How do New Yorkers decide which teams they root for? Is it fairly evenly divided by burrow? Do you simply root for the teams that your family raises you to root for?
New Yorkers, which teams do you root for?
We may live in small apartments, but it’s not necessary to be insulting.
Also, Yankees suck balls.
REAL New Yorkers know that they are called hutches, not burrows.
Speaking for myself (raised in Jersey, we don’t have burrows, but we do have “boros,” which are burning piles of garbage that we huddle around for warmth), my family is originally from Brooklyn, hence Dodgers fans who hated the Yankees (and the Giants), and who mainly became Mets fans in '62. Giants, because they played in Jersey when I was a kid (both teams do now). Ditto Nets. I’ve never cared a whit for hockey.
The football thing is weird. You meet a lot of New Yorkers who are fans of out-of-town teams – mainly, I guess, the Cowboys and Dolphins because of their past success, but other teams too. I really never meet NYC-bred fans of the Orioles or the Reds who adopted the teams in the 70s.
One nitpick I should add is that it isn’t Rangers/Islanders…it’s Rangers/Devils. The Isles fans are pretty much limited to Long Island proper. Hempstead IS a pretty big city in itself, and the Islanders play literally across the street from Hofstra University. There are a surprisingly large amount of Devils fans in NYC, and I know they can’t ALL be from the so-called 6th borough of Jersey City. I’m originally from Connecticut, so I’m still holding out for The Whale to return.
As for Yankees/Mets…if you’re from Harlem or Upstate Manhattan, or the Bronx, or you’re an asshole and aren’t shy about it, you side with the Yankees. If you’re from Queens or Long Island, like rooting for the little guy, and hate the Yankees, but not enough to team up with the Red Sox, you like the Mets. If your family has a long history of living in Brooklyn, then you’re waiting for the Dodgers to come home.
Jets/Giants - if you’re from southwestern Connecticut, Westchester or most of NYC, then you like the Jets, unless you decided to jump onto the Giants bandwagon within the last year. If you’re from NJ (with a couple of true fans mixed among NYC residents), you like the Giants.
Knicks/Nets - if you’re a masochist, you like the Knicks. Otherwise, you keep bragging about how the Nets are SOMEDAY gonna move to Brooklyn, and how much of a better team they are.
J! E! T! S! Just End The Season!
Wrong about Westchester and the Giants. At least mid-Westchester, it’s Giants fans since the 80s. Right about ‘upstate Manhattan’ and the Yankees, though. Pretty even Ranger/Devils.
In general, Mets fans are from New Jersey and Long Island, and Yankees fans from Manhattan and upstate (see the United Countries of Baseball map).
I started as a Yankee fan because they were the only MLB team in town at the time, but switched to the Mets after 1964. The reason for the switch was complicated – a combination of my brother’s friends being Mets fans, the players I liked on the Yankees being gone (I was a big Roger Maris fan), and the fact I was away in camp all 1964 and paid no attention to baseball until the World Series, etc. I did live on Long Island, so Shea was a bit nearer.
Being a Mets fan meant I rooted for the Jets (I didn’t follow football previous to that, and if I watched at all, I remember watching the AFL, not the NFL), since they both played in Shea Stadium.
But I’m a Rangers fan (well, slightly – I don’t follow them that much any more) because they were the only game in town and by the time the Islanders were started, I was old enough to know you didn’t switch teams.
For basketball, my rooting interest is best expressed by the shortstop on Abbott and Costello’s St. Louis team.
Geography is an issue, but so is family history. I grew up on Long Island, but I’m a Yankee fan because my father is a Yankee fan. Of course he grew up on Long Island too…
I’m a Rangers fan because I was swept up in the excitement of the 1994 playoffs. Lately I haven’t paid that much attention to hockey, but I’ve enjoyed seeing them as a playoff team again, for sure.
And I guess I prefer the Giants to the Jets, but I’m a Bills fan.
In the 1950s, it was said that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel. Today, it’s as if you wore an Exxon t-shirt and waved a Microsoft banner*.
Historically a lot of Yankees fans came from suburbia and were considered well-to-do and well-mannered compared to scruffy N.Y. Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers fans. Obviously things have changed a bit. 
My father was something of a Dodgers fan before the Great Exodus to California, and no one in my family would have dreamed of rooting for the Yanks. It’s a bit like religion - if you’re raised in a family of nonbelievers you don’t generally take up devout worship of Satan.
*Still in last place in the A.L. East as of this posting - Haw! Haw! Haw!
Only Mets fans live in burrows.
Who?
This will probably get more responses in The Game Room, so I’ve moved it there.
Who’s on first.
I’m sure your post was meant to be tongue in cheek but I’m a transplant from Mississippi who lives in Brooklyn and roots for the Yankees.
Also, The Nets will be in Brooklyn for the 2010 season — right down the street from my house in the neighborhood(s) they’ll destroy (hope I can still afford tickets like I could in the Meadowlands at the Izod Center).
Oh, and, what’s this hockey of which the OP speaks?
I am a rare breed. I root for the Yankees and the Mets, the Giants and the Jets.
In baseball it went like this. My mother grew up a Yankees fan (from Staten Island). But she loves baseball and will watch any game, regardless of the teams. Saw Joe D. and crew many times live. My father grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan (Jersey City). Broke his heart many times and then crushed it in 1958. In my preteen life I tended to root for any team the was winning. That meant the Reds at the time. But I wasn’t a real fan. I really started to become a fan and appreciate the ins and outs of the game in my teen years. At that time the Mets were on the rise and it was exciting to watch them. Steinbrenner was in full George mode, destroying the team every year when they came close but not close enough. It was easy to root for the Mets and not the Yanks.
Then in 1989 I joined the army. I was away for four years. Hardly ever watched a baseball game. In Germany there was only one American channel and baseball was on in the middle of the night. In Texas there was plenty of baseball but I didn’t care about the teams. When I got out in 93 things were different. The Mets decided to commit suicide. Fill the team with overpriced players who didn’t perform. The Bobby Bonilla era. It was very hard to watch. On top of that the Mets went to a cable pay channel. We even gave it a shot and tried it but for some reason it screwed up the reception on the other channels. So we got rid of it and I couldn’t watch many Mets games. And at the same time my mother (the big yankee fan) had the Yanks on every night. They had young exciting talent. George was starting to take a backseat and let the baseball people run the team. Bernie Williams, Jeter, Petitte and Rivera came up from the Yanks minor league system. It was very easy to root for those guys.
So for about 15 years now I root for both the Yankees and the Mets. I hope George’s clone Hank doesn’t ruin that for me. I can not root for one over the other. I was not happy during the subway series.
As for football it is simple. Unlike other areas, in the NYC area you can only get two football games on sunday. I’m talking mostly years ago, before sunday night, saturday and thursday night football. All you could see was the Jets and Giants, one at 1pm and the other at 4pm. It was not that hard to have a rooting interest in both teams since I saw them every week. I have always favored the Giants and the few times they play each other in the regular season I root for the Giants.
As for hockey and basketball, of course the Devils and the Nets. Though as I get older I find that my interest in both those sports is waning.
Hank’s screwing the team, man.
I know. I know. 
Or in burros. But New Yorkers are expected to be able to tell their ass from a hole in the ground.
This is so wrong, NJ runs mostly Yankee fans. Yankee fans just outnumber Mets fans 2:1 everywhere except on the Island. I would guess the New Jersey is 4:2:1 Yankees, Mets then Phillies fans in ratio.
I was born in the Bronx to a family of Yankee Fans. Italians tended to be Yankee fans due to Tony Lazzeri, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Crossetti, Phil ‘Scooter’ Rizzuto and of course Yogi. We also rooted for the Giants. Hockey & Basketball were Rangers & Knicks but my brother rooted for the Islanders instead. Much later in life I stopped rooting for teams own by the Dolans. So now I don’t bother with Hockey at all and I tend to root for the Nets as a Jersey Team.
For the record I do not hate the Mets or Jets. In baseball, the Red Sox are always my prime rival and whenever Baltimore is good it reminds me of my childhood when they were the better team and I consider them a rival. They are also the second closest AL team.
For Football I am of an age where Dallas is the Rival and Eagles are #2 rivals. My Dad is old enough that it is the Skins that are the Enemy!
Jim
Maybe, but I was quoting actual research into the matter, not personal knowledge. The map clearly indicates that northern NJ is Mets territory.
I don’t think that map did any research. If it did and you can point it out to me, I will concede the matter, but the only reference I found online agreed with my observations from talking baseball in NJ for 33 years or so.