Twenty years ago, on October 27, 1986, the Mets won their last World Series. I wonder how I would have reacted if someone had been able to tell me that twenty years later, the Mets would still not have won their next World Series title.
Let’s say that I had somehow learned that. Would I have been able to pay attention to the Mets, with hope and love, for the next 20 years? Sure. There might have been a few pennants in there, and division titles. There were one and two. They didn’t have the Wild Card back then.
Am I reconsidering all of the time I spent watching the Mets or listening to them? No. Even if the record of accomplishment is less than I would have liked or expected, I didn’t know what would happen. I hoped for more than what we got, and that’s where the pleasure was.
Can you actually sit and watch a baseball game all the way through if you know how it is going to end? I can’t. When I watch a rebroadcast game, I enjoy noticing what was different, I enjoy the glimpses of what I remember so differently. But I can’t watch more than a few innings.
Can you watch a game between two teams when you don’t really care who wins? I can for a little while. I am not uninterested in the general, larger picture of baseball. But usually, I can only watch for a few innings. I wish I could tell you that I was watching the World Series because of my love of baseball, that I was rooting for the plucky Tigers to bury the ugliest team I’ve ever seen on a baseball field. I am rooting for the Tigers. But I’m not going to tell you that I’m watching the games when I’m not.
I love baseball. I love what it does with time. I love how watching baseball is like riding a wave, where the uncertain future becomes the vivid present and then takes permanent form as the past. I look at the blog I’ve been keeping for two weeks and I see this and like it. As I read it from the beginning, I see the future becoming the present, becoming the past. It’s freaky and weird.
And this happens all the time when you are a baseball fan. It’s different from reading a novel or watching a film because no one, not even those who create what you watch know how it will turn out. So you don’t just have the illusion of events developing through time, as you do in a film. You are right up against the reality of time. You are riding it.
The fun is all in the uncertainty and the uncertainty is meaningful only because you really care about what happens. This is why I don’t watch rebroadcasts and rarely watch the World Series. I’m not proud of this, because I feel it is a betrayal of baseball, something I love and admire.
But like everyone else, I come to the game with my own psychological needs. For me it is not enough to admire. I have to be able to hope and to care. I care for the sheer pleasure of caring. I hope because it is fun to hope.
Sure I care about the Mets and hope for their success. But to a certain degree, their success is beside the point. It is not more fun to be the fan of a successful team than an unsuccessful one. The point is the yearning. Winning is the goal. But for me it is not the point.
Dana
I love reading your blog. It is so well written and makes so much sense. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that even if they might disagree with what you say. That is the fun of life. Everyone is different. There is no wrong and right when it comes to how we feel.
In the mid nineties, my husband used to find me sleeping in front of the TV set watching the Mets because I couldn’t keep my eyes open due to the long day. Although I try my best to watch every moment even now you may find me asleep on the couch. The point is, there wasn’t much to be watching in the mid nineties but I watched anyway. Hope does spring eternal and it is never over until the fat lady sings. That’s what makes it exciting. You’ve always got to believe or there truly is no point. If you can’t believe there is no hope, no excitement no fun.
And, I’m with you. I think I’ve caught like maybe 3 innings total of the World Series. As sad as it may sound, I just don’t care. Which I guess goes back to the last sentence in the last paragraph. Nothing to believe, in or care about = no fun…what’s the point?
Dana:
[oh,c'mon you knew I would comment on this) ]
1. Rooting for the Tigers, eh? I suppose in theory I am (I have an affinity for any team that produced Hank Greenberg. One of those “And You Should Always Remember That Sandy Koufax Wouldn’t Pitch On Yom Kippur” things for members of my tribe. Plus I really like their young pitchers.
On the other hand, the DH rule is one of the greatest evils perpetrated on American since McCarthyism, and Curt Flood is a national labor hero, and Bob Gibson was the coolest guy on earth. (The Richard Roundtree of starting pitchers). From the documentaries I’ve seen, 1968 was a classic.
But, notwithstanding the fact that I usually relish my image as a coldhearted, methodical, Mr. Spock-like portrait of ruthless objectivity, the Mets loss to the Cardinals, combined with the spectre of Kenny “Sticky Fingers” Rogers on the mound
(why that didn’t have the common human decency to coat his hand similarly before he threw his then-pathetic curveball to Andruw Jones in 1999 to walk in the winning run…gaaaaaahhhhhhhhh……post traumatic stress flashback coming on)
versus Braden Blooper Looper or Jeff “Sibling Envy” Weaver
is like deciding whether ketchup or mustard goes better on a sandwich composed of a steaming pile of horse manure.
Needless to say, I was glad for the rainout last night, am thrilled there is a 90% chance of rain in St Louis this night, and hope that will continue until mid December, so I can watch the spectacle of both teams playing in artic-like conditions. (Or read about it – - basketball season will have started, hockey will be in full swing, and the new season of “24″ may have launched by then.)
2. You wrote:
“Sure I care about the Mets and hope for their success. But to a certain degree, their success is beside the point. It is not more fun to be the fan of a successful team than an unsuccessful one. The point is the yearning. Winning is the goal. But for me it is not the point.”
I agree with you generally. (And note my other comments elsewhere demonstrating that Yankee collapses in the post-season seem to translate into an additional million ticket sales each successive season).
But let me ask you (I have no idea what your answer would be), which was more fun to be a fan of?
a. 1986 Mets, or 1988 Mets?
b. 1973 Mets, or 1979 Mets?
c. 1998 Mets, 1999 Mets or 2000 Mets?
d. 1969 Mets or 1973 Mets? (tough one I’d think).
e. 2005 Mets or 2006 Mets?
Stop grumbling about “damn &$#@ lawyers with their damn %$#@# interrogations” and answer.
(Please take the “requests for admission” in the lighthearted spirit they are intended)
JD,
I’m a little pressed for time at the moment, but let me just answer your last question:
a) I had just as much fun rooting for the 1988 Mets as the 1986 Mets. That was a truly great team and it’s a shame that it is so rarely spoken of. Cone had such a fabulous season. McReynolds was boring but a great player. Great year for Strawberry.
b) Obviously 1973, but I really did enjoy the 1979 Mets in 1979 (though now I am retrospectively bitter).
c) I liked all three: 1998, 1999, and 2000, but I admit to a preference for 1999. I loved Olerud, didn’t like Hampton, and it was a hell of an exciting season.
d) There has never been anything like 1969, as wonderful as 1973 was.
e) Obviously I’d take the 2006 Mets but I really enjoyed the 2005 Mets until that lousy losing streak in September.
Dana:
I concur with your response in 3. I also had a preference for the 1999 team. Not that I didn’t like 2000, but Olerud was my favorite player, and the post-season games (most notably Ventura’s Grand Single) were unmatched for drama in 2000. (Closest was perhaps game 1 of the World Series, and Agbayani’s dinger in the NLDS against SF.)
Interesting in terms of 1986 1988. Those two teams, particularly the 1988 wire-to-wire team were no “little engines that could.” Absolutely dominant teams with ferociously good pitching. They owned the town in NY, were perceived to have the potential to be a dynasty, and (most importantly) were heavily favored to beat the competition. Indeed, the “little engines” were the Red Sox and *gag* L.A. Dodgers. How the Sox even got to a game 7 against the Mets in 1986 is miraculous (given how intense the ALCS against the Angels had been), and obviously Mike Soscisia did a terrific impression of Bobby Thompson in 1988.
But there can be no doubt that this was a Mets town at that time, and the Mets were as reviled nationally (and subject to the same criticism) of the Yankees of current vintage.
Dana,
I agree with you totally about the World Series. I can’t really sit through the games like I would with the Mets. It just doesn’t have the same intensity. I too wish the Tigers would beat the Cardinals, although as I am writing this the game is tied in the 8th inning. I know quite a few Mets fans who are rooting for the Cardinals because they are a National League team, and while I usually subscribe to that theory, there are two teams I cannot root for…EVER. One is the Atlanta Braves, and two is the Cardinals. Both have managers who are/were very successful, but totally obnoxious. They have a smug and superior attitude which annoys me. I didn’t appreciate the Cardinals mocking the Mets fans when they won game 7. That seemed very unprofessional to me. You expect that out of St. Louis fans, not out of the team itself. Braden Looper’s comments in the Daily News were very immature, something you expect out of a nine year old. Of course he is bitter towards the Mets, but he deserved the boos we gave him. He was ineffective for the most part during his stay in NY.
JD’s posting of which seasons were better was fascinating. I agree with you, Dana, about the 88 Mets vs the 86 Mets. They were fun and exciting, although 86 was more satisfying.
1973 was of course better than 1979. The late 70’s and early 80’s were not good times for the Mets. I will admit I did not watch many games then, just too painful.
I liked all three seasons, because they were exciting. The Olerud years were fabulous. I really was upset he left to go back to Seattle. 2000 was nerve racking, but I just wish the Mets had taken the Yankees to a game 7.
1969 was to me like 1955 was to my father (a Brooklyn Dodgers fan). No year will ever compare because it was the first time, and you always remember your first time. LOL!
2005 was great until September, no doubt, and foretold what was to come in 2006. This year was wonderful for the most part, and I hope to see the Mets make every year as exciting as this one was.
I love your blogs Dana. Keep up the good work.
1969 is a thing apart, not only for Mets fans, but for all of baseball. 1955 was a grand and glorious thing for my father-in-law (a Brooklyn native), but his team had been in contention before, and that triumph was a formal and joyous recognition of the greatness that was already apparent.
No such thing in 1969. A team that had finished better than last just once, and then only next-to-last makes a marvelous mid-summer run, falters, and then, unaccountably, races home like Secretariat. It made no sense, it surely shouldn’t have, couldn’t have happened, and yet, here I am, 46 years later, close to tears just thinking about it.
For fans who didn’t experience 69 or 73, 1986 must have been the equivalent of the 55 Dodgers. By 1988, we’d come to expect excellence, not demand it, a la Yankees fans, but expect it. We were condignly punished for our hubris, and I, for one, will never expect excellence. Hope and pray for it, cherish it, sure, but the 90s were quite the lesson in humility.
Speaking of the Yankees…I was at the Nats-Yanks game when the Yanks went up 9-2 or something like that in the early innings. I was surrounded by Yankee fans (at least half the crowd) and was wearing my Mets cap. A Yanks fan said I should be cheering for his team, because the Nats were in my team’s division…I looked at him and just shook my head.
The Nats clawed back and, amazingly, beat Rivera…I was screaming my lungs out, and the Yankee fan turned to me and said, “You know, I was pulling for the Mets to do well this year…but you’ve convinced me otherwise…Eff the effing Mets!” I said, “Well, my work here is done! I don’t want the support of any Yankee fan!”
Re: the “dynasty” discussion on a previous thread: I agree with Dana…when my team loses, I want to be sad. I don’t want to be angry. Comes the day that I feel that way comes the day I stop watching.
JD
For me it would be 1986 because I remember making my husband late for my brother-in-law’s tux fitting because I had to watch that extra inning Mets/Houston game. And my husband is a Red Sox fan so that entire series has special meaning to mean. We both were hoping for a Mets/Red Sox World Series this year but those dreams were dashed by the Sox earlier than I ever would have thought.
1973 for obvious reasons. Maybe that is the point you are trying to make here JD but I don’t know many who would consider the late 70’s early 80’s as fun.
2000 Mets because I was at both clinching games. I also disliked Hampton but I can look beyond that for the memory of the Bobby, Bobby, Bobby chants during Bobby Jones 1 hitter and the total joy all around me when the Mets won game 5. It didn’t matter that the game wasn’t even competitive. The Cards were never in it but I will never forget that game just for the atmosphere.
1969 because that was the year my 6th grade teacher who was a die-hard Mets fan stopped classes during the World Series to watch the game. That was the year I became a Mets fan.
2006 because I think this is the year we came together as a team. You could feel the chemistry from day 1. And yes, the 2006 Mets were the NLE Champs and made it all the way to game 7 of the NLCS which I got to be a part of. Although it was fun to watch the 2005 respond to Willie’s challenge when they were in last place with a couple week to go and he said he has never finished last in his life and he isn’t going to start now. That’s not exactly what he said but it was pretty close.
As for the World Series, here is my thought. I don’t like the Cards. But rumor has it that we start our season in St. Louis which I find ironic. I can’t help but think that seeing both the NLCS and World Series banners hanging on opening day in St. Louis would totally piss the Mets off. Knowing how close they came but yet how far. There been discussion about what style motivates. But in the very end the motivation has to come from within. Like that fear JD talked about. Fear of letting your team-mates down. I just can’t help but think that if St. Louis wins, it will help the Mets.
Vick! Sweetie! what do you mean you’d expect that out of the fans? Have you ever been to a game here? We applaud a good play by the opponent, we applaud when a hurt player gets up and shakes it off. We don’t throw batteries at players. I don’t know what Looper did, but if he went to the other teams locker room and started a chant, Delgado or LoDuca should have put a foot in his ass.
There is nothing “classless” about fans making fun of an opposing teams chant.I thought New Yorkers had thicker skin. I’m pretty sure the fine folks in Flushing have done the same, if not worse. It just sounds as if you have a touch of sour grapes. And we all don’t adore Larussa here, but he has gotten us in the post season 5 out of 6 years…..not to shabby.
Chris:
It saddens me (OK, maybe that’s a bit exaggerated a verb) to say that I agree entirely with the Yankee fans. Not in the sense that I think you should have walked over to a concession stand, purchased a Derek Jeter t-shirt and got a chant of “Lets Go Yankees!!!” going. But you have to keep focused on priorities and the standings.
The Yankees are only slightly more relevant to the Mets than the Seattle Mariners are, and the only reason they are is for 2 reasons.
One, unlike other AL teams, the Mets play the Yankees 6 times in interleague play, and do so annually, hence the Yankees are marginally more statistically relevant to the Mets than other AL interleague competition.
Second, on the business side of things, the Yankees are more likely to compete with the Mets for premium free agents, or get in the mix of things with respect to trades. That’s because they both play in the same market and compete for the same revenue dollars, and also are major market high-spending teams. (Fortunately, both teams have moved past the time neither would transact with the other, which, for at least some part of the early 1990s, was a great example of the “mutually assured destruction” school of arms control.)
But that’s it. So lets say that the Mets were to miss making the post-season by one game. If the Yankees loss to the Nats is a proximate cause of the Mets not making the post-season, do you then feel wise having “screamed your lungs out” to beat Rivera???
Sorry to say this, but (and I say this as a guy who has been going to Mets games since Carter was President), its almost painful to me to say this, but when I read comments or anecdotes such as the one you relay, I find myself sympathizing with the Yankee fans and understanding why they are so dismissive of the Mets and hold Mets fans in disdain. A lot of Yankee fans I know (pretty much all of them over the age of 33) root for the Mets (to varying degrees of enthusiasm) in the NL. Certainly this year its not much of a surprise – - the one constant I hear from all of them is “I’m very happy for Willie Randolph”, and that seems logical. (Many of them also say “I root for NY above all else” but I’m more cynical on how genuine that is; Randolph was much beloved in the Bronx.)
I have this feeling that Mets fans are genetically incapable of reciprocating, which I’ve come to accept (in part because its very rare I actually entthustically root for the Yanks….but I’m also an Orioles fan in the AL, and that drives my issues with the Yankees far more than any sociological Mets-Yankees nonsense.)
BUT if it gets to the point that Mets fans are rooting for the Yankees to lose to an NL East team, the priorities of the fanbase are completely scrambled, and hence Mets fans deserve to wander in the desert for 40 years much like the children of Israel did until a new generation arose that had their priorities straight. Because the anecdote you described (and I don’t mean anything personal by this, I’m merely responding to what you wrote) means that at some level, the Yankees losing is more important or pleasing to you (and others – - you are not the only person I’ve seen relay stories like this) than the Mets winning is. And if the day comes around that being a Mets fan means we get equal (or worse, more) joy from the Yankees losing as the Mets winning, I’d sooner buy a Jeter t-shirt and wear it every day.
(Also, at least with respect to Rivera, I find it impossible to hate the guy. If Jeter or Giambi does something spectacular I’m ofen ready to hurl a rock through my TV. As a baseball fan, Rivera in contrast inspires a sense of awe. He is the greatest closer of all time. Its the closest I will ever see to seeing a player of the caliber of “The Pantheon” (Ruth, Gehrig, Mathewson, Mays, Koufax, etc.) play. Wagner is an outstanding closer, as is Hoffman, and both would freely admit that the gap right now between Rivera and the second best closer in the league is wider than the Grand Canyon. Hating Rivera is (for me) like hating Ripken, Gerhig, Robinson, Berra, or Clemente. Impossible.)
Shelley:
The point I was trying to make (tongue in cheek to an extent) was in response to Dana’s comment that “it is not more fun to be a fan of a successful team than an unsuccesful one.”
At least as far as the Mets are concerned, given that they usually aren’t succesful, I have no idea what it would be like to be a fan of them if they were regularly succesful at some level. (I do not define success as winning the World Series every year, which, particularly as the economic and structure of the post-season of the game are currently composed, would be demented, but, rather (and as I wrote earlier) regularly getting to the post-season. (Say, being a fan of Oakland, or St Louis).
I also have to say, that – - myths concerned their reputation notwithstanding – - Yankee fans seem to have a lot of fun rooting for their team. That place can be an insane asylum. You have to take the good with the bad. The fact that at least a sizeable minority of their fans act like hostile or spoiled idiots is balanced (and, in my mind, outweighed) by the fact that the place is incredibly energetic and amped up. If being a fan of a succesful team isn’t fun, non one has informed them of that fact. (Whether it would be as much fun for them if the Yankees missed the post-season 5 years in a row is a tough one – - – didn’t seem to be a great deal of fun for Mets fans between 2001-and-2004 (and much of 2005)).
(Not that Shea is any slouch in the energy department, but until this year, it was often pretty dead, and it is somewhat depressing that, unlike the Yankees, the objective fact is that the Mets usually don’t sell out, though obviously their numbers were very nice this year.)
Anyway, (and to reiterate a point I made earlier) my only point of comparison was rooting for a college hoops team that won their conference title 3 years in a row. (Needless to say they did not win the NCAA tourney- they were good but not that good). I can say with no equivocation that it was a great deal of fun winning the conference year after year after year, and watching all the other teams in the league (and their fans) loathe and despise us and mourn their fates. Had that situation remained status quo for another decade, I wouldn’t have lost a moment of sleep over it.
Vicki: I can’t believe I’m going to stick up for him after the Jose chant after game 7, but I have to. Looper did not deserve the treatment he received from Met fans. By all accounts, he was injured and was asked by his teams front office to put off his surgery until after the season. He sucked it up and played injured all season; he never made any excuses, in fact never even mentioned his injury. Much like Floyd did at the end of (was it) 03 he just went out there everyday and left it on the field. The results were not what anyone had hoped, most of all Braden. If anyone deserves our discontent it was the same bunch of “professionals” who tried to change the way Reyes ran and had pitchers playing stress fractures.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but en masse Met fans showed exactly how deep our appreciation ran toward Looper and I can’t blame him for giving it right back.
JD
I understand the point you were trying to make and based on the responses received you made it quite well. It is always more fun to root for a winner. Or at least a team that is in contention to win. I’d think that the Phillies fans must have had fun up until the last week of the season cheering their team on with the hopes of gaining a wild card spot. In order for it to be a fun season, you don’t necessary have to even make it to the play offs. But you do need to be in contention at least to the end.
Believe me, I’m not going to complain if we go on to become a dominant force in the league. All that rises, falls eventually so I would enjoy the ride while it lasted.
thanks chris, I wasn’t even defending looper though. that kind of behavior should have gotten his but kicked. I just take exception to her comments about “expecting that from Cards fans”. that’s just not fair. Ask the many mets fans that I saw at the game. They looked like they were having fun and we all drank alot of beer at a local bar…they did the Jose chant and we did the No-way chant and had a good time. it’s baseball. It’s a game.
Thanks for backin me up.
Tim and Chris,
I would like to clarify my statement about Cardinals fans. What I should have said is that I would expect SOME Cardinals fans to trash talk the Mets, just like I expect SOME Mets fans to trash talk the Cardinals(and I have been guilty of that too at times). From what I have heard, and you confirmed it, Cardinals fans are polite for the most part and do not heckle NY fans when they are in their stadium. I guess I am used to hearing trash talk, especially from the Yankees fans(since my son and husband are). I have also been at Yankee Stadium when Piazza was hit by Clemens, and the Mets lost. The majority of Yankees fans yelled Mets Suck the minute the game ended. It was deafening. The next night I went to Shea, and the Mets won. The majority of the fans did not yell Yankees Suck. Instead they were yelling that the Mets won. There is a different mindset, no question. As a fan of the Mets for 46 years, I understand good natured ribbing and am not a sore loser. I also understand that Looper was hurt and never let anyone know. What I objected to is that as a professional player, he should not have resorted to the boorishness of the trash talking fans and just should have been happy his team won. I don’t think any of the Mets players would have gloated if the situation was reversed.
Like I said, Looper should have been smacked around a little. Maybe we can get a llittle rivarly thing going like we did in the 80’s. WE HATED you guy’s,it was so fun. I hated all of them especially that traitor Hernandez. And Carter, I couldn’t stand him. And I’m sure you didn’t like Whitey and Ozzie and the little farts runnin all over the place.
I received a bigger thrill beating the Mets this go round than the Tigers. It was better baseball.
Nice site Vicky.
See ya in the spring
I’m sure that, as she implies in her response, Vicki only meant to point out that fans have a freedom to taunt another team that players don’t have. It was fun at Shea to do the “La—rr—yyy—-!!!” chant for Chipper Jones, but if the Mets had done it in the clubhouse after the game, it wouldn’t have been as appropriate. Still, I agree with Tim that it wasn’t such a big deal that the Cardinals did the Jose chant in the clubhouse. I actually think it was kind of funny and I personally don’t take any offense.
As I’m sure Tim realizes, at Shea it is quite common for fans to applaud an excellent defensive play by an opposing player, or a hurt player on another team who gets up and walks, and we do not customarily throw batteries. In my experience, fans of other teams are normally treated with good-natured ribbing and nothing more, although I am sure that there are exceptions to this. The fans at Shea have always been a much more civil bunch than they have been represented to be by some rivals. But that was a remnant of the once-reflexive negative stereotyping of New Yorkers that was never accurate and is now thankfully less common after 9/11.
Still, I agree with Tim that it would be fun to try to revive some of the fun hostility Mets and Cards fans enjoyed in the ’80s. That was a great rivalry that would be hard to revive given the fact that the teams are no longer in the same division (St. Louis moved west I guess) and we only play them 6 games a year. If Cards fans want to use a little mild stereotyping of NY’ers to stoke their hostility, that’s okay, I guess, as long as they promise not to believe any of it.
New York solidarity is still not enough of a reason, however, JD, for Mets fans to root for the Yankees as their American League team even if many Yankees fans root for the Mets as their National League team. In my essay “Yankee Hatred” (the link is to the right) I make the case for my belief that this fact does not reflect badly on Mets fans. JD and I actually had a very interesting and I hope illuminating exchange about this issue on the excellent Amazinz.com forum. Neither of us refuted the others’ points, I think, but if you want to examine this issue of the degree to which, as a Mets fan, you should or shouldn’t hate the Yankees, you might want to look at our exchange which is in the following thread at that site:
http://amazinz.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17059&st=0
JD is “Nigel is Confused” and I am “Since 62.”
Suffice it to say that had I been at the Nats game with Chris from Virginia, I would have been cheering for the Nats too.
As for Looper, I hated it when he was booed by some fans last year. Booing never helps anybody (the subject of my next post). Many Mets fans agree with me, and in most cases only a small minority of fans boo struggling ballplayers. But a small minority of 45,000 is loud enough to be heard.
Thanks to you all for making this blog such a lively and place. And Tim, see you in the spring. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to start the season against St. Louis.
And congratulations, I guess, on winning the World Series.
Dana:
1. I must protest your false representation of me as “Nigel Is Confused.” I bear no more resemblance to that putrid windbag then Borat does to Sasha Baron Cohen.
Expect to hear from my lawyers, who charge a high hourly rate, and are extremely inefficient.
2. Vicki’s comment regarding Yankee fans yelling “Mets Suck!” at the game Piazza got beaned by Clemens at Yankee Stadium in 2000. I attended that same game, sitting in the rafters of Yankee Stadium (section 2 row T I think) when that incident occurred.
Like Vicki, I too was surrounded by Yankee fans, but my experience was totally different.
Although before the beaning everyone was talking trash to one another, when Piazza got creamed, EVERYONE (Yankee and Met fan alike) were booing the bejesus out of Clemens. In fact this one Yankee fan behind me was screaming at the top of his lungs “Once a from Boston always a from Boston.
Keep in mind that at that point, Clemens was not “The Rocket” in the Bronx – - he was seen as a mercenary desparate for a ring, and was mainly deemed to be the guy who had regularly beaned Yankee stars during the later part of his New England tenure.
As Filip Bondy notes in his excellent book “Bleeding Pinstripes” (recounting his season with the RF bleacher creatures of sec. 39 – - one of the best books I’ve ever read on the psychology (and psychosis) of being a fan), it wasn’t until Clemens threw a shard of a bat at Piazza in the World Series that he became a folk hero in the Bronx.
3. Dana, I realize you and I will agree to disagree, but I will remain eternally puzzled on this point. Rooting for the Nationals to beat the Yankees is about as paradigmatic an example of cutting of one’s nose to spite their face as I’ve ever heard of in this world. Especially in a world where the Wild Card exists, its bizarre enough to root for any NL team to beat an AL team, because if it comes down to the wire and 1 or 2 games, the games not won in June hurt you as much as the ones in September.
And if its the case of a team actually IN the NL East…..well…..there is no good way to put this…..and I mean it only with respect to fan rooting interest…..it is positively and absolutely ridiculous. As a matter of statistics, standing, priorities, and psychology. You name it.
At that point, one is no longer a Mets fan. They are a Yankee Hater. No excuses – you and anyone else who takes that position is happy to sacrifice (even if only theoretically from a math standpoint) the Mets chances of winning so long as it impacts negatively an AMERICAN LEAGUE team!
I have to tell you Dana, ever since you and I debated this issue (although in that context I was specifically addressing the 2001 World Series in the wake of 9/11, which I place in a somewhat different category) I have discussed this point with fans of other teams. Yankee fans, Cubs and White Sox fans, Red Sox fans, Orioles fans, Dodgers/Angels fans, Phillies fans, and every single one …. even the Chicago folks …. agreed with me that rooting for the Yankees to lose to an NL team, especially an NL East team, is completely and utterly mental.
I’ve even discussed this with some older folks in the context of the Dodgers/Giants/Yankees rivarly of old. To give you one example, my uncle (who was a passionate NY Giants fan until they left town, said to me “Why the hell would I ever have rooted for the Dodgers to beat the Yankees had they played in the regular season??? I hated the Dodgers. The Yankees were irrelevant until October!”
One additional point. I am not suggesting that you, Chris, or Omar Minaya himself shoud actually root for the Yankees and get a chant going. Maybe you can’t even grudgingly concede that objectively, having the Nats beat the Yanks is likely better for the Mets standing wise.
*takes a deep breath and apologizes in advance for what is about to follow. Also, use of the term “you” does not mean you specifically save for when I feel like it*
BUT FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, CAN YOU TELL ME WHY ON EARTH YOU CAN’T SIMPLY BE INDIFFERENT TO THE OUTCOME AND MERELY APPRECIATE A GOOD GAME.?!! YOU ARE PROBABLY 40 MILLION TIMES SMARTER THAN ME WITH BETTER GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE, AND ARE NOT A BLIGHT ON SOCIETY CLOGGING UP OUR COURT SYSTEM WITH FRIVILOUS LITIGATION, AND YOU ACTUALLY PRODUCE LITERATE MEMBERS OF AMERICAN SOCIETY! LORD KNOWS HAD I HAD THE PLEASURE OF TAKING YOUR CLASSES IN UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOL I WOULD NOT BE THE BANE OF STRUNK & WHITE THAT I AM TODAY.
HAS IT GOTTEN TO SUCH A DEPRESSINGLY BITTER AND JEALOUS POINT FOR METS FANS THAT YOU WOULD RATHER ACTIVELY CHEER ON THE NATIONALS AGAINST THE METS RATHER THAN MERELY PLACE A BET ON THE GAME IN VEGAS AND ROOT FOR SOME ADDITIONAL POCKET CHANGE???ARE YOU GOING TO FEEL HAPPY IN OCTOBER IF THE NATS GO TO THE PLAYOFFS, THE YANKEES ALSO GO TO THE PLAYOFFS DESPITE LOSING A MEANINGLESS INTERLEAGUE GAME????
*takes a deep breath and pops more Xanax*
Look, I do understand that at a certain level it doesn’t matter, and, like Nicholas Cage said to Cher in MOONSTRUCK “It doesn’t have to make sense” . I have my own messhugas – I root for the Orioles and the Mets. This means I sit there watching videos of 1969 feeling more schizophrenic than Norman Bates, and I dealt with this years Mets-Orioles interleague series (which, ironically was the “Amazinz” board’s annual outing, where many of us in that freak show actually met in person) by drinking a great deal of beer and asking what the score was for games being played in Japan. I am certain there is a special place in hell waiting for me for my dual loyalties.
But to the extent that you are going to get a book published that may be seen by millions as emblematic and representative of the mindset of the Mets fanbase, I feel its my God-given duty to take once last stab at convincing you (and the tens of thousands who unfortunately agree with you …. I’m often a crowd of one on this subject) to please please PLEEAAASSEE consider the error of your ways.
Imagine that you meet Delgado, Reyes, Wright, the perenially sullen Trachsel, the hotheaded LoDuca, and Willie Randolph in a dark alley after a 2007 season where the Mets have missed making the playoffs by one game to the Nats. Please tell me that you will look them in the eye and tell them that while you feel bad for them, you want them to know that you can proudly display your bonafides as a Mets fan because you rooted for the Nats to beat the Yankees. I hope you are a good sprinter.
Nigel or JD or Borat or whoever you are,
I will grant you that if the Nationals had been in a pennant race with the Mets , and it was close, and they were playing the Yankees, I would have rooted for the Yankees. I’m not completely out of my mind. But as I have said before and as I will say again, for most Mets fans, during the Yankee dynasties, rooting against the Yankees is part of the culture. It may be ungracious, and it may not look good at certain times, like 2001, but it is just the way it is and it is not completely serious.
I love your line about Norman Bates, watching the 69 series.
1. If its part of the culture, that is regrettable and embarassing. Not as bad, of course, as cannibalism, but regrettable nevertheless.
2. Maybe the stark difference of opinion you and I have on this subject stems from differences in professional occupation.
As a literature professor, I assume you trace mythological motifs and themes and (at times) imbue them with meaning, esp. to the extent they form national, regional, and cultural identies. I don’t doubt that is true. Dismissing or not understanding mythologies is perilous. They are far more than fairy tales. Joseph Campbell had that dead on.
As a lawyer, however, my job is often to puncture and deflate mythologies. That was the process that led to Brown vs. The Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act. It is a process that continues today. It is also far more entangled with professional sports than some may wish to credit.
Had Jackie Robinson not punctured mythology in the manner he had in 1947 concerning race, the civil rights movement might have played out differently. Had Curt Flood not punctured mythology in the manner he did in the 1970s, the US labor movement might have been set back. Both men died far too young, largely as a result of their efforts and resultant strain to deflate and set aside those mythologies.
Accordingly, please excuse my cynicism and dismissiveness of mythologies in this realm, or my belief that adhering to them notwithstanding objective evidence to the contrary is a net negative. Put another way, it ain’t helping the Mets one iota. Might be making them worse sometimes.
3. Given your complaints about the tenor and tone of the Mike and the Mad Dog radio show, I would submit that there is a great deal of proximate causation between misguided priorities and reflexive hatred of the Yankees, and much of the boorish behavior that you properly decry at the ballpark (i.e. your “don’t Boo”) or on the airwaves (be it M&MD, or the thousands of people who have called into the show through the years.)
Hearing “Yankees Suck” chant when the Mets are playing the Brewers is flat-out embarassing to this franchise. If you want to understand why the Yankees generally trounce the Mets in attendance (by 1 million or more) look no further. Most casual fans would rather root FOR a team than AGAINST another.
4. You note “it may not look good at certain times, like 2001, but it is just the way it is .” In his song “The Way It Is” Bruce Hornsby had a fitting response. “Don’t you believe them.”
You know as well as I do that the ground lost in May or June may ultimately prove as important as that lost in September. Naturally, if somehow mathematical circumstances suggested that the Nats beating the Yanks somehow improved chances for the Mets, I’d be the first to buy a Nats cap. That is a function, however, of being pro-Mets, not anti-Yankees.
I have made a point repeated times that you have not responded to. I am not suggesting that Mets fans are obligated to affirmatively root for the Yankees as if some diplomatic protocol required such. I instead suggested that Mets fans would be well served to be INDIFFERENT to the Yankees unless we are actually playing them. Put them on the same plane as the Mariners or Rangers.
Comments I read here suggest that is impossible, and it is the divine obligation of every Met fan to actively root against the Yankees in 99.9% of circumstances, and to do so demonstrates that one is a true Mets fan (whatever the hell that is).
If that is the case, it suggests that no small portion of the Mets fanbase has psychological issues that are entirely unrelated to baseball. I find it astonishing to think that Yankee fans somehow are able to either root for the Mets or generally ignore them, but Mets fans are unable to reciprocate in either regard, and are even prepared to sacrifice even purely theoretical mathematical ill effects on the Mets because it provides some odd, possibly masochistic satisfaction that it hurt the Yankees (indeed, it usually doesn’t as plainly evidenced by how often they are in the postseason). Perhaps the reason the Yankees trump the Mets by nearly 1 million fans as of late is not a function of the team’s general record of success, but is instead a reflection of the axiomatic fact that it’s more fun to consider the Red Sox a principal rival and care about them than it is to root against a generally irrelevant NL team. Needless to say, I didn’t see or read about myriads of Yankee fans donning Cardinals gear in the wake of their embarassing loss to the Tigers. That seems sensible to me – indeed any intelligent Yankee fan I know (and I know alot) was at least mildly pulling for the Mets. If you are suggesting to me that Mets fans are at not at least capable of not caring about the Yankees, I find that sad, and please be prepared to continue to wonder why even when they lose, national and local media consider the Yankees to be more important and worthy of back pages, with the Mets as an entertaining sideshow permenently in second place in this town, no matter how hard they try. Bottom line? Mets fans have themselves to blame.
5. Please do not take the above, possibly caustic comments as anything other than respect and interest for your position on this non-issue “issue”. If I did not enjoy your writing and your perspective, I wouldn’t bother to respond to it in the grossly prolix manner that I usually do. And glad you liked the Norman Bates reference. Toss up between that and Brian DePalma’s “RAISING CAIN” but the former is usually more recognizable.
JD,
As you know, I respect your position on this issue as well. I see the validity of your points and I feel bad that considering how strongly you believe them, and how well you argue the case for them, you are unlikely to be able to convince many Mets fans.
As a literature professor, I think of it as part of my job to get students to appreciate the beauty and psychological benefits of various mythologies. I also think it is part of my job to get them to develop this appreciation while still understanding how the mythologies aren’t “true,” how they hide and obscure issues and facts and how one shouldn’t get sucked into them just because they are beautiful or satisfy certain needs. The interpretive tools you learn in a literature class can be used by lawyers in their efforts to undermine or at least clarify the mythologies that can be embedded in laws. Many of my best literature students have gone on to become lawyers.
I know that baseball fandom is mythology from start to finish. It is beautiful, and it satisfies many needs. And one of the needs is satisfies is our desire to enjoy the pleasure of opposition, without engaging in activities that would hurt someone else. I maintain that the reflexive hatred Mets fans have for the Yankees is HARMLESS. The hatred of the underachieving younger brother for the highly successful older one would be harmful for the younger brother. But the Mets and the Yankees are happening in a fantasy universe in which morality is a little different because it is all fantasy, all mythology. As I say in my “Yankee Hatred” essay, “Yankee Hatred” is a “play hatred,” that “intensifies Mets love.” If a Mets fan hated people because they rooted for the Yankees, that would be sick. But this is all play, and it is part of what makes the play fun and interesting. And the Yankees fans who are my friends have a bemused and amused tolerance for this fun and are not hurt by our hatred. They take is as a sign of the superior position of their team and they are right to do so. So when I say, “that’s just the way it is,” I am saying it with a big shrug and smile. I am not recommending that we accept a serious injustice because we do not have the ability to change it.
I don’t think that Mets fans are crippled or inhibited by Yankees hatred. I don’t even think they waste that much time on it. I don’t think they take it very seriously. I think, and this is a friendly and respectful judgement and not a criticism, that you take it more seriously than it deserves to be taken.
One other point.
I think that every Mets fan takes the public culture of Mets fans and tries to give it an individual shape that will better suit his or her own desires and ideals.
I hate the booing so I want to see that kicked out of the public conception of what being a Mets fan is. I hated all the stuff about the 1986 Mets being “bad guys” so I don’t want to hear about it and I just want to hear about how great they were. JD doesn’t want Yankee hatred to be part of the identity of Mets fans and so he wants to exclude that from what it is to be a Mets fan.
Each of us has our own idea of what being a Mets fan is. Each of us plays up some things and plays down others, buys into some myths and hype and not into others. Each of us wishes that most of our fellow fans would agree with us about what being a Mets fan means. All of us know that many of our fellow fans would not agree with us. It’s like being involved in a religion or a political party. We want our personal definition of the community’s values to be the reality. But we know that it isn’t, exactly. Still, we think, if we could just convince others, then we would feel more secure in our belief that our idea of what it is to be a Mets fan is what it really is to be a Mets fan.
Dana
AHA! JD is Nigel. I should have known. This internets place just gets smaller and smaller.
Sundiego
D’oh!!! Exposed again, I am!
Dana, you are correct that I take the issue more seriously than it deserves to, at least in the sense of how it sometimes comes across in my written comments on the subject. Not intended; some of my observations are meant to be taken with more than a few grains of salt.
(And there is no doubt that interpretive skills learned in literature classes are valuable, indeed, critical skills for a lawyer. Too many imbedded legal fictions (i.e. corporations are “persons” or the doctrine of parens patriae). I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Had I managed to get into a few more lit classes in undergrad and a few less history classes, my writing might flow better.)
I do understand that you sincerely hold out Yankee Hatred as a play hatred; that’s plain from your essay on the subject. I’d merely note that not everyone is as benevolent as you are (and vice-versa too – - not as if Yankee fans don’t hassle Mets fans). I am sure you agree with me that hearing chants on national TV of Yankees Suck when the Mets are playing the Padres is a little embarassing. (Howie Rose, Keith Hernandez, even Joe Beningo (a nutto Mets fan as ever existed) have commented that it seems excessive, hostile, bizarre, misguided, and embarassing. Often the rationale for why this occurs at non Subway Series games is “Some guy showed up at Shea wearing a Yankee hat” which seems even dumber. I’ve no doubt that booze plays into this as well.
At the end of the day, my analysis is simple. What will make the Mets better? What will be most likely (crowd wise) to provide a “6th man advantage” by the crowd at Shea? In my view, the majority of the Yankee Hatred doesn’t assist it, and at times may hurt (if for no other reason that people instead gravitate to the Yankees and Shea is 25% empty in July weeknight games.) A great day will be when its harder to get tickets for a Mets-Phillies game than it is for a Mets-Yankees game. So until the Mets and Mets fans keep focused on the real “enemies” and at least pretend to ignore the Yankees (as they pretend to ignore us) it may yield at least some minor problems for the team.
‘Nuf said, at least for this afternoon.
My feeling is that you can’t really be indifferent unless you truly don’t care. I can tell you that for years I hated the Braves. I guess the reality was similar to the Yankee hatred thing. I didn’t hate the Braves per se but I hated the fact that they just wouldn’t go away. Every year they won the division and then they couldn’t even sell out the ball park for a playoff game because the fans just took it all for granted. But you know what, by the end of this season, at least for this season I was indifferent towards them. They didn’t matter.
I would guess that if the Yankees started losing every year and the Mets started winning, the tables would turn. Mets fans would be indifferent and the Yankees fans would hate the Mets. But then the whole fanbase would change. There are so many Yankee fans because everyone loves a winner. How many “fake” Mets fans would there be if such a shift was to occur.
I don’t chant “Yankees suck” at Padres games. I don’t even chant it at Mets/Yankees games. I truly think it’s stupid because the reality is that they don’t. It doesn’t make sense. Whether I would root for the Yankees against a NLE team would depend on the standings at the time. Although I understand that the standings in May and June aren’t reflective of what they are going to be at the end of the year. So, I understand what JD is saying and I also get what Dana is saying.
The bottom line is that it is all a part of the game and a part of the fun. It is a part of why we are all different and come to these forums to chat. If we were all the same we wouldn’t have anything to talk about it would all become boring.
Shelley:
In response to:
“My feeling is that you can’t really be indifferent unless you truly don’t care. I can tell you that for years I hated the Braves. I guess the reality was similar to the Yankee hatred thing. I didn’t hate the Braves per se but I hated the fact that they just wouldn’t go away. Every year they won the division and then they couldn’t even sell out the ball park for a playoff game because the fans just took it all for granted. But you know what, by the end of this season, at least for this season I was indifferent towards them. They didn’t matter.”
What you wrote here goes to the heart of what troubles me on these matters. The reality of Braves “hatred” is entirely different from Yankee “hatred”. Mets-Braves hatred is akin to Yankees-Red Sox hatred. Divisional rivals – - the Braves have been a major factor in the Mets flopping around the bottom of the NL East many years. The Yankees are less of a factor than the Rockies.
Even if Boston’s down in the dumps, at least for the forseeable future, every Red Sox-Yankee game will be an intense madhouse. Makes sense. Ancient rivalrly. Plus one is usually the proximate cause of the other one’s problems. (Sadly, as of late the Orioles ain’t been much of a factor.)
What’s driving Yankee-Met “hatred” (which is generally a one-way street) is something, at bottom, much uglier, or at least offputting. Its got nothing to do with the team’s W-L record. I don’t even think it has that much to do with the fact that the Yankees are a successful team. I don’t even think its the fact that the Yankees have a ludicrously high payroll – Mets fans generally are OK with our high $ free agent signings. Don’t get me wrong – - all of these are factors, but I don’t think they are even close to the principal reason.
What is, then?
The answer (in my humble) is that its instead driven by holding out sterotypes, or a sense of triumphalism over the other teams FANS rather than the team! Pretty much every day during baseball season, no matter whether its on Mets.com or on sports talk radio, I hear the following bit of
“wisdom” imparted a zillion times:
“Its not the Yankees we hate. We respect the Yankees. We hate their fans.”
Over and over and over again. Mantra-like. (The only concession is “the people who rooted in the Horace Clark or Mattingly era are OK, but the rest are bandwagon assholes.” As if kids born in 1984 were supposed to take a seminar in Yankee history. As if tons of Mets fans under the age of 30 don’t look at me blankly when I say “Al Weis.”)
To deny that is a main driver of the issue is to engage in willful blindness. Dana argues (in a very persuasive fashion) that the “reflexive hatred” is harmless.
I guess its somewhat of a question of what harmless is. I agree that the Department of Homeland Security probably doesn’t need to start a joint task force on this issue. If, on the other hand, I’m listening to a game on the radio and I hear Howie Rose say (in substance) “The fans are starting a Yankees Sucks chant, even though its an exhibition game against the Australian National Team.” or I hear Keith Hernandez comment in respect of same on SNY “This is really embarassing and the fans have to stop doing this – - worry about your own team.” I don’t know that its harmless. Neither of them is going to say (nor would a national audience even think) “well, its a big fanbase and its a loud minority, but a minority nevertheless, and actually some of them are doing it because some jackass in a Yankee hat is talking smack to a dude from Long Island.”
At a minimum it seems to suggest some odd sort of reverse snobbery. That at some level one is a better person (or better baseball fan) because they root for the team that struggles more. Maybe its because I deal with so many difficult people professionally, but if someone’s a baseball fan, esp. a fan of its history, they get a free pass from me regardless of who they root for. At least personally, I’ve met more Yankee fans into talking about the game’s history pre-1986 than Mets fans. (Obviously, the Yankees age plays into that.)
Here’s another thing to consider. In a May 2006 article, ESPN author John Heylar wrote (based on poll survey numbers by Quinnipac U.) the following:
“Today’s Mets crowds will never be confused with the banner-bearing, happy-go-lucky ones of the early years. (Well, except for the “Let’s Go Mets” chants, which have lasted through the ages.) The Mets’ fan base skews suburban — primarily Long Island, where 26 percent of it resides, according to a 1998 New York City government report. Until recently, the fan base also skewed hugely white.
Things have started changing since the Latinization of the team under general manager Omar Minaya. Greater numbers of Hispanics now disembark at the No. 7 train’s Shea Stadium stop, especially for Pedro Martinez’s starts. But the tableau in the Shea parking lot is still predominantly middle-class and working-class New York: families tumbling out of Chevy Suburbans, guys tailgating out of their plumber vans. ”
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2449846
Now consider the fact that probably at least since 1995, the Yankees have actually had a more diverse fanbase, both geographically and racially. While the Mets have improved, the Yankees still have the edge there. (Sort of interesting when you realize that, in the big picture, the Yankees were late to the game on the integration front.)
So, to the extent that a certain “Archie Bunker” element continues to be representative of the Mets fan base, I submit that also is why Yankee Hatred is very problematic. Archie’s great on a sitcom, don’t really like him sitting in front of me, esp. if he’s been drinking too much.
To me, a feeling of connectdness in all things and the concept of proximate cause drives why I take the issue slightly (emphasis on the word “slightly”) more seriously than some might thing apropos. To me, the boorish behavior that many here rightly decry (booing, sterotyping all fans of another team, or even using Mets/Yankee “hatred” as a proxy for hatred of NY generally) doesn’t come out of a vaccum (to use a mythology metaphor “did not spring forth from the brow of a National Pastime Zeus”). They result from many factors. My concern about it as far as someone like Dana or other posters on this board (who clearly are not malicious and have things in proper perspective) is that its easily used by others who are more hostile and can make attending a game unpleasant sometimes, as a justification for their actions. Unfortunate, but not an uncommon occurrence.
If, even in a “play” sense, Yankee Hatred is a fundamental part of being a Mets fan, and all one can do is say “I realize it doesn’t make sense, but it is what it is and I’m going to greenlight it at some level”, and you break down factors propel it, the resultant inicivilty that follows shouldn’t come as a giant surprise.
I consider it a compliment that you and others here are willing to at least discuss it (and tolerate my extended ramblings) even if you do not agree with all or part of it.
P.S. – Dana, did you edit the original version of Yankee Hatred essay? I looked at it again this AM – - didn’t see the reference to 2001. I get our discussion and your essays jumbled in my mind sometimes. Just curious.
JD,
The “Yankee Hatred” essay is the same as it has always been. It never contained a mention of 2001. What you’re thinking of it our exchange on the amazinz.com board, in which I quoted a couple of paragraphs from the chapter of my book that deals with the 2001 season. It can be found on this thread here:
http://amazinz.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17059&st=0
JD
I said that I was indifferent to the Braves at the moment. However, that will change come 2007 when it matters. You can only be indifferent if it doesn’t matter. The Braves hardly mattered in September. So, I could hardly waste any energy on them one way or another. To me, that is indifference.
As to any sort of hatred that we may be discussing in a playful manner, I get where you are coming from when you say you find it concerning. Dana’s “hatred” as he says is playful. It really isn’t hatred. The drunk guys in front on me at game 7 were anything but playful when they were shouting and holding up signs that said fuck you at the 2 Cardinal Fans sitting directly behind me. Sure, I wished she would have stopped screeching in my ear but that was no reason for them to have to put up with drunks being obsene. So, it isn’t only Yankee hatred. It is hatred in general.
I haven’t been to Yankee Stadium in something like 18 years so I couldn’t compare a Yankee fan with a Met fan. I have friends who are Yankee fans and plenty of aquaintences. I can tell you that the back and forth here is nothing but playful bantering. But the hatred that you are concerned about is not in the same ballpark (forgive the pun). It is not what Dana is referring to but in the end with some people, hatred is just hatred. And that is disturbing. Afterall, it is just a game. And it is supposed to be fun.
Just a couple of quick points.
I don’t believe that the Yankees’ fan base is any more racially diverse than the Mets’. Both fan bases have a certain degree of diversity and both probably “skew” suburban at this point because most of the Metro area now lives in the suburbs. I’ve lived in lily-white towns in NJ and CT where the Yankees were beloved and I’ve lived in diverse Astoria and Hoboken where the Mets were beloved. Though I don’t think that means a hell of a lot. Two African-American friends of mine told me that they were brought up to be Mets fans because the Yankees organization had been so racist after the Dodgers integrated. This one is probably a wash.
The Mets crowd may not now be the same crowd of refugees from Ebbetts field and the Polo Grounds who first filled the stands. But we are their children. And we are still pretty light-hearted.
Archie Bunker was never representative of blue-collar New York. He wasn’t even representative of the blue-collar New Yorkers on his show. That’s not the New York I see at the ballpark. Sure there are racists in the crowd, as there are in every crowd alas. But most of the crowd are just plain NY area people, who tend, I think it is fair to say, to be more tolerant than most other Americans of difference, because they couldn’t survive very well if they weren’t. I don’t think that there’s a whiteness to Mets fandom that there isn’t to Yankee fandom that problematizes Yankee hatred. I still think Yankee hatred is just plain fun.
–Dana
Dana:
Quick point in response on the fan diversity issue, because its actually something I’ve read up on in business journals and other periodicals and papers discussing sports marketing and media. The business and demographic side of the sports business (emphasis on business) is of much interest to me.
Business Week about a month ago wrote an article on declining numbers of African American fans attending games (although Latino attendance has significantly increased, especially with respect to the Mets.)
There are many reasons why black fans attendance has decreased, much of which relates to declining numbers of African American pro baseball players in general (which itself is tied to the fact that baseball at the youth level has increasingly become a province of the wealthy, particularly given that the upkeep costs are triple that of basketball, as well as the fact that in order to make the pros or even a good college program, you have to play in a travel league which costs a fortune.)
Tickets are also increasingly expensive (even though baseball is cheaper than other sports) and overall, the length of the season and the slowness of the game is resulting in (with exceptions) it becoming more of a regional than national sport (as this year’s pathetically low World Series TV ratings demonstrate.)
That said, and partially due to the size and diversity of the African American (in contradistinction to Dominican Republic. etc) the New York teams do better in terms of racial makeup of attendees and viewership than elsewhere. (Including Chicago and LA, which have a huge African American communities.) And (for the reasons I mention below), while the Mets do OK, they are in very visible second place when it comes to the Yankees in respect of diversity of fan base.
Notwithstanding what the your 2 African-American friends have told you (which I assume you agree is no more anecdotal evidence), in general my understanding is that by any metric (TV ratings, attendance, merchandise sales), the Yankees are more popular, including among African Americans. To some extent that’s simply a result of the fact that in general the Yankees were more popular with the general population, so the percentage corresponds in a subset of the community.
But also combine that with the fact that:
(1) Yankee Stadium is much easier to get to and faster to get to by mass transit (serviced by 3 lines, including weekend express trains);
(2) the Yankees are majorly associated with hip hop fashions and music, not only in NY but nationally (trust me on this – - I lived in West Philly for years);
(3) Racial composition of the Bronx and Manhattan and New Jersey
(4) Yankee Stadium has now become a major summertime tourist attraction, while Shea isn’t (I get this info from the NYC Board of Tourism and Trade);
(5) Objectively, the Yankees have been far more succesful than the Mets in the past 10 plus years (better team, at least in NY, usually gets better attendance. (Not this way in Chicago, though)
(6) the Yankees biggest and heaviest marketed superstar, Derek Jeter, is 1/2 African American, while David Wright does a terrific impression of Beaver Cleaver
………and the fact is that at least at this juncture, the Yankees have a heavier and more pronounced footprint in the African American community than the Mets have. Both on a percentage basis or on absolute numbers.
And I set ballpark attendance aside. The TV ratings are more indicative. SNY did well its first year, but YES still beats it, across the board, by a significant margin. I think (but am not certain) that YES may be carried on more cable systems outside the NYC area than SNY. (i.e. – Central NJ or greater Philly ‘burbs.)
Indeed, while the Latino fanbase of the Mets has probably tripled since 2005, its at best a dead heat with the Yankees.
And in Asia, the Yankees are the biggest thing on the planet (esp. in Japan and Taiwan), while the Mets are a non-entity. Its the Yankees with the Mariners as a distant second. [The “Kaz Matsui Affair” did not do wonders for us over there.
(I will concede, though, that in merchandise sales the Mets became a dead heat this year. However, that is probably because , logically, once people have a Jeter or Rivera t-shirt, they aren’t about to buy another. The Mets merchandising sales were so far below them there a spike was the only likely result anyway.)
The interesting (and troubling) thing about Quinnipac U’s 2006 poll is that in every boro except Queens, the Yankees were the more popular team (but the margins improved from the 2000 poll.) In Queens the Mets edges by a very slight amount. The poll also broke down on racial and sex lines. Winner – - Yankees. You can quibble with the polls methodology (sample size was no more than 2000) but its at least a rough estimate, and even assuming plus/mius 5% margin of error, this ain’t a Mets town yet in any demongraphic.
(Some might also argue QU’s poll is silly, but I submit it does matter. When NYC contemplates (esp if the economy dips) funding the infrastructure costs of 2 new stadiums (or realizing it will be on the hook for the bond payments if the owners’ default) one of the things they examine is which team is more economically dominant in the city and region, and where the demographics break out.)
Finally, most Mets fans get to the Stadium by car, and the Stadium’s location places it in much greater proximity to Long Island than elsewhere.
By the way, the Archie Bunker reference did not mean that I thought the Mets fans were racists, and I agree on NY being far more tolerant.
But I will say (as you and I have discussed before) that the Mets for many years had a great deal of trouble internally developing African American talent, in their early years had some bad people on that score in the front office,.
Moreover, as recently as 2005 you have some (rather vocal) portion of the fan base (led by Anna Benson) that complained that Minaya was trying to have an All Latino team, and also complained in 2005 that hiring Randolph was merely a concession to political correctness and affirmative action.
I will also, finally, note that I personally witnessed a lot of “commentary” directed at Kaz Matsui both at Shea and on talk radio that had a great deal of ugly and embarassing racial animus. On that score, I refuse to put my head in the sand on it. It was not pretty, it was far from light-hearted, and while a majority of fans did not do it, enough did engage in it to seriously unnerve me. (In addition, last season Danny Graves also complained about racial slurs hurled at him, but best I can tell, that was one heckler. The Matsui stuff was more widespread).
JD, I appreciate this information and it sounds exactly like what I would expect to find from a careful and serious survey. But I think that this information, and all that you say about the Yankees being in a better position to appeal to an African-American fan base is, like so much of the data we can now gather about the comparative popularity of the two teams, merely a snapshot of the current moment, in which the Yankees have dominated baseball for 11 years and the Mets have been disappointing. In the Eighties, Sixties, and Early Seventies, when the Mets ruled the town, I am sure, from what I remember, that surveys would have found them to be much more popular than the Yankees among African-Americans. When I say that this one is a wash, I should probably say that it is a pendulum, for fans of all races and ethnic backgrounds.
Dana
Dana:
Interesting point – - you would probably have to do a longitudinal study over a number of decades taking a number of independent variables into account (especially shifting populations in the NYC are in general) for it to have truly (in the academic sense) robust and defensible results. Be curious to know, for example how the numbers break in 1977-1978 (when the Yankees dominate) versus 1986-1988 (Mets Town).
I will note, however, one important aspect of the QU studies. Both the 2000 and 2006 polls were conducted when both the Mets and the Yankees were top ranked teams in NY, so probably present some more telling figures then if we were to look at the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s, when one team was dominant and the other was in the toilet. Its really only been since the late 1990s that you have seasons where both the Mets and Yankees are at the top, so, at least in that sense, the numbers are important, especially in terms of how they break down ethnically/racially, and what drives the differences.
Ok. I’m jumping in. I, and I think many Mets Fans of my generation, became a Mets fan because my parents, Brooklyn Dodger Fans, would not permit anything else. Their hatred of the Yankees, which I inherited, arose from the fact that every October (except one) their team came up against the Yankees and lost. It wasn’t an academic cross-town hatred. It was real, and based on actual playing time. They also hated the Yankees because they were very slow to integration. To this day, my mother refers to them as the “lilly-white” Yankees, even though I point out to her that they have several prominent African-American players (sorry though, I just can’t include Jeter in that despite his technical ethnicity). While I understand that the reasons my parents hated the Yankees are outdated and we should let it go already, it sticks with me.
In terms of the fan base, I think the Yankees, by virtue of their many years of winning seasons, have a worldwide fan base that, in my mind, doesn’t really count. I have travelled the world and in some of the most obscure places, I have seen people wearing Yankee hats who wouldn’t know a Jeter from a scooter. I think there are also two groups of New Yorkers who are Yankee fans – kids under 20 and those who aren’t really die hard fans but who root for the Yankees because they win more. So I don’t think a poll can really tell you anything unless it also asks how many games you go to or watch per year. My guess would be that if you were able to really hone it down, the fan base would be about the same in terms of geography and ethnicity.
If you want to get annoyed, lets not focus on Mets fans who yell “Yankees suck,” but on Yankee fans who come to Shea and yell “Mets suck” or the equivalent. For years as a season ticket holder I get a ticket to a Mets-Yankee game and its my least favorite game of the year. The stadium is packed with drunk fans (was that you J.D.?) screaming at each other and getting into fights. I remember practically huddling with the other season ticket holders who I sit near because we were wondering who these people were who had invaded our stadium. So yes, its that much sweeter when we win those games and can walk down the ramps shouting “Lets Go Mets!!”
Subie:
1. While I will confess to having attended a few games marinated in beer, none of them were Yankee-Mets games. Esp. if I bring my kid, I need to be on my wits. And when I do knock back a few, I am proud to say that other than once yelling at Burnitz to take one in the face, its always been a happy, genial affair, and (esp. on business travel) I often have had the pleasure of buying around and vice-versa for fans of the opposition I sit near and get to talking with. That is one of the great joys of baseball, and a true fan is a true fan regardless. Getting the occassional buzz during a pitchers’ duel does not equal fighting. I can be a silly “lampshade on the head” type once in a hooey, but I’m not a hostile one.
2. The worst drunken behavior I’ve ever seen in a Subway Series was a bunch of tanked up Mets fans in my section at a 2005 Mets-Yankees game in the Bronx (game 3) who showed up with a chip on their shoulder looking for fights. Basically the same Yankeeesque arrogance without the rings to show for it. It was an extremely unpleasant game, and I was secretly happy that Giambi mauled Looper with his bat in the 9th because it shut this particular group of assholes up. Karma can be a bitch but its inexorable sometimes.
I realize that its anectdotal at best, but in my experience, I have never ever ever had personally had any problem or incident with any Yankee fan at any game I’ve ever attended in the Bronx, Queens, or Baltimore, other than one 14 year old who yelled Piazza Sucks at me from 200 yards away as I got on the train. That may be luck of the draw. but I also don’t get into trash talking contests either (other than stat comparisons). Although I never have had issues with Mets fans either, I’ve seen them talk more trash.
Case in point – - I’m leaving game 2 of the NLDS this year and some rocket scientist starts a “Jeter’s a homo” chant, which a number of people join in (not all thank God.) Setting aside how offensive and embarassing that is, I turned to my friend I went to the game with and said “if he’s a “homo” he’s a 5 for 5, MVP season hittin’ homo, who can play for my team any day….in a dress for all I care.”
Point is that arguing which set of fans in NYC is “classier” is like arguing whether a hobos’ right foot is tastier than his left one. Both can be equally disgusting.
4. Are you saying that the 2 groups you I.D. (kids under 20 and bandwagoners) make up the principal of the Yankees’ fan base? If so, its just wrong. The Yankees beat the Mets in any demongraphic you want to look at. And, notwithstanding a bad record on integreation, the Yankees always managed to pull in black fans ever since the 1920s since some speculated that Babe Ruth was part black. And ever since 1976 or so, the Yankees have drawn excellent numbers from ethnic and racial minorities. It was actually in the 1980s (with the George Foster, Kevin Mitchell) that the Mets got a bit of a bad rep on being friendly for black players/
3. Jeter is only “technically” black???
That’s like saying Barrack Obama is only “technically” black. Jeter’s father is African American, and I have no doubt were Jeter, regardless of his superstar athlete status, is well aware that being black in America (regardless of what %) isn’t all that easy much of the time. Nuf said.
Wow J.D. you really did manage to mangle nearly everything I said. I didn’t say Mets fans were “classier,” just that I have had some unpleasant times at Mets-Yankee games at Shea, at which fans from both teams acted like drunk teenagers. Can’t say what the experience in the Bronx is – I don’t go to games there.
As for the percentages, I do think the number of bandwagoners and out-of-towners skews the statistics you cite. No question there are more Yankee fans than Mets fans, but on cross-examination, I don’t think those numbers will show what you are trying to use them for, i.e. that the Yankees have a more diverse fan base.
As for Derek Jeter, no I don’t think he’s representative of the African American community, nor does he profess to be. I don’t doubt that it isn’t easy to grow up half black in this country. What I doubt is your hypothesis that because Jeter is half black African-American fans flock to be Yankee fans.
Subie:
Sorry – didn’t mean to give the impression that I was disagreeing with your post – - like I said, its all anecdotal anyway. The reference to “classier” was just intended as a set up for a cheap laugh at the expense of innocent hobos.
You and I will have to agree to disagree on the diversity of fan base issue. The fact of the matter is that for the better part of a decade the Yankees have whalloped the Mets in terms of drawing fans from the 5 boros, whereas nearly every single poll or study that’s been done, whether its Qunnipac or elsewhere, indicates that the Mets core fanbase is in Long Island, which, even conceding that L.I. is not lilly-white by any means, does have an impact. When you combine that with the fact that TV rating in the regular and post season for the Yankees (locally and nationally) are higher than the Mets, its a principled hypothesis at least.
Put another waym the Yankees have a larger fan base nationally and locally…period. That will likely mean that they also have a larger proportion of bandwagoners and out of towners, but also means that they also have a disproportionately larger segment of people that are hardcore who will quote stats from the Miller Huggins era. To some extent that is a function of the fact that the Yankees generate more media coverage generally (HBO is more likely to do documentaties on Mantle or Berra before they get to Ed Charles or Pat Zachry), which has an effect. But when the Yankees poll higher (on a statistically significant basis) on EVERY single one of the boros save Queens (and there the Mets only beat them by a small majority) it indicates that this is not a “National League” town yet.
I also don’t think this is telling any tales out of school. Minaya flat out stated in his interview in the Times Magazine’s cover story that he thought the Mets fanbase and “branding” could stand a bit of diversification. No shame in that either. Just win while you do it.
Finally, given that I’m not an African American, I have no idea what it means to be representative of that community (nor am I sure any multi zillionaire athlete or entertainer is representative of any given community in this country.) I’ll agree that Jeter isn’t out there speaking out on behalf of political causes for African Americans, then again, Jim Rice never did that either. I’ll agree that from a marketing/identification standpoint, Jeter isn’t Bob Gibson/Michael Jordan/Muhammed Ali/Robinson in terms of how he comports himself. Whether or not his ethnic status is a significant factor in African Americans as fans of the team (or Yankees gear as a major symbol in hip-hop fashions a la Jay-Z) I’m not sure. (I’d speculate that in his prime, Bernie Williams may have been more of a touchstone). But in terms of the overall picture of “poster boys of the franchise”, I’d say that when one compares Jeter to Wright, its reasonable to hypothesize that Jeter’s background, combined with other factors, is at least in the mix on why the Yankee fan base for the past 10 years has been more diverse than the Mets.
As a final note, I’ll also note that this is relative. My sense is that both the Mets and the Yankees fanbases are far more diverse than the fanbases of many many other teams around the country. I base this on considering how many ballparks I’ve visted. L.A. was the only place I’ve been where the crowd’s diversity was mor akin to what I’m used to seeing in both NYC ballparks.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Do I Want the 20 Years Back? Do I Want to Watch the Series?, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
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Hey!…Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts..what a nice Thursday . Sasha Cohen