Cheaters. Two-timers.

You didn't think you'd get caught, but I saw you.

One by one on Sunday you came to the southwest corner of Three Rivers Stadium, disguised as loyal fans in your Steelers hard hats, swilling your stanky Iron City brew, leaning over the cement walkways like tourists on a cruise ship, pointing and gawking and fawning at the grand and glistening new stadium going up right across the street.

The nerve of you people. Poor, rundown Three Rivers, the stadium that has served you for 30 years, is sitting here on life support and you buncha Claus Von Bülows are already courting your new trophy wife.

Watching this unfold before the Steelers-Raiders game made me think -- when did we all become such stadium sluts?

I have to admit, the new joint looks awesome with its black-and-gold girders, shiny glass and great view of downtown. But have we not learned anything from places like Cleveland or Boston or Chicago? When you gut an old stadium or arena, you also demolish the heart of the franchise. There are millions of reasons why teams need new stadiums (and they all have George Washington on them) but nothing can trump this simple, indisputable fact: new stadiums and arenas price the average fan -- the people who have been entrusted with the heart and soul of the franchise -- right out of the picture.

"Aw, bullcrap. People like you probably fought against getting rid of the horse and buggy," said Robert Lazzor, my Steel City cabby and a lifelong Pittsburgh resident, who used to sit in the trees behind Forbes Field and watch the Pirates. "Three Rivers is a sardine can. It's time to move on, man." Yes, Mr. Lazzor may have a point. Of course, he also uttered the one sentence you never want to hear from the front of a cab, "Man, I feel like I'm totally stoned ... where to, pal?"

Listen, I know what kinda shape Three Rivers is in. It's dirty, it drips, it smells, it's stained, it's chipped, there are loose wires everywhere and it's sticky all over like the floor of a movie theater. (And that's just the field.) But when it comes to places like Tiger Stadium and Boston Garden and Cleveland Municipal Stadium, beauty is always in the eye of the ticketholder.

I love Three Rivers. I cut my teeth covering the NFL here. Dr. Z went postal on me in the press box here in 1994. I got snowed in for 10 days during the 1995 playoffs and subsequently set the Spectravision world record. I made a friend in Dermontti Dawson here. I watched as a battered Stan Humphries celebrated flat on his back at midfield when the Chargers upset the Steelers in the AFC title game. I worked the Pittsburgh locker room on days when the only sound was the weeping of giants. And I was four feet away when Jim Harbaugh's Hail Mary pass dropped from the sky and nearly sent the Colts to the Super Bowl in 1996.

My last great memory came on Sunday. After the game, Steelers owner Dan Rooney made a brief appearance inside the locker room. And he narrowly escaped serious injury when a pile of heavy equipment bags stacked to the ceiling almost fell over on him. All I could think was that the ghosts inside this loveable old dump were trying to send one last message to the guy who was about to make them all homeless.

Stop! You are about to demolish the soul of this franchise ... oh, and by the way, how did Jason Sehorn get that TV babe to marry him?

I left the locker room, took a right and then a left and one more quick left up a ramp to get to the field -- walking the same path that so many players had marched before me. With the sky a rich, slate blue under a bright half- moon, I walked across the field one last time. My feet clicked on the rock hard, frozen turf. The noxious smell from a small bonfire of burning Raiders paraphernalia still hung in the air. I walked to the gold Steelers emblem at the 50 and stood for a while when a lone fan way up at the top of the stadium shook me out of my trance.

LET'S GO STEELERS! he screamed.

And the sound seemed to echo forever inside the empty stadium.

David Fleming, a senior writer for The Magazine, shares his off-center perspective each Tuesday. E-mail flemfile@aol.com.