2004-07-04 - 1:40 p.m.

what in the world could be more american than minor league baseball on coney island? i spent the better part of yesterday nursing budweisers and yelling at outfielders and doing the wave at keyspan park.

m and c got a block of tickets in the outermost right field section of the stadium and several of us piled in cars and trucks and rolled down to the southern edge of brooklyn. though in the same borough, coney island is worlds away from williamsburg in many ways. [first and foremost for westerners like myself: coney island is not an island. it's on long island, just as queens and brooklyn are. coney island is a neighborhood of brooklyn.] for one thing, its a 20 minute drive on the brooklyn-queens expressway or an hour's subway ride. while williamsburg is within sight of manhattan, coney island is in the jfk flightpath. most of the people around us at the hot dog stand and on the beaches were speaking with heavy, stereotypical brooklyn accents.

the single-A team housed in keyspan park is called 'the cyclones' after the famous wooden roller coaster, which is clearly visible from the stands. as the sun set in about the seventh inning, the neon lights of astroland sparkled over the boardwalk.

the team was performing execrably until the sun went down. the stands and the players began to come alive. our section in particular seemed the most cohesive. a large, hairy man a few rows ahead of us led several cheers and was not shy about cursing the outfielders who dropped balls or struck out. we started a wave that never even made it three sections before dying out.

outfielder 27 hit a homerun with two men on and tied the game at the bottom of the ninth. i almost dropped a's popcorn when the cyclones clinched it in an extra inning. we even got a free pizza.