Top 5 Reasons Why the Yankees Are New York's True Baseball Team (And 5 Why It's the Mets)

The Sporting News, printed during the 2000 World Series

In this time of nothing happening -- except going to the store, dealing with whatever shortages they may have, hearing of famous people dying (from the coronavirus or otherwise), and watching Donald Trump handle it all badly -- many people are taking the drastic action of... reading.

Of course, much of that is on our computers: Desktop, tablet, smartphone. Luckily for me.

Lately, Google has been giving me story suggestions, including various pop culture lists of "the top 5 reasons why (such and such) is the best (of something) -- and 5 why it's (the other one)." Example: Batman: Five reasons why Dick Grayson is the best Robin (and five why it's Tim Drake). Or, name a superhero from either DC or Marvel, and five heroes from the other comic universe he could defeat (and five he couldn't). Sometimes, the reasons make sense; sometimes, they don't.

So, I decided to do that for New York baseball. I am alternating reasons why the Yankees, and the Mets, can each claim to be New York's true baseball team.

There will be some humor, and some snark. What there will not be is the DH question: Met fans still hate the DH, and Yankee Fans still wonder what the hell is wrong with them.

So, here goes:

Top 5 Reasons Why the Yankees Are New York's True Baseball Team (And 5 Why It's the Mets)

10. Mets: The Human Scale

Roger Angell is one of the greatest writers the subject of baseball has ever known. God willing, he will still be alive on September 19 of this year, which would be his 100th birthday. He has written for The New Yorker magazine since 1944. He has written 11 books, and 7 of them have been about baseball, including The Summer Game (1972), Five Seasons (1977), and A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone (2002, describing how Coney dealt with the decline of his fine career).

Angell grew up as a fan of the New York Giants, and is one of the few people alive and old enough to remember, and root for, a team managed by John McGraw. He saw, in the 1930s, the Giants win 3 Pennants, but also lose back-to-back World Series to the Yankees (1936 and '37), making the Yankees, for the first time definitively, New York's team.

More than that, he saw the Brooklyn Dodgers win the 1941 Pennant, and, with the brief exceptions of the Giants' 1951 and '54 Pennants, be not only the more successful, but the more popular National League team in New York. In a span of just a few years, he saw the Giants go from Number 1 to Number 3 in town.

Interviewed for Ken Burns' miniseries Baseball in 1990, he said, "The move of the Giants was absolutely heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking." We hear such sentimental stuff about the move of the Dodgers, also to California after the 1957 season, all the time. We rarely hear it about the Giants. But Giant fans and Dodger fans came together to root for the newly-established Mets in 1962.

The Mets were terrible. In their 1st 4 seasons, they lost 120, 111, 109 and 112 games. Contrast that with the Yankees, who won 5 straight Pennants from 1960 to 1964 -- and had won 29 out of 44 from 1921 to 1964. When the Mets went 66-95 in 1966, Year 5, it was considered a huge step up. (Then came Year 8, 1969. I will discuss that in Reason Number 2.)

Despite this, in 1964, the last year of the Yankee Dynasty, but also the year that Shea Stadium opened, the Mets overtook the Yankees in attendance, and by plenty: The Mets averaged 21,390 fans per home game, the Yankees 15,922. It would be the "Miracle" year of 1969, also the Yankees' 1st year without a major star (since Mickey Mantle had retired), before the Mets' attendance was more than double that of the Yankees, since they were essentially taking the fans of 2 different teams. But in terms of straight numbers, they had surpassed the Yankees in just 3 years.

And even in the 1st 2 years, at the Polo Grounds, while the Mets weren't yet surpassing the Yankees in attendance, they had a more engaged crowd. Angell noticed this, saying in his inerview with Burns:

An amazing thing happened, which was that New York took this losing team to its bosom. Everybody thinks New York only cares about champions, but we cared about the Mets.

I remember going to some games in June that year (1962). They were getting walloped. They were getting horribly beaten. But the crowds came out to the Polo Grounds in great numbers.

People brought horns, and blew these horns. And after a while, I realized this was probably anti-matter to the Yankees, who were across the river, and had won so long. Winning isn't a whole lot of fun if it goes on.

But the Mets were human. And that horn, I began to realize, was blowing for me. Because there's more Met than Yankee in all of us. What we experience day to day in our lives is much more losing than winning. Which is why we love the Mets.

The Yankees had been described with words like "dynasty," "baseball royalty," "lordly," "godly," "godlike," "officious," "haughty," "imperial," "imperious." (No one yet thought to call them "the evil empire," but "imperial" and "imperious" had been used.) Words used to describe the early Mets included "hopeless," "hapless," "inept," "clownish," "oafish," "pathetic." What's easier to aspire to: Being better than the 1962 Mets, or being anywhere near as good as the 1962 Yankees?

The Mets were a team you could get in on the ground floor of, as were the Jets, as would later be the Nets, the Islanders and the Devils. The Yankees? If you were in school in 1962, they had been winning Pennants for your entire lifetime, and probably for your father's entire lifetime as well.

As later Oakland A's batboy Stanley Burrell, later to become the rapper MC Hammer, would have put it, the Yankees were a team that told you, "You can't touch this." But as the theme song said:

Meet the Mets!
Meet the Mets!
Step right up and greet the Mets!
Bring your kiddies
and bring your wife!
Guaranteed to have
the time of your life!

Or, to borrow the words of a later jingle, for AT&T, the Mets invited you, more or less, to "Reach out, reach out and touch someone."

The Yankees were a team for gods, or for people who thought of themselves as such. The people in skyscraper offices, not the people who cleaned them. The people in limousines, not on buses. Your boss, not you. The Mets were a team for human beings, for regular people. People who needed that next paycheck.

9. Yankees: The Grand Scale

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" So said Robert Browning in 1855. In other words, what's wrong with aspiring to be the best? Let's quote another song: "I'll make a brand-new start of it, in old New York! If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere!"

Why not aspire to play in Yankee Stadium? Why not aspire to what the Pinstripes represent? Why not give yourself the goal of winning the World Series? Why not decide that you want to be pulling ticker-tape out of your hair as 4 million people cheer you on, 'round about Halloween?

Met fans like to use words like "magic" and "miracle." Yankee Fans think that this is small-time thinking. Sure, they use words like "mystique" and "aura," but they also know that, when Yankee management is truly determined to win, they get the players who are willing to wake up from the dream, and do what it takes to make the dream come true. To get things done on a grand scale.

8. Mets: Pitching

Over 100 years ago, the great Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack supposedly said, "Pitching is 75 percent of baseball." If you believe that, then the Mets are much closer to being a team for you than the Yankees are.

Sure, the Yankees have had great pitchers. Hall-of-Famers, including Whitey Ford and Mariano Rivera. But when you think of the truly great Yankees, even those guys aren't among the first few names that come to mind. You think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter. Even Jeter, who wasn't a slugger on the scale of the others, had his share of big home runs. He hit a home run for his 3,000th hit.

The Yankees have had great pitchers, but you don't think of great pitching when you think of the Yankees. You think of the Sultan of Swat before you think of the Chairman of the Board.

In contrast, the Mets are all about pitching. When you think about their history, the first name that comes up is Tom Seaver. The second? Probably Dwight Gooden, ahead of any of the hitters on the 1986 Mets, even the Hall-of-Famer Gary Carter, the should-be Hall-of-Famer (or so they say) Keith Hernandez, or the would've-been Hall-of-Famer Darryl Strawberry. You think of Tom Terrific and Doctor K before you think of Mike Piazza and David Wright.

7. Yankees: Hitting

But "Chicks dig the long ball." And not just women: The home run is what everybody wants to see. And the Yankees have done it better than anyone. Ruth redefining the sport with the most and longest drives anyone had ever seen. Mantle's "tape measure" blasts. Roger Maris hitting 61 in '61. Reggie, Reggie, Reggie. Bucky Fucking Dent and Aaron Fucking Boone. Alex Rodriguez's 2009 redemption, and Hideki Matsui's clincher in that year's World Series. Postseason walkoff home runs by Jeter, Boone, Chris Chambliss, Jim Leyritz, Bernie Williams, Chad Curtis (okay, we'd like to forget that one, because of what he did later) and Mark Teixeira.

Think of a Met fan whose memory goes back as far as 1999, but not to 1986, and ask him to name the 5 biggest home runs he's ever seen from his team. He'll name Todd Pratt and Robin Ventura's walkoffs in the 1999 Playoffs. He'll name Piazza in the 1st game back after the 9/11 attacks. And then... He might mention Wright, or Daniel Murphy, or Yoenis Cespedes, but he'd really have to think hard for a specific moment.

A fan going back as far as the mid-'80s revival will remember Carter's homer in the 1985 opener, and the 1986 postseason heroics of Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra and... I'll admit, I had to think for a moment to remember this name: Ray Knight. Hernandez? They might remember singles or doubles that he hit, but they'll think of his defense before they think of any of his hits. I'm not saying that's a bad thing (like Don Mattingly, he was a great defensive 1st baseman), but it is telling.

Ask a Yankee Fan not old enough to remember the old Dynasty, and they'll remember the big names, because they've seen those names in Monument Park. Ask a Met fan not old enough to remember the Pennants of 1969 and 1973 who hit the big home runs on those occasions. Maybe they'll name Cleon Jones, but will they name Donn Clendenon? Al Weis? From '73, they might think of Rusty Staub, but would they think of Wayne Garrett?

Let's put it another way: Ruth, Gehrig, the 1961 Mantle-Maris record chase, and Reggie in '77 have all had movies made about them. Nobody's yet made a movie about Seaver.

6. Mets: You and Me Against the World

The Mets' fandom is the product of a "shotgun marriage" between the fandoms of the Giants and the Dodgers. But by the time they made their 1969 run for the postseason, they had a new generation of fans that wasn't old enough to remember the old teams. A kid who was, say, 7 at the time of the move wasn't really invested in either the Polo Grounds club or the Ebbets Field outfit, and would have been 11 on Opening Day 1962, and have graduated high school in '69.

So these fans didn't need to care who their parents rooted for. They could be united in their love of baseball, the Mets, and New York. And since "Everybody who ain't us, hates us," their bond created a "You and me against the world" mentality. That was the title of a 1974 hit song by Helen Reddy, written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams. (Yes, the little blond singer with the glasses.)

Chicago, Atlanta and Baltimore in '69? Baltimore in '69? Pittsburgh and Cincinnati in '73? Chicago again in '84? St. Louis in '85 and '87? Houston and Boston in '86? Los Angeles in '88? Atlanta again at the turn of the 21st Century? San Francisco in 2000? Philadelphia from 2007 to '11? Los Angeles again, Chicago again, and Kansas City in '15? Bring 'em on! We're New York, we can handle anybody!

After all, as we have seen, there's only one team that can really beat the Mets. It's themselves.

5. Yankees: No One Likes Us, We Don't Care

This concept comes from one of the nastiest sports teams in the world, South London soccer team Millwall FC. They chant it to the tune of "Sailing" by Rod Stewart. (Not the Christopher Cross song.) It's kind of the inverse of the "You and me against the world" idea that Met fans seem to embrace.

It reminds me of a scene in a 1975 episode of M*A*S*H. Head nurse Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (played by Loretta Swit) is changing a wounded soldier's bandage. He's had it with the Army, and he says, right to her face, "I hate your guts!" She considers this for a moment, and says, "My guts are not here for you to love."

And that is how Yankee Fans react. We know New England hates us. We know Cleveland and Detroit and Kansas City hate us. We know both sides of Texas, Dallas and Houston, hate us. Thanks to multiple Playoff series against both Oakland and Los Angeles/Anaheim, we know California hates us. Thanks to 3 Playoff series with the Seattle Mariners from 1995 to 2001, we know the Pacific Northwest hates us. Thanks to our minor rivalry with the Toronto Blue Jays, we know all of Canada hates us. Hell, even other New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, the ones who root for the Mets, hate us.

And you know what? We love it. As our own Reggie Jackson once said, "Fans don't boo nobodies."

4. Mets: Better Broadcasters

From the dawn in 1962 until 1979, the Mets had the same 3 announcers: Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner. Nelson was steady -- except for his sportsjackets: Once Met fans got color TVs, they saw that his jackets were loud. (Similarly in those days: Heywood Hale Broun.) Murphy was the golden voice that led the way both before and after Nelson's retirement in 1979, until his own in 2003, sadly forced because he was dying of cancer.

And Kiner, a Hall of Fame slugger for the Pittsburgh Pirates, had the malaprops, but he also got serious with his postgame (or, if a doubleheader, between games) show Kiner's Korner. He was the best interviewer New York baseball ever had. (Maybe Marty Glickman was better overall, but for baseball, it was Ralph.)

In the '80s, Murph and Kiner would be joined by Tim McCarver, Gary Thorne and Steve Zabriskie. In the '90s, as Murph and Kiner aged and cut back, on came Gary Cohen and Ed Coleman. In the 2000s, legendary hockey announcer Howie Rose joined. And ex-Met players like Staub, Hernandez and Ron Darling joined in.

And while you knew they always wanted the Mets to win, they all understood that the game mattered more than their own wishes. They were professionals. Not like those "homers" who made fools of themselves over the Yankees.

3. Yankees: More Fun Broadcasters

As Phil Rizzuto would say, "You huckleberry!" The Yankees' announcers -- especially Mel Allen from 1939 to 1964, Rizzuto from 1957 to 1996, Jerry Coleman from 1963 to 1969, Bobby Murcer from 1983 to his death in 2008. John Sterling since 1989, Michael Kay since 1992, and Suzyn Waldman since 1995 -- show you that their hearts are on their sleeves, even if you can't see them because they're on radio.

And it's stupid to say that the Yankees haven't had broadcasters who handled the job with the utmost professionalism. There was former Brooklyn Dodger announcer Red Barber from 1954 to 1966. Frank Messer from 1968 to 1984. Bill White from 1971 to 1988: The Yankees were behind the times racially in many ways, but they were the 1st team to have a black regular broadcaster. Jim Kaat from 1995 to 2006. Ken Singleton since 1997. Paul O'Neill since 2002. David Cone since 2008.

And you know what? They're still more fun that the Mets' broadcasters. For all the intelligence that Hernandez and Darling (Yale) bring to broadcasts, and for all their playing experience, they're really kind of boring. Say what you want about any Yankee broadcaster, but none of them is boring.

2. Mets: New York as Underdogs' City

Everybody who's not from the New York Tri-State Area seems to hate New York. That's about 300 million people trying to gang up on 20 million. Despite New York's size, there is an underdog mentality.

It's not the Donald Trumps and the Michael Bloombergs who make New York go. It's the taxi drivers, the bus drivers, the Subway motormen, the tollbooth workers, the pushcart vendors, the waitstaff, the shopkeepers, the repairmen (including auto mechanics), the garbagemen, the cops, the firefighters, the Con Edison workers.

The blue collar guys and gals. The people who work. The underdogs. The people who deal with crap similar to the crap you deal with. These are the people who identify with the Mets, the blue-collar team. (Okay, baseball jerseys usually don't have collars, but the Mets do sometimes wear blue jerseys.) For these people, the Mets are their team. "Dese are my guys, and doncha evah fugeddabouddit."

1. Yankees: New York as Winners' City

"No, those are not my guys, pal!" others say. God forbid we should root for a team that's as bedraggled as we are. We get enough of that with the Jets, the Knicks and the Rangers. We want someone who's gonna lift us up, and let us win along with them, and make us feel like New York really is "the greatest city in the world." The Yankees do that.

Roger Angell was right: There is more losing than winning in life. So why not go with a team that gives you a better chance to end your rotten day with a good result?

To paraphrase Nick Hornby, from his screenplay for the original, British soccer, version of Fever Pitch, You don't get many Aaron Boone moments in real life; and you don't get very many of them in baseball, either. So when they do come, you cherish them. And what team, in any sport, has offered you more to cherish than the New York Yankees?