COMMENTARY : An Indian Summer in New York : Baseball: With Yankees and Mets struggling, it will be the city's first year without a pennant race since 1982.

By TOM VERDUCCI

Aug. 20, 1991 12 AM PT

NEWSDAY

NEW YORK — So this is what it’s like in Cleveland every year around this time of the baseball season. The New York Yankees and the New York Mets have a combined 91 games remaining and they mean nothing. In New York, we are having an Indian summer.

It is the first time in nine years that there is no pennant race in this town. The Yankees and Mets have made sure of that with a thoroughly awful stretch of baseball over the past five weeks, typified by the efforts of both clubs Sunday. The Mets completed an 0-10 trip with a 9-2 loss in Pittsburgh. The Yankees also were routed, 11-3 by the Chicago White Sox.

Oddly enough, their collapses began at the same time. Both clubs won their first three games after the All-Star break, with the Yankees managing a winning overall record for the first time all season and the Mets charging to within 2 1/2 games of first-place Pittsburgh. But the Yankees were blasted by California the next day, 10-2, and the Mets were one-hit by the San Diego Padres and lost, 2-1.

Since then, the Mets are 8-26, the worst record in baseball over that time. The Yankees are not far behind them at 12-23. That’s 20-49--.290 baseball--out of the hometown teams. The Yankees and Mets have won on the same day only twice in the past 36 days.

After another pounding Sunday, Yankee Manager Stump Merrill flipped his shirt, pants and socks to different corners of his office, plopped himself into his chair and sighed, “Long day.” And then he said it again. “Long day.”

What about the next 49? How do we face seven more weeks of the baseball season without the day-to-day pulsation of a pennant race? We’ll miss the big crowds, the scoreboard-watching and the anxiety that every pitch and every swing of the bat could decide a title. We’ll miss them like old friends who moved out of town.

Preseason football? Please. Don’t tell me about football until the weathermen stop talking about the humidity levels. Besides, what is NFL news but glorified betting information?

“At 162 games, the baseball season is long enough,” said Sammy Ellis, the White Sox’s pitching coach. “But when you get into a situation where you have two months left and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, then you’re talking “

Ellis was the last of five pitching coaches employed by George Steinbrenner in 1982, the last year without a pennant race in New York. Jeff Torborg, the White Sox manager, was the first.

“Three managers, five pitching coaches, three hitting instructors,” Ellis rattled off. He might have added 47 players, too.

The Yankees finished 79-83, in fifth place. It was the year Steinbrenner traded for Ken Griffey, signed Davey Collins and hired Olympic sprinter Harrison Dillard to transform the team from bombers to burners. The experiment failed miserably, not unlike the Mets replacing Darryl Strawberry with Vince Coleman this year.

Across town, the Mets obtained George Foster, who warned the LaGuardia air traffic to be on the lookout for his towering home-run balls. He wound up hitting only 13 homers and the Mets finished in last place with 97 losses.

The Yankees rebounded in 1983 to 91 wins and the Mets grew into contenders the following year. From 1983-90, New York enjoyed two first-place finishes, seven second-place finishes and 51 All-Star selections.

“I don’t know if I’d say the fans are spoiled,” Torborg said. “The fans here are just so intelligent and so well-informed as to what’s happening. The fans in New York are special fans. They’re just so intense.”

In the past 15 months, New York has lost Dave Winfield, Davey Johnson, Strawberry, Joe McIlvaine, Steinbrenner, Dave Righetti, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda and a whole lot of ballgames.

The per-game attendance figures at Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium are virtually identical to the 1990 averages. (The Yankees are up 178 people a game, the Mets are up 40). But the Mets, for instance, drew more than 39,000 per game in August and September last year. That is unlikely to happen again. With a slow final five weeks--a real possibility given the state of these clubs--this could mark the first time that attendance for the Yankees and Mets dropped every year in the same three-year period.

What is there to look forward to? The Yankees are trying to sell their young players, but the more we see of them the more they look like this year’s versions of Steve Adkins, Jim Leyritz and Oscar Azocar. Put it this way: I wouldn’t buy a used car from the Yankees.

The Mets need an overhaul now that their seven-year run of glory has flamed out. Vice President Al Harazin said last winter, “You can never promise a pennant. But you can promise an aggressive and exciting ballclub.” The Mets, an insomniac’s favorite team, reneged on their promise.

Back in April, I thought this would be a good week to take a vacation. You know, a week off before the grind of a pennant race, a pit stop before the stretch run. I never figured the baseball season in New York would be over by now. But then, I never figured the Mets would pack it in and take a vacation before I did.