Bye-Bye, Bombers
I’ll tell you exactly what did it.
I’d bought Bean tickets to a Mets game for her birthday, and she kindly invited me to go with her. We arranged to meet up at our seats, and while I waited for her to arrive, I drank a beer and enjoyed the atmosphere. Between innings, the PA guy advised the owner of a white Jeep Cherokee to report to the parking lot because he’d left his lights on, and I thought three things: 1) “That’s a funny kind of small-town moment.” 2) “That would never, ever happen at Yankee Stadium.”
3) “It’s time to go back to the Mets.”
So I did. I went back to the Mets.
I followed the Yankees for a long time, and I will still watch the team; I’ve got nothing against the Yankees, just like I didn’t have anything against the Mets when I switched back in the day. The Yankees have a great team, and I’ve had great times watching them. The motivation is never the team itself. Back in the day, despite my many jokes about Gregg Jefferies finally breaking me, I didn’t stop caring about the Mets because they sucked. I just spent far more TV time around Yankee fans, and if I wanted to watch baseball, I had to watch the Bombers.
Fortuitously timed transition, it’s true, and when the Yankees first began winning back in the mid-nineties, of course I enjoyed it — walking around the city in October, all the horns honking, the other fans yelling out their windows, bonding with strangers over beer and Brosius.
I liked the Yanks when they sucked, too, though. In many ways, I liked the Yanks better when they sucked, because it made for more entertaining trash-talk in the stands, and because then, occasionally, briefly, Michael Kay and John Sterling and anyone else in either booth would substitute a discussion of that for yet another bromide about the proud tradition of Yankee baseball, yet another sonorous intonation of “Power…Privilege…Pinstripes,” yet another reading of the Monument Park rosary.
It’s the most famous franchise in American sport, it’s won more championships than any other baseball team, it’s probably got more Hall of Famers than any other team — good for them, and obviously I don’t have a problem with any of that. It’s that this is all you ever hear, the humorless recitative, the reading of the saints, and that’s not really about the team either. It’s about the institution and the brand, and again, it’s an institution and a brand worthy of admiration and respect. I admire it; I respect it.
But I want to watch some baseball. Okay? I want to hear about baseball. I mean, the Mets have a pretty proud history of their own — most of which I can recite chapter and verse even now, having grown up with the team — but the difference is that Howie Rose understands what Tom Seaver is, a fantastic pitcher. A human being who played baseball really well. I suspect John Sterling of actually believing that Mickey Mantle invented the flush toilet in between 800-foot home runs.
And after all these years…I can’t take it anymore. I watch a lot of baseball. I listen to a lot of baseball coverage, like, really a lot. I have to like the announcers; I have to respect their knowledge. It should not get to the point where I would rather watch the game in a bar because the bar will not have the sound on. It should not get to the point where, when both teams have a game at the same time, I switch over to the Mets and just leave the channel there. I would rather listen to Keith Hernandez narrate another Bad Ollie meltdown than to John “Who?” Flaherty cover a no-hitter — and Mex is my least favorite on that booth team. A season has 162 games in it, and I probably see or hear 145 of them; if I don’t enjoy it, if I start getting my team coverage from MLB Network so I don’t have to listen to Michael Kay, what’s the point?
I’ve said many times before that you can’t follow a team only because it wins. You have to care about the sport, because the day will come when your team sucks, and that sometimes goes on for a while, and if all you care about is the winning, it’s a waste of your time. The Yankees sort of Mobiused that on me; because of all the winning they have done, and continue to do, it’s now a waste of my time, because the coverage focuses so heavily on history and legacy. That team has become something to salute instead of embrace, and I spend too much time on baseball to feel like I have to whisper in its presence.
Look, it’s a great team. Michael Kay is an irritant in the booth, but you can’t say he doesn’t work hard or serve the brand well. He’s a pro. But the professionalism and the reverence and the meritorious service, and still with the “God Bless America”…it’s like the old crack that says rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the phone company, although, really, it’s like rooting for…I don’t even know. The national anthem. The Holy Ghost, if the Holy Ghost featured pompous narration by St. Peter.
So, I’ve gone back to the Mets fold. I can still talk about the Yankees knowledgeably; I can still hate Jonathan Papelbon and enjoy his failures; all y’all Yankee fans, good luck, and you’ll no doubt enjoy another trip to the postseason. I want to watch the season itself and not have it feel like a chore, and when I head for Citi on Saturday, I’ll have a Mookie shirt on, ’cause he’s #1.
Tags: bad baseball announcing friends Gregg Jefferies Howie Rose John Flaherty John Sterling Jonathan Crapelbon Keith Hernandez let's go Mets Michael Kay Mickey Mantle Moooooookie Oliver Perez Scott Brosius the importance of being overly earnest Tom Seaver
Welcome back. Glad to have you. That new feeling you’re experiencing is expecting the worst to happen. You’ll get used to it.
And for trivia purposes, the line was that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel. Nowadays I’d guess it’d be Microsoft.
I need recommendations for good Mets blogs, too, by the way.
I am sitting here, watching the Yanks implode against the Red Sox, listening to Michael Kay and I FEEL you. I do. I’m a New York girl born and raised and I always root for the Mets because they are a New York team. (Frankly, I hate it when people assume that because I am a Yankee fan, I must HATE the Mets. Not true, my friends, not true. The ONLY time I root against the Mets is when they play my Yankees – my boys.)
But they are my boys. So no matter how often I want to shake Ken “Sometimes I Wish Michael Would Shut Up Too” Singleton, here I will stay. Cause I came into this life a Yankee fan and, God love me, I shall go out of it a Yankee fan.
But I respect your choice and Lord knows I understand it. Good luck to your boys and I’ll meet you at the end.
The good news is, you will no longer have to have this “CC Sabathia” person constantly identified for you during games by his full name — as if no one has any clue who he is, or half the team was named “Sabathia.” Announcers just looooove saying that “CC” part.
I completely understand this because I reached that point with the Red Sox sometime in the offseason, when the assumption that we deserved a postseason berth by virtue of being the Boston Fucking Red Sox, and nothing more, got faaaar too much to bear. I loved ’04. I loved ’07 even more. But I’m kind of done now. I still want them to win and I especially want them to keep building their farm system (as I live near their AAA team and live at that ballpark in the summer), I just can’t deal with the attitude that surrounds the team anymore.
I have my Dodgers. They’re more fun. They have Vin Scully. Andre Ethier is putting up MVP-caliber numbers. The fans and bloggers are more fun (search #ElyMania on Twitter for recent examples). Even with the divorce drama, baseball and actually playing the games and seeing the younger players take over the city matter more than looking in the rearview mirror and believing it entitles us to something we don’t necessarily deserve. That just ain’t fun.
As for Mets blogs, I find the SBNation blogs are really good across the board. The Mets are at Amazin’ Avenue. And of course there’s Metstradamus.
Welcome back! It looks like the Mets are going to be mediocre all season instead of being at or damn near first place until the last two games. At least the Gary/Keith/Ron banter is amusing. And when they get Omar up in the booth, it’s hilarious to listen to Gary try to shut him up so he can call the game.
I hear you about having to like THE GAME before you can really follow a team. I grew up in Northeast Ohio, and following the Tribe was the very definition of masochism (following ANY Cleveland team is masochism, come to think of it). So it’s baseball first, the Mets second, for me. At least Citi Field is swanky. :-)
Good luck to your Mets this season! I’ve been silently willing the D-Backs to get better but….all I can say is I’m lucky that my childhood team is the Rockies, and I have a slight chance of cheering someone on in the post season…
My husband the Mets fan reads Faith and Fear in Flushing. They’re funny and smart, much like you.
@Amanda- I’m exactly the same way. The Red Sox are my team, but sometimes I just can’t deal with all the histrionics. I think I got the most enjoyment out of baseball when I was also rooting for the A’s during the days of Moneyball and Zito and Harden and all that.
Now, while I like the Sox and want them to do well, I just can’t deal with the entitlement either. The expectation that every year will end at the ALDS or better, the calling for the heads of Francona, Epstein, and all of management after every single loss, the screaming on sports radio (though 98.5 is INFINITELY preferable to EEI)… I’m just bored with it. They’re just not good this year. It’s not the end of the world.
I don’t know very much about baseball, but I like the Mets. I like this guy: http://deadspin.com/5369393/meet-the-mets-sad-fan
Aw.
Like he says, they may not always win, but they’re always interesting!
Cheers to you!
I’m… jealous, because I’ve had Braves games on the radio on occasion this season, and my chief reactions are (a) who are these people?, (b) the off-topic banter was a lot more fun when Skip Caray and Pete van Wieren were doing it; and (c) if one more person says anything about Bobby Cox being Greatest! Manager! Ever!, I will destroy my car radio, because Greatest! Managers! Ever! tend to avoid (c.1) spending the better part of A DECADE choking in the playoffs, and (c.2) beating up their wives, although apparently everyone in the ATL but me has voted for collective amnesia regarding that.
So I am guess less “meh,” and more “call me when the dickwad-ery lightens up a bit,” but geography dictates that my daughter’s first baseball game will be a Braves game. I kept saying I was going to go back when they got rid of Smoltz the Homophobe, and they did, and I still ain’t feeling it.
The Braves organist’s Twitter feed is pretty fun, though.
I hope your new old team brings you all the fun you hope they will. A’s fan here, and I have to say, there is some joy in knowing about your team’s Rule 5 picks, about following a soft-tossing lefty through the minors and then seeing him throw a perfect game, about wanting to know about every kid from every community college who got drafted by your team, about understanding “optioned to AAA”, all because all of that is important to putting a winning (or, sometimes, “winning”) team on the field. I don’t think the Mets will need to use all of those tools all of the time, but they’ll need ’em more than the Yankees will, and all that stuff is so fun to talk about. Hope! The Future!
In one of the V. I. Warshawski novels, Sara Paretsky has Vic say something like (paraphrasing) “rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the Mafia. They have the money they need to buy the muscle they want.”
Enjoy the Mets!
Hell, Hernandez is a better announcer even when he’s falling asleep!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/keith-hernandez-falls-asl_n_570392.html
I’m unreasonably pleased for you. I actually squealed when I read the beginning of this post! Congrats and welcome back to the NL. Come to Wrigley for the Labor Day weekend series!
hear hear! except – I went to the Sox… i know, i know… i do love me some Mets though…
Mookie!!! He is my absolute fav Met. He is not the greatest player ever, but he was absolutely a team player and I love the story of how he got his nickname.
My hubby has been a Mets fan since birth and I’m only starred being a fan since I met (hee) him 25 years ago. So welcome back.
Woohoo! Plus the best reason of all to switch: No Designated Hitter! God I hate the DH thing.
And Jessica, fellow Atlantan here, and I FEEL YOU on the wife-beating. God. Compare that to the utter hysteria over the Michael Vick thing. Because it’s WAY worse to beat a dog than a woman. (Not that Vick isn’t awful! Just sayin.)
And hey, hit me with that organist’s Twitter feed, I’d love to see it. :)
Welcome back to the NL. A life-long Cardinal fan, I’ve never experienced Dynasty Exhaustion, but I can imagie how tedious Yankees coverage would be. Hope to see you in the playoffs!
Hey Jessica, I’m a new Braves fan, and I’m also confused by the Bobby Cox lovefest. Are there any good Braves blogs I should check out?
@Zipper — Bean feels that, as a Mets fan, I have to hate the Cards now. “You’ll need to stop admiring Pujols.” “No. I will not give up my El Hombre-liking.” (I did really despise the Herzog-era Redbirds, though. BITE ME, JOHN TUDOR.) I’m also supposed to hate the Braves, but I’m being selective about that too (…LAR-RY), and I’m kind of feeling like the division as a whole is too pathetic to hate on at the moment.
I too am a life-long Cards fan, but I also grew up in Jackson, MS, when the Mets had a AA farm team there, so I was a Mets fan too. The 1986 World Series was one of the high points of my life; I was in the thick of Mets fandom and it was utterly thrilling.
I still hate the Royals for beating us in ’85, though.
@Beth – God, exactly. My dad, who grew up with the ’60s Red Sox pre-Impossible Dream and who was scarred for life by Bucky Dent, finds their ineptitude comforting! Not that I would have sympathy for a man whose hockey team has won the Stanley Cup 24 times, anyway. Everyone needs to just chill out. Teams lose baseball games. It happens. Life goes on. Enjoy the game, that’s what this is about.
And yet I am looking forward to wearing blue to the Dodgers/Red Sox game next month. I guess I really am a Red Sox fan at heart — masochistic.
Hey @Jessica!! I’m with you all the way. My daughter and I actually did the Turner Field (shudder, don’t get me STARTED on the name of that damn stadium) tour the other day and it was pretty awesome.
It’s a chore to listen to/watch the games lately. I miss Pete and John Smoltz in the booth is more irritating than any announcer I’ve ever heard. Agh.
WORD on the B.Cox all around and I have not forgotten anything about him and his smacking his wife around. Jackass of high order.
Check out Lauren T. @BravesLove on Twitter too. She’s got a lot of cool pics and things.
@ Sars — I used to own a “Pond Scum” t-shirt, so I’ll understand if you side with Bean in the anti-Card camp. My first Series win was 1982, so I can’t hate the era. Some of those guys? Yeah, bugged. But between Ozzie, Willie, and my nutbar adoration of Tommy Herr (I know), I can’t help but still love 80s Cards.
Everyone gets to like Pujols, he trascends the team.
@Jessica – we (Toronto) had custody of Bobby Cox for a short time, and I guess he did help us during that time, but his choke-in-the-playoffs bit was particularly embarrassing for us: eliminated from the ’85 pennant series while leading series 3-1. Ow.
I just love this post all around. I’m a Mets fan (and have been my whole life) but I’m dating a very serious Yankees fan, so I listen to and watch both teams almost equally… and I TOTALLY get what you’re talking about. Taking away any Mets-fan bias I may have (or the way my bf has of rubbing in the Rings and the Legacy and the Who Won the World Series Last Year? and the Don’t Make Me Punch You Harder), I find both Sterling and Kaye to be endlessly frustrating to listen to. They don’t SAY anything about the game, or give a lot of insights about the players and that’s a big part of why Gary, Keith and Ron (and Howie) are so awesome. Of course.. Keith is also hilarious, especially when he gets going about his color-coded scorebook or how he’s glad he wore his warmest vest to the ballpark.
And I don’t think the Cardinals are so high on the Hate List that you have to hate Pujols. He’s kind of the man, anyway. (Of course, if I remembered more about the team in the 80s I might rank that list differently, so..) The blogs already mentioned are super great, and I also just discovered My NY Mets Journal, which features an illustrated game summary and has been awfully entertaining.
@Fay: it’s @bravesorganist.
@Fay and Tulip: Thank you for helping me feel less alone.
@Emily: Lauren T.’s Braves Love for the eye candy; for cynicism aplenty, you need Mac Thomason’s Braves Journal.
@Sars: It’s hard to hate on the Chipper at this point. He’s still… Chipper, you know? After a while you start wondering what he’s going to do next, because you can’t be the high school quarterback, or Braves infielder, forever.
@Don Sutton: You are the prime offender in the Canonization of St. Bobby, sir. Do not think that just because your peers are Chip Caray and Smoltz the Homophobe, that we will forgive you much.
@Greg Maddux: I miss you.
@Ichiro: Marry me.
My heart actually broke a little when I read the first few lines. I most definitely do blame Michael Fracking Kay and his talent for turning viewers off. Especially Yankees fans. I refuse to let him to ruin my enjoyment of the Yankees. I won’t ((shakes fist at the heavens))).
Now I do hate the Mets but it’s more like an older sibling hating an annoying kid brother. You know the one. The one who always wants to tag along where I am going, trying to impress with tales of his silly feats, doing stupid things that embarrass me in public, trying to take the attention off me and of course having horrible fashion sense with a gazillion uniforms to wear.
And Sars, it’s totally okay to hate Pujols. I have hated him for years even if he has never played against the Yankees in any meaningful games.
of course having horrible fashion sense with a gazillion uniforms to wear
Yeah, I don’t sign off on that at all. Home uni; away uni; spring-training uni; that should be it.
And Sars, it’s totally okay to hate Pujols.
I’m sure it is; I love the guy.
Speaking as a life-long Cubs fan, I can say: I don’t hate the Yankees. I’ve never hated them. I don’t care, that’s all.
There are only two teams I’ll actively root against – the Brewers and the Astros – for reasons relating to exes. Everyone else I hate during the game because the game’s more fun for me when I can yell at someone besides the Cubs when they screw up.
And ditto on having to like your announcers. Sometimes, I wind up rolling my eyes and muting the TV rather than listen to the CSN casters jaw about the history and blah.
Nice to see you in NL sandbox! I’ve been a Phils fan all my life, but I do have a soft spot for both the O’s. Camden Yards is still my favorite ballpark, and earlier this week they drew 9,300 to the game. Maybe it’s my enduring love for Homicide: Life on the Street, or my graduate school career at University of Maryland, but I always wish the O’s well. Except in 1983, of course.
I also have a soft spot for the White Sox, my husband’s team. I think many baseball fans who have one team they love have warm and fuzzy feelings for a team or two in the other league. I wish I could think of a good simile here, but it’s still to early.
As for Mets blogs, I’ve read some good stuff here:
http://www.amazinavenue.com/
I seem to be in the minority on this one, but I really don’t like Gary Cohen. The whole “OUTTA HERE” thing grates on me every bit as much as Kay’s “SEE YA.” He strikes me as an ever-so-slightly less annoying version of Michael Kay w/ a better announcer’s voice. Hernandez and Darling, on the other hand, are great.
I live between the Philly and Baltimore markets, am a Braves fan and married to a Yankees fan. We watch all four teams depending on who is playing who, and which channel is doing the broadcasting. I have been a fan for 30 years, and I have to tell you everytime Jim Palmer does the color for the O’s I learn something new. He is an insider without being too, well, “insider-y”. He has a great voice – not Harry Kalas great – but warm, comfortable and engaging.
And am I the only one digging Nomar in the broadcast booth on ESPN? It’s OK if I am. I am making it through the NBA playoffs on Jeff VanGundy’s hilariously biting commentary alone.
I can only hope the Mets will provide you with the kind of material the Yankees did once.
“The pig-face store called; they’re out of him.” Classic.
Hello all. I am a brand new baseball fan. Having been raised on football, and falling in love with hockey a decade ago, I usually prefer my sports bloody. But last year my mother, out of freakin’ nowhere, decides to be a Tampa Bay Rays fan. (We live in Sarasota, so it’s our closest MLB franchise). I spend a lot of time at my parents house so I have become a baseball fan. All my life I hated baseball because it was too damn slow. Put me to sleep. And even still I have to do something else while watching it. But I have come around to the poetry, if you will, of the sport. There’s just something about baseball. And so I can discuss our players stats and have opinions on the DH (hate it) and who should be traded because they run like they don’t give a shit, etc.
So to me, a baseball newbie, the Yankees kind of seem like baseball’s royal family. Pompous and ridiculous and able to buy absolutely anything they want. But I am also a massive history nut, so I can respect a storied past. I give the Yankees my respect for that, if nothing else.
I never thought that it would be easier to be a Yankees fan out of state. Living in Utah, I don’t get to watch many games (I don’t pay for the MLB channel stuff although I suppose I could). I just enjoy it the times that I can watch them, and I don’t mind the Fox or ESPN broadcasters too much (I watch other teams too occasionally, but make a bit more effort when the Yanks are on, especially since it usually means that they are playing the Red Sox). I guess I am so far removed from the reverence you describe that I am still a fan. I started watching the Yankees in the mid to late ’80s, when they sucked, and it is a link to my youth that I don’t think I will let go of.
Good luck to the Mets, my parents still live in upstate NY and are big Mets fans, and I bear them no ill will. Glad to know that you have made a choice that will still allow you to enjoy the game, because that’s the most important part.
I was raised to be a Giants fan when they played in Candlestick, when Willie Mays was still playing, not the phenom anymore, but not an old man, either. I still have scorecards from games where my dad and I sat in those damned cold, foggy, windy seats and watched the whole game (because true fans do not leave that seventh inning stretch, no matter what), and he coached me how to record the application of the infield fly rule.
Enjoying the game is what it’s got to be about, even if the park is cold, foggy, windy, and mostly empty. If it’s not fun to watch (listen to), then it’s not worth spending time to watch (listen to).
Good luck with your new team, and thanks for reminding me of those nights at Candlestick. (Did I mention it was cold, foggy, windy, and mostly empty? Some of my best memories.)
I’m a lifelong Yankee fan, the by-product of two Yankee fan parents, and it goes back to my paternal grandfather. I grew up in the 80s when the Yankees sucked and the Mets were competitive,aka the Mattingly era. The Yankees network was WPIX and the Mets were WWOR. Yankee fans and Mets fans did not get along. I wore the shirt that I rooted for the Yankees and whomever played the Mets (there was no such thing as a Red Sox version of this shirt).
Then the 90s came along and all these former Mets fans became Yankee fans, because they wanted to jump on the bandwagon for the winning. That’s when we got the YES network, the irritating Kay/Sterling combo (anyone miss the Scooter and Bill White?), and the Red Sox nation rivalry shoved down everyone’s throat by pretty much every media outlet. All of a sudden, ticket prices skyrocketed even before the new ballpark, (though obviously moreso because of it). Playoff tickets became prohitive. My Dad’s bday is at the end of September and I used to be able to score him a pair of playoff tix as an AFFORDABLE bday present in 1996-1998. Winning became an entitlement. Making the playoffs was no longer good enough. And while the franchise cemented its role as the Evil Empire, Yankee fans collectively surpassed pretty much every fanbase in utter douchebaggery (you know, as part of the competition with Boston).
Reading your post here leaves me with mixed emotions. I understand exactly what makes you want to bow out. We’re roughly the same age, and I also am tired of the May games against Baltimore or Boston that last 5 hours for 9 innings and the chore that the playoffs have become and dealing with both Yankee fans AND Red Sox fans and not being able to afford to go to a bunch of games every year, like I used to. I’m not giving up my team, but I care a lot less than I did before. But I also feel like it was people like you who shifted alliances from the Mets to the Yankees back when the balance in New York baseball success was changing that allowed this monster to grow in the first place.
Now, I know the histories of these teams is quite different. The Yankees didn’t start winning in the 90s. My great-grandfather used to skip supper if the Yankees lost, and guess what: he didn’t exactly go hungry too much. And the Mets have always embraced the loveable underdog side of things, where it is an amazing miracle if they win.
I also know that you obviously have some perspective, which makes you exactly *not* the type of fan that annoys me so. Nonetheless, you’re part of the crowd that dynamically CHANGED things for the worse, and if it hadn’t happened in mass, things would not be the way they are now. So now you want to bug out, after having contributed to that shift and enjoyed in the bounties of winning for a while. Which makes me feel like saying: Been fun, see ya later, but don’t forget to take the 10 douchebags that I can’t stand who came in with you when you leave.
Then the 90s came along and all these former Mets fans became Yankee fans, because they wanted to jump on the bandwagon for the winning. That's when we got the YES network, the irritating Kay/Sterling combo (anyone miss the Scooter and Bill White?), and the Red Sox nation rivalry shoved down everyone's throat by pretty much every media outlet. All of a sudden, ticket prices skyrocketed even before the new ballpark, (though obviously moreso because of it). Playoff tickets became prohitive. My Dad's bday is at the end of September and I used to be able to score him a pair of playoff tix as an AFFORDABLE bday present in 1996-1998. Winning became an entitlement. Making the playoffs was no longer good enough. And while the franchise cemented its role as the Evil Empire, Yankee fans collectively surpassed pretty much every fanbase in utter douchebaggery (you know, as part of the competition with Boston).
+1
Another thing I’m not going to miss: explaining for the umpteenth time that Yankee fandom is neither a single undifferentiated organism with a collective will, nor an extension of Steinbrenner et al. This is not to deny the profound douchebaggery of some Yankee fans; I’m just tired of being asked to atone for their sins when I only joined their number because I didn’t control the remote in the TV room.
I get that bandwagon-jumping is an irritant, but 1) that’s what happens when a team wins, it’s called “the business model of professional sports”; and 2) as a woman who umpired freakin’ Little League so she could watch more baseball and can give you five minutes on Del Ennis without Googling, I’d really like to be exempted from that debate from now on. I AIN’T THAT GUY.
(I realize that you realize that. I’m just so over that shit, I’m under it.)
Then the 90s came along and all these former Mets fans became Yankee fans, because they wanted to jump on the bandwagon for the winning. That’s when we got the YES network, the irritating Kay/Sterling combo… and the Red Sox nation rivalry shoved down everyone’s throat by pretty much every media outlet. All of a sudden, ticket prices skyrocketed even before the new ballpark, (though obviously moreso because of it). Playoff tickets became prohibitive….
I will cop to not knowing much about the business of Yankee baseball in particular, but not sure correlation is equaling causation here. The 1990s was also the time when a lot of people were making a lot of money and trying out a lot of douchebaggery in NYC; the ticket price jumps, etc., might be more a function of that than any particular defections, or lack thereof, by Mets fans. Also I think the jump in ticket prices is not a Bronx-only phenomenon.
…1990s were. Whack me with a Garner.
You know, I never really thought about the upside to liking a team for whom expectations are relatively low, but as a lifelong Giants fan, I guess I can concede that it would get pretty boring if we were champions all the time. Or ever. I guess.
Seriously, though, I can relate a teeny bit to this because for a while there, everything was Bonds, Bonds, Bonds, and I don’t hate the guy, but he certainly wasn’t my favorite, and he wasn’t why I followed the team, or subjected myself to games at Dodgers stadium where fans threw food at me just for wearing the colors, and it got a little tiring that Giants games were never about anything else. Like, do you see J.T. Snow over there, doing the frackin’ splits to catch that foul? *Pay attention to that* for a change. I will never, ever be anything but a Giants fan, but they’re not my local team either, and I hate the Dodgers with a vengeance, but Vin Scully is awesome, so I’ll take what baseball coverage I can get, and I will enjoy it.
Plus, the NL West is an exciting division, in the way that a really old roller coaster at the Fun Fair is exciting, meaning you’re not sure whether to see it through to the end or just jump off right now, because either way, it’s probably going to kill you.
Actually, the whole NL is like that at times, so … welcome.
A lot of what you said reminds me of why I like being a Tigers fan. The team has a ton of history, means a ton to the city of Detroit, and is definitely an institution of sorts. However, they’ve also been recently been one of the worst teams to ever play the game, so you don’t see people getting too uppity about the good times. A good mix of pride and low expectations, here.
Addressing the idea of picking a team to root for, since moving to Florida I’ve experienced a few heated debates about rooting for the “home” team, no matter where you’re from or who your family traditionally cheered for. I’m from Michigan, so there’s the Tigers connection, and a lot of Floridians are transplants, so you get an extremely broad range of team devotion down here. Many Rays fans seem to take this personally. Good example- we went with friends to see Boston play over in Tampa. Not my team, but hey, baseball. A man sitting behind us got into it with our friend’s 16 YEAR OLD daughter because she was cheering for Boston. Her mom grew up in Mass., she was born in Florida, and he felt that she should be a Rays fan, because that’s her home team. I finally turned to the guy and was like, “Dude, she’s 16, lay off”. I’ve had other people get kind of funny with me because I should be a Rays fan since I live here now. . . . thoughts, Nation?
Final thought- announcers. I didn’t realize what a factor this was until I started listening to games on XM and was forced to listen to the home radio feed of whatever city the Tigers were playing in. Sweet Jesus, is there some bad stuff out there, and the Yankees ranked up there on my most hated. It made me realize how lucky we were to have Jim and Dan.
I’m with Rachel — baseball first, team second. I don’t actually “have” a team, although living in Cleveland I do see more than a fair share of Indians games. As a recent fan (I started liking baseball last season because I read a book about it), it doesn’t seem to matter much to me who’s playing, just that someone is. And, of course, I seem to have a perverse affection for National League teams, despite the fact that I live in an American League town. Figures.
Yay! Welcome back.