theological justifications for Jets/Yankee rooting interest?

[124]

I'm in my mid-20's and I know more Jets/Yankees and Giants/Mets fans than do I Jets/Mets and Giants/Yankees.

Perhaps Jets fans wanted a winner and Giants fans wanted to feel some sort of pain?

For me personally: My grandfather was a huge Giants and Yankees fan, but when my mother passed when I was 7 my Dad got Jets season tickets for some more father-son bonding because he spent a lot of time working and I with a nanny. He was an Eagles fan, but we weren't driving all the way down to Philadelphia, so what's the next best thing? The Jets (I guess). And ever since then I was hooked and he has rooted for the Jets since then as well. Then, to please my Uncle I became a Yankee fan (Good choice).

[chirorob]

Baseball, my Dad was a Yankee fan. Not a baseball fan, a Yankee fan. I was raised on it. We had one TV, only one game was going to be on. So, do you want to listen to Phil Rizzuto talk about some rookie named Mattingly, or do you want to not watch baseball.

As for football, I got really into the history of the game. The Giants were involved in one of the all time games in football history, 1958 championship game against the Colts. And they lost. Jets, they were the first AFL team to win a SB. Plus, they had the Sack Exchange, so I became a Jets fan. My first season really watching was the Mud Bowl. Which pretty much set the tone for the next 25 years or so.

[IHATEDOLPHINS]

Became Yanks fan from my Grandpa going to games in the Bronx,and Spring training games in Fort Lauderdale.

No idea how I became a Jets fan.Always have been.

[Yankeejet22]

Originally Posted by rainman

yes, but something better-written and thought-out than that?

Ok. Sorry.

My parents were immigrants in the late 60's, with obviously no knowledge of sports here. In the early 70's my uncle took me and my brothers to our first Yankee game, at Shea. He hated the Mets and Shea Stadium, even telling us we had to hurry up home to shower to wash the Met stink from our bodies. He would dive my brothers and I past Yankee Stadium while under construction. During those seasons we became Yankee fans, learning about their history, while waiting for the '76 season to open the New Yankee Stadium. We were hooked.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally Posted by DDNYjets

+1.

I thank God that I am a Yankees fan. I don't know how the Jets/Mets fans do it.

It's pretty rough. For the last 25 years, twice a year...
"There's always next season."
I've done a good job tricking myself into believing that when my day comes it'll be that much sweeter. I do believe it this point. Might as well!

When things are going bad, I focus on the game.
I go to the ballpark around 15-20x a year and I either have a good time watching my team, or have a good time watching the game.
Same goes for this point in the Jets season.


Yup, it sucks!

[NY's stepchild]

First of all. What does this have to do with theology? Secondly The Yankees weren't always good, but they do play in a real league, as opposed to quadruple A, and the Mets are orange. Sorry, but when I was a kid there's no way I was routing for that giant orange baseball head with the stupid song. The Yankees looked like professionals. I also became a baseball fan at like 5, and didn't know anything about football until I was around 10. Completely different mind set.

[shuler82]

Living in northern NJ, I became a Jets fan in the mid 1980s through my die hard father.

That same father could care less about baseball. I'm a lefty and wanted to play first base, so I became a big Don Mattingly/Yankees fan at 7 years old. My childhood was a lot of fun in the mid/late 80s with the Mets/Giants winning. I didn't see a Yankee WS until I was in college.

[boxman]

Originally Posted by SAR I

I look at it as God's way of establishing equilibrium.

SAR I

Bingo.

[Senny]

My uncle is a diehard Yankees fan and took me to games as a kid.
My stepfather was a diehard Jets fan and took me to games as a kid, while my father was a Dolphins fan. You can imagine how pissed he was that his ex-wife was taking his son to Jets games when I was 6/7 years old.

I loved going to the Jet games as a kid, and my uncle who was also a die hard Giants fan, used to take me to Giants games too. But I never could root for them...for this reason alone. I used to LOVE going to the Jets games because of the fans. They were SO MUCH more fun and crazy than the Giants fans.

I loved going to Jets games even when they were losing as a kid because it felt like going to a fun and wild adult party where you were included in the fun and not ignored. Giants games as a kid felt like I went to an adults dinner party where I sat in the corner bored and ignored while the adults talked about things that were equally boring and worth ingnoring.

Jets fans are the fun older cousin that took you to your first titty bar, sure he's always inbetween jobs and in and out of jail for tax evation but he's fun and loyal.

Giants fans are boring fair weather family members, only popping their head from hiding when it is convient and opportunistic for them. Jets fans stand in the mud and rain and take the pain. Giants fans go watch something else if they're not a contender.

Yankee fans are not like Giant fans even though people always associate the two teams...JETS/METS...GIANTS/YANKEES, but Yankee fans are passionate and they'll be there opening day even if the Yankees are projected to be a mid level to loser team that year. Giants fans will only show up if everythings going well and even then they're BORING.

That reason alone was what drew me to being a Jets fan...being at those games as a kid, around those crazy nutjobs banging the railings and chairs and stomping their feet and spilling their beer on me as the 1-14 Jets fought the Dolphins the last game of the season on their way to a 1-15 year.

Unfortunately with the new stadium and PSL's the fans and environment isn't what is used to be as it was at the old Meadowlands as Bart Scott mentioned a year or two ago. It's true, but the stadium crowd is still better than the Super Bowl Champion Giant crowd if you ask me.

If I left a Jets game I usually felt
If I left a Giants game I usually felt
At least I felt something after a Jets game...and that is why I'm a fan.

[detjetsfan]

Originally Posted by rainman

I've always thought that something rang very hollow about a Jet/Yankee fan. the Jets and the Mets cut the exact same thread. both sprang to being due to the work of renegade outsiders -- Jets through the AFL, Mets through Bill Shea and the Continental League. they shared a stadium, shared triumph over heartbreak in 1969... I don't understand? surely you like your sports to occupy a meaningful place in your life, and a Jet-Yankee rooting interest is playing both sides against the middle. you're either Gentle or the Giant, the 70s rock and roll hedonist or the 90s kid in a tight t-shirt...

I wasn't alive in the 1960's when Mets and Jets shared a stadium.

//END EXPLANATION

[detjetsfan]

Originally Posted by shuler82

Living in northern NJ, I became a Jets fan in the mid 1980s through my die hard father.

That same father could care less about baseball. I'm a lefty and wanted to play first base, so I became a big Don Mattingly/Yankees fan at 7 years old. My childhood was a lot of fun in the mid/late 80s with the Mets/Giants winning. I didn't see a Yankee WS until I was in college.

North Jersey is packed with Mets/Giants fans. They can tell you who the Mets 3rd string Catcher is but don't know who David Diehl is. Annoying.

[21st Amendment]

The Jets/Queens and Giants/Bronx connection no longer exists.

[SizzleBear287]

Originally Posted by 124

I'm in my mid-20's and I know more Jets/Yankees and Giants/Mets fans than do I Jets/Mets and Giants/Yankees.

That doesn't make much sense because to me it seems like people in their mid to late 30's (Gen X'ers) would be more likely to be Mets/Giants fans if they started watching sports around '86. I'm 23 and my dad is a boomer (going on 60) who became a Mets and Jets fan in '69- his father never watched much sports. I can't stand baseball but I despise the Giants and see them and the Yankees as equal. However, I can understand somebody being a Jets/Yankee fan because of the anti-Boston connection. Mets/Giants makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

[jetsfan920]

Grandpa was a die hard Yankees and Jets fan. Took me to my first Jets game (he originally owned the season tickets we have) and took me to my first Yankee game and I loved it. So the story goes.

[Traitor Jay & the Woodies]

Originally Posted by detjetsfan

I wasn't alive in the 1960's when Mets and Jets shared a stadium.

//END EXPLANATION

They shared Shea Stadium until the end of the 1983 season.

[southparkcpa]

Mickey Mantle-Joe Namath
It's basically that simple for me.............

[Guy Incognito]

Originally Posted by 21st Amendment

The Jets/Queens and Giants/Bronx connection no longer exists.

I guess you don't make it out to Queens much.

Not that the subject of this thread really even matters, but there sure are a lot of defensive Yankees fans on the subject. Maybe its a sensitive subject for some.