A fed-up Yankees fan is suing the team he spent his life rooting for because they fielded juiced-up players and broke the promise of an honest game.
Matthew Mitchell wants exactly $221 – the price of tickets for five games he attended between 2002 and 2007.
The disgusted die-hard, a 30-year-old paralegal, filed a claim against his former favorite team last week in Brooklyn Small Claims Court.
“I look at it almost as a consumer fraud,” Mitchell said about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Major Leagues. “If I’m going to watch a baseball game, then I expect it to be real.”
The Fort Greene resident lost his faith in the Bombers after former Sen. George Mitchell’s probe, released on Dec. 13, revealed widespread use of steroids and human growth hormone by baseball players.
Twenty current and former Yankees were named in the report; aces Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were among them.
Since the report’s release, Pettitte admitted to being injected once with HGH, but Clemens has denied any illicit use of drugs.
“I feel that the Yankees and Major League Baseball knew about the steroids,” he said. “They didn’t want the bad reputation. They wanted to keep fans coming.”
The Yankees declined to comment.
One of those ducats was for Game 2 of the 2003 World Series, in which Pettitte pitched the Yankees to a win.
Another ticket was for an interleague game between the San Francisco Giants and the Yanks on June 8, 2002. That day, he said, reputed juicer Barry Bonds hit one of the longest homers ever seen in Yankee Stadium.
Matthew Mitchell grew up in Chappaqua, NY, just a 40-minute drive from the House that Ruth Built. His first time at the stadium was for a game against the Cleveland Indians in 1984. When he attended the University of Alabama, the die-hard fan would catch games on his car’s radio.
“I used to listen to games in the parking lot because I was able to pick up 880 [WCBS],” he said nostalgically.
Considering the modest sum he’s suing for, Mitchell said he’s not looking for a payday – just the opportunity to drag a Yankee rep to the Feb. 20 court date in Brooklyn.
“I hate the direction they are taking,” Mitchell said. “I want them to be forced to come down and answer my claim.”
jfanelli@nypost.com