My Grandmother was a Dodgers fan. After they moved away, and the Mets started up she gravitated towards the Mets. I remember sitting on her lap watching the team in the mid 80’s. It’s all her fault.

I was sucked in as a child and never let it go.

My dad’s parents moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles with the Dodgers, so he was a diehard dodgers fan, but my mom grew up in Queens during the late ’60’s and was hooked. When they married they stayed in New York and my dad became a mets fan during the ‘85 season, so i didn’t really have a choice of who to root for.

naturally my father became a Mets fan when they started up. My uncle is a very successful business man, while my father is a subway driver (which never bothered me as a kid or now, in fact I think it built character) but I was always thought it was interesting that fate led my rich uncle to support a rich, clean cut team and my father to support a blue collar, underdog team.

So, I followed in his footsteps.

my dad’s a fan. I, unfortunately, got to my first game(s) in 1991, a doubleheader against the Expos when the Olympic Stadium roof partially collapsed, meaning I got in just in time to miss the 80’s teams and suffer through the early to mid 90’s.

My grandfather and uncle are both diehard Yankee fans. Most of the time I love being a Mets fan, but in seasons like this I kinda hate my dad for being different.

I honestly don’t really know. My dad was a Dodgers fan who pretty much swore off baseball after they moved, and my mother has never been into sports very much. No one else in my family roots for the Mets, so I suppose it might have been that my very first baseball card was a Topps 1987 Howard Johnson. It probably helped that they were a local team, but I shudder to think that I might have would up an Indians or Padres fan just as easily.

I had to watch the Braves everyday…..every “fuckin” day……

that’ll make you love the Mets right there. My family is from Jersey and naturally they are all Yankee fans too….that makes its that much either.

and when they acquired Pedro Martinez (my baseball god) I announced to the world, that I indeed, was a Met for life

and now Pedro is on the Phillies :(

and then watching games in 1996, hence my original favorite Met and username here.

and I grew up in Washington Heights, and hated all the Yankee fans there.

As a kid growing up in NJ, my dad was a Mets fan and use to take me to games when I was a kid. I’ve stuck with them ever since.

In my house the TV was evenly split between WPIX (Yankees) and WOR (Mets) and my earliest scorecards from TV games are split evenly too (I know who both Celerino Sanchez and Bob Aspromonte were). But I think The Holy Trinity, particularly Murphy, really made me love the Mets. Then they got by all-time favorite player, Rusty, and that was that.

I wound up on the LI side of the NYC/LI divide for Mets/Yankees, Rangers/Islanders, Giants/Jet and even Knicks/Nets, but I never hated any of the NY rivals, probably because I loeft town at 18 and have never been back. I’d root for any of those four rivals in the title game under normal conditions.

Went to a Yankee Game in 1983 – they lost to the Indians. I got a radio for Christmas that year and started listening to Mets game at night to fall asleep in the Spring of 1984. I loved listening to Murph.

was a big Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Hated all things Yankees, still does. When the Dodgers moved, since he had no NL team locally to root for (long before the current technology where it was a little hard to follow your team across country b/c the only thing you got was the box scores in the paper the next day)…he spent the next 5 years rooting against the Yankees.
When the Mets joined the ML in ’62 he instantly became a fan. I grew up either seeing the games playing on TV or hearing them on the radio. Saw my first game at Shea in ’68. The rest is history.

Was lucky enough to see both the ’69 and ’86 championship teams. Followed some really awful seasons/teams over the years as well. I can honestly say though, this season is the absolute worst. Expectations were so high, then pretty much dashed by June because of all the injuries.

Here’s to 2010 being our year.

I went to was Sawx Yanks in 1991, and the Rocket was dominant beginning my hatred of the yankees. After that all i remember is Bonds throw being late and then having Rickey Henderson posters so I was an A’s fan and Blue Jays fan till about 96 when Hundley hit all those Jacks and the Mets look like they might be interesting. Not much of a family and Steve Somers at night helped me become a Mets fan and the late 90s success of the 49ers, Knicks and Mets greatly increased my die-hard nature of these teams.

I was 7, and actually just started to watch all sports, so I began as a fan of all New York teams – yes, including the Yankees. My dad was a Brooklyn dodgers fan growing up, but really wasn’t a huge baseball fan. Most of my brothers were Mets fans, but it was really an independent decision. Also, I grew up in Queens and going to Mets games was easier than going to Yankees games, so that helped push me in one direction.

both from Brooklyn, were huge Dodgers fans until the move to Los Angeles. They immediately started following the Mets. So, it was only natural that I would be a Mets fan. I remember in 1986, when I was four years old, my Dad, Mom, and I were at a party full of Sox fans. My Dad frantically told my mother and I that we had to leave this party. Coincidentally, it was the 7th inning of Game 6 and my Dad thought all was lost. We heard Buckner’s spectacular play on the radio on the drive home. I was hooked ever since.

as a Tigers fan in the 50s. Any AL fan from that time naturally hated the Yankees, so when he moved to NY in the 70s he leaned towards the Mets. Also, I think it was just cheaper and easier to go to Shea (from my native Brooklyn) so I grew up going to vastly more Mets games than Yankees games. Some of my earliest memories are lying on the upper deck seats waiting for planes to fly overhead.

I don’t remember when, but I was really young kid from Jackson Heights, Queens (maybe 13 years old) when I became a Mets Fan. It wasn’t passed on to me from any family members. My first exposure to the Mets was on TV. I just saw a Mets game one day and they had there crazy comeback game. [I don’t remember which teams.] Then, I saw another crazy comeback game, and another (until they lost) but I’ve never stop following the Mets ever since then. Even with the up’s and down’s and losing and winning seasons.

My father was a Dodgers fan (9 years old when they won the 1955 Series) who grew up in Queens and then Nassau County. After the Dodgers and Giants left he couldn’t become a Yankee fan, but when the Mets showed up they became his team. So the Mets are just how I was raised. My first pro game was on 9/17/86 – the scene of the fans storming the field makes quite an impression on an eight-year-old kid, let me tell you – and after that I was hooked too.

My uncle picked me up at JFK, brought me home, and literally sat me down in front of the TV to watch the game. I had never heard of the Mets before. I asked about the Yankees, and my uncle “explained it to me”.

Later I met my (now) wife, and I dragged her into this by taking her on dates to Shea. We used to take the bus from NJ to the city, then the #7, and buy the tickets right at the door. The best part was the stadium was usually empty, so we’d buy the cheapest seats, and then sit wherever we wanted.

My two sons were born and immediately dressed in Mets’ gear. The oldest, born in 1981 has seen the Mets get to the promised land. The youngest, born in 1986 has not. He was 4 months old when Jesse O. ended the Red Sox’s hopes.

and i immediately decided to start rooting for the opposite of him.

actually like most everyone else, it starts with my dad. he was an O’s fan growing up outside of bmore and hated the yankees. it was the 80s and we lived in north jersey my entire youth so it was an easy decision.

I became hooked ever since

My parents and all my aunts and uncles are Mets fans (my dad’s younger brother apparently jumped the fence at Shea to sneak into the 1969 World Series), and my 94-year-old grandmother (who was a Dodgers fan first and then became a Mets fan afterward) still likes to complain about them to me.

My dad took me to my first game when I was 5 (after some research on retrosheet, I realized the game was Gooden’s 20th win in 1985) and the rest is (painful) history, given that I was too young to appreciate or remember 1986, but was old enough to remember 1988 and everything that’s come since.

which was tested during the early 1990’s, the time period of my first conscious memories of baseball. Watching David Cone, Dave Magadan and the rest on WWOR 9 was always enjoyable. The first game I can remember going to was the night Anthony Young finally won in 1993. Although I had attended games prior to this, just can’t recall them.

my mom from NY and a diehard yankees fan, i needed some middle ground, i tried a few other teams (mostly the Indians for some reason) but couldn’t get into it (i later discovered I hate the DH and can’t bring myself to really cheer for any team that uses it). Finally I started watching Mets games and it just clicked. I knew it was the right team to cheer for. Couldnt really go wrong with Doc, and Cone, and Straw and the rest of the late 80s/early 90s bunch. They were just fun to watch.

And hated the Yankees. They naturally became Mets fans in ’62 and attended games at the Polo Grounds. I became indoctrinated to all things Mets and attended my first game at Shea in 1971, Helmet Day in fact. Suffered through the many and ups and downs as everyone here… Will never forget “Ya Gotta Believe” in 1973, and the Bud Harrelson-Pete Rose fight in the ’73 playoffs. Of course, it goes without saying 1986 — I was living in Louisiana at the time and everyone hated the Mets… Hope we can have another year like 1986 sometime soon!

Can’t imagine rooting for another team!

moved to Western MA from upstate NY in 1979 and, as a kid, decided that the Sawx would never win the World Series in my lifetime. We got the Mets signal from WOR or whatever station that was. So I switched allegiances in the early 80s (1982?), got swept up in the excitement over Darryl and Doc, and was rewarded for becoming a traitor a couple years later in 1986, the best year ever. I guess I was old enough to stay up, or my parents didn’t notice, but those playoffs are etched in my DNA. Still paying for the decision I made when I was 10 or so.

My older brother and I would play Knee Baseball in the living room, which involved whacking a nerf ball with one of a miniature Lousville Sluggers—on your knees, of course. We could only play every 2 or 3 days because of the unbelievable rug burns.

Since they were not fans of baseball, we had no guidance from our parents. This was New York and we chose the awesomest team, The Mets.

I recall having the best success while pretending to be a right-handed Darryl Strawberry.

My parents were Mets fans and I was brought up liking the team. The Mets were my go-to favorite team for awhile- I barely followed them, but if someone asked my favorite baseball team I’d answer “the Mets”.

Around 2005, I started following the team for real, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

My grandparents were Dodgers fans and Yankees haters. My mom followed in their footsteps. I’ve always wondered who they followed between the time the Dodgers left and the time the Mets started.

When I was growing up, no one in my family was into baseball. However, my father and uncles were big Jets fans, so I developed a strong familiarity with rooting for an underdog, overshadowed NY team. Also, the few baseball games I did go to during my childhood were Mets games. One of my earliest childhood memories is sitting on the third-base side of Shea and getting Ozzie Smith’s autograph before a game.

He grew up in Brooklyn, I grew up in Brooklyn, Yankee fans were jerks. Pretty much your typical story.

They adopted the Mets after the Dodgers left them out in the cold. They stormed the field when we won in ‘69 and brought my brother and me out to Shea for Game 6. When you’re 10 years old and your team wins a championship the way we did in ‘86, you’re hooked for life.

Interestingly enough my twin brother became a Yankees fan in 86. Which I thought was pretty weird. However, I solidified my bond with the team when they were bad. It was during the very lean years from 1992-1997 that were my favorite. Empty Shea, sit where you want tailgate in the parking lot. All good times.

I lived in a suburb of LA and got to see Daryll Strawberry for the first time. he was from LA and made it big. My first baseball hat that wasn’t from a little league team was a Met hat. the glory days of the 80’s soon followed and I was hooked. I had to hear huge rations of crap when ^&()^$#$ing Sciocia hit that home run off Doc that I didn’t get over until I got to be there when the Mets swept in Dodger Stadium in the playoffs three years ago. So I am a rare monkey-an LA born and bred Mets fan.

I grew up in Chesapeake, VA and saw countless Norfolk Tides games. Once my favorite player, Benny Agbayani, was promoted to the bigs, that was it. Also didn’t hurt when Wright and Reyes came through town (I still have the Tide-promo Reyes poster.)

Interestingly, I remember watching the home run chase in 1998 before liking the Mets. I would also watch the Braves and/or Orioles every single day while maintaining my budding Met fandom at the same time. <3 Rafael Furcal

My aunt Anne— a first-gen immigrant— fell in love with the team when she was first interning here… during the Summer of ‘69. (She didn’t quite “get” baseball then. But she loved watching the running, and throwing, and catching… and loved above all else the buzz of the team that summer. Basically… it was the one thing— since she was from a completely different background— that gave her something to bond over with the other young doctors at St. Vincent’s.)

Years later, when my mom popped me out, and it was time to go to a ballgame, my aunt was at the ready. My first game? Doc, May 1985 @ Shea.

My mother was from Brooklyn, and my father grew up in LA, and both had the Dodgers in their lives at the appropriate times for nostalgia—she as a community fixture, and he as a young fan. Southern CT, where I grew up, is an interzone for the Red Sox, Mets, and Yankees fandom, and it just didn’t seem right to anyone to root for Boston or the Bronx.

My first pro ball game that I remember was a Mets game, a loss in ’86 to the Reds.

Great line.

My father was a Mets fan, but they were so terrible when I started getting into baseball, (around 1993) that I couldn’t see the point. (I liked Eddie Murray and “Mighty” Joe Orsulak though. Every kid has to have his Joe Schlabotnik and Joe reminded me of my game back then. Barely adequate but busted it so hard folks wondered how I didn’t fall more often than I actually did.)

I got pissed at the Yanks after they got Clemens. It was like—the Hell? Who do you think you are? You can’t just buy every player in the league! And then I got stoked watching Rey Ordoñez’s acrobatic plays and more acrobatic swings. And then push came to shove in 2000. And then it was like. Go Mets! Die Yanks!

and naturally, I thought it was really cool that the two New York teams were in it. But the Yankees won and I felt like the Mets were good enough to win something (especially with Mike Piazza). I guess I"m a fan because they’ll always be the underdog.

I think because I liked the way Darryl Strawberry looked in baseball cards, otherwise I couldn’t tell you because I have liked them since I was able to put on a glove and throw a ball, there are no other reasons, only one in the family that likes them.

I root for the underdog and I will never root for the establishment. I do not follow the status quo.

I am a Mets fan because they symbolize how my life has been so far. I’ve had amazing things happen to me and I have had horrible things happen to me. More than often bad things have happened and that mirrors the success of the Mets.

The Mets play of the field mirrors my dating life the most. In that arena I haven’t had much to smile about, but when good things happen, it will happen in grand fashion. Like the Mets I come in the beginning of the year with potential on paper, but I can’t translate that into results on the field.

Also I root for the Mets because they aren’t the Yankees.

that my first game was at Shea. Mets vs. Cards, 2nd August 2003, lost 9-10. Jason Phillips was hitting cleanup and Roger Cedeno went 4-6. Best of all, it was 10-4 to St Louis until the bottom of the 9th when the Mets came tantalisingly close and bagged 5 runs. I suppose right then I had found my “oh so nearly” team!

I also went to see the Giants vs Braves at Pac Bell Park and Mariners vs Orioles at Safeco on the same trip, but I had been bitten. Been a huge Met fan ever since, regularly staying up to 3am to watch the mlb.tv broadcasts as there’s no/little baseball on TV over here in England. Not bothered with so many late nights this year, obviously, though I rarely miss a day game (enjoyed watching Figgy mow down ten on Sunday).

I went to the whole Mets vs Orioles series in 2006. Soler pitched the first, Heilman coughed up four runs for the loss. Saw Pedro lose the second game but hey, I got to see the great man pitch, so that was ok. In the third game, though, I saw a David Wright grand slam behind a Glavine win, so that was fun.

I’m coming to the Mets vs Astros series this October 2/3/4, and will probably see the Mets play the Nats a couple of times the previous week also. Looking forward to hopefully seeing Thole. Just hope the series includes Pelfrey…

my daddy was a fan. why i still ask.

I got a 12 month work assignment on Long Island in 1991. My only exposure to baseball at that time was talking to guys in a bar when I was on vacation in Florida the previous year when the World Series was on, and them explaining to me what was happening (there was a Cincinatti double-steal I remember, possibly the guy with the glasses was involved, Sabo?). The conversation moved to Baseball Cards, they were collectors, and I bought some Baseball Cards in a local Mall a few days later prior to heading back to the UK. When we got to LI, I got tickets for a game (vs the Expos) where Gooden made over a 100 pitches in light rain on a Saturday afternoon near the start of the ’91 season (Harrelson slated for it) and I was hooked. Went to many more games during my year on LI (even Phillies at the Vet) and since then, went to all of a 4 game series in Houston in ’99 (I worked there for a short spell) where Edgardo Alfonzo went 6-for-6 with 3HR one night. And made a trip to Citi this year for a 3 game series with the Reds.

When i was 9 in 1985 I went to a Syracuse Chiefs game against the Tidewater Tides. My dad’s coworker who went with us had a family friend who played for the Tides. That player was Kevin Mitchell. I got an autographed ball and a bat and have been a Met fan ever since. Little did I know that the next season they would win the World Series and set me up to have unrealistic expectations for the many years to come.

I basically inherited the Mets (and Jets) from them. My dad is from Virginia and lived in Atlanta; he was a Senators fan until they moved again and rooted for the Braves in Atlanta. In ‘99, I began watching Mets games, with increasing frequency and intensity as the season went on. By the time the playoffs came I was living and dying with every at-bat. I’ve probably become a bigger fan every year since them.

I grew up in Western NY and became a Mets fan for 3 reasons:
  1) I wanted to be the opposite of whatever the TBS Atlanta Braves were.
  2) My Little League team was the Mets. Thank God I didn’t stick with the T-Ball team. No worse fate than being a Reds fan.
  3) Everyone around, including my family, was a Yankees fan and I’m what they like to call contrarian

Dad had no use for sports. Mom probably would have been likewise, but her brother got here before WWII started. My uncle had moved to Wisconsin (he met a girl in army training there), but would come to visit my folks in Brooklyn. Mom couln’t talk to him because he always had the Brooklyn Dodger game on the TV and/or radio, so Mom had to learn about baseball just to have a conversation with him. My uncle did of leukemia in 1957 at age 37. I came along 2 years later and was named for him. We moved to Queens and Mom converted to the Mets. I can remember games as far back as April 1969, and my high school graduation was the night after the Midnight Massacre. (Talk about your loss of innocence.) The rest is history, all because of the connection with the uncle I never knew but to whom I feel a deep connection. (One last side note: My sister and brother are 9 and 6 years older than me, respectively. I don’t believe in what if or try to obsess over things I can’t control, but I’m jealous of them for one thing: they once got to go to a game at Ebbets Field.)

My parents came to NYC in the late 50s and early 60s. My old man took me to my first Mets game in 1967 and that was the team I rooted for. I don’t remember much about my first game, except getting excited about seeing a subway train every few minutes. (I lived on the Upper West Side and we didn’t have light blue cars on the Broadway or 8th Ave lines—or new cars at all for that matter.) My second game…ahh…it was 1968, the Mets were still a 2nd division team, but they won that night and Art Shamsky hit a grand slam. Then it was 1969.

My kids are Mets fans because they’ve grown up around me in a decidedly Mets family. The girls all rock the pink #5 tee shirt. My son prefers a black #15 shirt.