Met Fan, Yankee Fan: A Softball Parable

Today I played in a friend's birthday softball game--a friendly, beer-league affair which was mostly an afternoon of mediocre play and joking on people. It was Mets fans vs. Yankees fans.

Hoewever, there was one incident which stuck in my head, and it serves as a sort of parable about Yankee fans and Met fans, or perhaps simply an object lesson about why I am a Mets fan.

It was blazing hot and we were playing "two swings"--any two swings to put a ball into play or the batter strikes out. We Met fans were also up by two runs.

Now, one of the Yankee players was an 8-year-old girl, a friend's daughter. Well, when she came up with a runner on first--the tying run at the plate--we did what we had done all afternoon: we stowed the rules. This poor kid had it hard enough against a team of able-bodied twentysomethings (and she was already at a disadvantage, being raised a Yanks fan.) She got as many strikes as she needed to put the ball in play. I think it was six in this at-bat.

The girl at last hit a dribbler up the first base line (slow roller!) and our first-baseman weakly charged the ball. He leaned for the tag, but--"whoops"--he "missed" the tag and she was safe at first. Smiles all 'round.

Meanwhile, as this 8-year-old girl was running her legs off to first... the Yankee runner forced to second ADVANCED TO THIRD on the "error." What. The. Heck.

I just turned to the runner and said, "Nice sportsmanship, chief." The truth is, I didn't expect any better.

He was forced in by a ground-rule double, so it became a moot point. But that's where the line is drawn for that certain sort of Yankee fan. Nothing is sacred before the win--fairness, fun, the innocence of the game. Even on a tiny stage with an 8-year-old girl at bat.

Oh, and the Met fans won, 9-8. (Your boy had an RBI and two runs. But that's not really relevant to this story.)