The Moment happened quickly, at a time when there were a thousand and one different emotions swirling in the muggy airspace of Citi Field, a thousand and one thoughts bouncing around its sharp corners and fine edges.
Matt Harvey had just thrown a batch of filthy sliders at Miguel Cabrera, the best hitter on the planet, and as Cabrera took a mighty, empty swing at strike three, the lion’s share of 45,186 exploded in delight. Harvey had started this 84th All-Star Game shakily, allowing a double to Mike Trout on his first pitch and watching a 96-mph fastball come too far inside on Robinson Cano with his third.
Cano had tried rubbing the pain out of his right leg, had moved on to first base, cautiously had taken his lead during Cabrera’s at-bat. But now, just as the roar began to die down, Cano waved his arms, asked for time, started to walk off the base. And suddenly, what had seemed an unfortunate accident started to take on an entirely different air.
“Obviously,” Harvey would say later, “the last thing I wanted to do there was possibly injure somebody.”
Especially somebody wearing a Yankees uniform.
Especially the best player who presently wears a Yankees uniform.
“I know,” Cano would say, “that he doesn’t want to hit anybody.”
That’s why The Moment was so important. We know all about the Mets-Yankees rivalry, the way it lights up the city, the way the World Series in 2000 still represents the sport’s high-level mark in this town post-Eisenhower, the way the city’s baseball fans engage in (mostly) civil disagreement and yearlong debate.
We also have seen its darkest side, too. We saw Roger Clemens throw a baseball at Mike Piazza’s head in July 2000, and throw a bat at him in October of that year. And we saw the farcical way it took nearly two full years for the Mets to chase their revenge, Shawn Estes clumsily settling all family business by throwing a ball a foot behind Clemens at old Shea.
Logic said the same thing both players would later on. But logic doesn’t always apply when the Mets and the Yankees share a baseball field. For Mets fans who’ve invested so much in every Harvey pitch, it looked like the start of a hazardous first inning. And for Yankees fans who have seen the home clubhouse become the 4077th M*A*S*H this year, it was a horrifying sight seeing Cano rubbing — what? His quadriceps? His hamstring? His knee?
And now he was leaving the field. And as he did, Harvey called his name.
Pointed to his chest.
Said, “My bad.”
“No problem,” Cano said.
And it was at that moment that the city could breathe again. Soon enough, Cano would get his leg X-rayed and it would come back negative, only a contusion of the quad. He would get a ride from the interview room in a golf cart, Club Car No. 2, and he would be wearing a thick wrap on his right leg and enemy colors — orange shorts — and he would smile his trademark bashful smile.
“Just part of the game,” Cano said. Will he be ready to play Friday, in Boston, against the Red Sox? “I think so,” he said, and as he did you could hear general manager Brian Cashman, manager Joe Girardi and a few million other interested members of the Yankees party exhale again.
Harvey? Well, hitting Cano clearly bothered him — “When [catcher Yadier Molina] called for a fastball in I knew I had to get it inside. But not that much inside” — but then he ripped through the next six hitters, striking out three of them, hitting 99 on the stadium gun a couple of times.
“Ninety-nine in the first inning,” Torii Hunter said. “That’s not fair.”
“This whole experience has been absolutely incredible for me,” Harvey said. “Something I’ll never forget.”
Later, the night would belong to Mariano Rivera, Rivera doing what in almost every instance is impossible: uniting Mets fans and Yankees fans, who together saluted him as he stood, alone, on the pitcher’s mound, a whole stadium growing dusty, Mets and Yankees fans together. Then he went 1-2-3 through the National League, maybe the most memorable hold in baseball history, and everyone on both sides of the divide stood as one again.
A reminder of how much fun the baseball summer is supposed to be. Especially when a civil disturbance is avoided.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com