knickinthehead wrote:Nalod wrote:Historically, a lot of the Brooklyn Dodgers gravitated to the Met,
I just always look at The Knicks and Rangers and Giants as the equivalent of Yankees in there perspective sport and City. Nets Mets and Jets are just to similar sounding names to not be associated to one another. And The Islanders just get grouped in with The Nets Mets and Jets because of where they play. there is also the fact that Madison Square Garden is the arena equivalent of Yankee Stadium and The Giants used to play in Yankee Stadium.
Yanks, Rangers, Giants, knicks are all original charter teams of their leagues and have the history.
The fight to the suburbs of the late 1950’s 60’s and early 70’s to Long Island and the children there had a big impact. Joe Namath was a huge star, Mets were more accessible In queens and when you had former Giant and Dodger fans needed a team (Cable did not exist and watching teams on west coast was hard then), it was natural that if you hate the Yankees, you picked up the Mets.
Islanders and Nets were born on the Island and had early successes. Isles had an epic dynasty while the Nets with DR J won two chips at the leagues end. One could be a fan of both the nets and the knicks until the merger. When DR J was sold and the nets bolted to Jersey many like myself lost interest.
Yankees had a tough stretch for a while and the met become formatble in the 1969-1973 era. Not until 1976 did Yankees return to any glory.
When Catfish Hunter came to Yankees and they played two years at Shea when The stadium was being renovated I caught a lot of games.
With the lack of interleague play it was still possible root for both teams. The Daryl Strawberry era Mets and 1986 was great fun and I rooted for them to win.
I grew up with two teams in Football, Hockey, and basketball and rarely had any conflicts. The media coverage made me a fan of them and living in NY thats just how was.