I can't believe I'm even having this conversation.

It's Thursday afternoon, just two days after the World Trade Center has
 been pulverized in an unprecedented terrorist attack. There's a
 still-smoking hole near Battery Park filled with the debris and the
 dead.

And I'm on the phone talking about baseball.

The New York-Penn League, a Class A minor-league organization, had just
 cancelled the remainder of its best-of-three championship series, which
 the Brooklyn Cyclones led one-game-to-none.

Game 2 of the series had been set for Wednesday night. Obviously, it was
 postponed, but for a while, it looked as if the series might be
 continued at a later date. That possibility was dashed by the league,
 which cancelled the game and named Brooklyn and Williamsport
 "co-champions."

As baseball fans, many Cyclones boosters were angry -- "Co-champions"?!
 -- but as Americans, some were even angrier. How could we let baseball,
 that most American of institutions, also become a casualty of the
 terrorist attack?

"We are dealing with cowardly, gutless sub-humans...disgusting animals
 [who] want nothing more than to force us to change our lifestyle," a man
 posted on the Cyclones fan club website. "The games should have gone on,
 as our lives have to go on."

"Playing the games, say, in two weeks or so would be a big step forward
 in the healing process," added Staten Island resident Jonathan Weissman,
 26.

Others recalled the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake in 1989 --
 which occurred just as fans were gathering for Game Three of the World
 Series between the Giants and the Oakland A's. Then-commissioner Bart
 Giamatti suspended the Series for 10 days, but insisted that the games
 be played.

So that's how I found myself talking baseball on a conference call with
 the Brooklyn Cyclones on Thursday, two days after the most obscene
 attack on our country in its 225-year history.

"Don't you think you should have found a way to play these games,"
 someone asked Cyclones owner Jeff Wilpon, "just to bring back some
 NORMALCY?"

At that moment, though, normalcy was just not a concept that could be
 contained in anyone's head.

"Our city has lost so much, so to lose two minor-league baseball games is
 miniscule," he said. "Sure, it would be nice to play out the rest of the
 season, but it would be much nicer to have those buildings and all those
 people back."

Wilpon described watching the Twin Towers burn and collapse from his
 office window at Fifth Avenue and 47th St. And then he recalled how the
 Towers were visible from KeySpan Park, an image that made the 1989 World
 Series scenario even less likely.

"When you remember the backdrop our stadium had, you know you can't play
 baseball," he said. "This was much larger than an earthquake. This was
 someone taking action against our country."

Baseball players -- like stars in a Depression-era dance movie or
 foul-mouthed comedians during the dour Eisenhower years -- are supposed
 to take our minds off our troubles. But this trouble is not going away
 any time soon.

"All week, we've just been glued to the TV," said Cyclones star Brett
 Kay. "Baseball meant nothing to me once this happened. Even if we
 played, what were we playing FOR?"

Major league baseball will continue its season today, but for a while, we
 will just be going through the motions. Does anyone remember that the
 Mets were making a run for the division title? Does anyone care that the
 damn Yankees are closing in on another World Series?

But eventually, we will go on. Normalcy will return. We are Americans. We
 are baseball fans. We will laugh again, even if, as someone said after
 the JFK assassination, we will never be young again.

"More good things will happen next year in Brooklyn and we'll continue to
 provide family entertainment," Wilpon said, closing out our bizarre
 phone interview.

He promised that ticket prices will remain the same.

--30--

email: gershny@yahoo.com