Fandom at Grace: Yankees vs. Mets
Media provided by Gazette Media Staff.
Through this past baseball season there have been ups and downs for both the Yankees and the Mets. Being that both teams are from New York, the Gazette was interested in gauging the strength of these fandoms within our school. Throughout the 162 games of the baseball season, teams go through numerous win/loss streaks but true fans remain loyal to their team, hoping that they might dominate the postseason. Even though both the Yankees and the Mets did not have a great year, fans at Grace remain optimistic for the next season.
How do you come to support a team, or, more importantly, dedicate time watching this team through its ups and downs, its slumps and its triumphs? Though an answer to this question might seem obvious to some and unclear to others, rivalries span farther than just the burrows of New York; extending beyond the Subway Series where the Yankees and the Mets compete with each year and into the hallways of Grace where trash talk and friendly debates are commonplace.
However, the poll didn’t just distinguish the Yankee fans from the Mets fans at Grace, but also why people root for the team that they do. Many of the answers cited a family connection or the belief that one team is plainly better than the other. However, some fans discovered their love for a team in a different way. For example, Akbar Ali Herndon, Grace’s Chief Technology Officer, wrote that, when he was growing up, he was an admirer of the Yankees. Watching Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio, at the peak of their game, rendered him starstruck.
Steven Zaretsky, a technology teacher, said that he was four years old when the Mets became a team, and they were the first baseball franchise he ever watched.
Ravendra Persaud, our academic systems manager, wrote, “I lived in the Bronx from age three until slightly after college. It was a golden era of Yankees baseball as most prominent players were drafted or brought up in the Yankees system. It was a source of pride for NYC and those Yankees, including Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera, brought many championships to the city.”
The ways in which members of our community chose their favorite team are varied and not at all limited to where they grew up. However, sometimes where one’s parents are from can influence a preferred team. This is true in the case of Noel M. ‘24. “My mom is from Queens so naturally, she is a Mets fan. It seems like I was indoctrinated into the fandom the day she birthed me,” Noel wrote. “Now, I go to games with her over the summer and I love the feeling of the ‘family’ of the crowd.” Noel’s team preference reveals that our parents’ allegiances can affect us as well as illustrate the unity that comes from being a fan. This feeling of unity is not just seen by Noel but also by many other responders.
For sports fans, watching any sport will create great memories, and whether you are a Yankees or Mets fan you are bound to find a good time. Mr. Zaretsky said that his favorite memory was watching the Mets win the World Series in ‘69 and ‘86. Another respondent added that one of their favorite memories was when they attended the only game that the Mets won in the 2015 World Series, which only comes to show that sometimes, experiencing games can become more than just a game.
Dr. Ali Herndon wrote about a particular instance where he felt like he connected with fellow fans: “Singing ‘New York, New York’ in the stands, with Frank Sinatra and the 40,000 other fans in the rain left a deep impression of sharing something in that moment, that went much deeper than a baseball game. Instead of 40,000 strangers, something between us dissolved, and I/we felt like a whole – the same – a unit. The circumstances of the baseball game opened a door but the experience of ‘together’ went beyond words and left a very deep impression that remains to this day.”
These great memories go further than the wins and the losses or watching your team triumph. A lot of other great memories surrounding these teams have been made in hallways and the classrooms of Grace. Even though both teams’ results didn’t turn out the way either fandom hoped, unfailingly, both Yankees and Mets fans will huddle around their TVs next year to once again watch that special first game of the season.
In summary, the results of the poll go 17-10, in the favor of the New York Yankees.
