Mets Fans: When is it okay to root for the New York Yankees?

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Despite being in opposite leagues and playing in the same city, there’s a rivalry between the New York Mets and New York Yankees. Is it ever okay for the Mets fan to cross over and cheer for the Bronx Bombers?

Before the ALDS started, I noticed a lot of posts on Social Media about loyalty. Some New York Mets fans were chastising others about rooting for the New York Yankees because they’re the enemy. How could you root for them with anything?

While this was going on, there were other posts, where some Yankees fans were getting on Mets fans, stating that they should be rooting for the Bronx Bombers because all New Yorkers should want a Big Apple baseball team to win. This was especially true when facing a team from Boston.

This got me thinking about how I felt about things and also about circumstances. Mainly, is it ever okay for a Mets fan to root for the Yankees?

Now, I have to admit, my gut reaction and first inclination is to say, NO! I mean, how could you?

You grow up with an allegiance to a team, and even if another team plays in your state, they’re still not your team. This pretty much runs across the board, in every sport. New Yorkers are spoiled because they have options everywhere, and to be fair, I have crossed team lines to root for the competition in other sports, depending upon circumstances.

For example, I’m a New York Jets fan, but rooted for the New York Giants in all the Super Bowl games they played in, especially against the New England Patriots, who are the most Yankee-like team around in other sports.

Yet another example, I’m a New York Islanders fan but rooted for the New York Rangers to win the Stanley Cup back in 19994. Heck, I even rooted for the New Jersey Nets to beat the San Antonio Spurs in 2003 and they weren’t even New York then. But I’ve never done it in baseball, and unfortunately, I’ve been around long enough to have received many opportunities.

I became a Mets fan in 1975. One of the people who actually taught me the game was my grandmother, an old Brooklyn Dodgers fan, who had sworn off baseball after they moved to Los Angeles.

When I started following, she jumped back in. For some unknown reason, I chose to root for the Mets. Back then, it was because I liked Tom Seaver and Dave Kingman. The following year, Lee Mazzilli. My grandmother even told me later, that if I had chosen to follow the Yankees instead, she couldn’t have brought herself to join me in rooting. Her hatred had been too strong. Too deep. Probably would’ve been easier for me if I had, but nope, I chose the more difficult path. The first game I ever went to, was, of course, a loss. As a matter of fact, it was to the Dodgers.

So, I set along on my path, but I still hadn’t grown into that Yankee hatred. But, let me tell you something; the Yankees give you plenty of reasons to do so. Want me to share some? It would be my pleasure.

From the 1950s, the Yankees used another Major League baseball team, the Kansas City A’s as their farm team, to make one shady deal after another. For you younger fans, go Google it.

The dawn of free agency, they began their practice of using their financial clout to buy every superstar around, which smaller market teams couldn’t compete with. A practice which got even more lopsided as the years progressed.

Reggie Jackson’s hip-check (cough, cough, cheating) in game four of the ‘78 World Series, which helped turn the tide in the Yankees’ favor.

George Steinbrenner. Perhaps, the most arrogant owner in sports history. Firing and hiring managers on a whim, like a Roman emperor giving the thumbs up or down to a gladiator.

His desire to get seemingly every ex-Mets star to play for the Yankees afterward, as a kind of sticking it to the organization aspect. I still want to vomit when I think of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry in those pinstripes.

The ridiculous hair policy.

Their former captain, Derek Jeter, taking over the Miami Marlins and then gifting his old team the National League MVP, Giancarlo Stanton.

I could seriously write a one-thousand-page thesis on why people hate the Yankees, but I’ll settle for only one more. The fans. The most obnoxious fanbase in sports, although Patriot fans are getting close. Every conversation, at one point or another, will include . . . 27 Rings. They don’t care how they got them. Whose fanbase they gutted to take their star players. They just care about that ring.

And so what, if there is a league imbalance, where you can have teams like the Orioles, White Sox, and Royals each putting up at least a hundred losses. So long as the Yankees win, it’s okay.

What makes fans of other teams go out of their minds even more, is the mentality of even that isn’t enough. This season, the Yankees put up 100 wins, and Yankee fans were grumbling about who wasn’t doing their jobs. Of just having received Stanton, and now looking at ways to include either Bryce Harper or Manny Machado into the mix.

Yankee fans look at other teams’ rosters, like a hungry diner perusing over a menu at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. And there’s never any doubt in their minds that because they’re the Yankees, they should be entitled to these players.

I’m quite convinced that the Yankees could go 162-0, and their fans would complain that some of the games were too close.

“Hey, Miguel Andujar made an error today, let’s go get Manny Machado.”

“We need a pitcher to get the 7th inning guy with two out and none on batter. What about Max Scherzer?”

It doesn’t end there. Sometimes, they think the best Mets are trying out to become future Yankees.

There were even a ton of posts this summer, of Yankee fans stating how the Mets should trade them Jacob deGrom, so a New York team could bring back the title. They were even debating which lower tier prospects they were willing to give the Mets.

Yeah, let me try to clear the bile out of my mouth from that one. Everyone should go out of their way to help the Yankees.

And how about the recent Tweet, which went viral, from the classy Yankee fan, who threw beer on an Oakland A’s fan at this year’s Wild Card game. Not only that, he had the nerve to use #PinstripePride in his post, with a big LOL nearby. Because assault is always a laughing matter and something to be proud of.

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So, let me get back to the point of this piece since I got sidetracked in a rant, which I tend to do when it comes to the Yankees.

Is there ever a good time to root for them?

Well, as a Mets fan, I couldn’t stand the Braves in the late 90’s, yet still rooted for them against the Yankees in those games.

In 2001, the Yankee fan narrative was everyone should root for them in the World Series, since it would be good for New York.

Well, they meant for Yankee fans of NY. I rooted for NY as a whole, but cheered my lungs out, when Luis Gonzalez’s bloop fell over the drawn-in infield in game 7. And no other Mets fan I knew, was rooting for the Yankees either.

I despised the Philadelphia Phillies teams of Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, but swallowed my pride and rooted for them in 2009.

If the Yankees were playing the Washington Nationals or whatever NL team late in the season, and the Mets needed that team to lose, I’d still root for that team and want the Mets to make that game up at a different time, and in a different way.

I’ve told my kids, that if they do anything wrong. Even if they fall on the wrong side of the law, I’ll be disappointed in them, but won’t stop loving them or being there for support. But, if they root for the Yankees or marry a Yankee fan, they are disowned, and I’ll turn my back on them. It’ll hurt, but that’s the way things have to be.

If a team of demons rose to the surface and challenged the Yankees to a game, I’d be putting on phony horns on my head and carrying a novelty pitchfork in support. Though to be fair, I’m not sure which team constitutes the evil one in this scenario.

Now, with the Yankees coming back to NY all knotted up in their series with the Red Sox at 1-1, I have that sinking feeling that the Yankees will pull it off, and then go through Houston and whoever emerges from the National League and bring home ring 28. I’m sickened at the thought, but trying to brace myself, just in case.

So, in answer to the question, “Is it okay for a Mets fan to ever root for that to happen?”

Never.

No way.

No now.

It’s NEVER allowed. It’s NEVER all right. It’s NEVER okay, and don’t let anyone else ever tell you that it is.

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So, basically what I’m saying is, Let’s go Mets and whoever is playing the Yankees on that particular day.

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Despite being in opposite leagues and playing in the same city, there’s a rivalry between the New York Mets and New York Yankees. Is it ever okay for the Mets fan to cross over and cheer for the Bronx Bombers?

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