New York Sign Language

Yankees, Mets Inspire Special Brand of Loyalty

By BOB YAMPOLSKY

There are three types of New Yorkers: Yankee fans, Met fans and people who do not care about baseball.

Of course there are some people who root for other teams, like people who have moved to New York recently. And there are people who say they like both the Yankees and the Mets. But real Yankee fans hate the Mets, and real Met fans hate the Yankees.

I am a Yankee fan and have been one since birth. I am not exaggerating when I say this. Like religion or citizenship, allegiance to a baseball team is something that is decided before you are born. My father was a Yankee fan, and so am I. It is that way with all my friends who are Yankee fans.

Our sign for this month appears on a subway train: SEATS RESERVED FOR YANKEE FANS ONLY. Of course this is an ad, for the sneaker company Adidas, and it is meant to be humorous. But it is also meant to be arrogant — and arrogance is a characteristic often associated with the Yankees.

The Yankees started out in 1903. They were called the New York Highlanders then. They changed their name to the Yankees 10 years later, and 10 years after that, in 1923, Yankee Stadium opened. Many legendary players were Yankees — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle — and the Yankees have won far more World Series than any other team — 24.

Let us contrast the Yankees with the poor Mets. They are a fairly recent team. Their first year was 1962, when their record was 40 wins and 122 losses. They were so inept they were almost charming. "Doesn't anyone here know how to play this game?" was their manager's famous lament. Once their catcher was given a birthday party. "Why didn't you give me a cake?" he asked. The answer: "We were afraid you'd drop it."

The Mets' colors are orange and blue, and behind these colors there is a sad New York story. New York once had three Major League baseball teams. Besides the American League Yankees, there were the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League.

In the '50s, both teams left New York for California. This was a great shock to the city. (Even today there are people in Brooklyn who have not gotten over this.) The Mets were created to fill the void left by the Giants and Dodgers, and for their colors they took the orange of the Giants and the blue of the Dodgers.

When the Giants and Dodgers were still in New York, there were a number of memorable Subway Series — that is, World Series between New York teams. But ever since the Mets have been in town, there has been no such luck.

However, after the players' strike in 1995, which resulted in the cancellation of the World Series, Major League Baseball faced a backlash from the fans. To appeal to them, baseball started interleague play: teams from the American League playing National League teams during the regular season. This has meant that twice a year the Yankees and Mets play a three-game series.

In the series at the beginning of the month, the Yankees won two out of three, I am happy to say. All three games were sellouts, with intense media coverage, excited fans and a playoff-type atmosphere.

The Yankee manager, Joe Torre, insisted that the games were just like any other game, but he belied their importance by changing the pitching rotation, so that Hideki Irabu, who should have started the third game, did not. His place was taken by the newly acquired, five-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens. But he was promptly shelled by the Mets as they won the third game of the series.

That win ended an eight-game losing streak and gave a little breathing room to Bobby Valentine, the Mets' manager. Valentine is called one of the most disliked men in baseball and he holds the dubious record of having managed the most games without ever making it into the postseason.

Mayor Giuliani was at the games, wearing a Yankee cap. To his credit he does not hide the fact that he is a Yankee fan. He sounded unconvincing when he said that he also roots for the Mets, except when they play the Yankees. But he is a politician and he cannot risk offending the many Met fans in the city.

A few days after the series, the Yankees traveled to the White House, where President Clinton honored them for their phenomenal year in 1998, when they won a total of 125 games. Hillary Clinton, who is planning to run for Senate in New York next year, showed up wearing a Yankee cap. A Chicago native, she sounded extremely unconvincing when she declared that she was a Yankee fan. Mayor Giuliani, who is expected to be her opponent in the Senate race, responded thus: "Really? You know, I've been to a thousand Yankee games, and I've never seen her there once."

Shukan ST: June 25, 1999

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