mail to staff writer Greg Auman at aumanac1@aol.com.