On this most auspicious day of days, the 27th of October 2009, I am dedicating my post to a subject that has consumed New York sports talk radio for the past week or so. That subject, for those of you who don't listen to WFAN religiously like I do, is what good Mets fans should do given the horror matchup presented to them by the 2009 World Series pitting the Yankees against the Phillies. In this muse, I present my case for why any Rational Mets Fan (a group of which I consider myself a member) CANNOT root for the Phillies.
The Rational Mets Fan (RMF from here on) gets his own title to distinguish himself from the Irrational Mets Fan (raving idiot from here on), who through some twisted logic finds himself calling into NY sports radio blasting those who would cheer on the Yankees and cursing them to fan purgatory. But onto the substance of the argument:
The RMF has three acceptable courses of action:
(1) Bury head in the sand and ignore baseball for the next month. This is a very sound plan, if you are passive enough about the sport itself to not want to watch the culmination of this very painful baseball season. By late November, all baseball talk will have shifted to free agency and next season, which will hopefully be an improvement on the fucking disgrace of 2009. The RMF is forced to make no hard choices in this scenario.
(2) Watch the Series, just root for good baseball (difficult). Observing games as a neutral has always been hard for me personally, and especially difficult in baseball, as its hard to watch throughout an entire game without a compelling interest the result. I admire fans who are able to just cheer for good baseball, its the sign of true love for the sport. This is an exceedingly dispassionate way of approaching a series with two teams that are none too friendly to the Metropolitans, so again kudos to those fans that take this approach.
(3) Watch the Series, pull for the Yankees (as much as you can given that they are the Yankees). Here is the crux of the debate. Rooting for the "cross-town rivals" can be a difficult pill to swallow, but if you are going to root for a team, this is the only choice. Why? Because while the Yankees may be "cross town rivals", the Phillies are REAL rivals in every sense of the word. They compete in the same division, fight for the same pennant, and ultimately their success comes at the price of the Mets'. The Mets play the Phillies 18 times a year... the Yankees a mere 6, and that is only a recent phenomenon. They also hail from a city with which New York has a direct sporting rivalry, with some of the most obnoxious fans south of New England. They are the real enemy. They win, and the Filthadelphians (Killadephians?) get something they never deserve: a championship.
Possible Raving Idiot rebuttals, rebutted:
- But I have so many obnoxious Yankee fan friends and relatives, I couldn't stand to have them rub another title in my face! Look, they have ultimate scoreboard on us. This title is not going to really change anything. The asshole Yankee fans who make fun of the Mets are not going to change, and whether they have 13 times as many championships as we do or 13.5 as many really won't make a difference in the end.
- I hate what the Yankees stand for, with their ludicrous spending... Well, I hate to say it, but the Mets also know how to splash out a good deal of coin as well, just not as wisely. Sorry, no merits there.
- You have to pull for the National League! Yeah, I would buy this MAYBE if we were talking about the Hollywood Dodgers here or the Astros or something, but no one from the NL East, please. Were you cheering on the Braves in '96 or '99? Come on. We all hated the Braves back then because they consistently kicked our ass. This situation is really no different.
- They are our rivals, too! Not really. But we are the inheritors of the Giants and Dodgers National League tradition, and they had rivalries with the Yankees! I must admit I am a sucker for the New York National League history aspect of the Mets, but that argument will not cut it with me. The Giants had a rivalry with the Yankees going back to when the Yankees weren't even playing in New York (the Giants poached players from the then-Baltimore Orioles). The Dodgers were foiled by the Yankees numerous times in the World Series back in the 40s and 50s, sparking a rivalry then. We didn't inherit those teams' championships, their records, or their names (a la the Cleveland Browns (minus the championships part! Ha!)) so I don't buy that we inherited their rivalries either. Until interleague play started in 1997, the Mets didn't even face the Yankees in meaningful baseball. Sorry, can't form a real rivalry when there is no meaningful competition (and some would even say that calling interleague play "meaningful competition" would be a stretch).
In conclusion, fellow RMFs out there: we have 3 choices before us. Lets pick our poison.
Oh, and I know I said this was a single topic muse, but I can't help myself: reasons to no longer want to be Don Draper. Blasphemy?
