Yankees can breathe a bit easier knowing they won't have to face the Mets in the World Series
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner receives the American League championship trophy while flanked by his team as they celebrate after winning Game 5 against the Guardians at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Saturday. Credit: Newsday/William Perlman
Once they won the American League pennant on Saturday, the Yankees should have been happy to face whichever team came out of the Dodgers-Mets NLCS in the World Series.
Except for the Mets.
No one with the Yankees will say it — not until years from now, when there’s nothing to lose by admitting it — but there wouldn’t have been any upside for the Yankees to play the Mets in a Subway World Series.
We don’t mean from a baseball sense. The Yankees could have ended up beating the Mets in the World Series, just as they could end up beating the Dodgers. Or losing to either team. There are no sure things in the postseason anymore.
But one sure thing is that the Yankees would have had all the pressure. They are the big brother in town, the team with 27 World Series trophies, and lugging those trophies from the Bronx to Queens and back for up to two weeks could have weighed the Yankees down.
The Mets? They have collected two World Series trophies since they were born in 1962 as lovable losers. Both the 1969 and 1986 titles are considered among the greatest miracle happenings in baseball history, and this season was trending that way in Flushing.
The Mets would have been coming off a regular season in which they swept the Yankees in four meetings and made a miraculous run to the playoffs, and they would have just come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NLCS.
The Yankees’ Mystique and Aura would have gone up against Grimace, “OMG” and the 2024 version of “Ya Gotta Believe.”
The Yankees are the Evil Empire. The Mets are the Amazin’s.
The Mets have Mr. and Mrs. Met. The Yankees don’t have a mascot, because they are the Yankees. Nor do the Yankees have names on the back of their jerseys. No names, of course.
The rest of the country — those who bothered to tune in to the New York-New York battle, which did not rate well nationally the only other time they met in the World Series in 2000 — would have been crushing on the Mets and hating on the Yankees.
That’s what happened in 2000, when the Yankees beat the Mets in five games. George Steinbrenner was still around, and losing to the Mets in the World Series would have sent The Boss into quite a tizzy, even though the Yankees were going for their fourth title in five years.
In July, former Yankees manager Joe Torre told NJ.com: “Playing the Mets in 2000 in the World Series, they may have had more talented personnel, but we were the Yankees. You keep looking over your shoulder and there’s George Steinbrenner. So, yeah, there’s a lot of pressure. But if you win there, there’s nothing like it.”
Aaron Boone, the current Yankees manager, said on Monday that Torre is one of the people he is having text conversations with during the postseason.
“I’m sure he and I will talk a little bit and communicate throughout the series,” Boone said, adding that he isn’t necessarily looking for any advice from the Hall of Famer.
I asked Boone if, all things being equal, he was more disappointed or relieved to not be facing the Mets.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, not really [either feeling]. That would have been very exciting, and plots and storylines that would have been amazing as well, to play here in the city against your crosstown rivals. So there would have been neat things about that.
“But going through it, not really having a preference or anything like that. I never get caught up in that, really. Just excited. You knew whatever the National League result was, I think you can dream on a pretty awesome storyline and pretty awesome matchup, and now it happens to be us and the Dodgers.”
Yankees-Dodgers is pretty cool, too, a bicoastal matchup filled with glitz and history and the chance of a truly memorable Fall Classic.
New York vs. L.A., our celebrities vs. theirs, Dodger Dogs vs. the 99 Burger, two iconic brand-name franchises with the two most famous players in the game in Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.
After the Yankees’ ALDS Game 4 victory over Kansas City, Judge was asked if he would like to see a Subway Series if the Yankees won the ALCS. The Captain was willing to enthusiastically speculate on what it would be like.
“It’s going to be a fun time in New York, man,” he said. “They’re having a great season and it’s going to be fun to look forward to down the road, getting a chance to face them again.”
The Yankees will get to face the Mets again: On March 24, 2025, in a spring training game in Port St. Lucie, Florida, when no one will care who wins.
Well, almost no one. You know how Yankees and Mets fans can be.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
