From: epstein@sunc7.cs.uiuc.edu (Milt Epstein)
Subject: Re: Mets and Yankees
Reply-To: epstein@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 17:17:38 GMT

In <1992Apr14.205134.28458@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> dick1@hera.uucp (25436-vaughn) writes:

>In article <1992Apr14.181908.13819@midway.uchicago.edu>, nss3@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Noel Steere) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr14.160713.5307@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> jjd3@po.CWRU.Edu (James J. Dibenedetto) writes:
>>>
>>>[stuff about Mets and Yankees deleted]
>
>> I don't get it.  Why do most fans of one NY team feel they have to
>> *hate* the other one?  
>
>That's an easy one.  
>A statistically anomalous percentage of Yankee fans have a
>'Yankees-are-the-only-team-that-matters' attitude.  
>Consequently, Yankee fans hate the Mets purely for the fact that 
>they dare to exist in the same town, and Mets' fans hate the Yankees 
>precisely because of this fascist attitude on the part of their fans.
>(Unlike Chicago, etc., neighborhood has nothing to do with it;
>it breaks down along personality lines.  But that's another [huge] thread.)

I disagree somewhat with this assessment of effect of neighborhood (in
NY) on which team one roots for.  Recall that the Dodgers left
Brooklyn in the late '50s, and that there was quite a rivalry between
the Dodgers and Yankees, and that the Mets arrived in Queens (which is
right next to Brooklyn) in the early '60s.  The Yankees are in the
Bronx, of course.

For some people, the Mets filled the void left by the Dodgers'
leaving.  This leads somewhat to Brooklyn/Queens residents favoring
the Mets, and others in NY with the Yankees (I'm not saying that this
is a large effect, just noticable).  Now this doesn't always work,
since there are many other factors involved in how someone chooses
which team to root for -- which team was better while they were
growing up, who their parents rooted for, nostalgia for the Yankee
teams of old, which uniforms they liked better :-), etc.

Of course, many of the fans in NY weren't around when the Dodgers
left, so this is getting to be less and less a factor.  I grew up in
Brooklyn, and have always been a Mets fan.  I was born in '61, so I
don't remember the Dodgers leaving, but then I grew up with the Mets.
I don't have stats, of course, but my memory of high school supports
the Brooklyn/Queens people favoring the Mets.  Another data point --
my father, who's always lived in Brooklyn, roots for the Mets also.

As to why fans of one team in a city often feel they must hate the
other team, that's another story.  Part of it may be due to the
rivalry of having two teams so close together (even though they don't
play each other hardly at all) -- a common human reaction is to root
against the other team.  Personally, I hated the Yankees while growing
up (as much as I thought about them :-), mainly because of
Steinbrenner.  Nowadays, I don't care all that much about them (but am
still hoping, probably in vain, that Steinbrenner is kept out of
baseball) -- after all, they don't call that league they play in "the
junior circuit" for nothing :-).

-- 
Milt Epstein
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
epstein@cs.uiuc.edu