I recall an episode if the short-lived “Brooklyn Bridge” series depicting Brooklyn Dodgers fans as our downtrodden heroes and New York Giants fans as bullies.
What is the current public perception/mythology/stereotype of New York fan bases?
We can talk Mets/Yankees, Jets/Giants, Nets/Knicks, Rangers/Islanders/Devils/(Whalers).
We can even project with respect to Red Bulls/New York City F.C.
Feel free to weigh in on other local match ups as well: Cubs/White Sox, Giants/Athletics, Dodgers/Angels, Kings/Ducks, Lakers/Clippers.
If you want, expand to teams with some geographical overlap in your local area: Cubs/Cardinals, Nationals/Orioles, etc. Or even historical local rivalries: Red Sox/Braves, Phillies/Athletics, Cardinals/Browns, Cardinals/Bears, etc.
Billy Crystal seems to have become the #1 celebrity Yankee fan.
The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee after the 1952 season. My father grew up in Cambridge as a Braves’ fan. The Red Sox were the “rich peoples” team, while the Braves were the team of the common folk… cheaper seats, cheaper food, seats way down the left field line at the old Braves’ field for 5 cents; and an outfield fence with real holes in it to let folks peer in and not get chased away. In 1950, the Braves integrated Boston baseball with outfielder, Sam Jethroe, who won the NL ROY award.
When the Braves moved to Milwaukee, he followed them for a dozen years, but when they moved, again, to Atlanta, in 1966, my father lost interest, particularly after Eddie Mathews, the last “Boston Brave” left the organization.
When my father retired, in 1983, he finally got cable and, to his surprise, was able to watch Braves’ games on TBS, and became a big fan, again, throughout the last 20 years of his life.
That’s a great story. I wonder if that poor/rich divide applies to other pairs.
I’ll tell you what, I always look sideways at someone who is a Yankees fan or a Cowboys fan – or even a Manchester United fan – who has no personal connection with that geographical area.
If you’re talking about comedians it might be the Mets just provide better material. I think Jon Stewart said a real New Yorker is either a Mets fan or Yankees fan depending on which one is doing better at the moment.
It depends on a lot of factors: where you grew up (Long Island tends to have Mets and Jets fans, for instance; here in Schenectady, most fans follow the Yankees and Giants), what team your friends and parents rooted for, and who was winning when you were growing up.
There are also philosophical differences: the Yankees are about winning; the Mets are about miracles (and learning to handle disappointment).
Similarly, the Giants are about following a team that has some good years and some bad one; following the Jets means you don’t care about the playoffs, since you rarely see them. (I’m a Jets fan, and doubt they’ll wind a Super Bowl again in my lifetime.)
I know of more celebrity Mets fans, but that’s because I’m a Mets fan.
Even though I live just outside DC and going to Nats games is actually quite easy, I’ll never really be a Nats fan. I’ve followed the Os my whole life; I’m not going to give them up just because they moved the freakin’ Expos to town, and not just from Canada, from French Canada no less!
Seinfeld and Stewart also grew up in a period when the Mets were the new team in town, and that could also play a part. Seinfeld was about eight when the team started playing, and Stewart was six when the Miracle Mets won the Series. I remember he once talked about having a dog named Shamsky, after a Mets outfielder of that period.
I went to college in LA, and although it’s been nearly 40 years, I can remember going to school with a lot of Dodger fans, but it was hard to find any appreciable Angels’ fan base. When the Dodgers first moved to LA in 1958, and then into Chavez Ravine in 1961, they became the “in” place to be seen. I remember seeing pictures of Cary Grant, Doris Day, and Mr. ED!! at Dodgers’ games… (sort of like Jack Nicholson sitting in the front row at the old Forum.) The Angels first played in the old minor league Wrigley Field near Inglewood, but then later shared Chavez Ravine with the Dodgers, and felt they got shafted by their Dodger-landlords, before leaving for Anaheim in the mid-60s.
Being an AL fan, I used to try and scare up a road-trip crew whenever the Red Sox came into town, but it was tough to find interest. But I do remember seeing a classic duel between Luis Tiant and Nolan Ryan that went 15 innings. Ryan struck out 19 before leaving after 13 innings (pussy), while Tiant pitched the entire game, losing in the bottom of the 15th. Best non-playoff game I’ve seen in person.
There is more of an Angels’ fan base today, but they still have a huge inferiority complex towards the Dodgers. In retrospect, the Angels should have toughed it out in LA-proper, until they’d built up a following – the Dodgers only beat them to town by 3 years. Moreno’s rebranding of his team as “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” is kind of absurd since it translates to “The The Angels Angels of Anaheim.”
But the Angels remain my alternate team to root for, (in case George Steinbrenner comes back from the grave and buys the Red Sox.)
In my experience, that’s not true. I’m a Yankees fan and will root for the Mets as long as they’re not playing the Yankees, but I think I’m a rarity. I have three brothers who are Mets fans who don’t root for the Yankees even when they’re in the Series, and my other brother who is also a Yankees fan won’t root for the Mets.
My family is from the Bronx, but traditionally we were NY Giants fans. When they left town, that left us adrift. My father and three brothers went with the National League Mets when they came up rather than switch to the Yankees. I was never a big baseball fan when I was a kid, but gravitated to the Yankees when they got good in the mid-1970s after I had moved away from NY.
This site lists the following celebrities as fans of the Yankees:
Billy Crystal
Rudolph Giuliani
Jay-Z
Spike Lee
Paul Simon
Jack Nicholson (I saw him at a game once)
Bruce Springsteen
Adam Sandler
Denzel Washington
Steve Schirripa (Bobby Bacala on the Sopranos)
Kate Hudson
Minka Kelly
LeBron James
Tiger Woods
It doesn’t match my experience either. The only exception I noticed was in '86 when the Red Sox and Mets were in the series and a lot of Yankee fans were rooting for the Mets. I assume it was just part of the Yankees/Sox rivalry. Otherwise I’ve seen Long Island as the base for Mets fans and little popularity outside of there.
Ben Affleck, who grew up across the river from Fenway, remains a big Red Sox fan. Back in 2003, he was dating Jennifer Lopez, from the Bronx. Apparently she was not a big baseball fan (or at least, Red Sox fan) but she’d accompany her Ben to Sox games, where she’d spend 3 hours yawning, it seems: J Lo stands by her man
As much as Paul McCartney is a baseball fan, he is a Yankee fan. Just to add to the list.
It hurts the Mets cause to some degree, that for rap and R&B a Yankee hat with the interlocking NY became the defacto hat to represent NYC in general. So you see the Yankee hat far more often in non-sport situations and world-wide.
As to fandom, this is fairly old but probably still accurate. Brooklyn, Queens and the rest of Long Island is overwhelmingly a Mets area. Staten Island and NJ are about 2:1 Yanks to Mets. Connecticut is split pretty evenly between Red Sox and Yankees with a minor Met fandom at best. The Bronx and Manhattan is overwhelmingly Yanks and is Westchester. Nationally the Yanks are huge and the Mets are negligible.
Many to most Met fans hate the Yankees. Most Yankee fans hate the Red Sox with less than a half caring about the Mets at all. Red Sox fans of course hate the Yankees as do fans of most teams for that matter. Yankee/Mets fans are pretty rare.
And of course Philly fans hate every team including the Phillies.
I’m similar. Growing up in my part of NJ loyalty is definitely with New York teams unlike those south Jersey folk. My mother is a lifelong Yankees fan from Staten Island. My father had his heart broken by Brooklyn and just started to get back into the Mets near the end of his life. So I have it on both sides. I root for the Mets unless they play against the Yankees. I actually like Citi Field more than the new Yankee stadium. It’s just a nicer place to watch a game.
Interesting map… and over the last decade, the Red Sox have made huge takeaways in Vermont and in Connecticut, which has paid dividends in their cable network. I remember staying at a hotel in central Vt, back in 1999, and not being able to get Sox games on TV… it was all Yankees. Stayed there a couple of years ago, and it was all Red Sox fans.
As for the Mets, it’s been a tough decade for them, what with the Wilpons geting stung by Madoff, and surviving Omar Minaya. I think the highlight of the last decade was Carlos Beltran taking a called strike 3 to end the 2005 NLCS. Things have got to get better… they can’t get any worse.
Cubs/Cardinals fans in Illinois are divided by a slippery line somewhere between Springfield and Bloomington. The Peoria and Quad Cities minor league clubs have shifted their affiliations between Cards and Cubs several times, making the mix even muddier.
I’m a bit colorblind, so that map is difficult for me to read. Am I seeing Yankees and Red Sox fans all over Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada?
And Louisiana? N’awllins and Baton Rouge is Yankees country? That seems weird, even accepting that Yankees fans might be all over the rest of the country. It doesn’t seem as weird in Florida, Virginia/North Carolina, and the West.
Texas seems solidly Rangers territory, with Astros fans confined to the southeast. I wonder whether that has flipped once or twice depending on those clubs’ fortunes.
In earlier generations, Dodger and Giant fans LOATEHD the Yankees. Yankee fans couldn’t work up much hatred for the Dodgers or Giants.
When the Dodgers and Giants moved West, their fans in New York would sooner die than start rooting for the Yankees. That’s why there was a huge push for a National League expnsion team in New York. In the early Sixties, the Mets appealed primarily to old Dodger and Giant fans, which is why the team’s roster was stocked with former players from those teams (Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Don Zimmer, Roger Craig, Clem Labine…).
In he Sixties, Met fans hated he Yankees, while Uankee fans ignored the Mets.
Today? Well, the generation that loved the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants is largely gone, and for the most part, so is the hostility between the Mets’ and Yankees’ fans.
(I’m a Jets fan, and doubt they’ll wind a Super Bowl again in my lifetime.)
