YANKS OK, EVEN IN L.A.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Suppose you came of age as a baseball fan in Los Angeles in the 1970s, when ``good'' was summed up in the names Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey and ``evil'' wore New York Yankees pinstripes.

You might be feeling a little bit conflicted right about now.

Suppose one of your happiest memories is the afternoon at Dodger Stadium (bring back the old days when they played World Series games in sunlight) when you and Dad watched Don Sutton and Steve Yeager destroy the Yankees to prevent the bad men from celebrating the 1977 championship on hallowed turf.

It might feel strange to find yourself rooting for the Yankees these days to dig in against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Suppose one of your lowest moments came two nights later when you watched on TV, probably twisting your mesh-backed Dodgers cap into knots, as Reggie Jackson's three home runs sent New York - worse, Howard Cosell - into ecstasy.

Your change of heart is pretty hard to explain.

Or is it?

This is for every old Dodgers fan who sees a nation rooting for the Yankees for the sake of post-Sept. 11 New York, who wants to get on board with baseball's modern dynasty, who can't help appreciating the way the Yankees play the game, yet can't bring himself or herself to cheer for those bleeping guys.

The Yankee-hating instinct goes back to the 1940s and '50s, when the Yankees denied the Brooklyn Dodgers in five World Series before the Bums got theirs in '55. It goes back to the 1960s, when Sandy Koufax, Johnny Podres and Don Drysdale busted up the last of the legendary Yankees in Los Angeles' '63 sweep. It goes back to the 1970s, when George Steinbrenner's store-bought Yankees frustrated the Dodgers in '77 and '78. It goes back to 1981, when the Dodgers avenged those defeats and Steinbrenner wouldn't give them credit, issuing a sour-grapes apology to his team's fans for its poor performance.

For us, pinstripes didn't conjure up the dynasties of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, or of Joe DiMaggio and Casey Stengel, or of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Pinstripes meant prima donnas like Reggie, bullies like Thurman Munson and mercenaries like Goose Gossage - all getting the better of paragons of virtue like (ho ho) Steve Garvey.

How do you stop worrying and learn to love the Yanks?

It's easy, really, if you concentrate not on the uniforms but on the incredible difference between those Yanks and these Yanks.

Baseball players, sort of like people, can be judged by their actions in unscripted moments.

In the one-of-a-kind play that summed up the Yankees of the 1970s, Reggie thrust a hip into the path of a double-play throw by Bill Russell and changed the course of the ball, the game and the '78 World Series.

Pure, cold-hearted, street-wise cheating.

In the one-of-a-kind play that sums up the Yankees of 2001, Derek Jeter anticipated Shane Spencer's overthrow, hustled across the diamond after the bouncing ball and flipped it to the plate to head off a game-tying run and altered the course of the first-round playoff series against Oakland.

Simple, heads-up baseball.

Baseball teams can be judged by their leaders.

In the '70s, after Yankees playoff victories, manager Billy Martin went looking for a bar, for somebody to belt, for a way to get himself fired.

In 2001, manager Joe Torre goes looking for the mayor, so His Honor can share in the celebration.

Baseball teams take time to acquire a collective character.

The Yankees of the '70s came together too quickly for our purist tastes, the first and best to take advantage of the new free-agent system.

The Yankees of 2001 are the products of a decade of building, tinkering and learning, the embodiment of the proud notion that baseball is a game of acquired skill and synergy.

Baseball teams adopt the images of the cities they represent.

The New York of the 1970s was bankrupt, in ways that went beyond its mere financial condition, a cesspool of lawlessness and cynicism. The ``Bronx Zoo'' Yankees personified that New York.

The New York of 2001 is a plucky victim, a well of hard-tested optimism and - Word of the Year - resolve. The FDNY-NYPD Yankees show the same spirit.

If, as we've almost come to expect, they rally from this 0-2 deficit to become the third Yankees team (the third major-league team overall) with four consecutive World Series titles, they will not be the best of that elite group. To cite one statistic: Their regular-season winning percentage in these four years (.608) ranks behind the 1936-39 team's percentage (.664) and the 1949-53 team's best four-year run (.633, 1950-53).

But it will be the most likeable Yankees team, or maybe the first.

Even in L.A.?

Rooting for the Yankees in 2001 validates our hatred of the Yankees in the '70s.

Secretly, we feared the emotion we felt back then was not hatred but something uglier - envy. Now we know we detested those Yankees because, in contrast to their descendents, they really were detestable.

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The current New York Yankees dynasty is tough not to like, even if you bleed Dodger blue.Amy Sancetta/Associated Press