The Mets Rant Guide to Dealing with Yankee Fans

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So the Mets are playing the Yankees this weekend.  Let me start this with a disclaimer.

For the record, I married a Yankee fan.  Her entire family is composed of die hard Yankee fans.  To make matters worse, my sister-in-law's fianceé is a die hard Phillies fan.

It's been a rough couple of years in my sports world.

Regardless, they're all wonderful people.  Recently Mike (the Phillies fan) and I went to Citizen's Bank Park to see a Mets/Phils game and it was a great time, despite Jon Niese's pitch selection being worse than Charlie Sheen's career choices.  I love talking baseball with my father-in-law & brother-in-law because despite their tragic judgement in baseball teams, they understand the game.  The jawing back and forth is all in fun, and that's where it ends.

Bill Simmons brilliantly dubbed the term "Sports Hate."  I "Sports Hate" the Yankees.  I couldn't give two shits about any of them in real life.  Literally, if I was right next to A-Rod, had already dropped a deuce and he asked me for a second one, I flat out couldn't do it.  My colon doesn't work that way.

So this isn't a guide to deal with Yankee fans who are actually your friends.  This is a guide for the f*cking dipshits that you meet in public, find out you're a Mets fan, and then act like complete assholes.  Ya know people like this:

or this:

....or this:

Or people that do things like this:

or this:

Or this:

And this:

So this is for every dipshit who harasses you and needs a f*cking history lesson.  

Let's begin.

I imagine a "conversation" with said douche bag would go something like this:

"We have 27 World Series Championships, how many do you have???"

Let's discuss, shall we?

First of all, the Mets came into existence in 1962.  Let me say this again.  The Mets came into existence in Nineteen Sixty-F*cking Two.  I understand that part of the Yankee allure is their history, but if you're going to compare franchises at least compare them while they were both, you know, playing.  

To put it another way, Bryce Harper might turn out to be one of the greatest baseball players in history.  None of us know for sure because he hasn't played yet.  So you can't compare him to ANYONE, because he HASN'T PLAYED YET.  At the moment I have the same amount of major league hits, rbis, and home runs as Bryce Harper.  And if you know what I look like, you'll understand my point very clearly. Seriously the Pillsbury Dough Boy was modeled after my body type.

So let's look at the titles that they won while the Mets existed.  They are:

1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009

And as far as I'm concerned, 1962 is not even remotely fair to compare a team with 60 years of experience with an expansion club, but whatever.

Fun Fact! Yankee Fans Tend to Forget - The Yankees were AWFUL in the mid-late 60s and most of the 70s (and the 80s, but we'll get there)

The Mets RULED New York in the late 60s and early 70s.  Tom Terrific and Tug McGraw's "Ya Gotta Believe" had everyone jumping on the Mets bandwagon.  So if anyone tells you that the Yankees have always been dominant in New York, just remind them of this and then throw something at them.  Preferably sharp.

Well we stil have 8 to your 2!  The Yankees run their organization way better than the Mets!

Ahh yes, the "we run the perfect organization comment."  Well, let's take a look.

Now the Mets have had more than their fair share of embarrassing managerial decisions.  It is literally indefensible.  Any Met fan who tries to justify Tony Bernazard, Omar Minaya, or any other gems of our history is an idiot.  My only point is that the Yankees have had plenty too.  The reason that the Yankees have gotten away with it is because the Yankees can literally afford to make these mistakes.

Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for 10 million dollars, one of the greatest purchases in the history of business.  No one with any sense will debate this.  But for the love of God can we please not confuse great baseball sense with great business sense.  This guy made it to Vegas on America's Got Talent:

Doesn't mean I want him running the day-to-day operations.

He used his money to make a splash immediately, signing free agents like Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson (who he treated like complete garbage), and they won two titles in 1977 and 1978.  They won because of free agency and his money, not because of how he ran the organization.

But they must of had a good manager, right?
Yes, Billy Martin an excellent manager.  So good he was the manager of the Yankees five times.  Because Steinbrenner kept firing him.

But don't worry, that wasn't the only manager that Steinbrenner fired.  Let's look at their management from 1974-1995 (pre Torre):

This is INSANE!!  If you have a shitty team it takes some time to rebuild!  Jesus, if he had been just a little patient maybe there wouldn't have been a World Series drought from 1978-1996.  I swear to God while his kids were being born he probably sat there yelling at his wife's uterus going "HURRY!  HURRY UP!  YOU'RE FIRED!"

Well, we had the dynasty in the 90s!


Yes, yes you did.  If you ask Ken Burns, he'll tell you it's because of when Steinbrenner was thrown out of baseball.

Not when he was suspended from baseball for 2 years for making illegal campaign contributions to Nixon's campaign.

No no no, I mean literally thrown out of baseball for when he did this to Dave Winfield:

On July 30, 1990, Steinbrenner was banned permanently from day-to-day management (but not ownership) of the Yankees by MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent for paying a gambler named Howie Spira $40,000 to dig up "dirt" on Winfield. Winfield had sued the Yankees for failing to contribute $300,000 to his foundation, a guaranteed stipulation in his contract.

So yes, the Wilpon mess is embarrassing, but there is at least some reasonable doubt as to whether or not Fred and Jeff knew they were in a Ponzi scheme.  But these are the same Wilpons who are extremely philanthropic and started welcomebackvets.org.  Even if the Wilpons did know about the scheme, Steinbrenner supporters are in no place to cast the first stone.  Regardless of how much they paid for it.

So between his suspension and eventual reinstatement in 1993, the Yankees were able to hold to to a few prospects.  People like Jeter, Rivera, Williams, Pettitte, and Posada.  Removing Steinbrenner's idiocy but keeping his checkbook on the team is what led to the dynasty, not Steinbrenner himself.

But how can you say the Yankees' buy all their players when they have so much home grown talent?


Because they can afford to KEEP their talent, you dipshit!  You think that if Jeter or any of the other players I just mentioned started their career with the Kansas City Royals they'd still be there?  If you do, you're as dumb as... you know what? There's no metaphor.  You're just that f*cking stupid.

So once the dynasty was over and Steinbrenner was back in charge, let's look at the money he spent on non-World Series winning seasons:
2001 - $109,791,893
2002 - $125,928,583
2003 - $180,322,403
2004 - $182,835,513
2005 - $201,689,030
2006 - $194,663,079
2007 - $189,639,045
2008 - $209,081,579
Total = $1,393,951,125
***Averaging anywhere between 50 and 90 million dollars more than #2 highest payroll in baseball.***

Including awful contracts like:

Irabu - 12.8 millon dollars

Kei Igawa - 5 years, 46 Million (highest paid minor league pitcher in history)

Or how about the failed signings of:
Kevin Brown
Randy Johnson
Javier Vasquez
Jaret Wright
Sidney Ponson
Carl Pavano***
Ian Kennedy***

*** Have found success elsewhere, just couldn't find it with the Yankees.


How about when Pettitte was not re-signed because they didn't think they needed him, turns out they did need him, and then finally re-signed him in 2007?

How about when Chien-Ming Wang's career ended because he couldn't run around the f*cking bases in an inter-league game?  Steinbrenner's response?  National League's rules are stupid.


How about the current disasters of these guys?

(in this case, maybe Dennis Haysbert is available?)

So after wasting all of this money on PITCHING ALONE, they had to spend another 400 million dollars on Tex, AJ, & CC just to get over the hump in 2009.

Conclusion
Listen, the Yankees put out a competitive team every year.  But Jesus when they spend as much as they do they had BETTER compete.  They use their money to manipulate the lack of a salary cap to stay relevant every year.  And that's fine, it's not illegal, they're in New York and they can pull it off, so why not?

It would just be wonderful if all these pretentious douche bags with a sense of entitlement that only comes with mommy and daddy shoving their silver spoon so far up their asses that their large intestine is suffering from a heavy metal toxicity would leave me alone.  If you're a Yankee fan, fine.  If you want to talk baseball, I would love to.  But if you're a dumb prick who had a shitty day because, well, you're a dumb prick, and you're looking for a pick-me-up because I'm Mets fan?  Go f*ck yourself.

But you can't have the discussion with those people.  It's like trying to have a serious conversation with this guy:

So stay strong Mets fans!  Our team is exciting to watch, doing well, and I believe will take 2 out of 3 this weekend.  So Let's Go Mets!!!