Not two games, mind you, but one. This doubleheader was enough for everyone -- Mets and Yankees included. Indeed, Jerry Manuel was only three minutes into his postgame interview session when he jumped out of his chair and started toward the door. 

"I'm tired," Manuel said. "I'll see y'all tomorrow."

On the other side -- the winning side -- Joe Girardi was faced with roster decisions, given that Sidney Ponson pitched well enough to earn another start. 

But roster decisions are rarely fun at midnight.

"It's been kind of a long day," Girardi said. "I'm just going to go home and sleep, and we'll make some decisions from there." 

No free time, but no one's complaining. The Yankees and Mets both felt that something was missing from this day, because they both felt they could have played vastly better -- the Yankees in the afternoon, and the Mets at night.

But for the fans, this day couldn't be beat. Two games, one each in Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. This was history. This will never happen again.

Let's talk about the Yankees, who are cruising to victory in this game and seem healthier than they have at any point this year. Despite their blowout loss in Friday's day game -- and we'll just forget about that one -- the Yankees have suddenly placed themselves in contention. They're doing it with Sidney Ponson, for goodness sake. It's going to take work to make the playoffs, but somehow, they're in a legitimate position to get there. 

Let's talk about the Mets, who won the day game in convincing fashion, and due to a string of Phillies losses and one minor miracle, also remain in playoff contention. They did it today with Carlos Delgado, whose bat they desperately need to rediscover. And a week from now they'll head to Philadelphia, perhaps to reclaim the division lead.

Seems this dual-stadium doubleheader is more than just a flashy gimmick, more than a way to get fans bantering back and forth at the ballpark. There was chanting, sure -- there still is up high in the stadium, even now with the second game all but decided. But these games are significant, and neither team distinguished itself today. 

One step forward for the Mets, and one step back.

One step back for the Yankees, and one step forward. 

So let's talk about the future for these teams, and most specifically, these next two games. The Yankees and Mets are pitting perhaps their hottest pitchers against each other on Saturday, with Andy Pettitte starting opposite Johan Santana. Then it's perhaps their coldest starters on Sunday, with Darrell Rasner countering Oliver Perez. Both games are evenly matched. A split seems plausible.

But each team desperately wants to win both.

In Flushing, the first sight off the Subway is Citi Field, the nearly-complete future home of the Mets. Its brick exterior is humble in ways that the new Yankee Stadium is not, and homely in ways of which the old Shea Stadium could never dream. Modeled after Ebbets Field, former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Citi Field is an upgrade from Shea in every way but size. And that's just how the Mets want it. 

Those two parks will house the Yankees and Mets, respectively, next year, and workers are continuing to prepare them throughout the summer. So this season has become something of a farewell tour for Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, and this weekend's Subway Series has come to punctuate that farewell.

Never again will these two teams play at Yankee Stadium -- barring a World Series -- and after this weekend, never again will they play at Shea. So when Joe Girardi called this an "unusual" weekend, he wasn't kidding. 

It will never happen again. What a sobering thought.

The way the Yankees played during the first game of this doubleheader, Girardi might not want it to ever happen again. But both teams seem crisper in the nightcap, with the Yankees cracking a scoreless tie by touching Pedro Martinez for two runs in the fourth. I'm watching it all from the press box, just having polished off a roasted turkey sub from Mama's of Corona -- bar none the best concessions at Shea.

Twelve innings down, six innings to go. If not more.

Of course, there were further complications. There always are underground, where I took the No. 4 train to Grand Central Station, then hooked up with the No. 7 train out to Flushing. The first leg wasn't bad -- it really wasn't -- but the second train was packed with people. Some of them commuting home from work, some heading out of town for the weekend, others still doing the same thing I was doing.

Luckily, there was relief at the end in a curious form: pudding. Kozy Shack pudding was handing out miniature cups of its product, and I made sure to swerve in line and get one. Not a bad reward for forty-seven minutes. Then again, neither is baseball.

"Not a good start," one of them said. 

Not for the Yankees. Not after this nine-run blowout.

Good thing there's a whole game left to play. 

Idling just outside Yankee Stadium's player entrance is a small army of sleek white buses, waiting to transport this whole operation over the Triborough Bridge. A relatively speedy few innings helped to move this game along, and there's another police escort lying in wait. But to get to Shea Stadium in time for Friday's nightcap, the Yankees and Mets still must battle rush-hour traffic. On a Friday. In the summer.

Both teams are set to jump in those buses only 20 minutes after the final pitch, and get set for a (somewhat) fresh start at Shea.

We're four hours in, and we're not even half done. Time to strap in.

Good thing the park itself has its own fine selection of food. Besides the standard fare -- Nathan's hot dogs are among the best in the game -- Yankee Stadium boasts some unique sandwich shops, including a Goya stand that serves hot Cuban sandwiches and a Carl's Steaks shop that doles out fresh cheese steaks. There's an Arthur Avenue stand for those in need of a good Italian sub, and if all else fails, the chicken fingers rarely disappoint. 

The food runs a bit pricey -- $4 for a pretzel, $9.50 for a beer and $10 for a chicken finger basket add up -- but the portions are large.

So glancing at the scoreboard and realizing that the Yankees and Mets needed more than two hours to complete five innings, I thought some more food might be necessary. But then I remembered what Jerry Manuel said before the game -- fans (and apparently not food) create the energy. 

"There's no question that these people, these fans in this city -- regardless of who's tired, who's not tired, who's fatigued -- they don't care," Manuel said. "They're looking for a performance from both Yankees and Mets, and hopefully we can give it to them."

I'm not so sure this was the performance Manuel had in mind. More than two and a half hours in, the Yankees and Mets are still stuck in the top of the sixth inning. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Less than four hours until the scheduled first pitch at Shea Stadium -- at this rate, we might not make it in time.

The sun has yet to shine on Yankee Stadium this afternoon, which could spell bad news for Friday's dual-stadium doubleheader. Transporting thousands of fans, two teams and one media horde from the Bronx to Queens is no easy task. Doing it on the heels of a rain delay is something entirely different. 

Not that anybody's resigned to a delay just yet. Though forecasts call for scattered thunderstorms throughout this afternoon and evening, there's hope that both games will go off without a hitch. The first game started on time. Consider that an omen.

Nearly all of Friday afternoon's fans have already streamed into Yankee Stadium -- some of them cashing in rain checks from May's postponed game, some of them attending on the good graces of their friends, many of them discreetly skipping work. 

Some held umbrellas. Others didn't.

Some looked up to the gray sky and frowned. Others didn't. 

While all this was taking place, however, one particularly boisterous group of Yankee fans slowly began clapping, then humming and whooping in time. They taunted a Mets fan as he passed, then yelled louder as they tried to drown out his cries of "Go Mets!"

Forget the weather. The Subway Series had begun.

Mets interim manager Jerry Manuel knows all about rivalries like these, having managed the White Sox for six full seasons. Those years included quite a few trips to Wrigley Field, including one instance when he walked in through an outfield gate to face the full wrath of Cubs fans. 

Manuel laughed on Friday, recalling the scene.

Yet those games were different -- Chicago is not New York, after all -- and Manuel knows that this time, he's in for an entirely different experience. He's seen it in the past as a bench coach, and now he's prepared to see it as a manager. 

"The intensity is different to a degree," Manuel said. "This is probably a more visible stage. Chicago was kind of like a backyard deal."

Manuel said that perhaps the rivalry has softened between the players themselves, with so many of them shuffling between clubs in this era of free agency. But then again, among the current Yankees and Mets, only Andy Phillips has spent time on the rosters of both teams. And even he has never played a game for the Mets -- he just signed Wednesday.

But the fans -- now they care about this rivalry, even if the players don't. These New Yorkers grew up Yankees and Mets fans, and they'll remain so for the rest of their lives. All of which Manuel knows, causing him to offer a pointed warning before Friday's first game: 

"You have to perform in New York," he said. "Period."

"It's not going to change it," Girardi said, "but I don't understand it."

Perhaps most affected was Dan Giese, who may have been called upon to pitch in Thursday's game had play ever resumed. That would have created its own set of problems, but instead, the game was called. Giese remained the man for Friday. 

Problems, problems, problems. But even so, this whole atmosphere isn't lost on Girardi. Between his sleeplessness and his roster machinations -- is Hideki Matsui going to the DL or isn't he? -- Girardi knows that the fans who love him and the fans who hate him will all be coming out today. And that alone should help every Yankee and Met make it through this exhausting day.

"I think the energy level from the fans will be helpful," Girardi said. "There's a buzz around the series -- always."

Peculiar? Yes. Contentious? Not quite. 

Now, these clubs are back in the same town on the same day -- but this time, it's in New York, and this time, these 47-year rivals will be battling each other. Precisely one week shy of the Fourth of July, fireworks sit ready to launch in Queens and the Bronx.

This latest doubleheader, the third dual-stadium doubleheader in this rivalry's history, came about when a Subway Series game was rained out back in May. To reschedule without conflict, the Yankees and Mets decided to play an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium, followed by the regularly scheduled night game at Shea. And so the city is set for another bi-borough doubleheader, following similar circumstances in 2000 and 2003. 

The Yankees, for history's sake, swept all four of those games. And they come into this series in markedly better shape than the Mets, who last week dismissed their manager and remain a game under .500.

But don't let any apparent lopsidedness fool you. Probable pitchers for the Mets include perhaps their hottest starter, Mike Pelfrey, and easily their most legendary starter, Pedro Martinez. For the Yankees, it's Dan Giese and Sidney Ponson, two right-handers who weren't even on the roster the last time these two teams met. 

So fiddle with the formulas, solve the equations, and try to figure this Subway Series -- one that's critical for both teams. The Mets need to find an edge. The Yankees need to keep their edge. And neither team can afford a sweep.

As for me, I'm jumping on the No. 4 train up to Yankee Stadium, where Giese and Pelfrey are set to kick things off just after 2 p.m. It's Friday, it's summertime and it's double the baseball. Tough to argue with a combination like that.

"You can't compare them because they're so different," he said. "You have one of the oldest stadiums there, and you have a new stadium here. These new stadiums are nice because of the technology, there's so much open area, you can see everything that's going on. But Wrigley Field -- it's old school, it's classic. You can't get that anymore."

No, you can't. And who knows when we'll be able to see something like this again, with both New York teams playing in Chicago on the same day. Botsaris, here with two of his childhood friends from Flushing, holds allegiance with the Mets. And while he couldn't decide which Chicago stadium he preferred, Justin Stein, 22, also of Flushing, knew right away.

"I feel like Wrigley's got a better atmosphere because it's more like New York," he said. "Everyone's fighting in the stands, but in a light-hearted manner."

Rooting for the Yankees to lose on the South Side, Stein and his friends found a better reception than they did at Wrigley, where Mets jerseys often draw some attention. And so they earned their fair share of stares all afternoon, returning most of them with a joke or a smirk.

"We're New Yorkers," Stein said. "We're obnoxious. Sorry."

So that's it. The Yankees won, the Mets lost, and all of these New Yorkers will soon head back east. Me, I'll be doing the same, with a whole new set of baseball experiences under my belt. Covering the game for the past two years, I've never felt so close to the pulse of a city. Forget the Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks. Chicago is a baseball town.

And I guess there is more to Chicago than deep dish pizza -- in three days here, I never even tried a slice. But I've ridden the "L" train, walked down the Magnificent Mile, hung out at the Cubby Bear and sat in two different sets of bleachers. Not bad for a day's work.

Still, it's a foreign city -- to me, it probably always will be. And so perhaps Botsaris, peering out at U.S. Cellular Field from behind its towering center field wall, put it best.

"Amazing," he said. "That's it. Nothing else is like New York -- but Chicago's close."

"I try to pick up souvenirs and stuff like that for my bar," Clancy said. "When people come in, you try to put up something that will remind them of what they're used to."

Clancy is the owner of Foley's Pub in midtown Manhattan -- yes, the same Foley's that famously banned "Danny Boy" earlier this year. Despite that, Foley's remains better known as a baseball bar, with paraphernalia from so many teams hanging on the walls. Over the years, Clancy has traveled to nearly 40 Major League stadiums in search of his loot, so he wasn't about to miss a chance to see two New York teams in the same city.

"Things like this don't happen too often," Clancy said. "When you get a chance to do something like this, you do it."

"Kick him out!" a fellow Sox fan chimed in from the concourse. "This ain't Wrigley."

Indeed it wasn't. In fact, U.S. Cellular has almost nothing in common with Wrigley -- and that includes the food. While hot dogs and pretzels are the norm up north, the South Side boasts an entirely different set of options. This park doesn't just have an ice cream stand -- it has one that sells frozen bananas root beer floats. It doesn't just have a beer stand, but one that sells more than 10 different beers from various parts of the world.

There are stands that sell steak sandwiches, some that sell corned beef sandwiches and others that peddle BBQ brisket. There are stands that sell funnel cakes and corn dogs, and a few more that sell mixed drinks and margaritas. Options are everywhere.

After much debate and an entire lap around the stadium, I finally settled on a grilled chicken sandwich, curly fries and -- to keep my figure nice and trim -- a Mexican-style churro for dessert. The prices here, like at Wrigley, weren't too unreasonable, either.

What caught my eye even more than the food, however, was the sheer number of Yankees fans in attendance. Don't get me wrong -- the Mets were well-represented at Wrigley, too. But Yankee fans seem to travel as well as any in baseball, and tonight was no exception -- despite the game taking place nearly 800 miles west of the Bronx.

Then again, as one Yankee fan noted, "We don't need to travel. Enough of us live here."

The toughest part of the journey, in fact, was the hundred yards or so between the press gate at Wrigley and the steps up to Addison Station. Blocked by a line of buses on one side and a brick wall on the other, I shimmied my way toward the "L" amidst a sea of Cubs fans -- most of them singing, some of them screaming, nearly all of them happy.

With the line crawling slower than my patience could endure, I ducked around a corner and into a back entrance, which I had used earlier in the morning. Seemed smart, until I ran into another wall of Cubs fans as soon as I hit the stairs. There was no avoiding this.

So instead I waited in line like everyone else, eventually making my way toward the front, where station workers were collecting cash, and -- more importantly for my sake -- helping people to swipe their fare cards the correct way. This time, they must have seen me coming.

The train arrived without delay, soon heading back underground and popping out on the South Side half an hour later. Back in one of the last cars on the train, I even found a seat -- nearly everyone did -- and within 35 minutes we had arrived at 35th Street, the site of U.S. Cellular Field and the second half of Tuesday's Chicago doubleheader.

The difference between this park and Wrigley Field was instantly telling. Here, there were no bars, no pubs, no taverns. Save for a stray tailgate party or two, there weren't even many fans loitering about, most of them either heading toward the wide meeting area behind home plate or already milling into the park. Game time was still more than an hour away.

Certainly, this is baseball with a different pulse and a different personality. That's not to say it's better or worse -- after all, Chicago residents have argued that much for over a century. From my perspective it's still baseball, which on this night is all that really mattered.

As I was admiring those makeshift bleacher seats, a Cubs fan sitting in the last row of the real bleachers called out to a small boy, decked out in Cubs gear and walking below. 

"Hey buddy, guess what?" he said.

The child looked up, but said nothing. 

"Go Cubs!" the man yelled.

The child grinned.

Not everyone was in such a cheerful mood, however -- especially not after the Cubs piled on four more runs in the eighth inning to take an 8-1 lead. One group of Mets fans clung to a railing behind some box seats, hanging on every pitch of the late Cubs rally. When shortstop Ronny Cedeno blasted a grand slam to all but put the Mets away, Korrin Martin, 28, of Kenosha, Wisc., dropped to her knees, while her friend, Rob Piparo, 29, of New Brunswick, N.J., walked over to a pair of Cubs fans and solemnly shook their hands.

"I was kind of mad at him for that," Martin said. "You don't want to do that if you're a real Mets fan." 

For any Mets fans -- real or not -- the eventual 8-1 loss may not have been the ending that they anticipated, but it still couldn't completely spoil the fun. Not here. Not in Wrigley.

"I don't care," Piparo said. "This is like a heaven of baseball. I came here last night, too, and I felt like a little kid. It's like a cathedral. I don't even care if the Mets win or lose, it's just great to come out here." 

Now, with the game having ended and the fans spilling out onto the street, it's time for me to climb back up to Addison Station and head on over to U.S. Cellular Field.

There's still plenty more baseball to come.