Bronx Cheer: In Bronx, love for game, not Yanks

NEW YORK - It takes years for the best of baseball players to get to Yankee Stadium.

For Alex Jemann, it's a five-minute walk.

Jemann is a 15-year-old from the Bronx. He's a freshman in high school.

Jemann walked into the athletic complex at Macombs Dams Park late yesterday afternoon. He was carrying a gym bag, a baseball bat, and a dream.

He wants to play big-league baseball someday. Preferably for the New York Mets, his favorite team. Or maybe the Phillies, his favorite team last night.

Just not the Yankees.

"I don't like the Yankees," said Jemann, who said he lives "down the street" from the home of the sport's most famous franchise.

Across 161st Street, the lights were coming up on the new Yankee Stadium. The message board was spreading the news: "World Series Game 6. Tonight. 7:57."

Just over the fence of the athletic complex, old Yankee Stadium sat still and dark, its concrete facade shrouded by shaded screening.

That was one contrast. Jemann was another, a teenager practicing baseball, by himself, on a cold November afternoon in the shadow of the biggest game of the major-league season.

This athletic complex is a cool place, the first stage of a sprawling facility that will replace the footprint and parking lots of the old Yankee Stadium.

For now, there's an artificial-turf field and an all-purpose track that sits on top of a parking garage. When the old building comes down - and construction workers have been busy in the last week, removing the big, blue letters that spelled out Y-A-N-K-E-E S-T-A-D-I-U-M - there will be tennis courts, a jogging track, and lots of park benches.

Jemann says he comes here almost every day after school. He says he doesn't like the cold, but he's determined to get ready for the baseball season.

"That's my dream," Jemann said.

A few guys were kicking around a soccer ball on the field. A couple others were jogging around the red, rubberized track.

Jemann looked like a baseball player from the Bronx. He wore dark-blue gym shorts and light-blue tube socks and an orange baseball hat. He ran four laps around the track. He practiced his base-stealing jump. He did some sprints. He took some swings.

"I come here every day until it gets too cold," Jemann said. "I bring my glove and ball and see if there's somebody to throw with. I bring my bat, take my swings. If somebody wants to pitch, I hit."

Jemann was rooting for the Phillies.

"I'm going with Pedro," Jemann said of Pedro Martinez, the Phillies' starter in Game 6. "He's going to win tonight."

Like Martinez, Jemann said he was born in the Dominican Republic. He said he moved to New York about five years ago.

Jemann and the Yankees are neighbors. But he's partial to New York's other team.

"I like the Mets," Jemann said. "But tonight, I'm going for the Phillies. I have to back Pedro."

The first pitch of Game 6 was just a couple of hours away. The World Series was on the line.

The Phillies and Yankees were preparing to take the perfectly manicured field of the $1.5 billion stadium, on the sport's biggest, brightest stage.

Across the street, a 15-year-old from the Bronx was jogging down a red track beneath the outline of an empty old stadium. It was November in New York. It was cold.

He was sticking out his left hand and making imaginary catches. He was adjusting his feet and making imaginary throws.