Why We Love the Mets

[Guest cooby]

Because my Dad did.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I got it from my grandfather.

[Theoldmole]

Brooklyn Dodger fan, lost until the Mets arrived. I was living in the midwest at the time (Iowa City), but immediately loved the Mets.

[Guest cooby]

Old Mole is back

[Theoldmole]

You brought me back.

[Centerfield]

Son of a Yankee fan. Although I make fun of them a lot here, I don't really hate the Yankees (some of their fans are another story). I remember my dad buying me a Dave Winfield shirt when I was 6.

During the early '80's I wondered why the Mets were so bad, and I felt bad that they were always the butt of jokes. I remember watching the Jeffersons and hearing George make a crack about them. Then, in second grade, a couple of guys in my class were talking about how the Mets were on the verge of being good. I didn't think that was possible. I had been told my whole life that the Mets were terrible. So I started reading about them out of curiosity. They had a player named Mookie, which I thought was cool, and some new guy named Strawberry. When Dwight Gooden arrived, I was hooked for life.

1985 was the first time I watched baseball avidly. To this day I have not seen a better pitcher.

[Guest themetfairy]

My grandfather and mother were avid Brooklyn Dodgers fans who became Mets fans, and I became a Mets fan because of them.

[Guest 86-Dreamer]

born in Brooklyn. Dad, Maternal Grandmother & Maternal Grandfather were all big Dodger turned Mets fans. Dad would have tolerated some dissent but Grandma would never allow it.

[Vic Sage]

Brooklyn-born, the child of 2 Dodger fans who adopted Mets. My fandom was amped up by my brother, who perversely chose the Yankmees.

[Guest cooby]

TheOldMole wrote: You brought me back.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Because Trump's a Yankee fan!

I vaguely remember a few things from '69, I was only seven. The 1973
Mets sucked me in and I've been all-in since. ­­­­­¡Ya gotta believe!

[Edgy MD]

The 1973 World Series (particularly the Rusty Staub injury) whet my appetite, but the operatic tragedy of 1977 hooked me for life.

One of the ballgirls went to school with me my freshman year. She was, of course, unapproachable. One day, having to eat and skedaddle to her evening job, she showed up at the cafeteria in her uniform. I was unable to breathe.

I knew then the madness was incurable.

[Fman99]

My dad grew up in Flushing but in the 1950s, as a MFY fan, though I know he attended a lot of games at Shea in the mid 1960's because it was so close to my grandparents' home on 141st and 70th Ave.

He really changed allegiances for good when the Steinbrenner era kicked in. So when he wanted to see live baseball, he would take us on family trips to Shea and they were combined with visits to my grandparents' house. So I've been going to Mets games since 1976, when I was 3.

[bmfc1]

Because I hate myself.

[G-Fafif]

1969 for the beginning, intransigent loyalty/force of habit ever since.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

no choice but to

[Chad ochoseis]

My dad was a Yankee fan and my maternal grandfather was a Giants fan turned Mets fan. Until I was about 13, my Met allegiance waxed and waned depending on how well I was getting along with my dad at the time. And in the early 1970s, it was OK to root for both. Roy White, Bobby Murcer, and Mel Stottlemyre? Cool. Wayne Garrett, Cleon Jones, and Tom Seaver? Also cool.

But my heart was always with the Mets. My dad drove to Yankee Stadium and left in the bottom of the 7th to beat the traffic home. My grandfather took the 7 to Shea and stayed until the last out. And Yankee imagery, to my seven-year-old self, was dull, stodgy, hidebound. The Mets had Mr. Met in the stands and Bob, Lindsey, and Ralph calling the games. Rooting for the Yankees was great when they were good and utterly joyless when they weren't. The Mets were about fun. And it's a fucking game. Even when I was a kid, I had enough sense to know that the point was to have fun, win or lose.

Anyway, Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in the early seventies, and the Reggie-Billy-George soap opera and my growing political awareness and deepening love of the underdog (and equally deepening hatred of the DH) brought me back for good to the side of dignity, light, and truth.

[Edgy MD]

Chad Ochoseis wrote: And Yankee imagery, to my seven-year-old self, was dull, stodgy, hidebound.

This was a big difference to me. The seventies may not have been much of a Mets decade, but the seventies—at least a childhood in the seventies—was the colors and tones and and zip of the Mets.

[G-Fafif]

Chad Ochoseis wrote: And in the early 1970s, it was OK to root for both.

As blasphemous as this sounds today, it rings true. It was never something I could abide (by 1970, at age seven, I just hated the idea that there was another New York team getting any attention), but I remember "I like both teams" being not altogether uncommon among my elementary school peers. At QBC this past weekend, one of those who appeared on a panel I moderated self-identified as a Met/MFY fan way back, though he eventually drifted to the dark side.

By junior high and the onset of Full Steinbrenner, there was no common ground to be had. Fuck them, fuck all of them. Yet I never felt any true enmity for your Stottlemyres and Whites.

[Guest cooby]

1973 was my first full year too. I felt I was their lucky charm

And I may have mentioned here once or twice, I was in love with their batboy, Greg Cox. Disappointed that he was gone in 1974 though

[Guest themetfairy]

G-Fafif wrote: Chad Ochoseis wrote: And in the early 1970s, it was OK to root for both. As blasphemous as this sounds today, it rings true. It was never something I could abide (by 1970, at age seven, I just hated the idea that there was another New York team getting any attention), but I remember "I like both teams" being not altogether uncommon among my elementary school peers. At QBC this past weekend, one of those who appeared on a panel I moderated self-identified as a Met/MFY fan way back, though he eventually drifted to the dark side. By junior high and the onset of Full Steinbrenner, there was no common ground to be had. Fuck them, fuck all of them. Yet I never felt any true enmity for your Stottlemyres and Whites.

I actually have a very good friend who is primarily a Yankees fan but she maintains that she roots for both teams because that's how her father brought her up.

I don't get it, but I will say wholeheartedly that she's one of the few MFY fans I know who isn't an asshole about the Mets.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'm the ultimate bandwagon jumper on. I became a Mets fan the day after they won the 1969 World Series. A day or two before that, I had no idea what baseball even was.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Guest

[ashie62]

Tom Seaver and the bevy of MFY fans about me.

[Ceetar]

why not?

[dinosaur jesus]

Another '69 bandwagoner. I'm pretty sure, anyway. I have no memory of that season at all, but I know I was on board in 1970. I remember my father pointing to a story in the paper, with mug shots of a couple of Pirates (ugly bastards), and asking me if I was worried about the Pirates catching the Mets. I said "Nah."

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I can't remember a time when I wasn't a fan, owing to older brother some and dad who were fans. The 1973 WS was the first "event" for me.

Really got into it with pack-a-day baseball card habit in that 74-79 area

[MFS62]

TheOldMole wrote: Brooklyn Dodger fan, lost until the Mets arrived. I was living in the midwest at the time (Iowa City), but immediately loved the Mets.

Same here. And I couldn't bring myself to root for the MFYs.
I tried to root for the Pirates and Reds, because there were rumors that they might move to New York.
But it wasn't the same. And suddenly, there were the Mets.
And the sun was shining.

Later

[Theoldmole]

Mole's rules of New York fandom.

You can root for the Giants and the Jets. Joe Namath made it OK.

You can root for the Rangers and the Islanders, but you'd probably better not admit it. (Who are the Devils?)

You can root for the Knicks and the Nets, I suppose, but who would want to?

You can not, ever, root for the Mets and the Yankees. Ever.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

My father made a career out of the Air Force and met my mother while stationed at Suffolk County AFB. I was born in Southampton and eventually raised all over the world. Moving so much as a child, I always considered Long Island (Suffolk County) to be home, since I had been born there. As a kid, I was constantly playing or watching sports. I guess it was natural that I would become a fan of the teams from the area I considered home. I have no recollection as to how I chose the "National" teams (Mets and Giants) as my favorites. I am just glad that I didn't choose to follow the "American" teams. I could handle being a Jets fan and I have nothing against them, but if had chosen to be a Yankees fan I feel certain I would surely loathe myself.

Growing up, I don't recall ever having a single friend that was a Mets fan. I guess that is why I have liked hanging out here all these years.

[Edgy MD]

I figured it wasn't the canapés.