One of the biggest outright lies about New York baseball fans is that "you're either a Met fan or a yankee fan--and there's no 'in between'!!!" I hear that a lot from "fans" interviewed on the news around playoff time. They say it with such certainty, almost as if they completely forgot that a few years earlier, they were rooting for the opposite of the team they're rooting for now. So maybe they mean that everyone in New York is either a Met or yankee fan AT ANY GIVEN TIME. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, "You're either a Met fan or a yankee fan, but don't worry, there's a huge, gaping 'in between.'"
I call it the little brother syndrome. Well, I do now I guess. The fans of the traditional teams in New York--Giants, Knicks, yanks (I never followed hockey, so this may not be true for that)--treat the newer teams like a younger sibling. They pick on 'em relentlessly. They call 'em names. They treat 'em like less of a person. But every once in a while, that little kid surprises big bro', and does good for himself. And when that happens, the big guy, says, "Hey, good for the kid. I'm not doin' so hot right now, so this is perfect, I'll root for him until I'm back on top." (This isn't true of all fans, I have yankee fan friends who rooted for the Sox against the Mets in '86 because they hated the Mets that much.)I wonder if this is true of all cities with multiple teams in a sport.
Anyway, in baseball, it works the other way around, too. A lot of Met fans right now are feeling the need to join their older bro', becasue beating them just isn't happening. Again, not all Met fans, but a lot. Since I live in SW Connecticut, I listen to the FAN out of NYC a lot. And a recurring theme amongst the callers is: "I'm a Mets fan, but I'm also a fan of good baseball so I'd rather go watch the yanks play." Ugggggh. As a Sox fan, this makes me want to puke blood, as a friend of mine has been known to say. These people should just buy a yankee hat and climb aboard----oh, wait, the ticket sales are soaring in the Bronx...who do you think those people are? They're people who jumped on the Mets bandwagon in '69 or '73 or '86 or '99, and now they're realizing that they're a few miles away from a winner, which is what they signed up for in the first place. This is the difference between Mets fans and Red Sox fans: We want to beat the yankees, they want to BE the yankees. Seriously, Met fans who call up the FAN will say "I'm a Met fan since '73...." Why don't you just say your name is Bandwagoner from Flushing? And then these yankee fans "lining up to get tickets" when they got A-Rod. This one woman called the station giddy over the fact that she got a bunch of single seats to yankee games. She couldn't get more than 1 ticket to each game, so she'd have to go alone every time, but hey she gets to see her beloved (but only beloved after they get a big star player) yanks. Hey lady, I got FOUR tickets to a Sox-yanks game at YOUR stadium 3 months ago--WHEN THEY WENT ON SALE.
That's a tell-tale sign in my eyes, that they win the division that many years in a row, but it takes signing the so-called best player in the game to get anybody to show up. Pathetic.