My faulty allegiance to my baseball teams

It’s hard to believe in the long history of baseball, this is the first time the Philadelphia Phillies are facing the New York Metropolitans, and the Philies are slight favorites to win the best-of-five series.

I don’t like it. We play better as underdogs.
It presents a slight dilemma to me as I was a Mets  fan when I lived in Brooklyn, and a Yankees fan before that when I lived in The Bronx. Back then, the “The” was capitalized and there were only 16 teams — eight each in the National and American leagues — and the was no such thing as the designated shitter.

That was one of the rule changes to “improve” baseball in order to drive up the scoring, something neither hockey nor soccer did.

Growing up in the 1940s as a Yankees fan was as sweet as a Pepsi. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in 1941, the Cardinals in 1943, the Dodgers in 1947, the Dodgers in 1949, the Phillies in 1950, the Giants in 1951, the Dodgers in 1952, 1953, 1956…. I mean, it got boring after a while.

What a wonderful time to be a boy Yankees fan, if all that mattered was winning.

For me, that changed over time. I understood there were things more important than winning. I didn’t like the way the Yankees treated their players, or their fans. 

My family moved to Brooklyn, and I happily joined the Bums family, the first team to play a Black player, the incomparable Jackie Robinson. 

The love affair was brief. Just as I landed in Brooklyn (in a colorful section called Gravesend), the Dodgers split for L.A., leaving behind the most loyal fan base there even has been, or ever will be.

Dodger fans could never become American League Yankees fans, and the Giants left for San Francisco.

For four years the cockolded Dodgers’ fans wandered in darkness and despair. And then — in 1962, the Mets were born! The Mets stank like dog shit on ice but they were instantly adopted by the forlorn Dodgers’ fans, who became the heart of the Mets’ brain-addled fan base.

The team that couldn’t figure out how to play the game. The team that said you gotta believe. The team of lovable losers that made that come true, improbably, when they won the 1969 World Series, led by Tug McGraw.

By then, I had moved to Philadelphia and been converted ro another lovable group of losers, the Philadelphia Phillies, which two years earlier suffered a catastrophic meltdown that kept them from the World Series.

So, over time, I have had almost as many ball clubs (3), as  wives (4).

In my defense, I didn’t have much choice. This was before cable and living in Philly, you’d never see the Mets play, and my kids were into the teams that had their new city on the front of their jerseys. So I slowly morphed into following the lousy Phillies teams of those times. 

Not so my friend Howard Altman, who came to Philly from New York after I, but remained a Mets fan, because he could see them on TV. Still does, even though he is now in Florida. 

For me, for teams and wives, it’s  always the last one is the best one, and this group of Phillies are built to last.

I don’t quite love them as much as the last World Series winners. Peppery Shane Victorino was my favorite, followed by Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins, and lovable Chooch, “Hollywood” Cole Hamels, “Big Piece” Ryan Howard, “Pat the Bat” Burrell, ancient Jamie Moyer, Jayson Werth, “Lights Out” Lidge, and Joe Blanton.

They gave me my second World Series appearance.

I never saw the Yankees play the Series in person — who could afford it? 

My first in-person World Series game was in 1980, with grandstand tickets ($15) provided by NBC, which was broadcasting the Series, and I was a TV critic.

Tickets were provided by NBC PR man Curt Block, who remained a friend until he died years ago. (He had made it to Philly in 1990 and became a Phillies fan, but was still devoted to Fordham, his alma mater, for basketball.)

That was 1980.

In 1993, the Phillies played the Blue Jays, and I covered it, but since they lost, not much to say there. 

When the Phils played in the next world series, 2008, I attended the local games but did not enjoy them much.

Even though I had ended my record 17-year run as Daily News gossip columnist, I was dragooned into writing color pieces about the celebrities who attended the game, which weren’t too many.

I spent the first four innings running around the park, looking dor celebs, then took the Broad Street subway to 400 North Broad to write my piece, while watching the game on the TV above my desk.

It was neither memorable journalism nor memorable baseball.

In 2024, I’ll watch the Mets play the Phillies with friends, at homes or bars.

I might buy a ticket to the World Series because I can afford it. But I am not sure.

I have a vague, unsettling that my presence would be a jinx. As a Philly fan, I always expect the worst.

Crazy, I know, but better safe than sorry.

One final memory: In 2008, I rode the press bus, which was the first one down Broad Street, the first to plough through the wave of delirious fans. I’m sorry I was too busy taking notes that day to take pictures. Grrr.