By the time you read this article, both the Mets and the Yankees will be slugging it out in the first Subway Series since 1956. This year represented the best chance for such a series since the Mets came into being back in 1962 and both teams came through by winning the pennant in their respective leagues. The events of the past two weeks have also been an occasion for memories of a by-gone era when such World Series were almost an annual occurrence.

Most people remember the Subway Series classics of the 1950s from watching them on television or reading about them in books on baseball history. Longtime Roslyn Heights resident Stan Isaacs had a most enviable perspective. As a young sportswriter for first, The New York Daily Compass and then Newsday, Mr. Isaacs covered the seven Subway Series that took place between either the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Yankees and the New York Giants during the golden era of 1949-1956.

As a reporter, Mr. Isaacs covered National League action. Those Subway Series, he recalled, were essentially a continuation of the twenty-two games the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers played during their legendary regular season rivalry. A Giant fan, Mr. Isaacs rooted for that team during the regular season. But if the Dodgers made it to the series, then he pulled for the National League club.

As you might suspect, Mr. Isaacs has many fond memories of those historic games. One of the most famous was Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. As the ninth inning approached, Irving Rudd, the Dodgers publicity man shouted out to no one in particular, "to hell with history, let's get a hit!" In 1951, the Yankees defeated the Giants in six games to win another world title. That series was Joe DiMaggio's last in his long, distinguished career---but also the first series for two kids not even in their twenties yet, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. Although underdogs, the Giants took the Yankees to six games before losing. The last out was made by Giants catcher, Sal Yvars, who hit a line drive that Yankees left fielder, Hank Bauer, misplayed but somehow managed to catch. For years and years afterwards, Mr. Isaacs remembered meeting Sal Yvars at some event, where the Giant catcher still bemoaned making that last out.

Mostly, Mr. Isaacs remembers the invincibility of the Yankees. Even though the Dodgers were considered the better team, especially during the early 1950s, the Yankees, through pitching and defense, still managed to win. "The term 'Bronx Bombers' was not the essence of the team," Mr. Isaacs said. "They had pitching and defense. They also made no mistakes."

The Yankees also had Casey Stengel as their manager. That was another great asset. "Stengel was terrific at managing a short series," he recalled. "In a playoff and World Series, you can't worry about hurting a guy's feelings. Stengel was big enough to do whatever he wanted." Which often meant benching certain players or taking them out at anytime in the game.

With interleague play, the Yankees and Mets aren't strangers to each other. Still a National League fan, Mr. Isaacs would root for the Mets in any new Subway Series; he also acknowledges that they match up well with the defending world champions. But he also notes that "Yankee history is overwhelming to me. They just win." There is that "Yankee factor," and also the fact that as with Stengel, the Yankees have a "very good manager" in Joe Torre.

Part of Mr. Isaacs' dislike for the Bronx Bombers is that "the Yankees are Steinbrenner," referring, of course, the impetuous owner of the team. George Steinbrenner, he added, "has been good this year" perhaps because "Torre's class has rubbed off on him." On the Mets side, Mr. Isaacs thinks slugger Mike Piazza remains a "tremendous liability" to the team as a catcher. "With Stengel or [Leo] Durocher, he'd be at first base," Mr. Isaacs said. "But [Mets manager Bobby] Valentine is not that secure to move Piazza." Whatever happens, the Mets remain a steady, resourceful ballclub, aided tremendously with the arrival of speedster Timo Perez as their new leadoff hitter.

The first Subway Series came in 1921, with the mighty New York Giants facing the upstart New York Yankees.

The Giants, led by John McGraw and Christy Mathewson, dominated New York baseball in the early years of the century. In 1919, the Yankees bought an ace hurler named Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox owner had financial problems stemming from the production of an unsuccessful Broadway play. To cover his losses, he sold his top player to the Yankees---a deal that no Red Sox fan needs to be reminded of. The Giants won the first two series between the two teams, but in 1923, the Yankees prevailed. That was their first year in Yankee Stadium. With Ruth, the Yankees were now the top draw in New York, even though they were mere tenants at the Polo Grounds. McGraw didn't like it and kicked the Yanks out of his Polo Grounds. So they just moved across the river to the House That Ruth Built, Yankee Stadium.

The next round took place in both 1936 and 1937, with the Giants and Yankees facing off again. With such greats as Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Bill Dickey the Yanks prevailed over a Giants team led by Hall of Famers Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell.

Nineteen forty one was the first of the great Subway Series games between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Yankees defeated the Dodgers, then managed by the brash Leo Durocher. That series was a painful memory for Dodger fans, mainly because of a dropped third strike by Dodger catcher Mickey Owen, which allowed the Yankees to stage a late-inning rally and steal a game from the Dodgers.

The decade after World War II represented the halcyon era of New York baseball. From 1947 to 1964, a New York team participated in every World Series, save two (1948 and 1959). From 1947 to 1956, there were seven Subway Series, all except one involving the Yankees and Dodgers. Even though the Yankees defeated the Giants in the 1951 World Series, that season was hardly a failure for the long-lost "Jints." The Giants won the pennant that year by defeating the Dodgers in a one-game playoff showdown decided by Bobby Thomson's famous ninth-inning home run, an afternoon that Mr. Isaacs calls "the most significant baseball game ever played."

The Yankee-Dodger series's featured numerous memorable moments: Floyd Bevins losing both a no-hitter and a game to the Dodgers in the ninth inning of a 1947 matchup; Al Gionfriddo's warning track catch of a DiMaggio shot in Yankee Stadium's canverous Death Valley also in the '47 series; Billy Martin's shoe-top catch of Jackie Robinson's infield pop-up to save the 1952 World Series; Sandy Amoros's stab of an opposite field liner by Yogi Berra to clinch the 1955 World Series; and the before-mentioned perfect game by Don Larsen---the only such game in series history. When Bobby Jones clinched the Mets playoff victory over the San Francisco Giants, it was with a one-hitter occurring 44 years to the date of Larsen's masterpiece.

Those Subway Series of yore attracted great attention, but New York back then was still a newspaper town. There were no cable television or radio talk shows. When the Yankees won world championships, they were not greeted with ticker tape parades down Broadway. The Yanks were expected to win. In 1955, the "Bums" finally defeated the Yankees to win their only world championship. As observers have recalled, life in Manhattan and the other boroughs went on as usual that day, but when one crossed the river to Brooklyn, the streets of the borough were full with happy fans, beginning a party that lasted into the night. Even the Dodger players celebrated at a hotel in Brooklyn, rather than at one in ritzy Manhattan.