I grew up in Northern Virginia, so I never really followed baseball, the Senators moved out when I was too young to pick up the habit. The Nats moved to DC the year I bought our house in DC. I was unpacking boxes and had the news on and it was opening day. My reaction was, “huh, looks like DC finally got a baseball team,” that’s how unaware I was of baseball. I decided to take the Metro down to a game later that week when they were at RFK and I slowly, slowly got hooked. I’m a Nats fan because they play in DC, if they had opened the park out near Dulles, or in Alexandria, I never would have been a fan. For me, the Nats are part of the new DC that is developing into a pretty cool city. I think a lot of Nats fans are pretty new to baseball, you can see they’re development over the past 10 years, it used to be no one was really watching the game, but now people are watching every pitch.
I notice that many of those people are assholes.
(Well, ok, not Bruce.)
My sense is that the Mets are the team of regular folks and the Yankees of rich people. I tend to associate that with the leagues but I’ve been told that in Chicago it’s actually the other way around.
Completely untrue, but that was definitely how blue-collar fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants saw things.
My parents are still around, and they still LOATHE the Yankees. That feeling was passed to me. My parents are from Brooklyn, I grew up on LI. I have always been a Mets/Jets fan. The Mets had the lovable loser vibe many years ago, but that has worn off. If they string a couple of good years together, Long Island might turn orange on the map, but as long as they are irrelevent the Yankees influence will continue to spread.
As for the real question in the OP, I think that more comedians are Met fans because there is better material. Also, many sitcoms that are set in NYC are set in Queens, which is the home of the Mets.
I think that perception still exists. I don’t know how much basis in reality it has, but I think the Mets keep their ticket prices lower. Yes, yes, I know, who’s going to shell out big bucks to see the Mets?
It’s not like the Bronx is an elite outpost for the wealthy.
One of the most loyal celebrity Yankee fans, Billy Crystal, muddied up the water by wearing a Mets cap in his biggest grossing (live action) film.
For the most part it’s pretty comparable. Except for the most premium seats like behind home plate. With the Mets you can get a seat for around $450. The Yankees won’t even quote a price online, you have to call a representative. And the Mets have introduced “dynamic pricing.” Basically it means they adjust each game’s price up or down due to demand.
Well, it’s not like the Yankees are still primarily thought of as belonging to the Bronx.
Not strictly true. There are plenty of regular folks that root for the Yankees. My brother who’s a Yankees fan is a garbageman. But it may be true that because they’re more successful and more elite, the rich and those who root for whoever happens to be winning at the moment are Yankees fans rather than Mets fans. To be a Mets fan (at least recently) you have to be virtually born to it. The Yankees do have a core of Bronxites and other working-class fans, but with a layer of camp-followers on top of it. That’s the source of the perception that Yankees fans are wealthy.
As has been said, the hatred between Mets and Yankees fans is largely one way. Mets fans hate the Yankees, but Yankees fans view the Mets with mild bemusement.
“Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.” - Joe E. Lewis
“I imagine rooting for the Yankees is like owning a Yacht.” - Jimmy Cannon
A couple, certainly. I wouldn’t say a majority.