Leave it to two fanatical Yankee fans to restore one of the great
 traditions of Brooklyn baseball.

When the Brooklyn Cyclones take the field at their beautiful new stadium
 for today's long-awaited home opener, they'll be greeted by an old
 temptation on the outfield wall.

"Hit Sign, Win A Suit," reads an ad on the left-field fence, a promise
 offered by a Bensonhurst haberdashery run by, oy vey, two Yankee fans. 

"We may be Yankee fans, but I was born and grew up in Coney Island, so I
 knew I had to do this," said Louis Bisaquino, owner of Garage Clothing,
 which is about a mile up Stillwell Avenue from the Cyclones' beach-front
 KeySpan Park. 

If seeing a Brooklyn team on a field for the first time since the Dodgers
 ripped out our hearts in 1957 doesn't jog the memories of baseball fans,
 the "Hit Sign" ad certainly will. 

For roughly two decades, Abe Stark's "Hit Sign, Win Suit" sign was a
 fixture at the base of the right-field wall at Ebbets Field, the
 Dodgers' oft-romanticized home. 

But Abe Stark -- a tailor who parlayed his fame into a run as City
 Council president -- was no dummy. His fabric promissory was only
 four-feet wide and flush with the field, meaning that the batter could
 win a suit only if the right fielder misplayed the ball. 

During most of Stark's run, that right field was patrolled by Carl
 Furillo (the guy with an arm so powerful that he could "throw a lamb
 chop past a hungry wolf," according to one sportswriter), so Stark gave
 away only a handful of suits (including two to Furillo for hitting the
 sign).

But those glory days have receded into memory and memories are just
 chains of chemicals stored haphazardly in the brain. The Cyclones are
 not the Dodgers and KeySpan Park, however lovely, is no Ebbets Field.
 But look around: there are no Brooklyn Dodgers and there is no Ebbets
 Field anymore. Just like Paul Simon once lamented: Where have you gone,
 Joe DiMaggio?

Joltin' Joe has indeed "left and gone away," so when this "nation turns
 its lonely eyes" to its national pastime, it is increasingly turning
 towards minor-league baseball, that icon of purity and Americana. Cynics
 will point out that the Cyclones play in the lowest ranks of the Mets'
 farm system, but minor-league baseball is like getting another chance to
 fall in love for the first time. 

When you see the Cyclones take the field or hear the public address
 announcer say, "Now batting for Brooklyn...," all the peripheral things
 that turn us off to the major leagues -- the high contracts, the
 grousing players, the dissolution of talent, the Wizards of Oz behind
 their corporate curtains -- will melt away.

That romance of baseball can't easily be put into words. When asked, Joe
 Como, a Garage Clothing manager, started talking about the time he saw
 Jackie Robinson steal home against the Phillies. And then he told me the
 name of the pitcher (Ken Heintzelman) and catcher (Andy Seminick) on the
 play and the exact manner in which Robinson slid.

You don't get that from reading a book or memorizing statistics. You get
 that from falling in love with the game of baseball. 

"When you see a play like that," Como said, a kid again, if only for a
 second, "you don't forget it." 

Como's enthusiasm is obviously shared by many throughout the borough. The
 Cyclones -- a team that didn't even exist last year -- have already sold
 three-quarters of their tickets and some fans are flying in from Japan,
 Florida and Las Vegas for today's opener. 

And then there's Joe Como and Louis Bisaquino, Yankee fans who can't wait
 to start giving out suits to Mets minor leaguers. Bisaquino said he just
 wants to hear the radio announcer say, "That's a blast off the wall in
 left...And another suit from Garage Clothing!" but for Como, it's all
 about the romance of the game.

Remember, this is a guy who saw Jackie Robinson steal home. 

"For me, it's about baseball coming back to Brooklyn," Como said. "This
 team will become a part of people. You'll watch one of these kids do
 something special and it'll be with you forever." 

--30--