The New York Yankees and the New York Mets. A subway series? Are you kidding? Is there one fan from any city outside New York who really wants to see both the Bronx and Queens represented in the World Series? But is there one true baseball fan who is not so intrigued by the possible match-up that they would dare not watch? We are not quite there yet, as the St. Louis Cardinals are still alive in the National League, but we are way too close.
This city is something else. They have two baseball teams, two football teams, two hockey teams and some team called the Knicks. New York has more championships than any city. They have 34 World Series titles when one combines the Yankees (25), the Mets (3), the New York Giants (5) and the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. They have been in the playoffs more than any other city and they have given their fans more postseason enjoyment than any other city.
And people ask why do we all hate New York? Because they have four baseball league championship series appearances in the last two years. Some National League city 100 miles south with a pretty unsafe stadium has two in the last 18 seasons. Now, not since1956 have two New York teams played in the Fall Classic. In that series between the Yankees, of course, and the Brooklyn Dodgers, there just so happened to be a perfect game pitched by Don Larsen. This does not happen every day, you know.
Of course Roger Clemens almost pitched a no-hitter in game five of the American League Championship Series Saturday against Seattle. And people say he’s finished. How can he be finished if he’s a Yankee? They’re never finished and they never go away. And neither does New York.
The 2000 World Series would be in the Big Apple for games one and then two and then three and four and five and six and finally seven if the Mets were to get lucky. I am just warning you now that Bob Costas is going to milk this broadcast for all its worth. It is NBC’s last season covering the postseason and what a way to go out. New York at New York. Or is it New York at New York? There was one World Series like that in the Windy City of Chicago in almost 100 years. And that came in 1906 when the Chi Sox beat the Cubbies. The Yankees have won more championships in the last four seasons than the Chicago Cubs have won in the team’s history, which dates back to 1876. It’s absolutely crazy.
There’s no Atlanta anymore this season. That’s a great thing for the Mets and probably an unfortunate turn of events for the Yankees. We all know who can and cannot beat the Braves. But if it really should come to be, that the city of New York stands atop the baseball world with two teams in the Series, then what can really be said?
As for who would win the battle, I will leave it at this – the Yankees won just 13 games in September and entered the postseason on a seven-game skid finishing the regular season with just 87 wins. The talk was that this was it, that if the Yankees fell to Oakland in the first round that the end of the dynasty would come. Everyone just talked and talked that the Yanks were lucky to get into the playoffs, forgetting that all that matters is what happens in October.
What’s a fantastic 162-game season really mean for the San Francisco Giants and the White Sox if they don’t show up to play when it counts? It’s all about destiny and the city of New York and then, of course, the Yankees. In very short time, New York will be the king of the world. But, then again, what else is new?
