A miserable World Series match-up for Mets fans
Photo credit: Getty Images | The New York Yankees celebrate their 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Game 6 of the ALCS. (October 25, 2009)
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The World Series is meant to be a true test, a meat grinder, a gut-wrencher. Check, check and check. This one sets up to be all of that and more, one that demands an answer to the deep, hard question: Which side do you root for, those hated guys or the other hated guys?
This is going to be one tough week for Mets fans. A Yankees-Phillies World Series offers no good options or moral victories. It’s the team that has tormented you intensely for the past few years against the team that has tormented you consistently forever.
>>POLL: As a Mets fan, who are you going to cheer for in the World Series?
Historians will conjure 1950, when the Yankees, with rookie pitcher Whitey Ford, swept the Phillies Whiz Kids. But the real parallel ought to be 1986, when the Mets played the Red Sox and Yankees fans had the same kind of choice: migraine or root canal?
As if this season had not been pathetic enough for the Mets, with their spring training-caliber lineups and their tidy new ballpark that alienated fans by not bearing any visible signs that it actually was the home of the Mets. Now this.
All that Mets fans can hope is that the two sides somehow bring out the worst in each other. “I am absolutely salivating,” Mets fan John Griffin of Garden City said in an e-mail message, “at the prospect of the two teams I love to hate slugging it out in the Series.
“Don't be fooled by the sudden `resurgence’ of the Philly pitching staff, especially the bullpen, against an inept Dodgers line-up. These Yanks can pound it.”
But when push comes to shove, Griffin holds to what seems to be a developing consensus among Mets fans. They’ll hold their noses and forget for a minute that Jimmy Rollins boasted that the Phillies were the “team to beat” and that Cole Hamels called the Mets “chokers.” There’s just no way a Mets fan can root for the Yankees.
“The crystal ball here,” Griffin said, “says this will be a replay of the 1960 Pirates-Yankee World Series. The Bombers will outscore the Motormouths by a two-to-one [ratio], but manage to lose it in seven.” He predicts that old friend Pedro Martinez will shut the Yankees down.
Lots of luck on that one.
Still, Mets fans believe they are due for some luck.
“I will root for the Phillies,” said Steve Greco of Smithtown, a regular contributor to Newsday’s “Let’s Rant” feature. “I don't like them, but I hate the Yankees more. Plus I am a National League fan. I have never set foot in Yankee Stadium, old or new, and I plan to keep it that way. This comes from being outnumbered by Yankee fans during my teen years and taking their verbal abuse during the Mets’ tough years.”
Author and Hofstra professor Dana A. Brand said he has thought about it long and hard. When he finally weighed in on his Mets fan blog at danabrand.com, he heartily endorsed the Phillies.
“Some years, there will be a team you can convince yourself to like and you root for them. Other years, there will be a team you don’t like and you can root against them,” he wrote. “Only rarely do two teams you strongly dislike make it to the World Series. When this happens, you face a peculiar problem. As much as you’d like to remain indifferent, you can’t.”
So, like a vanquished politician after a bitter primary, he is mending fences. He’s a Phillie fanatic for the week. He implored his readers and fellow sufferers: “Mets fans, remember that no matter how successful the Yankees become, the one thing we can always deprive them of is the right to claim that they have unified this city, that they are `New York’s team.’
Mets fans cannot root for the Yankees under any circumstances. It is as simple as that.
“The Mets mean nothing to the Yankees. The Yankees mean a great deal to the Mets. We are the slighted younger brother. We are Cain and they are Abel. Hating them is central to who and what we are,” he said. “The Phillies are just our division rivals. They are not wrapped around the tree trunk of our very existence as Mets fans. If we root for the Yankees, we may cease to exist.”
Of course, things could change as the Series goes along. Mets fans could suddenly think Alex Rodriguez is the greatest guy who ever lived and that Nick Swisher really is a lovable cutup. The sun could also come up at midnight.
Mets fans, gluttons for punishment that they are, probably won’t just ignore it. They’ll watch. And they’ll root like crazy for it to be over.
>>POLL: As a Mets fan, who are you going to cheer for in the World Series?
