Only a handful of people will—and should care—about this. Two nights ago, the NY Mets defeated the NY Yankees in the third game of the first interleague match-up between the cross-town rivals this year. They’re not really rivals in the truest sense of the personal rivalry. Because they play in different leagues until they make it to the World Series—by which time, they are in the same “major” league—the teams could care less how the other is doing during the course of the 162 game season.
The only rivalry is between the fans of the two teams, who like to boast about their own team, desecrate the other, and otherwise behave in the most unsportsmanlike way possible towards opposing players and fans. But for the artificially concocted inter-league series (2 sets of 3 games played in each others’ stadium) during the course of the season, fans would only be able to vent their cross-town anger on the airwaves (listen to local sports radio and you see how crazy these people get about something which they have no real, substantive part of).
So, instead, we get the demonstration such as what we saw Sunday night. Mets outfielder Jason Bay—formerly of the Yankee-fan-base-hated Boston Red Sox—homered twice against Yankee pitcher C.C. Sabathia. When he came up for his third at-bat, this time against Sergio Mitre (the burly Yankee left-hander was lifted an inning earlier), Bay was hit in the square of his back with a 75mph curveball. Now, baseball purists will argue that if you’re going to hit someone, you’re not going to do it with a breaking ball. You want to hit someone, like the good-ole days? You hit him with a purposeful fastball. I don’t buy that with this instance: recent pitchers know that all too well, and they’re generally too chicken to make it that obvious…I think recent pitchers are much smarter than that. Do I think it was purposeful? Absolutely. Just look at the circumstances.
But, what was most startling was the almost instant reaction by the white-jersey clad Yankee fan about 3 rows back on the left side of the frame above. Almost the instant after Bay is plunked, the fan stands up and emphatically claps, pointing his hands at Mitre. Nice. Really nice. How would you liked to be plunked by a ball thrown at 75mph.