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="Benjamin Grimm":14pfejpr]If the Mets moved away I'd be done. It would be the end of my days as a baseball fan.
No way would I pick up on another team. My interest in the wins and losses of the 25 guys who wear the Mets uniform is irrational and a holdover from my childhood that I haven't let go of.
I'd have absolutely no interest, at my age, in starting over with another team. I couldn't convince myself to care.[/quote:14pfejpr]
What Ben said.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Jan 16 2009 02:51 PM
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It would have to be some wild circumstances that would lead to a Mets departure, so I guess I'd need to know that first, but I'd go for their NYC replacements like my dad did to from the Dodgers, prolly.
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sharpie
Jan 16 2009 03:02 PM
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At least in the early days I would probably root for the team that the Mets became until there was a NY replacement team.
If the Mets were contracted however that would drive me away from the game.
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SteveJRogers
Jan 16 2009 03:36 PM
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It would depend on the circumstances. Tell me the reason WHY they moved and I'd root, or not, for the team.
In most cases though, the fans do not go with the team.
Oiler and Browns fans did not join the TItans and Ravens bandwagons.
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Rockin' Doc
Jan 16 2009 03:43 PM
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Since my time living in Chicago when I frequently attended games at Comiskey Park, I have always followed the fortunes of the White Sox. I believe I would shift my allegiance over to the White Sox, though I'm pretty sure that my fandom would be more casual than it is for the Mets.
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dinosaur jesus
Jan 16 2009 03:50 PM
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Rooting for your team after it leaves town is like rooting for your ex-wife. You have to transfer your affections somehow.
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Kong76
Jan 16 2009 04:00 PM
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If the Mets moved I'd just be a baseball fan.
The last two years have almost pushed me to that some days as it is.
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Fman99
Jan 16 2009 05:52 PM
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I might end up rooting for the team affiliated with the AAA Syracuse squad. Only problem is those things change regularly.
So I have no clue I guess is what I'm saying. I'd wait until I was an old Jew in Florida and become a Rays fan (Gulf coast all the way baby!).
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Gwreck
Jan 16 2009 06:03 PM
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I was at that arena in Kansas City this past summer and it is top-notch; even the upper level looks pretty good and is not way up in the clouds like so many of the newly-constructed arenas these days.
Anyway, as to the Mets, if they left town I'd probably disown them forever and be a man without a team. I would still hate the Yankees however.
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MFS62
Jan 16 2009 07:00 PM
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="Vic Sage":17shm725]I'd root for the NL team that inevitably moved into the NYC market. [/quote:17shm725]
Exactly.
That's what we Brooklyn Dodger fans did.
Later
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G-Fafif
Jan 16 2009 09:09 PM
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In the mid-'90s, when talk of replacing Shea first gained traction and the Mets were going nowhere in the standings and drawing few while doing it, I began to fear the worst, that they would leave if they didn't get a new ballpark, so I considered the question. I couldn't go with an American League team, save for whoever's playing the MFYs. I thought about the Phillies for proximity's sake (I was able to get their games on the radio through static and in their post-Dykstra phase, I still had a vaguely lukwarm feeling for them, long since dissipated); I thought about the Giants since it would bring the whole NY thing back around then, and if the Mets abandoned NY, how could I hold the SF thing against them?; and I settled, eventually (as the question lingered and rearose once in a while in my closet of anxieties), on the Pirates as my doomsday choice, especially once PNC Park opened. I liked the Pirate history. I didn't hate the Pirates as a kid the way I hated the Cubs. I considered the Cubs a little, for Wrigley, but I hate the Cubs. I also thought about the Rockies, because Coors Field is so nice and the Rockies never did anything of lasting psychic damage to the Mets, but what am I going to do with the Rockies? No, it would be the Bucs. Maybe if the Expos were still alive, but they're not. (Dodgers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Braves, Padres, Nationals, Reds, Astros and Marlins all nonstarters for various reasons and bad associations.)
But I now realize that was all folderol. I'd become one of those former fans who groused about the good old days and maybe clung to the old days, like the guys I know who remain NY Giants fans long after the fact (like me, except they actually saw them and my Giants thing is historical and maybe a little fetishistic). Or I'd be like a publisher I had who grew up in Brooklyn but washed his hands of the whole thing once the Dodgers moved west (but liked to mention he once saw a triple play). But I couldn't follow the Carolina Cosmopolitans or whatever they'd become if the Mets moved.
I accepted Citi Field on the condition that once and for all I could put this nightmare scenario behind me, but between Citi's nonsense and Madoff and who knows what the Wilpons will shoot themselves in foot with...nah, I think we're safe. I would doubt, however, if the Mets ever blew it and blew town that we'd necessarily see National League baseball here again. The whole "National League town" thing that carried such resonance in 1962 no longer exists per se. It's a baseball town. If it wasn't a baseball town big enough for two, and the one that couldn't make it happened to be the National League entry, I think we wouldn't get the same makegood Bill Shea and Branch Rickey engineered on our behalf. Hail to them for doing so, not incidentally. We should name a stadium after one of them.
For what it's worth, I still root, however lightly I follow basketball, for the Nets because they were a Long Island team more than 30 years ago. But they're still in the same ADI. If they moved, as Howie Rose once suggested they should, to Louisville, then I'd be completely detached.
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G-Fafif
Jan 16 2009 09:28 PM
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Just catching up on the KC Isles coverage on Newsday [url=http://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/islanders/ny-spisles166000651jan16,0,6544535.story]here[/url] and find this headline regarding my town supervisor:
Isles game in KC doesn't [url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/phase]phase[/url] Hempstead's Murray
Yes, but will she be [url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/faze]fazed[/url] by it?
Some editor should catch [url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flak]flak[/url], perhaps from a [url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flack]flack[/url] for Merriam-Webster.
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Zvon
Jan 16 2009 09:41 PM
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I would step back from being a fan of any baseball team.
In time I might follow another.
They would have to be accessible and I guess that means the Phillies,
who are very available to watch as part of my basic cable package.
That transition would take quite a while though, if it did ever take root.
If it happened I would never be a fan of any baseball team in the
same way that I am a fan of the Mets.
Mind and body.Heart and soul.Win or lose.
In many ways the Mets have been moving away from me.
Have been making themselves more inaccessible to me.
In that respect a move wouldn't make much difference.
I keep myself attached to the team because thats the way I roll.
I grew up Mets.
I love the Mets, have since I found I loved the game of baseball.
I love that I have witnessed its entire history.
I love the name (Mets or Metropolitans), the uniform, the way Mets is written across the chest, the logo.
The orange NY on the blue cap.
I love the way and the reason they came to be.
And that's the thing.
If they left New York they would no longer be the Mets I love.
I guess if they came to New Jersey that wouldn't be the case.
Still, seeing the New Jersey Mets would be very strange.
It would not be the same.
If they moved out west or to the other coast, that would be the end of that chapter of my baseball life.
I would close the book on the Mets.
It would take a while to come to terms with that, to get over it.
But I would.
I might even just give up on MLB all together and follow my local minor league team.
Because, on the whole, I don't like what has become of the game at the major league level.
I'd find a way to enjoy the game again.
Because the only thing in sports that equals or even surpasses my love
for the Mets is my love for the game of baseball.
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Frayed Knot
Jan 17 2009 06:21 AM
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Leaving aside for a moment that I can't even imagine a set of circumstances that it would take to drive the Mets out of NYC -- I'd still follow baseball but probably not the Mets.
Most likely there'd be a replacement team and I'd pick up on them. If not I guess I'd be a man without a team for a while, following baseball but without the nightly obligation to see a game.
The one option that hasn't been discussed here is that you could pick up stakes and move to whatever city the Mets moved to and continue to follow them there.
OK that's pretty stupid, but it is an option.
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