The Champagne was flowing like grape juice.

Actually, the Champagne WAS grape juice -- carbonated to make it more
 festive, but grape juice nonetheless -- because many of the celebrants
 were still underage.

But the lack of punch in the punch did nothing to inhibit the party as
 the Brooklyn Cyclones toasted themselves and the dramatic
 come-from-behind win on Saturday night that gave them their division
 title over the hated Staten Island Yankees.

"Tell the Yankees!" screamed Cyclones pitcher Luz Portobanco as he poured
 the bubbly all over the giddy mass of intertwined players. "We're a
 f---ing family here!"

The win -- minus the Champagne, minus the importance in the standings --
 was a flashback to the Cyclones' home opener just two months ago, a
 night when Mayor Giuliani, 8,000 fans and a back-riding monkey named
 History watched the Cyclones win the first professional baseball game in
 Brooklyn since 1957 in dramatic fashion when catcher Mike Jacobs's
 knocked in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

And they said minor-league baseball wouldn't be exciting.

It's hard to remember it now, but before even the first pitch was thrown,
 everyone from Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden to implacable
 Dodger fans were derogating the Cyclones, complaining that a
 major-league city like Brooklyn deserved (although they pronounced it
 "desoived") a major-league team.

Golden's boycott did little except deprive himself of a beautiful season
 in which the Cyclones sold out nearly all of their 38 home games and set
 a new New York-Penn League record for home attendance (just under
 300,000) -- all the while delivering on an old Mets advertising promise,
 "Baseball like it oughta be" (which sure beats "Show up at Shea!").

(Cyclones playoff tickets go on sale this morning at 9 a.m. at the team's
 beachfront stadium. If you're not on line already, don't bother. People
 were already on line when yesterday's home finale ended at around 8
 p.m.)

Anyone who couldn't have predicted the team's success can only be accused
 of having his eyes shut or his mind closed. The recipe was as simple as
 a perfect Tuscan pasta dish: Take $38 million in public money, build a
 cathedral of baseball that makes Shea Stadium look like an airplane
 hanger, add a dash of nostalgia (Cyclone coaches include former Met
 stars Howard Johnson, Bobby Ojeda and Gary Carter), but not too much
 (parallels to the Brooklyn Dodgers, while inevitable from newspaper
 columnists, were downplayed by the team) and fold in some fresh-faced
 kids who run out ground balls and sign autographs until the umpires yell
 at them to take the field already.

They built it and the public came -- and, like the mystical baseball
 movie from which that old cliche is stolen, the Cyclones even managed to
 ease some pain.

One night at KeySpan Park, I met a man named Irwin Brandon, an inveterate
 Brooklynite and former Ebbet's Field ticket-taker, who had not seen a
 professional baseball game -- neither in person nor on TV -- since the
 Dodgers left Brooklyn after the 1957 season.

"I was so furious at the evil [Dodger owner] Walter O'Malley that I vowed
 that professional baseball would not take a dime of my money ever
 again," Brandon said.

Yet there he was, loving every minute of a recent Cyclones game. "This is
 fun," he said, "the way I remember baseball. But I still couldn't go to
 a major-league stadium."

But on Saturday night, there was no such thing as major-league baseball
 to the season-high 8,178 fans who crowded into a stadium built for
 7,500. And for Cyclones manager Edgar Alfonzo, the victory encouraged
 his own monkey to take a hike.

Alfonzo spent most of the season being described as "the brother of Mets
 star Edgardo Alfonzo" -- as if the Mets second baseman, not his big
 brother, was the one enduring the 12-hour busrides, arguing with the
 sub-par minor-league umpires, eating leftover hot dogs after games,
 babysitting a bunch of 20-year-old kids, and, finally, securing a
 pennant.

But inside that clubhouse on Saturday night, Edgar Alfonzo was breathing
 in a perfume that his younger brother won't get a whiff of for a while:
 the sweet smell of success.

"Oh, man," said Alfonzo, as fake Champagne stung his eyes, "this feels
 great! I can't describe it."

He didn't have to. It's not like Howard Golden was in the room or
 anything.

--30--

email: gershny@yahoo.com