What Is The Relationship Between The Mets And Yankee Fans?

The Yankees and the Mets are two of New York’s most storied teams, playing for championships throughout their respective histories. The New York Yankees and the Mets have been fighting for supremacy in Major League Baseball ever since they became intercity rivals way back in 1962. They’ve met in a series every season since 1997 (excluding 2008), with both sides eagerly anticipating these games as they typically produce exciting efforts from each team. Let us know “What Is The Relationship Between The Mets And Yankee Fans?”

What Is The Relationship Between The Mets And Yankee Fans?

As is common with all baseball rivalries, fans of each team tend to dislike (and often mock) their counterparts at every chance they get and the Yankee fans have been very good at this. The criticism or hate towards the Yankees stems from the crucial victories they have gotten over the Mets. Specifically, the 2000 World Series loss against the Yankees is still considered by Met faithful the most humiliating they ever felt.

A Decades-Old Rivalry  

Before the dodgers and the giants were relocated to California, they were part of the major baseball league’s national league which meant that the Yankees were the only team in New York that was a part of the American League. 

But when news of a new team to be introduced in New York started attracting media coverage, fans of the old giants and dodgers rejoiced on the possibility of another team that could rival the dominance of the Yankees. In 1962 as part of the expansion of the major leagues, the good news arrived with the introduction of the New York Mets based in Queens, New York. 

In the spirit of friendly competition, the Mets and the Yankees would regularly face off in a series of exhibition games called the “Mayor’s Trophy” from 1963 to 1983. Since these games were played merely as exhibition matches, they were not counted as official encounters between the two teams.

In the 1997 regular season, the introduction of interleague play allowed teams from different conferences to also compete against each other for the very first time. This new introduction birthed the subway series, a series of six or four games played each season between the Mets and the Yankees. 

The Subway Series

 To understand the heat behind this rivalry, let us look at some of their most competitive encounters. 

The first meeting: With their first official meeting taking place at Yankee stadium, it seemed that the home pitch advantage would help the Yankees in kicking off the rivalry with an easy W, but a 6-to-nothing defeat left everyone stunned. Although the Yankees won the head-to-head season series, the fact that the Mets won the first official meet is something that can never be taken away.

Piazza vs Clemens: the 2000 regular season was host to the first doubleheader contested between the Mets and the Yankees. Both Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens were crucial pieces for both teams and when pitted against each other the outcome was always very competitive. 

When Clemens, unfortunately, beaned piazza, he hit him so hard that he had to be taken off-field after suffering a concussion which caused him to miss that year’s All-star Game.

The 2000 world series: During the 2000 World Series we saw the animosity once again spill out on the field when one of Clemens’s fastball pitches shattered piazza’s bat but as he ran for the nearest base Clemens threw the shattered bat towards piazza’s direction which drew mike’s attention and even cleared the bench of both the teams.

Notable regular season madness: Who can forget the 2005 regular season encounter in which Dae-Sung Koo hit straight over the right-centerfield for the double against Randy Johnson, and later scored on an impressive and amazing base run that propelled the Mets for the win. 

Another wild show-off against the Yankees came One year later when David Wright secured the walk-off single off of a huge hit over the centerfield against Mariano Rivera in perhaps his best individual moment in that season and the rivalry. 

How The Rivalry Has Changed Over Time?

While the intercity rivalry over the years has cooled down a bit, it has still managed to produce some great moments nonetheless. One that comes to mind is Mariano Rivera’s first career RBI coupled with his career’s 500th save performance in 2009 which surprised many fans as well as players from both teams.

After the Mets’ trip to the World Series in 2015, talks started to spread around that New York was now slowly becoming the Mets’ town as the Yankees’ subpar performance couldn’t secure them a spot in the 2016 playoffs. The following season the Yankees shut all criticisms by clean sweeping the Mets 4 – 0 and set the record straight that one lackluster season doesn’t take away all the glory. 

For 3 consecutive seasons from 2018 to 2020, every series kept ending in a draw which left the fans of both teams awestruck but also disappointed until the 2021 season when the Mets finally beat the Yankees 4-2 to take home the bragging rights after 8 long years. The 2022 series has ended with a 2-2 draw. 

Conclusion

Now We have learnt “What Is The Relationship Between The Mets And Yankee Fans?”, The competition between the Mets and the Yankees is often called a rivalry, which isn’t necessarily the case. The Yankees vs Red Sox for instance is a legitimate rivalry as the history between both the teams’ is way older and deeply defined by animosity, drama, and hatred for each other. The Mets are more akin to a younger brother to the Yankees. Many Yankees and Mets fans even root for each other when their teams are not going head to head in the subway series. Aside from a few diehards, most Mets fans are casual supporters who back the other team simply because they are a New York team as well. However, they are smart chaps as they know to quietly distance themselves when it’s time for game day.