The Subway before there was a regular-season Series: from the days when a Yankee Stadium home run meant something.

The suddenly hot Mets, as hot as the weather this first day of summer (which is when I, Evander, always feel the season truly starts—in fact, the season doesn’t really take shape till mid-August), and the suddenly not-so-hot Yankees (unlike the Mets, who swept the non-rival Baltimore Orioles, the Yanks lost two of three, at home, to the semi-rival Atlanta Braves) will meet in more reasonable and seasonable temperatures starting tomorrow night. Yet, Citi Field still ought to be hot and rockin’. The ESPN Game, on Sunday night, matches aces R. A. Dickey, winningest pitcher in Major League Baseball and author, against American League ace CC Sabathia.

Incidentally, there were nine home runs hit in the Yankees latest loss, some kind of record for a 10-5 game in New York City. New Yankee Stadium plays like a phone booth; a bandbox. I detest hearing these five words, “Cheap Yankee Stadium home run,” from rival announcers. How different it was then, at the old place, pre-1976 preferably, when even DiMaggio and Mantle had a hard time jerking one out from the right side.