Say whatever you want about the format or necessity of interleague play, but every year, it provides me six chances to get payback. Six chances to earn bragging rights. Call it mean. Call it cruel. But as a Mets fan, I’ve earned the right to be that way and earned the right to hate the Yankees.

The tale of the Yankees versus the underdogs began over a century ago, when it was the Dodgers and Giants fans who were wishing for their chances to get payback. For decades, they had to sit back and watch the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio win one championship after another. From 1900 to when the Giants and Dodgers both left the area after the 1957 season, the Yankees won 17 world championships. The Giants and Dodgers won a combined total of six.

The Yankees quickly grew in popularity in the 1920s, overtaking even John McGraw’s Giants as New York’s team. The Giants actually kicked the Yankees out of the Polo Grounds in 1921 because they were jealous of how much the Yankees out-drew them in attendance. This was the 1921 Giants, the world champions!

The animosity between the fans was huge. As Jim Bouton explained in The New York Times, the rivalry between the two teams caused a cultural division:

Growing up in the blue-collar town of Rochelle Park, N.J., you rooted for either the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants. I was a Giants fan, and I loved going to the Polo Grounds. Nobody rooted for the Yankees in Rochelle Park. It didn’t seem sporting — like shooting fish in a barrel. Yankee fans, we believed, were the sons of bankers who lived in towns with bigger houses and nicer lawns.

-Jim Bouton NY Times 6/1/12  

In the 50s, the rivalries reached their heights, with all three teams having success. The Dodgers and Yankees played seven times in the World Series over a 15-year span. However, when both teams left, the cries of “wait ’til next year” went silent. Four seasons without a team left fans with no team to root for.

The Mets gave heartbroken fans something to root for. The Mets are just like the Giants and “The Brooklyn Bums”- underdogs, disrespected by Yankee fans. This new culture of fans was built around the hardiness and resilience the Dodger and Giant fans brought has spread to the entire fanbase. After all, it does take a tough person to be a Mets fan, right?

So say what you will about how meaningless interleague play is. Rant about how you think the rivalry is dead. It’s not dead. It’s still alive and well.  I will always love it when we win and hate it when they lose.

C’mon Mets, pull it out this weekend. Great win last night, one down, two to go…

Beat the Yankees.

January 10th, 1928: The Giants trade Rogers Hornsby to the Boston Braves for Shanty Hogan and Jimmy Welsh. It’s the Rajah’s third team in three years.

Why exactly is this trade monumental? Mostly because I find it hard to believe that any team would want to trade one of the best second basemen in the history of the game, especially when he is still in the prime of his career. In 1927 for the Giants, Hornsby hit .361, slugged 25 home runs, and had 125 RBI.

Apparently, that wasn’t a good enough stat line and New York traded Hornsby within the National League to the Boston Braves. He then proceeded to hit at a .387 clip, hit 21 homers, and 94 RBI. In his 23 year MLB career, Rogers Hornsby played for five different teams. I find it odd that he switched teams that many times during his professional career. In today’s game, we see players switch teams every year due to free agency, but it didn’t always used to be like that.

Before the 1970s, the reserve clause allowed an organization to hold onto a player for as long as they wish. Due to this, it was common for a player to spend his entire career with only one or two teams. That’s why I think it’s so weird that a career .358 hitter with 301 home runs, 1,584 RBI, and almost 3,000 hits would move around to so many teams during a time when players didn’t move around after they were established.

This fact alone makes me wonder what type of player Hornsby was in the clubhouse. I haven’t read anything bad about his character, but with him moving around to so many teams, there must have been some sort of personality conflict, either with Hornsby and his fellow players, his coaching staff, or the front office; especially with Boston and New York since he only spent one year with each organization.

On the other hand, the star second baseman could have have been too expensive for either the Giants or Braves to hold onto because he was at the peak of his game. There are obviously a number of things that caused Rogers Hornsby to play for five teams during a time in which it was unprecedented. He has always been a personal favorite of mine, and one of a few Major Leaguers that I wish I had the chance to watch in person.

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