“Being a Yankee meant something and still does,” Yogi Berra states in Marty Appel’s new book Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from before the Babe to after the Boss. Unlike most Yankee biographies that have been published, Appel’s book is a narrative history of the famous team with insights from some of baseball’s greatest legends.

“Baseball was my game, and I was always a Yankee fan,” Appel said. After going to the 1955 World Series and witnessing the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees, Appel felt bad that they lost and from then on followed the Bronx Bombers.

Appel, an Upper West Side resident, was promoted by Steinbrenner in the early 1970s and became the youngest public relations director in Major League Baseball. Working behind the scenes with the team, he witnessed history and became close with many former and current players.

“It was remarkable, like baseball cards coming to life,” Appel said.

His first job with the Yankees was answering Mickey Mantle’s fan mail during the late 1960s. He said at first he was shocked that Mantle even knew his name, but as his work for the team continued, the awe of being surrounded by stars faded and it became his profession.

Appel heard many stories from the players about World War II. “Some people may not know it, but Yogi Berra was the only MLB player to be at D-Day, and he described it like fireworks on the Fourth of July,” Appel noted.

During the war, he also learned, when fans attended games they were given instructions on where to take cover if they came under attack. “The directions were, ‘in the event of an air raid, the game is official if five innings have been played, and whichever team is leading is declared the winner,’” Appel said.

The famous and controversial George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees when he was 42 years old, and Appel worked for The Boss in his earliest days with the team.
“When he came to the Yankees, he was young, vibrant and at the top of his game. There were some days that would be frustrating because he was not quick to compliment, but history shows he was a winner and made the franchise what it is today.”

Appel said that even the most avid Yankee fan could learn something new from the book. “Many people do not know how important Jacob Ruppert was to the Yankees. He owned the team from 1915-1938 and developed the dynasty. Ruppert built the stadium and purchased Babe Ruth, but his importance is largely forgotten,” Appel explained.

Asked to pick his Yankee dream team, Appel dug deep from the rich history of the team, including Yogi Berra as catcher, Lou Gehrig at first base, Robinson Cano at second, Derek Jeter as short stop, Alex Rodriguez at third base as well as Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Joe Torre as the manager and Mariano Rivera as the closer.

The Upper West Side is part of Yankee history too. Appel explained that Babe Ruth spent much of his life here, residing at various addresses in the area, including an apartment on the seventh floor of 345 W. 88th St.

Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from before the Babe to after the Boss is now available in bookstores.

It looks like the baseball season is going to last more than a week for me. The season does go at least six months for all teams, but it’s tough to root for a “small-market” ball club once it gets to the point where the postseason appears to be a fantasy.

I used to root for a big market club, but then something changed. Not to me—to it. I didn’t switch teams, my team switched on me. The New York Mets still play in the largest market in Major League Baseball, but since the owners’ finances have been jeopardized by their dealings with Bernie Madoff, they’ve shown me and other Met fans what it’s like to root for a team in a small city, where big-money cable contracts are not possible.

The Mets entered the season with universal predictions of doom, but have defied them for now, coming out strong with three straight wins against a good team, the Atlanta Braves.

The pitching is exceeding expectations so far, and the new crop of young, homegrown players have started out well. Meaningful baseball for most of April appears assured.

If they can somehow make it to August, training camp for the football Giants will be in full swing. I’m constantly and pleasantly reminded of that by my toddler, who on an almost daily basis says, “J.P.P., Osi, Eli won the Super Bowl.”

By the summer, I’ll be able to push the Mets out of my mind if their cost-cutting ways catch up with them.

Does a true fan stay interested even when his team has no hope of going further? Maybe, but I have logged more than enough losing seasons with too many teams, and I just don’t have the time or motivation anymore. I also used to follow the Knicks (I still check in for things like Linsanity) and Rangers (perhaps they’d win me back with a trip to the Stanley Cup finals), as well as college basketball and football. I’m not sure where I found the time.

Back to the Mets. Unlike most fans, I was OK with them not re-signing Jose Reyes. As rare a talent as he is, he is typically not able to play a full season and is probably not worth the large contract he got with the Marlins. The problem is that the team had no ability or interest in using the Reyes savings to improve the team. The owners appear to have escaped the worst of the Madoff fallout, but they are not likely to convince fans that things have changed until they make a smart, budget-hurting baseball move.

Their predecessors brought me my first pain as a sports fan when they traded “The Franchise,” Tom Seaver, during a contract squabble.

The plight of Met fans now highlights the fundamental problem with baseball today: A majority of teams are made to be perennial longshots because they can’t compete with richer teams. It’s certainly possible for a low-budget team to win it all, but the field is not level.

The solution is obvious. If teams shared more revenue like the savvy, socialist billionaires who own NFL teams, it would generate broader fan interest and probably more revenue. Baseball owners would be wise to have a salary floor to insure small city teams didn’t pocket the riches from clubs like the Yankees.

Unfortunately, there is little chance owners would ever go for this, since they have always focused on artificial ways to limit how much they spend on players.

So Met fans are left to root for the team becoming a big market club again and for small joys this season, like, perhaps Wednesday night, when a recovered Johan Santana takes on the Nats’ ace, Stephen Strasburg.

Let’s go Mets. August isn’t that far away.

Josh Rogers, contributing editor at Manhattan Media, is a lifelong New Yorker. Follow him @JoshRogersNYC.

Ed Koch, Former mayor

• 2010 will be a good year for the stock market and those investing.
• It will be the year of marches in the streets of major cities demanding the troops be brought home.
• The Palestinian Authority will decide that it cannot defeat Israel militarily, nor injure it at the United Nations and get its way. They will decide to try negotiations with the Bibi Netanyahu government.
• President Obama, seeking to keep Jewish support in the next congressional election, will reach out to the Jewish community by demonstrating greater support for the State of Israel.
• President Obama, recognizing how angry the American public is that so few people who engaged in criminality to enrich themselves by bringing the American public to its knees financially, will tell Attorney General Eric Holder that his priority is to prosecute those criminals.

Jean Denoyer, Restaurateur (Orsay, Brasserie Ruhlmann, La Goulue):

• Meryl Streep will win an Oscar nomination for Julie & Julia.
• Pinot Noir will make a strong bid to surpass Merlot among red wines in America.
• France will win the soccer World Cup.
• New York’s job market will see significant growth in the second half.
• Simple, but healthy, food will dominate American plates.
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy will have a tough time executing plans for the most ambitious makeover of Paris in 150 years, which calls for expanding the City of Light to include the suburbs.

Joan Rivers, Comedienne, author, businesswoman, mom

• I think they’re going to definitely find Osama bin Laden at the January Bloomingdale’s white sale.
• Oscar wins: definitely Meryl Streep for Precious. Did you recognize her? I had no idea she played Precious. Even if you didn’t like her before, after seeing Precious you go, “She can do anything!”
• In January, Cher will meet and pursue another young man and, unfortunately, in August, I think she’ll realize it’s her son, Chaz. “Surprise! It’s me, mom.”
• Suri Cruise will find the identity of her real father.
• No matter how many people come out and say they slept with Tiger Woods, I predict he will never have sex with the women he works with, because female golfers only sleep with each other.
• The plane in the Hudson River: it will come out that the reason it didn’t sink was because it was floating on all the bodies they dump in the river.

Jonathan Miller, President and CEO of real estate appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel and co-founder of Miller Cicero, LLC, a commercial real estate advisory service

• Real estate will continue to try to find a bottom. Over the next year, we’re not anticipating unemployment to be resolved, we’re not anticipating the credit crunch as it relates to mortgage financing to be resolved, therefore we anticipate the housing market to move sideways—a modest erosion in price over the next year.
• The city has counted about 90 stalled projects in Manhattan and about 500 citywide—I anticipate that to rise in 2010. I see 2010 as a moving-sideways market, best case. I’m less bearish than I was six months ago, but I’m still bearish.
• I think that the Yankees, like the real estate market, it’s very possible that they’ll move sideways too, meaning a 28th World Series championship.

Beth Ostrosky Stern, Spokesperson for the Northshore Animal League America

• I predict (and hope!) that people will stop buying their pets from pet stores. This will finally end the puppy mill problem once and for all. Adopt a shelter pet today!
• I predict Howard Stern and his wife will adopt an adult cat from Northshore Animal League America in the new year.

Monica Blum, President of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District

• The business climate is going to improve. I think the restaurant climate will continue to be good. People are looking for value. Places that offer specials and solid food are going to be the places that do the best.

Alan Chartock, “Capitol Connection” columnist, president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette

• If the inept Democratic leadership of the “gang of how many” in the State Senate continues on their foolish ways, they will lose the Senate and endanger their ability to redistrict Senate districts in New York.
• Hiram Montserrat will do it again.
• David Paterson’s numbers will rise.
• George Pataki will NOT run for statewide office. John Faso will. He will moderate his anti-abortion rhetoric.
• Andrew Cuomo will run for governor and win. He will consider appointing a tabloid newsman who has been singing his praises as his director of communications.
• Two State Senators will be indicted. Ditto four Assemblymen—two from Brooklyn and two from the Bronx.
• Saturday Night Live will be censured by a prestigious school of journalism for making fun of the blind.

Linda Rosenthal, Assembly Member

• New York’s vacancy decontrol laws will finally be repealed (via my bill and one in the State Senate by Andrea Stewart-Cousins) and tenants’ rights will be strengthened.
• The next winner of the Intel/Westinghouse Science Talent Search will be a student from the Upper West Side.
• New Yorkers will no longer rank last in the survey of American happiness after they angrily refuse to participate in the 2010 poll.
• Rudy Giuliani will rid Rio de Janeiro of all crime and the former mayor will play himself in City of God III.

Ralph Vacchiano, sports writer for the Daily News

• Jets fans will gather for one big group cry Feb. 7 when their former quarterback, Brett Favre, leads the Vikings into Super Bowl XLIV. But their misery will be short-lived. Favre will lose (then retire, only to unretire a few months later) and the Jets, behind Favre’s replacement Mark Sanchez, will go 12-4 in 2010 and emerge as the favorites for Super Bowl XLV.
• Realizing their struggling lineup hasn’t hit a homerun in months, the Mets will move CitiField’s fences in 15 feet. It works, as David Wright finally hits his second and third homers in late August. Of course, the move also destroys the Mets’ thin pitching staff and the team falls out of the playoff chase by the end of the month.
• When the NBA free agent signing period opens in July, Mike Bloomberg steps down as New York City mayor and officially declares LeBron James the King and Supreme Ruler of the City. James gives a heart warming acceptance speech before 5 million people in downtown Manhattan. He then re-signs with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Knicks fold.

Jennifer J. Raab, president of Hunter College

• Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will continue urging universities to improve the quality of their education departments (I am proud that he has singled out Hunter’s School of Education as a role model).
• Congress will explore new ideas for raising K-12 standards.
• President Obama will press his goal of doubling college enrollments. The quality of schools is the key to American competitiveness, so look for 2010 to be a landmark year.
• In a shock to the entertainment world, Susan Boyle will become a U.S. citizen and take top honors in American Idol.

Malachy McCourt, “Sez I to Myself” columnist and writer

• It will be a great year for Republicans because all that’s needed for the triumph of evil is for some decent people to compromise their principles and to dither on doing good. Democrats, please note.

Phyllis Newman, Actress and women’s activist

• My prediction is that the whole city will be a mall of plastic furniture next year, a lot of beach chairs and umbrellas. I bet everybody will be on those bicycle things because the cars won’t be able to go anyplace.
• It’s possible that they’re going to quickly pass a law allowing gambling to get the city out of its financial problems, and Tavern on the Green will be the first casino.
• The Yankees will all have new girlfriends.

Dan Garodnick, Council Member

• Tishman Speyer will default on its Stuyvesant Town investment.
• There will be a line at Shake Shack when it opens its East 86th Street location.
• The Yankees will return to the World Series.

Jacqueline Ludorf, Chair of Community Board 8

• The economy will continue to deteriorate in New York City.
• The mayor will continue to cut community board budgets.
• The Second Avenue subway will continue to cause a decline in the quality of life for all neighborhoods affected.
• The Yankees will not win World Series in 2010.
• Andrew Cuomo will become governor.
• Republicans will regain the State Senate by a margin of one or two.
• “Tea Party” candidates will replace some Democratic members of Congress.