The Subway Series

Having two major league teams, baseball fans in the City of New York had formed an in-city rivalry. Since venues are accessible via the city’s subway system, it is called the Subway Series whenever the two teams play, together bringing fans from all walks of life.

NY Mets play at the Citi Field Stadium, reachable thru the #7 train line. It stops at Mets-Willets Point station. Directly across the baseball stadium is the Billie Jean King Tennis Center. If the Mets play on days when the US Open tennis is ongoing, it’s SRO on the trains.

The Yankee Stadium is where the NY Yankees play and can be reached taking the #4 train line.161st-Yankee Stadium station is the stop. It is 26 blocks away from where we live and is just a bus ride a bus ride away. A Filipino neighbor frequent games there and I just might go with him and his son, just for the experience.

Before, there used to be two other New York teams, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers but both relocated to California in 1957 and became the San Franciso Giants and the LA Dodgers.

Two other leagues have two New York-based teams, the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA and the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders of the NHL. They’re also called as such because when they play each other, playing venues can also be reached by trains. But baseball’s subway series is more popular.

In their recent match last July, the Mets, with their Puerto Rican star Francisco Lindor, demolished the Yankees, 12-3, thus completing a 4-game 2024 regular season sweep. Both teams had played a total of 151 regular and post season games against each other. The Yankees lead 84 games to the Mets’ 67.

They faced off in the 2000 World Series. At that time, the city painted some of the #4 train with white and the blue stripes of the Yankees having their version of the “NY” logo. Likewise, the #7 train sported the orange and blue colors of the Mets and their own version of the “NY” logo. The Yankees won the World Series, 4-1.

NYC news outlets said it was a series to remember, headlined by the confrontations between the Yankee’s Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza of the Mets that included an incident in Game 2 where Clemens threw a broken bat at Piazza. Of that week, every morning talk show was about Yankees and Mets.

After the 2000 championship, they did not win another title until nine years later when they defeated the Philadelphia Phillies. This year, they hope to win the franchise’s first title since 2009. They had appeared in 40 World Series, winning a league-leading 27 championships. The Mets had 5 World Series appearances, winning 2 (1969 and 1986) and are looking for title number 3.