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By YankTank, Section Journals
Schaudenfraud: German word for taking pleasure in another's misery A little late, but I have to abide by the rules of war. A little like the idea of giving medical treatment to POWs. I gave Mets fans their fair share of mourning time, but it's time to pour the salt in the proverbial open wounds.
There are a few things in life I will never do: take off my shirt for beads at Mardi Gras, watch The Bachelorette, swing at the first pitch, and return wine after tasting it at a restaurant. And there are a few things in life I said I'd never do, but have since done: 1.) begin an essay by defining a word (October 23, 2006), and 2.) root against a team (October 19, 2006). Going to Game 7 of the NCLS gave me the chance, for the first time in my life, to see what it was like from The Other Side. (Special thanks to my youngest sister's friend whose outstanding generosity led us to Shea Stadium for one of the best games of the year...MVP of the night, for certain.) I ventured to the side of not cheering for your team, where fans invest themselves in another game, specifically another team's downfall. It pains me to even admit that, but yes, I was there, hoping the Mets would lose. Which is a distinct difference from rooting for the Cards. I will make no bones about that. People can say they were cheering "for" a team, but if it's not your team, it's, in reality, rooting against a team. And so, a part of my moral fiber disintegrated that night. I got to see an amazing playoff clinching game (granted, it was the JV-like National League), but at what price? I keep telling myself, as I lie awake at night waxing existential, that I actually didn't make much noise at all while I was at that game. I was in it for a good game above all else. And since the tickets basically fell into my lap, far be it for me to deny myself a good game. And if that good game meant showing up at Shea Stadium decked out in Yankee gear and detracting attention away from the game and inviting malicious jeers, then giddy-up. I cannot emphasize enough how strange it was to be at a stadium where the outcome of the game did not directly involve the Yankees. Is this what it's like to be a Yankee-hater? Subscribing to a profound interest in a team's loss? God, that's sad. As I sat with my 2 sisters in seats that should have been occupied by Mets fans, I looked around and just thought over and over again, "Thank God our father instilled into us the virtues of being a Yankee fan." WHY would any loving, doting parent ever raise their child a Mets fan when there is a CHOICE? I mean, NYers have such a great set-up. We get to pick between the Giants and the Jets, and the Yankees and the Mets. Some cities don't have any baseball teams, and New York hosts the most successful franchise in sports history. And since I was born in the 1980's, when the Yanktank was about as talented as Mischa Barton, and the Mets were as powerful as Pacino's monologue at the end of "Scent of a Woman," my Dad just made a sage parenting decision, reinforcing the fact that yes, parents are always right and know what's best. I should have written my college essay, the best advice I ever received, on this gem, the first thing I EVER remember my dad teaching me: "No matter what, don't ever, ever root for the Mets, the Nets, the Jets, or the Islanders." Brilliant. Isn't bringing up a Mets fan akin to voluntarily inflicting a horrible disfigurement upon your child? Like, "No, no, no. I want my son to have as much emotional heartache as possible growing up." Maybe I'm exagerrating, but seriously. How is that fair? (Or more aptly, what the hell is wrong with me?) And allowing your offspring to go to Shea? Why not just name your kid Fallopia Tuba, comb his hair into a cowlick, give him a Motts Juice Box, and drop him off at varsity football tryouts? He's got about the same chance of not coming home psychologically crippled. Shea Stadium itself was like the 7th circle of Hell. The jumbotron plays this asinine "Meet the Mets" song, and when I saw it, my mouth must have looked like the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. "Is this for real?" I asked my sister. "You've never seen this?" she asked increduously. "I had to watch it about 29,384,723 times when I sat through a double header with a rain delay here in the spring. I almost took my own life. I'm not kidding. This is why you don't date a Mets fan." I looked around and felt so, so bad for the Mets fans. This is their life. This is what they do. They do the wave. They have a jumbotron ordering them to "WAVE YOUR TOWELS!" (How pissed must Steelers fans be? Don't Mets fans have ANY unique traditions? First the whole rip-off of the standing-up-after-two-strikes thing that Yankees fans patented circa Ron Guidry. Now the towel waving. And not for nothing, but when 55,000 fans are waving their towels all at once, the stadium looks like it's a rotting cadaver with maggots crawling all over it. Just something to think about.) I have to give Mets fans credit though. They are more enthused and more consistently fired up than Yankee fans by a long shot. Their energy barely dropped at all during the whole game. I can respect that. But more interestingly, they are so inordinately obedient when it comes to the jumbotron prompts. They might as well be the studio audience at a "Saved by the Bell" live audience taping. (ie Kelly and Zach kiss..."Whistle and oooh!") Yankee fans get orders like, "Make some noise!" and we look it and think, "Eff off, jumbotron. We'll get loud when we damn well feel like it." Mets fan act like that thing is the voice of God. Which is the only reasonable explanation for why anyone would ever start a wave. The at-bat music selections were also questionable. I swear I think they just cued up the soundtrack from the O.C... It's a 1-1 game, and I almost started dozing off when Perez's replacement came in, because I'm pretty sure it came straight out of "Music to Kill Yourself To! The best of the best!" album. (BUT, I give Shea props for playing Naughty by Nature's O.P.P. for Oliver Perez. Well-played, Queens. Well-played.) And I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure there are definitely a few batters that have the same at-bat song. (Sweet Christ, there are literally infinite amounts of song choices, and you got the closer ripping off Mo's song, and half the line-up copying each other's music. Either the Mets have a really shaky grip on pop culture, or they just don't get the point behind theme music.) The winning song choice has to go to Lo Duca with Boogie Shoes. I couldn't listen to that without thinking of the fact he has about 38 sub-18-year-old mistresses. I don't know why, but this made it even better. All gratutious Shea-bashing aside, I can't really blame Mets fans for giving me and my sisters the reception that they did. I mean, there we were, 3 Yankee fans sporting our hats and with absolutely no business at that game. We were barely cheering for anyone. Except my youngest, Amanda, who raised the bar of awesomely brave by wildly clapping for St. Louis. My middle sister and I were almost too scared to convert oxygen to CO2. It was That. Bad. Never in my life have I been at a stadium with less of the opposing team's fans. We got booed exponentially more than when we went to Fenway. The most terrifying moment came when Lauren and I went to the bathroom and came back, only to realize we forgot where we were sitting. This is poor form no matter what stadium you're at. It's the middle of the inning, and we're standing there like deer caught in headlights. Of course, we were spotted looking like the awkward enemies that we were, and Section 19 and 17 almost instantly broke into a Yankees Suck/ Go Home chant. Yeah, that was fun. And I can't blame them. And then, I swear this was an act of God, out of the masses walks a guy WITH A YANKEE HAT. Me and Laur must have checked the hat about 29,384 times to make sure he wasn't a mirage. "Are you guys ok? Do you need any help? I'm sitting down there and have 2 extra seats if you want to sit with me." This is the stuff Sandra Bullock/John Cusack movies are made of. Other highlights from the night: 1.) The second we sat down, the middle-aged gentleman behind us snaps, "Oohh, I think you girls are in the wrong stadium." The hackneyed jab had no sooner left his mouth then Laur rolls back with what will go down as probably the best comeback I've ever been witness to. The delivery, timing, quickness, acuity...it was a paragon of wit: "Yeah, I thought so, too, when I realized we were at Shea and it's the post-season." 2.) We're buying hot dogs #3 and #4 when Snoop Dogg's apostles et al saunter up and start their "YANKEE FANS?!! WHAT THE %^@ ARE YOU DOING HERE?" tirade. I'm a little scared. I try to be cordial: "What are you guys gonna do if the Mets lose?" Their Mets hats have that infuriating flat-brimmed, tags-still-on, fresh stiffness that usually is a market cornered by Yankee hats. It looked a little weird on a Mets cap, like seeing Chad Johnson with a tweed blazer with leather patches on the elbows. Their response floors me: "Probably just kill the St. Louis fan next to us and then go home and smoke a lot of weed." Words failed me. (My dad's reaction to this, "What a dumbass. If anything, they should smoke the weed FIRST, then they'd get more enjoyment out of murder." Again, words failed me.) 3.) A vendor selling Mets gear asides to Amanda, "I'm a Yankee fan, too. I couldn't get a job at Yankee stadium, so I'm stuck working here." A passing fan hears and starts booing him. The vendor bites back, "RELAX. If it's that important to you, we'll give you some of our rings, we got plenty to share." 4.) Beltran ending the game by a CALLED. THIRD. STRIKE. With bases loaded. And 2 outs. Wow. You could hear a pin drop in the stadium. And Amanda clapping wildly. A great applause variety, too. Akin to the mother in "Almost Famous" when her son's name is called at graduation and he isn't there to get his diploma. This deliberate, stern, measured clap. The catatonic state of the stadium was the only thing that kept the three of us from being massacred. 5.) Leaving the stadium. Or rather, loitering around the stadium ramps for as long as we could, putting good use to a smirk that Mets fans and Yankee-haters taught us a few weeks ago when we were out after the Yank loss. A smirk so obnoxious and condescending and maddening that I could never had perfected it on my own without the help of those asswipes who have spent the better parts of their lives inflicting it upon us Yankee fans. Do you see what it's like? How sickening it feels to have people who didn't even make it past the first round of the playoffs gloat at your expense? 6.) The comments we got from Mets fans who were wiping the tears from their eyes. (I'm not kidding. A whole stadium of whimpering Long Islanders. It was either my vision of hell or my vision of heaven. I'm not sure yet.) Most of them blamed us. Which makes sense, because we were on the field looking at the third strike sail by with the season on the line. "IT'S YOUR FAULT! YOU BROUGHT BAD KARMA!" This doesn't make ANY sense due largely to the fact that if anything's to blame, it's the Kiss Cam. Why has no one addressed this yet? Who was the creative mastermind behind this tradition? How did that brainstorm session go: "We need something to show on the big screen between innings, and it can't be a walk-off montage a la Yankee Stadium. It's got to be something real killer, show those Bombers they ain't the only team in town, something powerful, moving, and energizing...GOT IT! What's more inspiring than catching couples by suprise and making them kiss in front of an entire stadium!" This is the stuff Rene Zellweger movies are made of.) One of my favorite comments came from Superfan99, who snarks, "I hope you jump off the ledge and die!" See, it would have made more sense if he had said, "I hope you FALL off the ledge and die." But wishing that we make the conscious decision to JUMP off the ledge? It wasn't like the 3 of us were teetering along the Mezzanine perimeter like, "Jump? Don't jump? What do you guys think?" Morons. 7.) NOTHING was better than the fan behind me, holding a sign that pretty much embodied everything I love about the Mets. If I wasn't laughing so hard at it, I would have been cringing. A lot. Before the game started, this 50-something-year-old man is holding this piece of cardboard that looked like it was the lid of a box. And with my imagination on steroids, I'm thinking he clearly had swiped it from the Friday's in Penn Station as he glugged his Bud Ice wrapped in swaddling paper bag. And while he was on the Long Island Railroad, after jabbering mindlessly to a stranger about his optimistic outlook for the game, he neatly printed on the lid in red sharpie: DETROIT YOUR NEXT. YEAH, OK, I GET IT I'M AN EASILY AMUSED ENGLISH MAJOR FREAK. But there are worse things I could be, (like an illiterate Mets fan who's 27 outs away from demoralization)...I get fired up about stuff like that like most people would get fired up about arguing the validity of A-Rod's value. It's like nails on a blackboard to me. And to make matters worse, [or in my completely bemused-(read: hammered)- state, make matters AWESOME], the guy's holding up the sign like it's his Moose Club 1st place bowling trophy. If you thought I didn't photograph it and make it my desktop wallpaper, you'd be 100% wrong. And if you thought I didn't realize this just underscores the fact I am the poster child for yet another Terrible Yankee Fan, you'd be wrong again. (Not unlike when I belligerently--again, read:drunk--informed Red Sox fans at Fenway that their team DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A SINGULAR FORM OF THEIR CLUB'S NAME. You have no idea how much this annoys me.) This sign just complemented my last experience with a Mets synaptic misfire. I was in the left field bleachers of Yankee Stadium in July, watching the Yankees take on the Mets, when a father and his son decide to make a Mets-like attempt at causing some trouble. They have these 4 neon orange placards on popsicle sticks: M, E, T, S. And they're running back and forth in front of the bleachers, each of them holding 2 placards and yelling, "LET'S GO!" Except at one point, they got their ducks all out of a row, and they end up running back and forth with the kid trailing behind the dad with the S and T and the dad with the E and the M. And if you thought the left field bleachers didn't erupt into a LET'S GO STEMs! chant, you'd be wrong. Mets fans are like That Guy in high school who just is always one step behind. He's grungy post-Kurt Cobain. He takes the joke too far, a la Billy Madison: "CHLOROPHYLL? MORE LIKE BOROPHYLL!" And he never can figure out the appropriate time to stop a chant, so he's the last person chanting, when somehow everyone else ended in unison. You feel sort of bad for that guy, until he starts acting like Johnny Tough Guy. I felt bad for the Mets until they started acted like Johnny NY Ball Club. But despite my lack of soul, power of logic, and common sense when it comes to baseball, I still couldn't help feel a strong surge of sympathy for this one particular Mets fan on the subway ride back. Standing by himself. Staring at the floor. With his face was covered in intense paint...half blue, half orange. I wanted to take a picture of it so badly. But I also don't want to go to Hell, so I didn't. So there it is. We all learned a valuable lesson about NY baseball teams that day...And we all learned a valuable lesson about role reversal. I saw the Mets from the other side. This is what life is like for a Yankee-hater. How can someone live like that? It was awful. Worse than the Kiss Cam, even. The bottom line is that I'd much rather be a card-carrying member of The Worst Fans in Baseball Who's Even Worse Because She Criticizes Innocuous Grammatical Errors, than a card-carrying member of the Motley Crew of People Who Support Another Team's Demise. Game 7 on October 19 was a sad night for everyone. It was a little bit like going out with a bunch of happily in-love couples right after a breakup. You think you're over the breakup, you think you're strong, independent, capable of being around people still enamored of life. But you realize you're not. When I was at Shea, I was envious of all the rambunctious dumbasses puffing their chests out for 9 innings. I used to have that! I guess I'm not over my breakup with the Yankee season. Perhaps it was too soon. Perhaps my thoughts are just those of a jilted, bitter chick whose baseball boyfriend played her, and let her think they were going to get married, aka win the World Series. But to be honest, knowing you won't have to watch your cross-town nemesis walk down the aisle en route to marital [championship] bliss, does help a little. You gave it a good run, Amazins. You got much further than we did. And more importantly, your season ended respectably. No one will fault a single thing about your club. Yet despite all that, despite a night in Shea surrounded by some of the most zealous fans I've come across, the Mets will always be the Mets to me. An unfair perception, I know. But I have to echo the sentiment expressed in the headline that appeared in the New York Post on May 21, right after the regular season Subway Series game, when Wagner blew a 4-0 lead in the 9th, leading to a Yankee win in 11 innings: "Never Forget Who's Boss."
Welcome to the off-season.
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