Take Me Out to the Bar, After the Ball Game of Course

Come summertime, Manhattan’s big media rivalries extend past scoops and circulation numbers, past the question of who’s got the biggest headlines and the most buzz. The battles for bragging rights play out on the softball field, where the city’s publishing names face off on weeknights: Random House versus Time Inc., High Times versus The New Yorker, The New York Times versus your very own Village Voice team. And after a dusty, humid, summer-in-the- city game on the diamonds in Central Park, teams of all stripes pack up and trek over to Mc-Aleer’s for the beer-and- wing special, two pitchers of Bud or Bud Light and a big heap of buffalo wings ($26). This unassuming Irish pub, which has graciously hosted the post-game rush for years, offers a full menu of bar food to accompany the standard shot specials ($10 for four fruity woo-woos or kamikazes) and the wide range of imported and domestic beers you’d find at any Cheers-y neighborhood hangout. There’s a daily two-for-one draft deal, and magically, a Yankee game always seems to be on all of the bar’s six TV screens. Last Tuesday night’s crowd included the Voice squad, Stuff magazine, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, who’ve got the best slogan on their T-shirts: “Tonight we drink with the fishes.”