When I Was a Yankee Fan
I grew up in suburban New Jersey, just 20 miles or so from New York City. I was not a sports fan until about 8 years old, when I started becoming fanatical about everything that interested me--sports, Hardy Boys mysteries, bicycling, you name it.
My dad was a Mets fan. The Mets were a new team, having been born in 1962 (this was 1963). So, like any good boy, I became a Mets fan like my dad. I was a pretty good reader by then and I devoured books on the sport. And I quickly realized from the books that the Mets were a terrible team, one of the worst of all time.
At the same time, the Yankees were still atop the baseball world. They won the World Series in 1962 (the last they would win for awhile) and they won the American League pennant in 1963. My friends, who were Yankees fans to a boy, would laugh when I told them that the Mets might finish as high as eighth this year (an overzealous sportswriter, obviously, as the Mets never finished as high as eighth before the miracle of 1969).
So 1963 goes on and the Mets are sucking really bad and the Yankees are still the Yankees and I'm beginning to waver under the influence of my friends. Maybe I should root for Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and Whitey Ford and all those guys.
So one day I announced that I was transferring my allegiance at the dinner table. My dad said, gee, that's too bad, because I've got Mets tickets for Friday night. Of course I immediately swore undying allegiance to the Metropolitans.
Friday night rolls around and we go to the ballpark. Not Shea Stadium, but the OLD ballpark, the Polo Grounds. I vaguely remember that the ballpark was green all over--green seats, green grass, green girders. The Mets were playing the St. Louis Cardinals that day. Stan Musial was in his final season; I remember Dad telling me that he was a great ballplayer.
The Cardinals led the game 2-0 going into the bottom of the ninth. The Mets got runners on 1st & 2nd and the "Let's Go Mets" chant started up in the stadium. Duke Snider (playing his last season before the New York crowd) cranked a three-run homer into the right field seats, Mets win 3-2 and one little kid is a Mets fan for better or worse.
Of course it was mostly worse for the next few years. Fortunately the Yankees did were not tempting. In 1963 they lost to the Dodgers in the WS, while in 1964 they made their last gasp and fell short in seven games to the Cardinals.
After that, the Yankees sucked for awhile--well, more than awhile. It was the era of Hector Lopez and Ross Moschitto and Roger Repoz. Bobby Mercer when he looked like he was never going to hit. And the Mets just continued to suck and then one year I was up at my grandparents' lakefront house in August and I noticed that the Mets were in second place, about 8 games behind the Cubs and I started paying attention more and the Mets won just about every game they played done the stretch to scorch the Cubs by about 9 games at the end of the season. They demolished the Braves and then stunned the country by winning the last four out of five games from the Baltimore Orioles.
It was amazing. In 1973 they got into the playoffs despite having a barely winning record. Of course, they won the NL pennant and took the Oakland A's, who were in the middle of a three-year run as World Champs, to the seventh game.
They managed to play fairly well after that, but this was when fairly well didn't do it against teams winning 100 games. In 1976 they went 86-76, a respectable showing. They were 15 games behind Philadelphia, which lost in the playoffs to the Big Red Machine. Meanwhile the Yankees had suddenly become competitive. They won the AL East in 1976, then jolted the KC Royals with a bottom of the ninth homer by Chris Chambliss. (Whose daughter went to my high school, althought it was years after I was there).
They lost horrifically to the Reds, but my interest was piqued when they acquired Reginald Martinez Jackson that offseason. Reggie was, as the cover of Sports Illustrated had proclaimed, a SuperDuperStar. A lot of people scorn him, but I don't see how you can ignore the fact that he was clearly the best player on many championship teams, and that he performed particularly well in the big games.
So the Yankees go on to a great season while the Mets really start to stink. By this time I'm in my senior year of college. When the old man gets tickets to games, he and I don't go together, it's me and a couple buddies, and we usually get tanked during the game. The Yankees appealed to the lout in me--why watch the Mets, they weren't going anywhere, let's go watch the Yankees try to win a championship.
And of course they do, with Reggie providing fireworks. The following year I was finally out of school and working in New York City. The Yankees made an incredible comeback to tie the Red Sox, but there was a one-game playoff. I remember half the office was listening into Camelia's brother, who was narrating the game for us. Then I got lucky. The boss came around and noticed that my desk was perfectly clean. He asked if I was looking forward to catching the end of the game, and I of course nodded. "Why don't you get out of here now?" he said. So I did and I got to the Madison B&G just in time to see Bucky Dent foul one off his foot. I turned around and got a beer and when I turned back Dent hit a three-run homer into the screen.
Yankees win another World Series. This time they spot the Dodgers the first two games at Yankee, then come roaring back to win all three in LA and game six at home.
Next year the Yankees just aren't in it, and then Thurman Munson died, and everybody knew it was over. The Yanks managed to pull one more AL pennant out in 1981, but by then Reggie was gone and they gave away a series in which they had won the first two games.
By then I had moved out West. I rooted for the Yankees to be sure (the Dodgers were hated in Northern California), but that was about it for the Yankees and me. The 1977 & 1978 teams were fun to root for, but they're nowhere near the 1969 or 1986 Mets to me.
