Kid Brother or Evil Empire?
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Word on the street is I know a few things about baseball. Also, I'm from Brooklyn. And a journalist. DC blogger Belle took advantage of this combination of facts, and shot me an e-mail asking if I could lay out - objectively - the pros and cons of rooting for an NY MLB team, so she could decide which to claim in head-to-head matchups.
The tongue-in-cheek structure? "Your essay should be 1,000 words, double-spaced, and on my desk by the 3 o'clock bell Monday."
I definitely surpassed the word count, passed on the double spacing, and came nowhere close to posting this before 3 p.m. Monday. Also, despite an overall commitment to objectivity, I let the bias slip in on occasion. ( Just the tip, promise.) With permission, my guide for aspirant New York baseball fans follows; teams are listed in order of creation.
New York Giants (1883-1957) Success 5 World Championships, 17 Pennants, and 16 Playoff Appearances; 20-plus Hall of Famers
Pro One of baseball's first great franchises, the Giants dominated the first 30 years of the 20th century, as Hall of Fame manager John McGraw led squads to 20 first- or second-place finishes. Their astounding 1951 comeback was sealed with Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," which is generally regarded as the most memorable moment in sports history.
Also, Willie Mays played there, and he was the best player ever. Or so they tell me.
Con These mopes bought in to the Western expansion plan and followed the Brooklyn Dodgers to California. At least the Dodgers came up with the idea to stomp on the hearts of the fans that had supported them for more than 60 years. The Giants just jumped off the bridge because their cool friend did it first.
Survey says? Disqualified. They're in San Fran. Jerks.
Brooklyn Dodgers (1884-1957) Success 1 World Championship, 13 Pennants and 11 Playoff Appearances; 10 Hall of Famers
Pro "Dem Bums" were one of the first National League franchises, and its most beloved. They were also quite successful, finishing last only once in the modern era (8th place, 1905). From 1939 until 1957, the Dodgers finished worse than third ONCE (7th, 1944), and that was a war-ravaged team. Winners of seven pennants during that stretch, they faced off in a Subway Series with their crosstown rival, the New York Yankees, each time; Brooklyn's fans famously cried "Wait 'Til Next Year!" after the first five before the team broke through in 1955.
General Manager Branch Rickey signed and promoted Jackie Robinson, breaking baseball's unofficial color barrier in 1947 - seven years before Brown v. Board of Ed. Each man has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. The Dodgers were at the forefront of baseball's integration, and it likely couldn't have happened anywhere else. (Ask for details on that one.)
Also, I went to the Gil Hodges school from Kindergarten through the fifth grade.
Con They left for California. While the recent HBO doc reveals it was because Robert Moses was a stubborn fuck, the Better Borough was robbed of experiencing four pennants and three World Series wins in the next 10 years. LA fans did not deserve that. But we'll always have '55.
Survey says? Go for it - but if you're under 60, they're a secondary interest at best.
New York Yankees (1901- Present) Success 26 World Championships, 39 Pennants, and 46 Playoff Appearances; 20-plus Hall of Famers
Pro They win. A lot. Though there are occasional down periods (1901-20, 1965-74, 1982-93), most seasons start with the expectation that the Yankees will be making the playoffs; the only question is how far they will go. Their 26 World Championships leave them oh, say ... SIXTEEN ahead of the second-highest total (10 - St. Louis Cardinals).
The history is rich: great teams abound, they have the classiest jerseys in existence, and their players and managers are legendary. Ruth. Gehrig. DiMaggio. Mantle. Jackson. Mattingly. Jeter. Rivera. Huggins. Stengel. Martin. Torre. Even the most casual baseball fan knows those names. Well, maybe not Huggins or Stengel, but they should - each is in the Hall. If you do something spectacular as a Yankee, you are going down in baseball history. And getting a cool nickname - of all the players in baseball history, Reggie Jackson is "Mr. October," largely because of his three-homer performance in the 1977 WS.
As currently constructed, owner George Steinbrenner pumps every bit of profit right back into the team, attempting to put the best players on the field for his fans. Every free agent season, spending is dependent on the Yankees' needs, and agents' ability to leverage them in negotiations with other teams. The biggest fear of any non-Yankee fan is that their best players are only going to be there for a few years before George gorges on them. The Yanks operate their own cable network, which brings in mad loot and draws on their impressive history to fill 24 hours of airtime. Well, that and Mike and the Mad Dog. (Awesome.) And the Nets. (Blech.)
Also, Yogi Berra was a Yankee, and he is a funny mother fucker.
Con You have to be ready to get hated on. With the exception of the Boston Red Sox, and perhaps the New York Mets, no other team has an owner with deep enough pockets or deep enough commitment to spend like the Yanks. The "World Series or Bust!" mentality this engenders can become burdersome during championship droughts (see: The Last Seven Seasons), but is something every fan secretly wishes they could claim for their own squad. The jealousy literally seethes across the nation, and the constant winning only makes it worse.
As do the Yankee fans, which include a healthy chunk of frontrunners and douchebags. The former know nothing about baseball and jump on board because it's the trendy thing to do, while the latter do things like discuss how far from free agency the best young players in baseball are, because it's assumed they'll be Yankees then; the train of thought goes that the rest of the league is the Yanks' farm system. Also, Yankee fans have an amazing propensity to throw the 26 rings in your face whenever it suits their argument (i.e. they ran out of other, relevant points). You will find yourself defending these people. Enjoy that.
It should be noted that Yankee fans who do know their shit really know their shit, and also would rather the team redirected funds to internal development rather than the free market.
Survey says? If you appreciate baseball history and can handle being the overdog. And have no soul. (Ha.)
New York Mets (1962- Present) Success 2 World Championships, 4 Pennants, and 7 Playoff Appearances; 2 Hall of Famers
Pro As New York's replacement senior circuit representative, the Mets are the only team in New York still playing real baseball: pitchers bat, players steal and advance runners instead of sitting on three-run homers, and managers must understand the double switch. Accordingly, they hold it down for history - their color scheme is a combination of Dodger Blue and Giants Orange.
The Mets have had three runs of success in the last 20 years, and during the current one they've seemingly developed into one of MLB's signature franchises - deep pocketed, ready-to-spend, trade-smart and building it all around homegrown talent. This should sound familiar, mainly because it's the exact formula the Yankees utilized to form their late-90s dynasty. The creation of their own cable channel and the biggest naming rights deal in sports history have opened the revenue floodgates, and budget cuts should not be a concern any time soon.
Because of the team's overall lack of success, second-place-in-the-city status and penchant for the dramatic, the wins feel really fucking good. And Mets fans tend to be a wildly loyal bunch - to the team. They can turn on players with the quickness, though it's born of a yen to see them play up to their full abilities. Motivation in the "Stop-sucking-and-we'll-start-cheering" sense. It's worked well for Carlos Beltran - now he knows to take time off and heal instead of staying in the lineup and blowing donkey dick (see: 2005).
Also, David Wright would rather play XBox on Friday nights instead of sample the New York nightlife, which means there's actually a chance he's not going to spontaneously combust while fielding a World Series-sealing grounder, simultaneously ruining that season and the next five. (If this actually happens, I'm ordering a Code Red on myself. Or lying my ass off. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! Wow. Sorry. Definitely watched A Few Good Men on Sunday with the old man. Back to your regularly scheduled ranting.)
Finally, the '86 Mets were harder than I was the night they won. And I was three. They say your first time is always the best. And they were right.
Con They're the Mets. They will find ways to lose (see: Molina, Yadier). Their best players implode due to factors that could have been controlled and factors that couldn't have ; failing either of those routes, the team just trades them for Victor Zambrano. Or Pat Zachary. Or Jim Fregosi. Or ... well, you get the point. Third base has been manned by more players (135) than Paris, LiLo and your mom. Combined. Well, maybe just your mom.
They broke open baseball's salary scale by giving Bobby Bonilla the biggest contract in baseball history (4 years, $32 million. Hahahaha. Sorry, I digress.) Also signing Eddie Murray, Bret Saberhagen and Vince Coleman was good for oh, say ... 103 losses. That would be most teams' worst season ever, but the Mets had already set the MLB record with 120 (1962).
You are never going to be rooting for the No. 1 team in the city. Due to the massive edges in history and general expectation, the permanent formula for NY sports page coverage looks like this: Yankees + losing > Mets + winning. The Mets could win a World Series, and there would still be five pages hypothesizing whether Steinbrenner would actually purchase every other American League franchise because the A.L.'s undefeated in the last ten All-Star Games, and with all those players now eligible to play in the Bronx, that would HAVE to deliver a championship, right? Because of this, you're losing any argument with a Yankee fan. You will have to reconcile that internally. It will cause indigestion.
Survey says? If you're an underdog kinda cat, and can deal with (repeated) disappointment, including an incredible ability to lose to the Braves, no matter how good either team is at the time. -- So that's the wrap. Know that if you yearn to earn a BB Seal of Approval, becoming a Mets fan is a prerequisite. It's like me dating Goys - I'ma run with a situation that makes sense, but the kids are coming up with Moses as their homeboy. That applied in my head before typing. Basically, we're going to be friends/lovers/family, but this will never cease being a point of contention, one that will be often discussed with great fervor and occasionally result in violence and/or termination of the relationship. Just throwing it out there. See you at Shea Citifield.
