What are the two things sports fans outside the Empire State hate the most? New York and the New York Yankees. I know, New Yorkers, that's hard to believe, but it's true. The Yankees are the team everyone loves to hate, and nobody hates them more then me. What I hate most about the typical New York fan is that they are just that, fans of New York. There is no team spirit, no team pride, and no team. Sure, there are a few die-hard fans out there in Hollywood East, but for the most part the "fans" of New York would be happy to just buy their way into the spotlight. Allow me to provide some examples.
Case 1: The New York Jets. In 1995, the Jets finished the season a pathetic 3-13. One year later, an abysmal 1-15. At any given game in the Meadowlands, green was nowhere to be found in the stands. I had the misfortune of attending a game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets in '96 but amidst the boos and empty seats lost track of what state I was actually in when there was more applause for Dan Marino and Irving Fryar than there was for the home team. The Jets were the laughing stock of the league, the hapless underdogs everyone loved to laugh at, to point at in disgust and to tell their friends, "Whatever, I'm a Giants fan," or "Hey, they play in New Jersey anyway." But leave it to the fair-weather "fans" in New York to hop on to the J-E-T-S bandwagon as soon as Parcells hopped into town. Now every New Yorker is a Jets fan and the rest of us are still laughing. Just ask any of those Vinny and the Jets guys where they were in '96... whether they admit it or not, they were all Giants fans, and once the Jets start to slide, they will be again.
Case 2: The New York Knicks. Wait, sorry, someone call the NBA, Manhattan only has one official team, but ask any Knicks follower after another playoff loss and they'll say they're a Nets fan.
Case 3: The New York Islanders. Sure, the Rangers have their following of fans from the old-school ranks of hockey when they were in the original six, but bring a recycled Gretzky to New York in a Rangers uniform and good luck finding one Islanders Jersey in the Big Apple.
Case 4: The New York Yankees. Where do I even begin? I know hundreds of New York baseball fans and I can't stand any of them. I know one Yankees fan and one Mets fan; I can't stand them either, but I can respect them because they are part of an extinct and unique breed of true fans. Now the bleepin' Bombers face their urban brethren, the New York Mets, in a battle for one city. New York "baseball fans" can take solace in the fact that New York will win the World Series.
I know there are hundreds of you out there who say they are Mets fans and just as many who say they are Yankees fans, but ask any of them the word of the day, and they'll tell you one thing. Ask them what's special about this Fall Classic. Ask them why they're so excited and you'll get the same answer: Subway Series. Never again will I ever use the phrase. In a matter of days it has become the greatest clich?© in the English language and the worst thing that could happen to baseball. Everyone in New York, even those who have never followed baseball before in their lives who probably couldn't name one player on either team with the exception of Derek "I like Skippy Peanut Butter" Jeter, will be glued to Fox come next week. The city will be electric and journalists will rush frantically to be the first to find some new way to fit "subway" into some catchy new title. In a Lexis-Nexis search of only Oct. 18, the phrase appeared 59 times in different newspapers. Meanwhile, nobody else in the country will be watching. New York versus New York. How exciting that must be for everyone in Chicago and Boston and California and Texas and anywhere else in the country. Ah, but I digress.
As I watched Game 6 of the ALCS and saw K signs for El Duque in the form of subway cars, I realized how true my point was about the fans of New York. What's important to New Yorkers is not that their team is in the World Series, it's that both NewYork teams in are in the Series, so when "their team" loses, they can say at least the champion is from New York.
With this said, can we get rid of interleague play now? The powers that be set-up this ridiculous system so that cross-town rivals in opposite leagues could get the chance to square-off while teams like Boston and Baltimore get a sneak peak at the Phillies and Expos. The Subway Series has happened before. It's nothing new, just rejuvenated. It happened with the Yankees first in 1921 with the cross-town rivals Giants, then again in '46 versus the Dodgers. Then it happened yet again in '98 then '99, and finally we get to relive the magic in 2000. Now the mystique is gone. We've all seen it. It's been done, six times this year alone. New York, get over it. No one cares!
We've already seen a double-header in Shea and Yankee Stadium in the same day, we've already heard the hype, we've already had our wish come true - a Mets-Yankees series. And now we've spoiled the fun. Major League Baseball has ruined the surprise, the excitement, the anticipation of New York-New York, and I couldn't be happier. As my friend the Yankees fan told me via email, "1986 was the worst year in baseball because the two teams I hate most were squaring off in October - the Mets and the Red Sox." If you are a New Yorker, it's a good thing Major League Baseball is not set up like the NFL where the championship is played in a neutral city. Can you imagine the New York Yankees and the New York Mets squaring off in Minnesota? If that were the case, all those New Yorkers wouldn't be too happy anymore. As if the world didn't hate the Yankees enough, now this. As Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly said in a commentary once, "rooting for the Yankees... is like rooting for Brad Pitt to get the girl or Bill Gates to hit Scratch 'n' Win." Or to put it into more current-day terms, it's like rooting for Gore to run Nader into the ground.
Sure, Yankee fans will read this and want to kick my ass because they know it's true. The Yankees have not built a dynasty- - they've bought one. Taking full advantage of the absence of the salary cap (like campaign finance reform for you politicos out there), Steinbrener has managed to stockpile his team with players nobody else can afford. Am I jealous, you ask? In a way. Of course I'd love to have an owner come in and buy the Sox and buy out the league, but then again, I'd feel a little dishonest buying a championship. So as a fan of baseball, I am forced to watch to the two teams I hate most play in the city I hate most, but I am a true fan of baseball and a fanatic Red Sox fan, so by default I must reluctantly root for the Mets because I could never root for the Yankees. But to all you New Yorkers who claim this Subway Series is good for the game, think again. Ask anyone outside your bubble and they will tell you otherwise. Yes, it's great for New Yorkers and New York, but so is Radio City and MTV.
I can already see New Yorkers scrambling to get tickets to this year's Super Bowl to see the Jets and Giants face-off in Atlanta. And to those of you who claim to be fans and still rooted for a subway series, I hope you read this carefully. Go Jets, go Giants, go Mets, go Yankees, go Knicks, go Rangers, go Islanders, go Liberty, go home! New Yorkers, you're in the spotlight again now, but this time you're all alone and nobody will be watching.
Even Berenson is a senior majoring in political science.
