Interweb: ESPN.com: Yankees, Mets Coexist Despite Their Differences

by Eric Simon on May 19, 2006 3:47 PM EDT

John Helyar has a looooooong article on ESPN.com about the Yankees-Mets rivalry. If anyone feels like reading it and summarizing it for me I'd be much obliged, and happy to append it to this post.

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it's an alright read

basically, the whole thing is about how we Mets fans are the poor little brothers in NY baseball, how we're a bunch of blue-collar suburbanites while Yankkkee fans are executive city folk, and how we're as hateful as Red Sox fans when it comes to those jerks in the Bronx. it's not a bad read, but it's nothing insightful by any stretch.

there is, however, this line that i figured Eric would appreciate:

"Mets bloggers -- and there are many -- take as much delight in venting their spleens at the Yankees as they do at celebrating or disparaging their Amazins."

if you have 15 minutes, it won't kill you to read it. but it's all old news - we're harmless and Yankkkee fans are loud-mouthed jerks. heard it all before.

by londoncatfish on May 19, 2006 5:11 PM EDT reply actions

I'm working on a summary

but it may turn out to be as long as the article. (I'll diary it when I'm done.)

what I like about this article is that it reveals the fundamental anxiety of Yankee fans.

The Yankee fan derives his identity from his perception of superiority, and this article will definitely pump that up, but it relies heavily on (often erroneous) conventional wisdom and on subjective perception of events rather than objective analysis (although there is some of that.)

My favorite excerpt was from the exemplary Yankee fan that he interviews:
"Mets fans are wannabes," says Bob Cerullo as he awaits the start of a recent game at the stadium. Like a lot of Yankees fans, he wonders: "Why do people hate us for our devotion to excellence and tradition?"

That statement, followed by that question, sums up succinctly why people (not just Mets fans) have distate for Yankee fans.

People 'hate' you because you chose to root for the team that already had the most championships in American sports, probably before you were even born, and then you have the nerve to lord it over other people because they didn't join you in taking the easiest road.

Mr Koufax, don't you think Flanders is a big jerk?

by peteyfan45 @ Amazin' Avenue on May 19, 2006 6:22 PM EDT reply actions

Seriously

Why are we wannabes? Why do people hate you for your devotion? Because you're being a tool about it. Devotion to a team doesn't make you superior to someone else.

"I got my pregnant wife (the Yankee fan) with me. Hoping my kid learns to kick her everytime the Mets score." -Schifftis-

by future on May 19, 2006 6:24 PM EDT up reply actions

right

I got a kick out of the failure of the Yankee fan to realize the irony in asking 'why do they hate us' after he just insulted the people he assumes hate him.

Leaving the comment standing like that was one of the few good things the author does.

I seriously can't tell if the author is actually a Yankee fan, and his article is deconstructing itself, or if he is really a Mets fan setting up a destabilization of the perception of Yankee dominance (which may be why my summary is so long.)

But at any rate, the long and short of it is that this article reveals to me that the Yankee fan depends on his relationship with the Mets to forge his own identity of superiority, especially now that the Red Sox have broken the 'curse.'

Writing this kind of history of the rivalry is a gesture that reveals anxiety about the future of the 'superior' franchise. It is an attempt to reassert dominance rhetorically even as the dominance of the team on the field has ebbed away, although it does allow, at the very end, the possibility that the tides may equalize.

It all depends on whether the Mets recent success is a flash in the pan, or a real portent of things to come, but I'm hoping and praying that within the next few years the Mets can win a championship and the Yankee fan's only rhetorical weapon will become the hollow refrain of '26-3' (or 4!)

Mr Koufax, don't you think Flanders is a big jerk?

by peteyfan45 @ Amazin' Avenue on May 19, 2006 6:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Yankee Tradition

These Yankee fans also should know that Yankee tradition, being forced by getting your ass kicked all of the field to integration. Including the alledged Mickey Mantle comment about 60 Pirates, who had 9 black/hispanic players "We don't need no n****s to win the world series". God Bless Mazorski. Having an owner who hired a scumbang mobster to dig up dirt on a star player. Running Babe Ruth out town and Joe D in to retirment. Having 3 known steroid users wear your uniform. Having a payroll nearly twice as much as your nearest competitors. Fuck the Yankees.

its a ground ball...trickling... its a fair ball, its by Buckner, rounding third Knight, the Mets will win the ballgame, the Mets win

by DoctorK16 on May 20, 2006 1:53 AM EDT up reply actions

along these lines

I recently made a comment to some Yankees fans about how they have too many numbers retired, and that the least deserving retired number in all of sports is Billy Martin's #1. I mean, the guy had a career 81 OPS+ (the same as Yankee legend Pat Kelly), he led them to exactly one of their 26 titles, and he was one of the game's greatest scumbags. You would have thought I insulted their mothers.

Mind you, I added that just having his number in Monument Park next to Lou Gehrig's #4 cheapens the honor for Gehrig, a susperstar and a gentleman if there ever was one. Didn't matter. Martin is part of Yankee Tradition and History, and suggesting otherwise is blasphemy to be punished by stoning.

Free Darren Oliver! Let him start!

by Greenpoint Ian on May 20, 2006 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions

Shorter John Helyer

Mets are from Mars, Yanks are from Venus.

(actually, it's a pretty good piece)

by Billy Everyteen on May 19, 2006 8:36 PM EDT reply actions

well

i was gonna go with the opposite, but frankly it's all moot because DAVID WRIGHT IS THE BASEBALL JESUS AND WON THE GAME!!!!! HELL YEAH!!!

by londoncatfish on May 19, 2006 11:57 PM EDT up reply actions

What a crock.

I found that article a nearly unreadably turgid grab-bag of cliches stacked up with no regard for coherence or simple logic. One paragraph describes the Mets as heir to a long Dodgers-Giants tradition of New York baseball; the next describes them as new kids in town, young, and unconventional. It's just a 4,000-word-long game of free association on the team names. And frankly, this kind of journalistic stupidity is another good reason to hate the Yankees, because they attract so much of it:

It was once memorably said that rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel. The decades-old gibe has lost its sting in an age of terror. Rooting for corporate America is in, as is rooting for the heretofore-hated Bronx Bombers.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/01play/2001-10-26-rooting-yankees.htm

by anonymous on May 20, 2006 12:23 PM EDT reply actions

Perception

In reading the article, I can see where someone might be offended/outraged/insulted by what Mr. Helyar had to say-- if that someone was, perhaps, sensitive to what they perceive as insults directed at their team. The article written by John Helyar discussed one man's perception of the Yankees/Mets rivalry, socially as well as economically. I wasn't put off by anything in the article and found it informative. John Helyar is the author of a book called "Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball", which is a pretty good book about the business side of baseball. The book is light on the early business history of the sport and seems to mainly concern itself with the formation of the Player's Union and beyond, up to the mid 90s, I believe.

This is my percerption. Thanks.

by wgarrett on May 20, 2006 8:43 PM EDT reply actions