In Baseball, Lessons in Loyalty and Tolerance

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Loyalty. Too bad it is never reciprocated by the current Mets owners. I was a dedicated loyal fan who passionately rooted for them from 1973 until the wilpons forced out Nelson Doubleday. And I have hated them ever since. Whomever is playing against the Mets I am rooting for. Too bad they can't lose every game, and no fan went to see a game. A completely empty stadium. That would be beautiful thing.

Growing up on Long Island in the 70's, I loved the Yankees of that era but now prefer to follow the Mets. Shea was easier to get to and that 1986 World Series win in my last year of high school cemented it for me. And maybe it is like Jerry Seinfeld said. We're really just rooting for our clothes to defeat the clothes from the team of the other city. But I sure still hate the Red Sox.

As a Massachusetts native who was a member of the 1953 state championship Holyoke high School team I moved to New York in 1973 . I had three children and they were and still are Red Sox or as I call them this season Bettsox fans. When challenged by Yankee fans I would tell them that I brought my children up the right way..as Red Sox fans deep in Yankee territory. For the beneft of Dr. Klass there is a group of fans in the New York area valled the BLOHARDS ( Benevolent Loyal Order Honorable Ancient RedSox Diehard Sufferers) who meet for lunch @ the Yale Club on Vanderbilt Ave. when the Red Sox come to New York. My first major league game was @ Ebbetts Field in 1942..Dodgers v Cubs. I did not get to Fenway until 1948 when in an August game Cleveland routed Denny Galehouse 9-0. A fateful omen a few weeks later.

This reminds me of an op-ed piece of about 8 or 10 years ago, which had different twist in a family's move from Boston to New York City. In that article, the father was a life-long Red Sox fan with a very young boy. The father assumed that his young son would go to Yankee Stadium with him to root for the Red Sox. The problem was, much to the disappointment of the father, that his son became a Yankees fan along with his classmates. The father did not want to force his son's allegiance but admitted that his son Yankees' fandom was an unexpected outcome of the move.

An amusing but distressing article, a praise of maybe childish loyalty, maybe a deeprooted propensity to mindless prejudice. of After my wife and I moved from New York to Massachusetts someone greeted us with “I hate you, you’re New Yorkers, Yankee fans!” What a view of the world. Are we all supposed to be good or bad, as ”furriners” or normal humans by the team jacket we (don’t) wear, or perhaps a relgious medal or, god forbid, skin color? And by the, we’re ex Giants and Dodger fans, for whom the Yankees were designated enemies to each of us. How wrong that Red Sox fan was, on every count.

I know this is complete heresy, but I love both the Red Sox and the Yankees. I grew up in New York, worshipping Thurman Munson and the rest of the inmates in the Bronx Zoo. Then I lived in Boston for 23 years, grudgingly admiring the likes of Fred Lynn and Jim Rice and but always rooting fiercely for the Yankees. Then 2004 happened. No New Yorker who has not lived in New England can ever understand what it meant to the locals when the Sox came back against the Yankees in the playoffs and then won the World Series. Dying cancer patients held death at bay until the team posted the final out against the Cardinals. This New Yorker cried. It was then that I realized that I had succumbed to the Red Sox. I still love the Yankees, don’t get me wrong. But when I hear some lunkhead say something negative about Big Papi, I get genuinely insulted. I eventually moved back to New York. The Yankees will always be my Number 1 team. But I admit that I am thrilled by the success of the Sox this year. When the Yanks are eventually eliminated from the playoffs (they just have too many flaws), I will be ready, willing and able to root the Sox on to victory! I realize that there are many fans of both teams who, upon reading this, will want to throw up. That’s OK. I understand. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you live in "upstate" New York (anyplace north of Westchester County) you will find, for the most part, that the sports followers are Red Sox and Patriot fans, NOT Yankee and Giants supporters.

Don't they play Liza when the Yankees lose?

Great story!

Excellent analysis of the nuances of the rivalry, and your son's reaction to his new sport surroundings! Perri Klass, M,D., you would have soared if you had become a New York Times sportswriter!

Love the idea of getting along in the fan world. No team owns the 'most obnoxious' fans in isolation. I'm a long time Yanks fan who has taken my child (Sox fan) to Fenway, Yankee Stadium and the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Have also been to Citizens Bank Park in Philly. At each, we witnessed drunk, obnoxious fans, as well as (thankfully) a majority who were there for a good time. Nowhere is more Yanks/Red Sox obsessed than Connecticut. It's all good if we remember, it's just a game.

Great piece (....even if it is from a Red Sox fan.) But as a native NY-re and lifelong Yankees fan, I have to question one of the facts. Due to the loss, especially one as frustrating, Red Sox fans would have heard Liza Minnelli sing "New York, New York" on their way out.. True to his style, Sinatra doesn't sing unless it's a "W"...

Our good old national past time “teaches” one thing above all others — boredom.

Good article however things can change as you grow up and move to a different locale. I grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, a confirmed Yankee hater in the 50's and 60's. I passionately rooted for the Dodgers originally and then the Mets. Then I move west for a time in the mid 70's when NYC was having its financial meltdown and saw and heard the disdain that people out in the heartland had for NYC just when the Yankees made the Series in 1976 and for the first time in my life I rooted for them. None of the old names were still there and the new team deserved my support in the face of what I had experienced. I had become a NY baseball fan and the old fires of hatred dissipated. In time I became a big Jeter fan and thrilled at his excellence. Now I root for both teams as well as my local Rockies. My brother who has lived in NY and southeast Florida his entire life ( a suburb of NYC in effect) remains a committed Mets fan and thinks I'm a traitor but he doesn't understand.

Sorry, folks, but this is NOT my experience at games in Fenway or Kauffman in Kansas City. At Kauffman, Sox and Yankee fans regularly brayed about their teams accomplishments as if they were singularly responsible for these. At Fenway I have on the receiving end, and doesn't evoke a kindly sense of rivalry. My first game at Fenway, which at the time I thought would be my only game, was ruined by a Blue Jays fan. When Sox fans got on him, his response was simple and devastating: "At least all our world series have been in color." More recently, I attended an interleague game at Fenway, Sox vs. Mets. A father and son got drunk and became more than obnoxious. The boy in his excitement--nothing wrong with that--kept jumping on me and waving his hands in my face. As he got more drunk--I would learn he was all of 15 and his father was buying him the beer--his behavior became so extreme that I called security and they were ejected, but not before threats and curses directed at me. But one of the more disturbing moments this year did not occur in the stands. It came from the NESN broadcast booth. As the Sox reached that elusive "100 wins" milestone, Eckersley and O'Brien sent their "congratulations" to both the Orioles and the Royals when they reached 100 losses. I was ashamed of them, and their unprofessional and unsportsmanlike behavior served only to diminish what the Sox had accomplished. Degrading, dismissive behavior still occurs everywhere and at every level of baseball.

Watch out fans. When I was a little tyke, my dad thought I should play baseball, and kind of made me joining the Little League team that he sponsored: awls I remember is getting up to bat and being afraid of getting hit with the ball. Now that I have a real head injury, I think that was justified… I’m just a girlyman when it comes to sports!

The whole Yankees Red Sox rivalry is so yesterday. Everybody should just get over themselves and move on. So many other more important things to expend energy on. No wonder this society is so morally bankrupt.

I grew up as a Red Sox fan in New York City, even playing many of my high school and American Legion games in the shadow of Yankee Stadium (the new stadium is exactly where I played so often). It wasn't easy to be a Sox fan, but there was also something glorious about a rivalry that seemed larger than life. It's true that today's Yankees have some players that are thoroughly likable, even for a Sox fan. And I'd challenge any Yankees fan to think poorly of someone like Mookie Betts. My baseball world would be a lot poorer without the Yankees to root against, so I've always been grateful for having the Yankees for an adversary. Go Sox!

The problem with the current Sox-Yankees rivalry is both teams are largely composed of likable, young stars. As a Sox fan, there are no ready-made villains for me to hate anymore. I thought we had something cooking with Tyler Austin, but then the Yankees traded him away. And now the Yankees are well below the salary cap while the Red Sox have the highest payroll in baseball and subject to the luxury tax. As Sox radio announcer, Joe Castiglione would say: "Can you believe it!"

Hometown ball clubs are like your family, you don't get to choose etc., and it is always a little disconcerting to me to meet someone that has rejected their home team and enthusiastically embraced the team of the town their job brought them to. As a lifelong Royals fan that hasn't lived in KC in decades, 30-year playoff droughts are your expected birthright, and a hundred-plus loses are endured because each time you spot someone in a KC hat you smile and say "Man, that 2014-15 run was really something, huh?" And, on you go.

This is a great piece. A really loving tribute on several levels. Sometimes it's hard to maintain loyalty but possible to regain. As a child I was a passionate Washington Senators fan. We moved to Turkey when I was 11, to Michigan when I was 14 and to Arizona when I was 16 but I remained a Senators fan and followed as best I could in that pre-web era no matter how godawful the team and rancid the owner. But then the team decamped to Texas and there was no Washington baseball. By then I'd been in Tucson 4 years listening regularly to my National League team--the Dodgers. Scully could be a very seductive announcer. So, gradually I became a passionate Dodgers fan rooting for Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, Sutton, Yeager, Buckner and many more. Heroes and memories I will always cherish. Thirty years passed. Baseball was back in Washington and I was in Maryland. So I started going to Nats games, but in my Dodgers gear, for the first few years to root for the Nats but not when the Dodgers came. But then, gradually I connected and one day I realized that I was rooting for the Nats, even against the Dodgers as I did so passionately in 2016. But, if the Nats falter and the Dodgers go on as happened that year the old Dodger Blue is just under the surface and reasserts if only for the post season.

Excellent article - it's nice to see that we can be human beings enjoying this wonderful game, kind of like a time out from all of the other stuff. I grew up in NY, but lived in Boston for years, and rooted for them when I went to Fenway (unless they were playing my Yankees). With that said, I still feel very deeply that the Red Sox can't lose enough for me, despite having some dynamic young players who, unfortunately, are excellent. First us, then anybody but them in 2018!

Great article. I'm a lifelong fan of the Yankees and the first game I ever attended was the major league debut of Mel Stottlemyre and my idol, Mickey Mantle hit 2 home runs. I loved the old Stadium. I went to several games a year. I hate the new stadium. It seems to be a microcosm of modern American economic life with its sharp divisions between the rich and everyone else (moat, anybody?) It's ridiculously expensive. I've been there twice and have no plans to ever return.

Two terrific baseball articles in the Times today. Thank you Dr. Klaas! Important to recognize how much the game and the people who write about it have meant to us.

Great article. The best rivalry in sports. As a life long Yankee fan I know pretty much the only person I can have an intelligent baseball conversation with is another Yankee, or Met, fan and a Red Sox. And yes the new Yankee stadium is well, too hospital like. My grandfather worked on the original construction crew that built the real Yankee Stadium so I have a deep connection to the original place. Anybody but the Red Sox in 2018 and any other year.

Ah, baseball, life's respite from tumult. 3 hours that allow one to turn off daily life and tune in to my boyhood passion of the Brooklyn Dodgers and, later on, adult passion of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The rivalry of Dodger vs. Giants has waned a bit but the rivalry of Dodger vs. Yankees will always be there. Who knows, an October match-up?

Thanks for such lovely words. I, too, live in a mixed family: my spouse hails from New Jersey and supports the Yankees, while my twenty years in Red Sox Nation (mostly during The Drought) put me on the other side. Her gentle openness to my Red Sox broadcasts was at first surprising, but nowadays I enjoy the Yankee broadcasters as much as my own. For most of my life, I believed sports served as the safe outlet for inner venom. Nowadays, I would say it drains it out invisibly.