My name is Lauren, and I’m a NY Mets fan. Phew. I feel so much better now that I’ve said it aloud. Allegiance to the Metropolitans isn’t an easy thing. Admitting an allegiance to the Metropolitans to the (tens of) readers of this blog, is even less easy. In case you haven’t followed baseball at all for the past– well, ever, let me give you a primer: The Mets suck. Since their inception in 1962 the Mets have won 3, 748 regular season games. They’ve lost 4, 093. In that first season in ’62 they won 40 games. And lost 120. Yes, 120. Even if you know nothing about sports, you can probably figure out that that’s, uh, really really really bad. They finished 60 1/2 games back of the NL-leading San Francisco Giants. After 1962 the Mets continued to suck, compiling a bunch of sub-500 seasons before the miracle of miracles happened in 1969 – for real, the team was nicknamed “The Miracle Mets.” The Mets won the 1969 World Series. Then they went back to sucking, albeit not nearly as bad as before. In 1986 the second miracle happened. The Mets won another World Series. Since then, there’s been mostly more sucking. In 2001 the Amazin’s made it back to the World Series, and lost. In 2006 they made it to game seven of the NLCS. And then, bottom of the ninth, down by two, bases loaded, 0-2 count, “here’s the pitch…”, and Carlos Beltran does nothing. Strikes out. Looking. The next year the team didn’t make it to the post-season, courtesy of one of the greatest collapses in baseball history. In 2008– ah, nevermind. You get the idea.
So why would anyone want to root for the Mets? The short answer is, I have no idea. Especially when there’s some other team in the same city that has managed 27 World Series titles, a bunch of no-hitters including few perfect games. The Mets have never had a no-hitter of any kind – they have turned a triple-play and hit an inside-the-park homerun in the same game, and still managed to lose, which is an achievement of a completely different kind. If you came upon baseball without allegiances and had to pick Mets or Yankees, you’d likely pick the Yankees. Even if you were the “root for the underdog” type – the Mets, really? And yet, people still come out to Shea “I refuse to call it Citi Field” Stadium on the regular, packing the 7 train or crossing the WhitestoneThrogsNeckTriboroBridge(s) into Queens to see an apple raise out of a hat and the only orange foul poles in the majors (also, on a personal note – vegan hot dogs!). And although I’ve never done any research – scientific or otherwise – on the subject, I’m gonna guess it’s a pretty safe bet how most of them got there. There might be a few folks who thought “hey, the Mets, this seems like a good idea!!!!”, but it should also be noted that traveling from Manhattan by car you realize that Ward’s Island, which houses Manhattan Psychiatric Center and Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (a “maximum security hospital”) isn’t all that far away. For the most part, I imagine most Mets fans got there how I did: by birth – or how my dad did: by marriage. See, my mom, Brooklyn born and Jersey raised, is a Mets fan. As are her brothers and if her sister cared about baseball would be. And so my dad, presumably having no baseball allegiances upon their meeting, married into the blue and orange. And then when I was born, I was born into a life of disappointment, heartbreak, almosts, also-rans, maybe-next-years and one miraculous-season-that-I-barely-remember-because-I-was-fucking-four-years-old-in-eighty-six. Now, at 28, I know more about how to wear a rally-cap than I should, and less about ticker-tape parades and the ‘Canyon of Heroes’ than I’d like. Now, Mets fans are a loyal bunch. And sure, we’ll bash our team with the best of ’em, but we’ll also defend it to the death, a kind of “I can make fun of my sister because she’s my sister but if you make fun of my sister I will punch you in the nose” mentality. Every spring we think “this is the year, I know it!” And then every fall we think “well, there’s always next year.” But every year, we come back, ready to wear our rally caps and hold up “you gotta believe” signs and decide all over again if Mister Met freaks us out or not.
And it’s easy to believe, it’s easy to keep coming back, no matter how bad the team, because there’s history. There’s a legacy. There’s ties that go beyond what’s out on the field. “This is the team of my mother and father.” In the cases of some teams (or some people younger than I), “this is the team of my grandmother and grandfather.” But what if the team is new?
In the case of new teams in existing leagues – expansion teams – a fanbase can be culled from those with regional ties, people loyal to the sport who’ve never really had and will now jump at the chance to have a team to call their own and people who never gave a [insert animal in the possessive here’s] behind about the sport, but started to come around with a team all their own to cheer for. Local ties, hometown pride, the kind of thing that made the decision for me long ago that my next tattoo will be New Jersey related. People like my grandfather, who [like all good Jewish grandparents do] moved from the NY/NJ area to Florida – and then decided to become a Marlins fan when The Fish set up shop.* It’s likely that that’s how the original Mets fans, the ones who would birth (breed? born? bare?) the next generation of blue and orange believers, came to be. A group cobbled together out of Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants fans left team-less – and any good, right minded non-Yankees fan will tell you that the Bombers are not an option – after those two up and left for the West Coast (or who could perhaps no longer stay up late enough to enough to watch their teams play, what with the first pitch being somewhere around 10pm on the East Coast and all).
But what if the league is new? Beyond that, what if the whole concept is new (or new-ish)? Who do you root for then? New leagues, like new businesses, start out small. Someone opening a restaurant isn’t going to start with 27 locations, they’ll likely start with one and then grow slowly. A new sports league obviously can’t start with one team, because, well… But “start small” still applies. The NHL started with the ‘Original Six,’ MLB and the NBA came to be out of smaller leagues merging together, MLS started with ten teams. And for the people in those cities, if they decided to be interested in the sport, the choice was probably obvious. Root for the hometown team. And as far as this, Women’s Professional Soccer, is the same. Start small – seven cities in the inaugural year – check. And if you live in one of those seven (then nine, then seven but with five of the original ones and two new ones) cities, the likely choice is to root for your hometown team. I’m from New Jersey. Sky Blue FC plays in NJ. I don’t care how much they suck or if they’re the best thing since sliced bread, they’re the NJ (or as the league insists NY/NJ) team, they’re my team. If I was born and raised in SoCal or NorCal I’d have picked the Sol or Gold Pride respectively. Philly roots would have me cheering the Independence (god, that hurt to type – I cringe at the thought of rooting for Philly teams, even in the hypothetical). And so on. Add to this regional fans – see my Mets fandom above, NJ doesn’t have an MLB team but NY is close. New Englanders often go with Boston teams because no one’s playing pro sports in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont (and a couple Boston/Massachusetts teams smartly realize this and in the case of the Revolution or the Patriots, identify as the “New England ____”). Those in places that aren’t NJ, DC, Boston, Chicago, the Bay Area, Atlanta, Philly or places close enough that one of those can be their hometown team make a choice. Some simply wait patiently, hoping a team will someday come to their city. Some just chose to ignore the league. No team, no care. And some pick other teams, based not on regional ties but on style of play, or a certain player or players presence there, or whose uniform they like the best or whatever – case in point, I support Liverpool, despite the fact that I’ve got no ties to the place itself (it’s important to note that the hometown argument is not the be all and end all, there are people who ignore regional ties and make their choice based on one of the above instead and that’s fine too). But all WPS fans, regardless of who they support for and why, also seem to share a common fandom: the league itself.
Now, don’t get me wrong, all WPS fans, regardless of team loyalty should support the league. We should do everything we can to ensure that it’ll be around long enough to build legacies. To be able to have kids in the stands that are Breakers fans because their mom and dad grew up Breakers fans. To have a 21 year-old, fresh out of college, get drafted by the Red Stars and then proudly tell a newspaper writer “It was my dream to play for Chicago, I grew up going to Toyota Park cheering for the Red Stars.” And obviously, with no league, we have no teams to cheer for, no legacies to build, no teams to get drafted by. But all too often our fandom seems to be league first, team second. And league first, team second fandom leaves WPS toeing a dangerous line between being “a cause” and being a pro league well on it’s way to legitimacy and longevity.
What about a team first, league second kind of fandom? If you can’t make it out to a game, keep watching the games on FSC or Comcast or via webcast. But don’t do it because you feel obligated, because you’ll feel guilty for not supporting the league if you don’t. Watch because you’re a soccer fan and you want to watch great soccer. Watch for the same reason you watched Spain versus the Netherlands in the World Cup final, despite being neither Spanish or Dutch. Watch for the same reason you watch EPL games at 9am at ESPN or hunt down Champions League or Serie A streams online. Make WPS about the soccer, about the teams, about the players, not about the cause. For those fortunate enough to be able to make it to games: GO! Bring your friends, family members, strangers you meet on the street. And chant and cheer for your team. Heckle the other team. Force stadium owners and team front offices to have to make decisions about banning streamers at games. Drown out the constant announcements that can make it feel like you’re watching a soccer match in a bus station. Create an environment that people will want to come back to. Where the home team knows their fans have their backs and the visiting team feels intimidated. Where fans know that upon entering the stadium there will be, for ninety minutes at least, a real sense of community. When Philly plays Sky Blue, at Yurcak or in West Chester, the traveling support and the home fans should be involved in a back and forth that puts even the best summer camp color war “chant-offs” to shame. And both should leave with legendary stories that will make their friends want to come too, see what all the fuss is about. Support your team in any and every way you know how. Team first support will get fans coming back and will give new fans that extra push to come for the first time. Sports are sports, on TV or in person. So why make the trek out to Red Bull Arena to see the ‘Bulls play when I could just as easily do it from my living room for less money and with better beer? Why cram myself onto a packed 7 train out to Shea (although, again, vegan hot dogs!) or sit in traffic in Newark leaving the Rock? Because there’s something about the environment that makes it worth it. Passionate fan support in seven cities sends a message to those quick to knock WPS that it’s something more than cheap entertainment for the preteen set. It sends a message to all those people that keep writing those “Will WPS Make It?” articles that it’s time to answer their own questions.** And it sends a message that this isn’t about Title IX or ‘anything you can do I can do better’ or 1999 or the WUSA or save the whales or feed the hungry or whatever cause we’re all supposed to be about this week.*** This is about the Atlanta Beat. About the Boston Breakers. About the Chicago Red Stars. About FC Gold Pride. About the Philadelphia Independence. About Sky Blue FC. About the Washington Freedom. About teams to be celebrated, not causes to be championed.
*Things to note: 1. My grandfather loves fishing, I have no idea if this had anything to do with his decision to cheer for a team that proudly wears teal (!), but it couldn’t have hurt. 2. He and his wife have since moved back from Florida to NY state, which admittedly isn’t at all important to this story.
**Is it me or does some version of this article appear on a weekly basis somewhere? I’m sure the league is grateful for the coverage, but really we get it. In a league with so many players, so many stories, it seems like there must be something else to write about, no?
***Not to disparage any of these things, as they were/are all important in their own right.
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