90 YEARS of the WORLD SERIES

If the memories come subsequent to 1970, they are illuminated by stadium lights and, as likely as not, cast in the chromatic hue of a television image - Reggie Jackson standing magisterially at home plate, watching a third home run disappear into the delirious throngs at Yankee Stadium; Kirk Gibson limping around the bases while the camera cuts to a stunned and disgusted Dennis Eckersley.

And then there are the voices that fade in and out in the mind, accompanying the thoughts of October. Broadcasters Graham McNammee, Bill Stern, Red Barber and Mel Allen. Curt Gowdy, Vin Scully, Joe Garagiola, and Tim McCarver.

Fans remember the games from a certain time in their lives - from childhood, certainly, which is why we grown-ups fret so about Series games that now end after midnight. Will our children ever know such memories? But so, too, can many of us mark other points in our lives by what was happening in the Series. Perhaps we started high school the year that third strike squirted past Mickey Owens and gave the Yankees another life; or maybe we fell in love in the year of Willie Mays's catch.

We remember especially the Octobers in which our team played. In Cincinnati the mid-'70s will never be long ago; as long as there is a Baltimore, Oriole fans there will talk of what Brooks Robinson did in 1970.

In Brooklyn, the memories are many and mostly triumphant; but so too are they bittersweet, for they shall never be joined nor supplanted by new ones.

If you rooted for the Yankees in the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s, it is probably difficult to shake the feeling that the world has been out of kilter since about 1965. Even all the Yankee-haters in the world, if pressed, will admit that a regular Yankee series is something that is missed - it gave a neutral fan a rooting interest.

Sixteen thousand fans saw that first World Series game in 1903; the grandstand had seats for half that number. The overflow ringed the outfield grass and sat on the outfield fence.

Whether it be passion or curiosity or merely a wish to be seen with the right people, America has pressed against the fence ever since, straining for a peek at the show. We come not quite knowing what to expect.

In that first series Cy Young of Boston and Honus Wagner of Pittsburgh were the marquee attractions. To some they were the show, to others their presence was ancillary to the experience. And so it shall be this year, and next, and for 90 years to come. For though we will share the experience with millions of others, the World Series will always be intensely personal.

* Charles Fountain is the author of a biography of sportswriter Grantland Rice published last month.

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