"I grew up poor," DeJesus says. "But I was meant for something bigger than working in a mail room." If the stock exchange still seems occasionally baffling to him, so much the better for NYSE. "I started playing softball so that I could work out some of my frustrations on the opposing team," he says.

This year, DeJesus is hitting the ball as hard and as far as anyone in the league. In fact, he's so pleased with his game that he's planning to join an amateur hardball league next season -- just to get a little taste of his old major-league dream. But he's not about to turn his back on the team that has, in just two seasons, begun to feel like home, albeit one with some extremely pointed dinner-table conversation.

"We do go at each other," concedes DeJesus. "But these guys would be there for me if I needed help, and I'd be there for them -- kind of like family."

Manager-Reporter Fred Tufariello

Tufariello, who records trades for the New York Stock Exchange, once drove away a first-rate player because he didn't seem like NYSE family. That is, he didn't get the jokes. "It was the way he said, 'I take this game very seriously,' " the manager recalls. "So I took him out of the game to see how he'd react -- and he never came back." Some guys, Tufariello concludes, just haven't learned the Wall Street trick of using humor to lighten up a high-stakes game. Fagan agrees: "You can get into trouble if you take it too seriously."

Tufariello often says things like "There's no 'I' in team," some variation of which has probably been heard by anyone who's ever played a team sport. But you don't necessarily expect that the old call to selfless team play will be well-received by those who work on the Street, which is, after all, the personification of ego and greed.

But any Gordon Gekkos -- the fund managers and traders who try to beat the market -- are "upstairs." The guys down on the floor, no matter how much money they may make, are the ones who work to keep the market humming. They're the ones who, in less than a minute, routinely execute client-to-clerk-to-broker trades -- the Street's version of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.

As any veteran investor knows, skill and timing are critical to a market-beating performance, but a little luck never hurts. After defeating Atlantic Mutual, NYSE draws a bye for its fourth game. Its nemesis, Banque Parabas, drops two games and never gets to the finals. Instead, NYSE faces a Dean Witter team that has exhausted itself by squeaking past Morgan Stanley earlier in the evening. Final score: NYSE 16, Dean Witter 2.

After the game, 34-year-old outfielder-clerk Mike "Dirt" Dreitlein limps to a nearby bodega for a couple of cases of Budweiser -- the team's reward for winning the series. The guys stand around the empty ball field, drinking Bud and feeling like a million bucks. For NYSE, it's been a bullish year on Wall Street and at Mary Benson Field. Best of all, nobody's thinking about work.

Joseph Hooper (spauldifan@aol.com) writes regularly for "Civilization," "Men's Journal," and the "New York Observer."

Action Item: Top of the First

To organize a company softball team, start with the Amateur Softball Association of America Inc. The ASA's 4.5 million members make it the largest and the most influential of all the softball-sanctioning organizations. Visit its Web site for the nearest ASA regional office, which will provide you with contact information on the local leagues. The ASA's site can also help you keep up with local and national tournaments, coaching and umpiring clinics, and the finer points of snagging uniforms and getting a decent deal on insurance.

Coordinates: ASA, www.softball.org

Sidebar: Batter Up!

Each spring, serious softballers make the pilgrimage to a local sporting-goods store to shell out $200 to $300 for a high-tech aluminum bat. As we head into a new season, here's what they can expect to find.

DeMarini (www.demarini.com) ignited the rage for expensive, exotic bats in the early 1990s, when it introduced its double-wall model, which is basically a bat within a bat. Its high-grade aluminum outer shell absorbs most of the impact. Both walls spring back in concert, helping to drive the ball off the bat.

DeMarini's newest line of bats feature carbon fibers in the barrel that enhance durability. These bats, which include DeMarini's top-end Double Wall Fatboy, retail for around $250.

In the past couple of years, Worth Inc. (www.worthsports.com) has stolen some of DeMarini's thunder with its own double-wall models, most recently its line of EST (exterior-shell technology) bats. Worth's EST 5 retails for around $250. Its brand-new PST (powdered-shell technology), which features an outer shell made from a powdered-metal mix, hits the market in a limited edition for about $500.