This year marked the end of my rivalry with “true” Yankees fans. Personally, I know there are many Mets fans that simply cannot accept another Yankees World Series Championship, but I can. This year, the NY Yankees defeated the NY Mets division rival in the World Series, yet so many Mets fans were found trying to come up with logical reasons to root for the Phillies. Let me be clear, I hate the Yankees. If I know 100 Yankees fans I’d say 65 of them are watching a game on May 23rd (random date,) and the rest just hang on and wait for the playoffs or a Red Sox series.
I said it once and I’ll say it again. You don’t root for division rivals. Not only do you not root for rivals, you don’t root for Philadelphia. It’s a crime against New York. It’s a crime against the Mets. Tell me the last time a Yankees player called the Mets chokers on the NY radio? Tell me the last time a Yankees outfielder tried to elbow our infielder in the chest while turning a double play? The only, and I mean this, the only reason to root for the Phillies over the Yankees was pure jealousy. I won’t stand for it, and I won’t accept it. Here are the two most popular arguments made:
#1 The Yankees buy championships:
This is easily the most popular argument and to me proves how jealous we really are as fans. The NY Mets had a payroll of over 130 million this year, more than almost every team in the entire league, yet somehow we aren’t trying to buy a title but they are? Not only do we have a high payroll, but tell me again what EVERY Mets fans wish is for this off-season?
Oh right, it’s to spend more money. If you look at archives on this site or any Mets site really, you’ll find articles upon articles of concerned Mets fans thinking the Mets will not be willing to spend money in this off-season, and how distraught they are over that “decision.” So while “we” hate the Yankees for spending money, we get angry at our owners for not spending whatever it takes to win? Something doesn’t add up there. There are several of us that hope the Mets sign Lackey AND Holliday (which they won’t,) but how is that any different? Are you honestly going to sit there and tell me that if the Wilpon’s had $200m to spend and it put the Mets in the World Series that you wouldn’t be happy because we “bought it?”
#2 The Yankees/Mets Rivalry:
I’m going to tell you fellow Mets something that may be tough to read. There is no rivalry. I can’t speak for generations before me, but I can tell you from 1980-1995 the Yankees were never on my radar. I was never concerned with how they ran their team, who they played and how they did. When they won in 1996, I thought it was pretty awesome. How could you not? I mean, any true baseball fan who can’t appreciate that 1996 team is just a fool.
After 1996 is when the Yankees got a little greedy, and started to enjoy the taste of winning a little too much and would spend whatever it takes to get there again.
The problem to me is, we don’t have to like the Yankees, but let’s not call them our rivals. The Yankees are only our rivals because Fox and ESPN tell you they are. They play one another 6 times in a regular season, and for some reason people think a series win versus the Yankees is more important than the Phillies-Braves-Marlins.
When the Mets build their team for 2010, they aren’t building it to beat the Yankees. They are building to beat everybody in the division, and anybody who would stand in their way heading to the World Series.
If you take 100 Yankees fans and asked them Red Sox/Mets who are they rooting for, there’s no way more than 10 would say Red Sox. Absolutely, no way. Yankees fans don’t hate Mets fans, they pity us. Why? Because for the last 10 years we’ve tried to make claims that we belong in the same conversation with them, and we simply have not proven it.
I can understand disliking them and enjoying the moments in which they fail due to their payroll, but to cheer for a division rival that has thrown our miseries in our face over the last 3 years is ridiculous.
#3 Steroids
I’ll be brief here. Anybody who uses steroids as a reason to root against a single team is just ignoring the truth about the issue. Alex Rodriguez was 1 of over 100 players on a list. If you honestly think it’s impossible anybody on your team whether it be the Mets or whoever is not or could not be on that list, then you just have a selective thought process. They all either did it or knew about it. Get over it.
So let’s take a page out of the Yankees book. The franchise has the money, let’s spend it. We’ve got our core guys, now let’s go sign the missing pieces so that this time next year we’re talking about the Mets parading down Broadway in New York City. Let’s focus on the National League, and the NL East, and start realizing the Yankees only matter to us if it comes down to a 7 game series, until then, let’s keep our eyes on the prize.
Finally, the 2009 season is over and it ended with the Philadelphia Phillies former ace pitcher practically quitting on his team, their closer imploding, and their star 1B not showing up in the series except to strikeout. Celebrate that. Celebrate the fact that if we want to win the NL East next year, the team likely standing in our way just had a small meltdown. It’s Hot Stove season, and if we can’t win the 09 World Series, let’s go out and win the 2010 Hot Stove Title and get ready for April!
*Mets Merized Online Needs Your Help*
sounds like you want to be a yankees fan – mets fans who have sypothy for yankees and fans and grow a soft spot are weak! Be true be strong!
For what it’s worth, I agree with you Jessup.
God, what a great sensible piece, finally(!) about this Met / Yankee fan hate fest.
i am a Met fan but also a NY Fan. If a team representing has got an NY logo over its ‘face’, then that team represents the city i grew up in (or made my living from its NYMSA cultural/lifestyle), and i root for THAT team against teams from other cities. It’s that simple for me.
Also, as this good piece says and is the case in football, the 2 ‘NY’ teams are not in the same division/league and would only play ‘for keeps’ in a season-ending CHAMPIONSHIP Series.
So, i may be simple, but i root for Game 7 between the Mets / Yanks; and OT in the Superbowl between the Giants / Jets.
I had to stop reading after the first few sentences of point #2. You are either too young to know or just simply lost. New York National League fans have hated the Yankees since the 1940’s and 1950’s and possibly even before that. They have always been rivals of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. ESPN and FOX were not around to tell us that back then, in fact more than half the country didn’t even own a TV set yet.
You shouldn’t make assumptions if you were not from that era. After the the Dodgers and Giants left, hardly any of us would accept rooting for the only team left in NY. Go speak to your grandfather and ask him. It got so bad that the demand for another NL team in NY was the biggest political and social issue of that era.
For some strange reason you got this thing in your head that rivals come from only within your own division and that is simply not true. It never has been. Rivalries have crossed leagues ever since the very first world series. Ever since the first all star game. Ever since the junior circuit merged with the National League. There are plenty of good books on the subject from some of the best historical authors of our time. I would suggest you read some of them and learn a little something about the game that you obviously don’t know now.
To further encourage the rivalry, MLB approved the adoption of the Mayors Trophy game to pit the Yankees against the Mets in an exhibition played solely for bragging rights. You may want to read up about that too. You can stick to your own feelings of what a rivalry means to you, but please don’t try to tell the rest of us about your new found definition of the word. We’ve had a rivalry since before you were getting your diapers changed. And back then the majority of us either heard the games on radio or read about it the next day in the papers. Both of those required senses are lost on todays youth who would rather speak than listen, graduate high school with an 8th grade reading level, and let calculators do what we did with a piece of paper, a pencil and our minds back then.
We should be telling you what a rivalry is, not the other way around. I liken this to a college freshman teaching Albert Einstein Physics 101.
I had to stop reading after the first few sentences of point #2. You are either too young to know or just simply lost.
— If you kept reading you’d see where my age comes into play.
“I would suggest you read some of them and learn a little something about the game that you obviously don’t know now.”
— Cute sentence. Get real seriously. I don’t know the game because I could care less about 6 games a year and I’d rather focus on 18 against the Phillies? Name 1 other AL/NL rivalry that you think matters in the grand scheme of baseball? Go ahead I’ll wait. Okay time is up. You’ve got Dodgers/Yankees, Cardinals/Royals, Giants/As, Cubs/White Sox. You going to really try and tell me those teams hate one another MORE than they hate their division or league rivals?
Dodgers/Yankees – Do Yankees fans hate Dodgers or Red Sox more? Do Dodgers fans hate the Giants or Yankees more
Cardinals/Royals – Do the Royals hate anybody? Do the Cards fans hate the Royals or Cubs more?
Giants/As – Do the Giants fans hate the As or the Dodgers more?
I can go on and on and every time I’ll be right. In the biggest “AL/NL rivalries” not one of them is more important than the division rivalries.
“To further encourage the rivalry, MLB approved the adoption of the Mayors Trophy game to pit the Yankees against the Mets in an exhibition played solely for bragging rights. You may want to read up about that too.”
Wow yeah… cause an exhibition trophy really brings a rivalry home. Are you kidding me with this? Seriously. So you’re trying to tell me the Yankees/Mets rivalry is a legit one because of an exhibition game? An exhibition game…an exhibition game that lost interest and died after the 1983 season. I wonder why it lost interest? Oh right. BECAUSE IT DIDN’T COUNT!
“You can stick to your own feelings of what a rivalry means to you, but please don’t try to tell the rest of us about your new found definition of the word.”
Actually, as a writer of a blog site that you go to that’s exactly what I’m here to do.
“We’ve had a rivalry since before you were getting your diapers changed. And back then the majority of us either heard the games on radio or read about it the next day in the papers. Both of those required senses are lost on todays youth who would rather speak than listen, graduate high school with an 8th grade reading level, and let calculators do what we did with a piece of paper, a pencil and our minds back then.”
Translation: I’m a bitter old man? I love how you respond to a blog and try and insult my youth, and tell me how it used to be… all the while you’re on a blog site which wasn’t around “in your day.” Seems a little 2 sided no?
“We should be telling you what a rivalry is, not the other way around.”
You’re right because Mets/Braves Mets/Phillies Mets/Dodgers/Giants and Mets/Cardinals are way less impostant than the 6 games of Mets/Yankees. The above rivalries have no bearing on how the Mets season goes, all that matter is that we take 4 of 6 from the Yankees.
“I liken this to a college freshman teaching Albert Einstein Physics 101.”
Fair enough, then I’ll liken this to an old man complaining about video game technology while playing Wii Bowling.
If you would stop pontificating and focus more on listening or discerning you might learn something. I am up to date with all forms of technology because I stop, pause and take the time to learn about things that I don’t understand. You should try it sometime, so that you can in fact learn something about the roots of national league baseball in NY instead of drawing idle and useless conclusions that would make anyone over 40 wonder about your baseball acuity.
Rivalries are born of the fans, not of the schedule. Rivalries are geographical 90% of the time. It has nothing to do with how many times you play an opponent. Only a fool would believe we have a big rivalry with the Pirates or Padres because we play them more than the Yankees. The notion of that is so ignorant it boggles the mind.
With one wave of your keystrokes, you outlandishly propose that 100 years of a wonderful NY baseball rivalry never existed? I suppose the holocaust or the Hiroshima bomb never existed either because you never saw it.
I won’t belabor the point on one who is more intent on defending the indefensible, than learning something about a sport he professes to love but doesn’t back it up with any historical context or any indepth knowledge of its glorious roots and timeless traditions.
“Rivalries are born of the fans, not of the schedule.”
Explain to me again why the Red Sox and Yankees are rivals? Could it be that they play one another a lot and are often fighting for playoff spots/titles?
Only a fool would believe we have a big rivalry with the Pirates or Padres because we play them more than the Yankees.
— Did I say that? Show me where I said that? Any Braves/Phillies v. Mets game is more important than a Yankees/Mets game.
Let me pose this question. Let’s say the Mets have 3 games v. Philly and 3 games v. NYY back to back, and it’s September and all 3 teams are in playoff races in their respective divisions.
Do you want Jerry Manuel fixing the rotation for the Yanks series or fixing it for the Phillies series?
You think Jerry Manuel and the Mets really care about the Yankees rivalry? It’s a ticket seller. It’s a 1 week bragging rights. Call me crazy but I’d rather brag to my NL East rivals than a team that isn’t on our radar until the media driven circus that is 6 games.
I just want say that since the Curt Flood decision, players no longer care about rivalries of any kind. Back in the good old days they certainly did. Today, players move around so much that there are no longer any player/team loyalties. Rivalries are more about the fans and have little to do with the day to day manging of a team. If players cared about rivalries, would Tom Glavine have become a Met or Damon and Clemens a Yankee? They care about money and that is all that motivates them.
I believe you have some valid points, and I too, agree that the ‘rivals’ of the NL are far more important in the grand scheme of things, but to dismiss the Yankee/Met rivalry is not accurate either.
Do you live in this city, or tri-state area? Do you ever listen to sports radio, read other sports sites? You can’t miss it, the Yankee fans KILL the Met Fans and Met Fans (more rightfully so
) kill Yankee Fans.
Brilliantly elucidated. But you need to go easier on the young’uns.
Pops
i guess it depends on where one circles the wagons, but i root for New York, New York. Period.
Ok you make some great points! there is alot of truth to what you say, however obviously there is more than just rivalry and money and steroids. you say yankees fan pity us?? some do majority love our failure. They would only want one team and one team alone. since i was 7 years old i had people telling me i must be a yankees fan. i watched both as a kid, and favored the mets year 83. since then i loved the mets name the logo the colors and expecially darryl and Doc. i just was interested in the yankees. i dont like the name the uniform and the history didnt matter to me. so i made a choice to be a mets fan. and ever since i have been attacked, badgered, frown upon, embarrassed by yankee fans that i know and those i do not. imagine going to by a mets jersey to be told by clercks i should switch teams. imagine walking down the street and people telling me take it off or F the mets! imagine walking to a bar and been ganged up by chorus of yankee fans wanting to make me feel like crap just for loving my team!
Now do i hate the yankees? well i did root for them in 96 and i was there at the stadium and i celebrated and wore the hat and all. but then after that yankee fans got worse. new fans that jumped on the bandwagon started to join in the mocking and comments. i never wore anything yankees and i stop rooting for them since. and after the year 2000 you have no idea how fans Got. That year hurt the most. and fans wont let me heal. so the fans is who i have a grudge with, and seeing them lose makes them understand what it feels like to lose. that is why 2004 was awesome they choked big time!
The philies now became our rivals. but there a good team, there also national league and i am a national league guy. i will not root for the yankees again until we win a championship or several. so i went for the philies and proud of doing so. What pisses me off the most is that yankee fans dont even take the attitude of their captain. Jeter they say is a cool and classy guy, well than why arent fans that way? they act rather than class they just act like asses. They forget to love the GAME more than than team.
YEs Passion and PRide is Good but also Humility and love for your city and fellow newyorkers should go first. Being a passionate fan doesn’t mean you have to an idiot.
So i go for two teams the MEts and those against the yankees
“and ever since i have been attacked, badgered, frown upon, embarrassed by yankee fans that i know and those i do not.”
Isn’t that more a reflection on the people you know than on the Yankees? I know some extreme Yankees fans, I know a guy with an entire room dedicated to all previous 26 titles and soon adding the 27th. The day after they won I congratulated him, and he asked me what the Mets do next year? Get Lackey? Get Figgins? So, I guess the point is…maybe we bring it on ourselves a bit? Maybe if I rooted for Philly andtalked crap to him when I had no leg to stand on, that he’d throw it in my face after they won. But because I’m a quiet Mets fan and big my spots, I don’t get crap for it.
“imagine going to by a mets jersey to be told by clercks i should switch teams. imagine walking down the street and people telling me take it off or F the mets!”
I’m curious if you’ve ever walked down the streets of Philadelphia (Springstein song) wearing Mets stuff and tell me what you’ve heard? By the way, last year I moved to CT where not only am I surrounded by Yankees fans but I’m also surrounded by Red Sox fans. I had to switch cable providers 3 times because they don’t carry the Mets and I live an hour away from Southern NY.
“new fans that jumped on the bandwagon started to join in the mocking and comments.”
I got news for you. If the Mets had won in 2006, the badwagon of Mets fans would have been just as full. Bandwagoning is a part of sports. It’s going to happen to whatever team wins, even if its the Mets. Case and point, 1986 the Mets owned the city. Where are all those fans from 86? And the fact you wore yankees stuff is a little strange to me. I think you took your “rooting for them in 96″ a bit far, and so I’m happy you get crap from your friends when you rock Mets stuff. They probably remember when you wore a Yankees hat.
Why did 2000 hurt so bad? The Mets were HOT in 2000, they weren’t even close to the best team in the NL let alone as good as the Yankees. Man, that sucked to lose to them but come on. That was one of the luckiest years for a Mets fan for us to get that far with that little amount of big league talent compared to other teams.
I know Yankees fans probably by a 3×1 margin over Mets fans personally and I can’t tell you a single moment after the Yanks won that I’ve heard about the 2000 WS. I’m being serious. All the Yanks could have done in that series was fail. It was like when they faced the Marlins. They were supposed to win. If they didn’t, that was the story.
i said clearly its not about the yankees but more about the fans. I see you want to defend them to the the T. First of all most yankees fan are obnoxious yes there are mets fans as well but no where near the amount of yankee fans. I find it interesting your defending yankee fans and ignoring what i go through?? sounds like someone is really a yankee fan. Listen i have nothing against the yankees they do what they got to do to win and thats what we should do. however all im asking is that we respect each other. if we truly are new yorkers and love our city than we should honor, respect, backup and root for our home teams the mets and the yankees.
oh and jessup just because your writer and your write blogs what you say is just here-say. To the rest of the Fans it doesnt mean a thing. I think before you write blogs about ” How you feel and how you see things” you should speak and listen to fans.
Jessep – How would you feel if the Yankees won it all 3 years in a row?
Danny: How’d the Mets do in your scenario?
I think that answers the question.
Too often we worry about how the Yankees do and not how the Mets do. I’d be more concerned with the Mets standings in those 3 years over what the Yankees did for 3 years.
Jessup, you are right. There is no rivalry because the team I root for isn’t good enought to make it a rivalry. For it to be genuine the Mets need to face the Yankees a whole bunch of times in the WORLD SERIES..not some stupid games in May. We haven’t won crap since 1986. In the 23 years since the Mets last Championship, how many pennants and series have the Yankess won? Case closed. I am no Yankee fan and their fans are obnoxios and I remember when NYC was a Mets town not a Yankee fest, but now I am just jealous of them. They seem to know what they are doing, or they are just plain luckier than we are. Whatever, it is they have the rings and all I have is a stomach ache.
The Mets missed the playoffs by one game in 2007 and 2008. So six games against the Yankees are hardly meaningless.
They are meaningless in terms of how heavily promoted they are. 6 games against the Yankees are no more important than 6 games against the Diamondbacks. It’s just 6 games. Whereas games against the Phillies, Braves, Marlins and Nats are more important because they actually can determine where a team ranks in the division which is all that matters.
But your blog is about rivalries, and the definition of rivalry in the true sense of the word has nothing to do with games in the division which I agree are more important. You should have chosen a different tract, because your making points that are solid but have nothing to do with rivalries. You seem to be trying to redefine a word that is driven by fan emotion.
Hate the yankees, I surely do. I never cheer for them, and dont want them to win titles ever. Hope they choke and lose and enjoy greatly when they do..
BUT TO CHEER FOR THE PHILLIES?????????????????????????? NEVER!!
I was go Yankees all the way.
THE PHILLIES ARE THE METS RIVALS…youre a traitor. some mets fans in yankee stadium with phillies caps…you should be ashamed of yourself!!!
I feel sorry for Mets fans, but don’t hate them. I would root for the Mets if they were in the series against the hated Red Sux. .
againts the redsox how about other times?
this is an awesome read: http://www.freewebs.com/seanhateseverything/yankees.html
Who cares, I’m a METS fan, not a baseball fan…my baseball season ended with a win over the Astro’s…..don’t you get it , if its not the Mets its nothing…did not watch or follow any of the post season…did not care 1 bit ..its not jealousy , it was just not my team playing
I feel bad for you then. There’s more to this sport than 1 team
ur feelings are not a concern…try to understand its a loyality thing.
I am a Met Fan since 1962 but I consider myself a New York fan as well. Anytime the Mets play the Yankees whether inter- league play or World Series, I am a Met fan 100% and I have cried over this team every time they lose. I consider Citifield my stadium. However New York State is my hometown and I am proud of it. If there is a New York team playing in the World Series or Super Bowl or Stanley Cup, I’ll surely root for MY NEW YORK TEAM and I don’t consider myself a TRAITOR!
Carol
You guys just don’t get it at all. Real Met fans, the “Faithful” don’t really hate the Yankees themselves. The “Faithful” are mostly the sons and daughters of die hard Dodger and NY Giant fans who watched their hero’s move West. When the National League expanded in 1962, the fans who could not switch allegiance to the team from the Bronx adopted this team of over the hill players as well as the younger inept ones made available in the draft that was created for the stocking of the new team and the Colt 45’s in Houston. The problem for real Met fans is that smug attitude of many so called Yankee fans. It is their contention that winning the World Series is their birthright and anything less is not what God intended. So many of these obnoxious fans seem to disappear when the Yankees are not winning it all or when tougher times exist. Any Yankee fan who roots for his/her team win, lose or draw loves their team as we do ours. I have little problem with this idea. As a former New Yorker who misses the city, I am a Met Fan, a Jet fan, an Islander fan and Knick fan. I don’t hate Ranger or Giant fans although Ranger fans should have forgotten their “Potvin Sucks” by now. So, I did root for our rival Phillies to beat the Yankees if only to “stick it to” those front running, jump on the bandwagon fans who annoy me to no end!
Screw em!
AMEN! I agree with you totally!
I ama Yankee hater but it’s more to do with my upbringing and my dad’s old school National League vs American League rivalry, which was incredibly true to form in the days of Brooklyn, NY G’s and NYY. I know it’s different today but I would gather that most of us are in some shape or form Mets fans b/c of our ancestor’s associations with the old NL teams in the 40s and 50s. That said, those who try to justify the Yankees overspending by using the Mets spending as an example or worse yet, saying “Well the Yankees haven’t won a WS since 2000″ – I will personally send you a pound of Starbucks java for you to WAKE UP! The Yankees DO try to buy championships – they just haven’t been successful at it since 2001. In the meantime they have made the playoffs every year save one since 1996 and NO other team has been like that, the Braves were but that was because they were a good homegrown team with strong pitching IF the Yankees do not win a World Series, they feel like they’ve failed. That’s preposterous – making the playoffs is an honor for most teams. And the worst part of it – this year their fans AND their ballwashers in the media have us convinced “Oh they SAVED $20mm off their payroll and still won.” Like they did us a favor. Big deal! That’s almost half the Marlins’ pay roll. Those who use the Mets as an example for high payrolls, well that is a bad example. And I’m a Mets fan – they spend their money horribly and have NO young talent (at least ML ready talent – I really hope they don’t trade FMart, Havens or Davis but we all know they will for some washed up over his prime talent like Vlad Guerrero) – the Yankees disparity allows them to keep their high level prospects AND pay for high-priced free agents. It’s not even fair.
I’m a baseball fan and unwillingly rooted for the yankees because I can’t stand the phillies winning it all for the 2nd straight year. As a Mets fan its hard to not build up negative emotions towards a cross town team. I think you’re opinion posted here has some valid points but to argue against every reader/poster that won’t agree with you is just childish. We as Mets fan were in a pinch this year, having two teams we dislike very much in the WS. Whether a Mets fan rooted for the phillies or the yankees its ultimately up to their up bring and their personal reasons for being a Mets fan. But I understand you’re position, the phillies are our current rivals during the entire season and the yankees are only two weeks of the season. Either way, they’re both our rivals.
I call what we had with the Cubs a true rivalry…..not some ESPN/Jimmy Rollins manufactured B.S., that we supposedly have with the Phillies.
The 84 season was nasty, the Cubs fans were vicious and racist (remember Bill Robinson going into the crowd after a fan in Chi-town?)
That’s a rivalry.
Bottom line I ain’t rootin for the Yankees.
I may have thought about rootin for them if they had Met the Cubs in the 84 series. But I don’t “hate” Phillie as much as I do the Yankees.
I believe that what is going on with those Met vs Yankees “rivalry” is really jealousy as you pointed out earlier Jessep that if the Mets won 3 in a row then we would be analyzed and if the Wilpons had the money that Yanks have and spent it, we would be happy so I believe the problem and one that Met fans that hate Yanks have is that they can spend it and we can’t. I am a die hard Met fan and a baseball fan. How can you not be a baseball fan before becoming a Met fan? I was cheering Yanks to beat our “rivals” Phillidephia Phillies and was so happy when they lost. I cheer for some players on Yanks and I can still cry when Mets blow it or lose another player to injury. Phillies, Brave and Marlins are our rivals not the Yankees so please get some perspective you one-track minded “rival” Yanks pushers out there. I am with you 100% Jessep.