May 16 2008 10:05 AM
Edited 2 time(s), most recently on May 16 2008 10:32 AM
So here we go – The Amazin’ Mess versus The Bronx Bummers
With the overhyped Subway Serious (as Bugs Bunny may have called it) upon us, there is no shortage of previews and prognostications available in the local rags. The most popular feature of these seems to be to compare each team position by position. I include it (see below) but don’t really get it. It’s not like Jetah and Reyes are gonna have a steel cage match between second and third base.
Both teams stagger into this weekend trying to get something going. The Mets having lost 3 of 4 in excrutiating ways against the lowly Nats and the Yankees having the Tampa Rays (Still Devil Rays or are they now supposed to be the Rays of sunlight?) not acting like their little brothers any longer.
The Yankees, losers of six of nine, are struggling offensively They managed just six runs in the four games against the Rays, only two off starters.
Before I give you the stats and matchups I thought that I would share some personal memories from the formative years of my own personal Mets/Yankee history:
October 1973 – I’m just shy of 10 years old and my dad is watching the World Series on TV in our apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. Having lived in Manhattan my entire life up to that point I was aware that the Mets and Yankees existed but had no passion one way or the other for either team. Sitting down and watching I just became completely enamored with Willie Mays (or ‘Wille May’s’ as I portrayed him in a drawing I did shortly thereafter ). That series turned it for me. The Mets, the Amazin' Mets were from that point on MY team. They were winners and they would always be. Little did I know
October 1976 – Yankees swept in four straight by the Reds. I can still remember the picture of Johnny Bench soaked in champagne on the back page of the Daily News. HA HA!
Summer 1978 – Guidry strikes out a million Angels in one game and Marcello Conigliaro and I get in a fight about the Yankees being better than the Mets. I punch him in the face and win the fight, fortunately he was two years younger than me. Unfortunately he was right.
October 1978 - My parents divorced, moved to the bland Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, changed schools, Yankees won the World Series again. Had to be one of the worst years of my life.
Cut to high school , 1979 – 1982:
It seemed like Fermin Padilla and I were the only two Mets fans at the High School of Music & Art. He and I would study box scores, dream of Mark Bomback’s potential, put waaaay too much importance on the outcome of the Mayor’s Trophy Game and be completely befuddled about why all the girls were Yankee fans because they thought Bucky Dent was better looking than Lee Mazzilli.
Went to lots of Mets games those years. The 1 or the 2 to Times Square and the 7 out to Flushing. About an hour each way. $5.50 would put you in the front row next to the visitors dugout. $1.50 general admission, $2 to the field level ushers and another $2 bucks put you down in front. Try that in the Boogie Down. Favorite memory of those years in those seats was my Bill Robinson story (posted at UMDB) and my Lenny Randle encounter. Pop-up that drifted from third base back to to the stands where I was sitting. Randle tracking it the whole way. Finally he crashes into the wall right in front of me as the ball lands two rows behind me. ‘FUCK!’ Lenny yells, pretty much right into my 13 or 14 year old face. I thought it was great.
In 1981 I moved to California where following the Mets via The Los Angeles Times and Tribune (was it The Daily News?) was no small feat. Subscribed to The Sporting News just so I could read those stupid off-season half-paragraph team reports. On the upside I did get to read a ton of Jim Murray and Scott Ostler columns.
October 1981 – Tracey Galloway calls me at home: ‘Want to go to the game today?’ ‘Nah, I’m just gonna stay home and watch the Yankees and Dodgers.’ ‘That’s the game I’m talking about, my dad has an extra ticket.”
And that was the first World Series game that I attended. Sat in the right field bleachers at Dodger Stadium and when Goose Gossage drilled Ron Cey in the head with a fastball we could hear it all the way out there. Yankees lost (Yay!) but at least they didn’t continue to suck like another team that wore interlocking ‘NY’s.
1982 – graduated from high school and moved back east. Instead of going to college right away I took a job at Rizzoli bookstore on 5th Avenue, catering to ex-pat Italians who hated me because I didn’t speak Italian. They’d come in every day for their copy of ‘Corriere Della Sport’ simply to keep up with AC Milan or whatever Italian Footbal team they followed. The Italians won the World Cup that year and I remember getting to work that morning and seeing a line around the corner of people waiting to buy their copy of the paper simply so they could revel in the championship. That’s what its like when your team wins the big one . That’s what Yankee fans get. Boy did I want that for the Mets.
1983-1987 – My years at Syracuse University coincided with the rise of the Mets and the fall of the Yankees. My only regrets from those years is that I wasn’t in the City to personally witness happy, boastful Mets fans and downtrodden Yankee fans. The Mets had Straw, Doc, Mex, Nails, and a World Championship. The Yankees had Don Mattingly, ‘Mr. May’ Winfield and Howie Spira. A glorious time.
September 1987 – On the first day of my first job out of college. Co-worker and Mets fan Ed Melendez questioned my baseball allegiance. I pulled a Ron Darling baseball card out of my wallet and he and I were simpatico for the next 5 years.
Part II to be presented prior to the second installment of this Series June 27, 28, 29.
FRIDAY
7 p.m., SNY/CH. 9
Weather: 70 percent chance of rain, High 57°
Johan Santana (4-2, 3.10)
vs.
Darrell Rasner (2-0, 3.00)
Santana is 3-0 with a 2.66 ERA against the Yanks in his career He's also 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA in four regular season appearances at Yankee Stadium
In last years Subway Series, Rasner gave up two runs and two hits without recording an out before he took a one- hopper off the bat of Endy Chavez off his right index finger, causing a fracture and ending his season.
SATURDAY
1 p.m., SNY/YES
Weather: Afternoon showers, High 70°
Oliver Perez (3-3, 4.61)
vs.
Andy Pettitte (3-4, 4.40)
Pettitte is 0-2 with an ERA of 6.10 in his last two games.
Perez numbers aren’t much better – 1-1 with an ERA of exactly 6.00 in his last two.
SUNDAY
8 p.m., ESPN
Weather: Showers, High 67°
John Maine (5-2, 2.81)
vs.
Chien-Ming Wang (6-1, 2.90)
John Maine has won his past four starts, each following a Mets loss. He's allowed two runs or fewer in seven straight starts Maine is 3-0 with a 1.77 ERA so far in May
After starting the season 6-0 Wang has gone 1-2, giving up 4 earned runs in his last 14 innings pitched. In his only prior start against the Mets, Wang struck out a career-high 10 in an 8-2 win June 17, 2007.
Noteworthy:
ARod (right quadriceps) and Posada will miss the series as both are currently on the DL.
Introduced in 1997, the Yankees lead the Subway Series, 35-25, but haven't won a Series since 2003 when they went 6-0. The Mets won four of six in 2004 and the teams have split the six games the past three seasons.
X-Factor
Bummers
None!
Mess
El Duque
Willie Randolph
