020408 Shea's New Pork Eats A Home Run

Buy me some peanuts, a pork sandwich and some real New York pizza. I don't care if I need an antacid.

That's the new refrain to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" that Met fans will start singing as Opening Day fans get to feast their eyes (and at least one other principal organ system) on the greatest improvement at Shea Stadium since the Mets signed Mike Piazza.

Instead of wan hot dogs or pallid chicken fingers, fans at Shea can now get a pork sandwich from Mama's, the best deli in the city, or a personal pizza from Cascarino's, whose brick-oven pies are known the world over (or at least from Bayside to Maspeth). This is no minor enhancement. This is bigger than Mo Vaughn. Now fans can enjoy the same food that Met players have been gobbling for years in their postgame feasts.

The Mets and Shea's caterer, Aramark, could not have picked better representatives to provide what team Vice President Dave Howard calls "a taste of Queens." To eat a Mama's pork sandwich is to be admitted to heaven one bite at a time. (Do they let you into heaven with mozzarella dripping down your chin?) To eat Cascarino's pizza is to be reminded that what they're serving at Sbarro's or Domino's is as close to real New York pizza as a ground ball is to a home run.

The other day at Mama's, the DeBenedittis sisters - Irene, Marie and Carmela, Met fans all - were making last-minute arrangements, which is hard to do when the lunch rush starts at 10:30 and doesn't let up until 3.

"Our customers are very excited because they're all Met fans," said Irene DeBenedittis, whose grandfather Frank Leo opened the shop in then-Italian Corona 70 years ago.

The entire shop is covered with Met hats, posters and signed photos. Meanwhile, in College Point, Rob Cascarino felt confident that weeks of preparation have paid off.

"You have no idea how much testing we did with the pizza ovens at Shea," he said. "We got it perfectly. Met fans will finally get to taste real New York pizza at the game."

Game? Oh, yeah, the GAME. Let's go (burp), Mets.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com