The recent Subway Series between the New York Mets and the New York Yankees forced the issue again: Are there fans that can root for both teams? And if there are such fans, how do they behave when both teams play each other?
I confess and I am one of those very rare fans that like both the Yankees and the Mets. I also like the Knicks and the now Brooklyn Nets, and I still root for both the Jets and the Giants. My friends have always hounded me and told me that there was no such thing. They insisted that I had to choose between one of them. I was once told, "that's like saying your with God and the Devil." Fortunately, I have never believed it to be that drastic. I kind of gave myself a title of "a regionalist." I root for all my hometown teams.
I grew up and still live in the South Bronx so of course the first teams that I was exposed to were the Yankees and the Giants (yes, the Giants did play at the old Yankee stadium back in the day). However, the older I got and the more I began to meet and expose myself to athletes from both the Yankees and Mets I began to root more for the players themselves. Thus I became a new type of fan following the athlete as well as the team. Thus, if the athlete is traded to another team, I still follow that athlete. When the Mets signed Carlos Beltran, I rooted for the Mets and Carlos. Now Carlos is with the Yankees. Same with Curtis Granderson, I rooted for him when he was with the Yankees and yesterday I was applauding him when he hit his second home run in that many days against the Yankees.
Yesterday, I was in the middle of many friends and fans that were either rooting for the Yankees, or the Mets. Friends and family members against each other and once again I went around to see if I could find other fans like me. Unfortunately, I did not find any. However, I did meet several Yankee fans that were not as upset as others that the Yankees lost to their cross time rivals. Their attitude was they were enjoying a good game. That was a sign to me that I may not be that weird. There might be others like me who simply enjoyed a good baseball game applauding both teams and not feeling confused doing so.
What do you think? Are there other fans like me?