The Year New York Yankee Fans Had to Root for the Boston Red Sox
August 5, 2011 · Harold Friend · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
New York Yankees fans could not win no matter who won. It was the dilemma that they always feared and that true Yankees fans still fear.
The Boston Red Sox were playing the New York Mets in the World Series.
Root for the Mets? Never. But that meant rooting for the Red Sox.
Root for the Red Sox? Never? But that meant rooting for the Mets.
Yankees fans couldn’t root for the Red Sox. Yankees fans couldn’t root for the Mets. The depressing reality was that one of the hated rivals had to win.
The sad fact is that Yankees fans, as distasteful as it was, had no choice. They had to root for the Boston Red Sox.
Many of today’s fans probably disagree that Yankees fans had to root for the Red Sox and many of today’s Yankees fans, at least among those who live in and around New York, root for both the Yankees and the Mets.
Why must Yankees fans root for the Red Sox when they play the Mets in the World Series? Because the Red Sox can never beat the Yankees in the World Series.
The two leagues have lost much of their separate identities thanks to interleague play and free agency. Neither league has a president and the umpires no longer work for one league.
A little background will illustrate some important points.
The Brooklyn Dodgers—New York Giants rivalry was as intense as the one between the Yankees and Red Sox. On one level, it was more intense because the Dodgers players really did hate the Giants players.
Few players on the Yankees or Red Sox hate their union brothers on the other team
In 1951, the Giants came from 13.5 games behind Brooklyn to win the pennant. No Dodger despised the Giants more than Jackie Robinson.
Jim Katt tells the story of Robinson walking into the victorious New York Giants clubhouse immediately after Bobby Thomson hit the most important home run in National League history.
Upon entering the Giants clubhouse, Robinson kept shouting to the victorious Giants that his Dodgers were better, much better than they were.
Then he told the Giants to knock the crap out of the Yankees in the World Series.
Robinson was a Dodger but he was also a National Leaguer. In the World Series, a National Leaguer roots for the National League team, no matter what. That is what one of the greatest, if not the greatest, competitor of all time did. He rooted for the Giants.
That is what Yankees fans had to do when the Red Sox played the Mets in the 1986 World Series.
In 1962, their first year of existence, the New York Mets were a joke. They set a record for futility by losing 120 games.
In 1969, the Mets were the World Champions.
The Yankees, after winning the 1964 pennant, became an afterthought as the Mets ruled not only New York, but all of baseball.
George Steinbrenner purchased the Yankees in 1973. He knew how to maximize free agency (read that as spend money) and the Yankees returned to prominence by winning the pennant in 1976 and World Championships in 1977 and 1978.
Following the two championships, the Yankees again fell on hard times. The Mets were sold to owners who wanted to win.
Darryl Strawberry was Rookie of the Year in 1983, Dwight Gooden was Rookie of the Year in 1984, Keith Hernandez came over from the Cardinals, Gary Carter was obtained from the Expos and Lee Mazzilli was sent to Texas for Ron Darling and Walt Terrell.
The Mets ran away with the 1986 pennant.
During the 1980s, most New York fans were Mets fans, The Mets were on the back page of the tabloids while Yankees coverage was almost always secondary.
Radio and television sports reports invariably began with the Mets while taxi drivers spoke to their passengers about the Mets, not the Yankees.
The Yankees and Mets play in the same city, compete for the same media attention and draw from the same fan base.
It is undeniable that the Red Sox stuck the Yankees with one of, if not the greatest, defeats in history when they came back from a three game to none deficit to win the second round of the 2004 playoffs, but that didn’t happen in the World Series.
Even before Mr. Steinbrenner took over, the Yankees and their fans knew that the only successful season was one in which the Yankees won the World Series.
The ignominious defeat in 2004 was in the playoffs, not in the World Series. It was humiliating, but think how much worse it would have been if a National League team did it to the Yankees in the Series.
The Mets could do it to the Yankees in the World Series. The Red Sox cannot.
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