Hardball Softball

At work, Fagan takes on the same zealous, almost predatory precision. Orders for hundreds of thousands of shares give him the latitude to work the market for the best price. The extra quarter or half point that he can squeeze out of a trade keeps the client happy and the commissions coming.

But executing trades gets a little hairier when Alan Greenspan hints at a change in interest rates, Fagan says. "Then the phones start ringing, and guys start screaming, and you have to be in 10 different places at once."

Even during a low-volume session, the floor is a big outlet for competitive aggression. The other day, his broker pal Clancy had passed around some snapshots of Fagan sunbathing at his weekend cabin in the Poconos. Fagan confronted him in the middle of the floor. Clerks from both of their firms circled around the trash-talking combatants, as if this were some kind of Wall Street rumble. "He won today," Fagan admitted later with a rueful smile. "But I'll get him back."

Compared to this, life outside stocks and softball can start to feel as though it's going in slow motion. "You get used to the pace, and then you can't slow down," Fagan says. "I'm here for the rest of my life." He's talking about his career as a broker. But he might die with his spikes on, if Tufariello has his way.

Catcher-Clerk Anthony Balestrieri

By the fifth inning of this seven-inning game, NYSE's bats still haven't ignited, and after walking two batters, Fagan seems to be faltering. But then he changes his strategy: Instead of trying to overpower hitters, he throws hittable balls and lets his team's defense do the work.

Anchoring that defense is 31-year-old Anthony "Bam-Bam" Balestrieri, a clerk at Gerard Klauer Mattison. This squat, bighearted guy looks as if he was made to be a catcher. "The pitcher controls the game," Balestrieri says. "I control the field. Once the ball is in play, I'm up, mask off, yelling at somebody and directing the defense."

For Balestrieri, life on the floor of the stock exchange isn't much different. A clerk must relay numbers succinctly, without getting his signals crossed -- ever. Somewhere in the city, a trader takes the client's order and phones it in to Balestrieri, who then beeps, nods, or yells to the broker to pick up the order. Clerks must use split-second timing to get orders into brokers' hands; three minutes is often considered way too long.

If Balestrieri wore a catcher's mask at work, it would come off whenever the volume heated up. That's when a clerk has to make a split-second call: whether to pass the order to his broker, who may be hopelessly swamped, or to give it to a broker like Jimi Fagan, who works for an independent house and handles the extra business for a commission. Fellow clerk and third baseman Cono Corvino, 36, overstates the case only a little when he says, "A broker is only as good as his clerk makes him out to be."

Balestrieri, a tough kid from Staten Island who never finished college, is happy with the role he's grown into -- a stand-up guy who makes everyone else play better. On the field, being the catcher and team leader has its own rewards: In the past eight years, Balestrieri has helped lead the team to two world-series titles. But on the floor, being a clerk means waiting for years -- maybe even forever -- before getting promoted to broker and earning the big bucks. "That's what I'm striving for," says Balestrieri.

Shortstop-Clerk Eddie DeJesus

Finally, in the sixth inning, shortstop Eddie DeJesus -- one of the team's few power hitters -- drills a ball toward the turnpike and over the outfield fence. That solo shot delivers the insurance run that the team desperately needs. Fagan closes down Atlantic Mutual in the top of the seventh, and NYSE prevails. The score: 3 - 1.

DeJesus, just a second-year man (on the team and at work), had the patience to wait for his pitch. "A pitcher is bound to give you one pitch," he says. "If I'm looking for it, chances are I'll hit it."

At six feet, two inches and a muscular 200 pounds, the 27-year-old shortstop has the look of a major leaguer. In fact, DeJesus is the only player on the team who ever seriously considered going pro. As a high-school phenom in Spanish Harlem, he caught the eye of a major-league scout. But, because of an injury, DeJesus chose to go to community college, where he also played ball. He later tried out for the Mets, among a group of youthful contenders. But despite his strong tryout, no one waved a contract at him. "If you're not inside a professional organization by the time you're 21," says DeJesus, "you might as well look for another career."

Two years ago, a friend who worked at the stock exchange helped DeJesus snag a job as a page, running buy and sell orders from the brokers to their clerk-staffed stations on the floor. "That's the bottom of the food chain," he says. Nothing had quite prepared him for that rough-and-tumble world. But he hustled and fought off the urge to quit. And now he has been promoted to clerk at Wagner Stott Mercator -- a significant step up.