Can you be a Mets' and Yankee's Fan?

[zaxxon]

There are Yankees that I like, individuals, like Rivera and Joe Torre. But no, of course you can't be a fan of both if you're a fan of either. You don't back a team just for the ball they play, there're extra-baseball elements, the history of a team, it's traditions, it's tendencies, its soul. Without them Seinfeld is right, and we're just rooting for laundry.

[Joe Simbam]

No!

There is no way that you can cheer for two teams in one city or area. The reason I didn't cheer for the White Sox in the World Series is that I am a Cubs fan. When (a big if) the Cubs win the World Series, I do not want to share any of the victory with Sox fans. Where is the fun in being able to shift sides or pick and choose?

The word fan comes from fanatic: a person motivated by irrational enthusiasm (as for a cause); "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject"--Winston Churchill. A casual fan can cheer for both, I guess. The only acceptable way a person can cheer for two teams is if they move. Say I moved to KC or something. I would go to and support the Royals. But I would still be a Cubs fan. Geography is the only way to allow this idea to work. :grouchy

[digglahhh]

Not rooting for, and actively rooting against are two different things.

It does not make you any more hardcore of a fan for one team to root against another team that is not a direct rival of yours.

Now if you asked, can you be a Mets fan and a Braves fan....

[Mattingly]

I thought the same thing when I read that, but just assumed it was a typo. It would be pretty cool if its true.

Consider me faulty on the elderly, though I've always had the highest respect for them, but that many words from someone of that age? I'd hardly think so.

I think it's OK for me to have the Mets almost like my 2nd team, hoping that they do well, but I can't whoop and cheer whenever Pedro fans the side or when Piazza got a game-winning RBI in the past.

If anything, it's more about knowing a part of baseball history, and since they're the local NL team, they're worth watching. Going back to Tom Terrific and his treatment by then-GM, M Donald Grant, that's a part of NYC sports history.

[hairymon]

Can be a fan of both, to a point

I am a fan of both teams in the sense that I would like to see them both do, well, but I think there does come a point where a line is drawn and you have to be a fan of one over the other.

In the Subway Series (either the planned regular season one or a rare World Series like 2000) you obviously cannot root for both to win. In this sense I am more of a Yankees fan and have been most of my life.

But if the Mets made it to the World Series and the Yankees didn't I'd certainly want them to win. In 1986 I was in college in a college that had a healthy representation of people from both New York and Boston and believe me, if nothing else, civic pride and naturally Yankee-fan hatred of the Sox made me a rabid Mets fan that year.

I think a good point was made that Sox-Cubs are more determined by socio-economics whereas Yankees-Mets is more geographic (though until the 1970's I think they were socioeconomically defined also). My parents are both from Brooklyn but lived in the Bronx and Westchester when I grew up; they are kind of the exact converse of me, they want both Mets and Yankees to win, but if push came to shove like in 2000 they would go for the Mets.

There are also some people like my wife who are lifelong "Yankees only" but because she wants Willie Randolph to do well now at least likes hearing when the Mets win.


Go New York!!!!!

[Cowtipper]

Difficult question. I think it is really only possible to be a true fan of one, but you can appreciate the other fully. I'm not a Yankees fan, but I appreciate the history of their team and love to read about it.

[Blue387]

Difficult question. I think it is really only possible to be a true fan of one, but you can appreciate the other fully. I'm not a Yankees fan, but I appreciate the history of their team and love to read about it.

I respect the Yankees as a team and franchise. I don't care for the fans and the 27 rings crowd.

[DiggerODell]

Could never be either. Although, I do dig the city and ballparks they play in.

[Cowtipper]

I respect the Yankees as a team and franchise. I don't care for the fans and the 27 rings crowd.

I think it's just that the Yankees have the absolute worst "worst" fans in the league. Worse than the Phillies, who from my limited experience keep it within the ballpark. Their fans are the ISIS of baseball fans ... 98% of them can be normal and fine, but it's that 2% who wear the flat-billed Yankees baseball caps backwards with the faux-silver Yankees pendant bling with the obnoxious Yankee fan arrogance that ruins it for the rest of the fandom and the non-fans of the team as well. I don't think we have any of those 2% on this message board, but they are out there.

They even make their presence known when their Triple-A team comes to play the Rochester Red Wings ... especially on, well, never mind.

[Stolensingle]

They even make their presence known when their Triple-A team comes to play the Rochester Red Wings ... especially on, well, never mind.

I grew up in Rochester, and the first game played by pros I ever saw was the Red Wings (and in the bottom of the first, the home team loaded the bases and the cleanup hitter blasted a GS--how's that for the first inning of your first game?). I didn't know they were still in existence, though I guess I could have looked it up easily enough.

[Blue387]

I grew up in Rochester, and the first game played by pros I ever saw was the Red Wings (and in the bottom of the first, the home team loaded the bases and the cleanup hitter blasted a GS--how's that for the first inning of your first game?). I didn't know they were still in existence, though I guess I could have looked it up easily enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Red_Wings

[Honus Wagner Rules]

This reminds me of all the Giants/A's caps I saw in the Bay Area back during the 1989 World Series. It's ridiculous.

This one? It predates the 1989 World Series by many, many years. I remember seeing them in the early 1980's at Giants games.


split_hat.jpg

[Yankillaz]

No surprise who's winning this.

[drdg]

I hope a moderator won't move this thread to the Yankee's or Mets' section because I think it is more of a general baseball question -- especially because it is centered in one of baseball's bastions.

Before I started graduate school I was a reporter and sat right next to an editor who was a die-hard Yankee fan. Between yelling at each other over stories and other assorted nonsense, we occasionally talked baseball. He held the firm assertion that a person can not be a fan of both the Mets and Yankees.

I disagree. Coming from New York, I grew up a Mets' fan but I grew to appreciate and even like the Yankees. To my editor this was blasphemy.

What do you think? Can a person be Mets' and Yankee's fan at the same time?

don't know about the new millennial generation (post 2000 or the derek Jeter era)
but since I was old enough to know about baseball, since 1969
I have been and always will be a die hard NY Mets fan, who also roots for the NY Yankees
except for the subway world series in 2000, it was mets all the way
regular season subway series, I always root for the home team
Mets at citi-field,
Yankees at Yankee Stadium

I can gladly say that I have been to the old Yankee stadium (pre 1973) the renovated Yankee Stadium (1976-2008)
and the NEW Yankee Stadium (2009) many times
likewise for shea stadium and Citi-field

and I have met many people or family where one person is a mets fan and the others are yankee fans
including a husband (yankee) and wife (mets), and vise viser where she is a yankee fan and he is a mets fan
AND THEY GET ALONE JUST FINE