Down in the bowels of a 78-year old stadium, a light-blue line runs parallel to the walls, painted a darker blue. There are countless pock marks and divots in the wall from years of coats of paint laid on top of last year's coat. The sign back at the junction from the stairway read, "Yankees clubhouse," with an arrow pointing right and "Visitors clubhouse" with an arrow pointing left.

It is minutes before 10 a.m. on a Sunday and I am on my way to the Yankees locker room. As a devout Mets fan, I care little for the Yankees -- particularly the obnoxious, holier-than-thou fans they seem to attract like scum to a pond. But as someone with an intense respect for history and historical sites in particular, I feel the importance of the floor across which I stride. But the place itself helps. Around one corner -- not yet at the clubhouse door -- a quote hangs on the wall: "I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee." Joe DiMaggio.

A few more right and left turns -- the anticipation growing with each one -- and soon I see a security guard in a blazer at a podium. He smiles and writes down my name and affiliation on the log and then let me through. Ahead stands a Yankees employee there to open the clubhouse door for me. I thank him and walked in.

The air conditioning hits me first, then the soft blueish light of the room. Some recent top 40 pop hit plays softly on the speakers as I walk into a nearly empty Yankees clubhouse. Ron Coomer sits at his locker, and Shane Spencer has just walked in. The bullpen catcher is getting dressed and I see one reporter looking over some notes while standing near a column in the middle of the room -- right near the big interlocking "NY" in the center of the carpet. As I cross to the middle of the room myself, I look around and see Bernie Williams tucked away in his corner locker, watching me walk through.

In the center, I look left and see the bathroom, the Yankees logo etched in white on one mirror; it was the brightest part of the room. I turn and look left, down a side hallway where I figured the coaches' rooms were, and see another outer door open. In walks Derek Jeter. It is 10 a.m.

I could go on. I could write a detailed account of my morning, of the assignment I was on, of the story I am going to write. I could mention which players' butts I inadvertantly saw, and who has tattoos that you can't see under the uniform. But I was there in the capacity of a professional journalist, and there are some things to leave for those who belong there to know, and some things for me to have for myself.

Finished with my interviews, I walk out through the door I came in -- with Joe D's quote above it -- and down the ramp to the dugout. On the way, I pass another sign with a quote, this one from General Douglas MacArther: "There is no substitute for victory." I exit into the bright, warm sunshine of a Sunday morning in the Bronx.

Soon the press contingent follows, as does Yankees manager Joe Torre, who sits on the dugout bench as the reporters crowd around him. They ask questions, he answers, and the players stretch on the grass nearby. Soon the air is filled with the sounds of horsehide on leather -- balls hitting gloves as the players warm up their arms. Then they take the field, and bats soon connect with balls and send them flying around an empty stadium.

Soon it will be filled, but in the meantime, I watch closely as Jeter takes his cuts in the cage. He holds his hands high behind his head, dropping them down closer to his shoulders as the pitcher plants his foot and brings his arm around ... then -- BAM! -- Jeter's hands fly through the hitting zone, whipping the bat across the plate so fast you can't see anything more than a blur, and connecting with the ball, sending it deep to left-center and over the wall.

I watch batting practice, take a walk into the visitors clubhouse where the Red Sox are awaiting their turn for BP, and then watch from the third-base dugout as Boston hits. Toward the end of their session, I return to the Yankees' clubhouse to talk with a few players who were unavailable earlier, then make my way upstairs to the press box and await the start of the game.

It is a different feeling being on the inside. I felt it at Notre Dame, when I worked my first football game from the sidelines, entering Notre Dame Stadium early on a Saturday morning, the entire stadium occupied by merely 20 student managers who spent half an hour throwing a football around on the field in front of 60,000 empty seats. There's an air of anticipation in a venue that big when it is empty. I feel it this Sunday morning in the Bronx, too, so that by the time the game starts with 55,602 fans in the seats, the anticipation has become excitement.

But by the third, after I've watched the big hitters for both teams come to bat, my historical excitement has waned my Mets allegiance has returned, and I walk out even as some fans are still arriving.

But the drive back across the bridge into New Jersey is as enjoyable as the early morning crossing into New York, and for a day I am completely happy with my job.