Anyway, if anyone needs me I'll be watching videos of fat kids singing along to techno music on YouTube.

if forced into the situation, i usually root for the team that takes the yankees out, because if you're going to lose, it might as well be to the champs.

also, they scored some major points with me when they took the party out of the locker room and shared that moment with the fans.

regardless of who goes on, the series will be very fun to watch.

Not being from the city, and not growing up around almost any Mets fans (obnoxious or otherwise), I have no trouble rooting for them. My old roommate is a huge Mets fan and it would make his year to see them win it all.

i thought i'd plug "fat" and "techno" into youtube...

this came up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NuBw6xUK6A

and so did my lunch.

thanks, schteeve.

In the AL, I'm tempted to root for the Tigers as I have some connections to Michigan and for the reason YFIB states in 2, but I keep looking at that teem and thinking "this isn't a championship team, this is a team that's a year or two away from being a championship team." Of course the A's are in the same spot.

How about the Mets getting El Duque back for the WS and taking it all the way? I could dig it.

(oh, and yes, I'm back, and I'll have some new posts up next week that look back at the 2006 season before I look ahead to the winter and 2007 in the weeks that follow)

If there's anyone I'll root for would be the Mets, though it is blasphemous. I wouldn't even call it openly rooting either. I'd like to see Reyes and Wright elevated to superstar level though - they deserve it. For some reason Met fans make all sorts of stupid remarks about the Yankees and it doesn't bother me one bit. I don't care about the backpages, I read the damn news online anyway. Let Big Stein worry about that. They aren't in the AL East and their name isn't the Boston Red Sox or Toronto Blue Jays. Unless we play them in the Serious, it's like they are invisible to me.

Plus if the Mets and Wright win the "Serious" then that would open the door for all sorts of news stories about the other 3rd baseman in the Bronx. It's not like we've had enough of those. Plus if Wright hits a walk-off to win the entire thing it might make the drama and light on "poor" ARod a little stronger.

I was a big supporter of the guy, but now I want to see him get as much attention as humanly possible. I want everything to be on ARod. For example, if the Yanks are able to pry Willis from the Marlins but all ARod has to do is agree to be traded. He doesn't agree to be traded and the spotlight is even bigger on him. If in the 70's we had the Bronx Zoo, I don't know what we'll call this next fiasco.

Plus I'm pissed at NoMaas man love for ARod and their hatred for Torre. I just don't get it.

Welcome back, Man....if you would've been here then I'm sure the Yanks would have advanced. I put the blame squarely on your shoulders. Just kidding....though I'm sure the thought had to cross your mind.

9 I for one have never doubted Bradley's talent, only his ability to stay healthy, which he failed to do again this year.

Couldn't care less who wins Tigers-A's series, but man, beating the Yanks sure seems to energize teams.

As a former kid from Flushing, Queens the Mets still have a place in my heart.

My family moved out to Long Island in 1976 as I was turning 10. I had several birthday parties at Shea when we lived in Queens, and a lot of great memories from Shea. But my dad was a lifelong Yanks fan, and all the baseball books I read as a kid were filled with Yanks history, and even when we were at the Mets games I remember my dad telling me Yankees stories.

1976 wasn't a bad year for a kid to jump on the Yanks bandwagon. '77-'78, and I never looked back. As a 2nd baseman, I was all Willie Randolph all the time.

'86 Series I was a junior at the State University of NY at Albany. I remember only a few of us wore Yankees caps at the time. The bars and keg parties were a sea of Mets caps, and NY Giants hats. You stood out in the crowd wearing a Yanks cap at SUNY Albany ('84-'88).

During the '86 Series, a bunch of us Yanks and Mets fans rented a cargo van and drove to Boston. Tailgated outside Fenway, and listened to the game on the radio. I remember one young Sox fan passing by, asking his father (about me): "Why's that guy wearing a Yankees hat?" as if he'd never seen one before.

Yeah, I'm rooting for the Mets even if it means taking crap from Mets fans for a while. They have players I'd love as Yankees, but I'm mostly rooting for Willie, who is right up there with Bernie as my all-time favorite.

They love to revel in Yankees anguish? I'll only be glad to return the favor. Go Tigers/A's.

11 We're the same age. My best friend in college was a Royals fan - and to this day I'm still not sure why. We had to agree to disagree on that point, although the truce was alwasy tested when the subject of Brett vs Goose came up. He's still a Royal's fan. Go figure. I think I've had the better end of the deal since then.

Yeah - I want Willie to win it this year. I'll stay up to watch the post game if they do, and I'll smile, but I'll be wishing he was doing it as a Yankee skipper instead.

Probably selfish on my part.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B05150MIL2003.htm

Between the Cubs and Brewers in May, 2003. It lasted 17 innings. I watched every one of them, and even annoyed some family members when I refused to join them at dinner because I had to see the end of the game.

I guess 2003 was my most recent peak in being obsessed with all of baseball... I also watched every inning of all the postseason games that year. This year, meanwhile, I've been completely obsessed with the Yankees, at the expense of learning about other teams. Now that I've found great blogs from a lot of different teams, hopefully next year I can get back to being a giant baseball nerd, instead of just a giant Yankees nerd.

As for this postseason, I'm interested in the games, usually I just root for a "good game" rather than for/against any non Yanks for Red Sox team. But honestly... trying to watch the games with the FOX announcers makes me want to change the channel.

...it doesn't help too much, as i was 7th out of 10 this campaign.

The ongoing league we had at my former job has kind of splintered and fallen apart as we all left the company, and it's more fun to play against people you 'know' rather than strangers...

That is what you meant by NBA, right?

I also can't root for the A's because should they win it all, the "Billy Beane is a genius" meme will be sickening. It's bad enough we gotta hear it when he's never gotten his team out of the ALDS, but if they actually win it all they'll be non-stop BEANEBALL coverage from now until hell freezes over.

But OMG, I also think we're witnessing that proverbial "postseason steamrolling" that we sometimes see in October. The 2006 Tigers are the 2005 White Sox. They are on a serious roll and I just don't think anyone can beat them right now. I really don't like Leyland but you've just got to give the guy props because he took a flailing team and motivated them into world beaters.

As for the Mets, I like the team, I like Willie, I have a lot of friends who are Met fans, but if they actually win the World Serious, we Yankee fans in NYC will be living in a nightmare. No sir, I don't want to live through that shite.

...lucky bastards.

I don't really watch the games as a whole, but I do check in and watch for about 5-6 minutes at a time - depending on what's happening on the field. If there's ducks on the pond, I'll usually see what the end result of the inning is and then move on.

I think I used to watch the playoffs more often as a child in the 80's, when the Yanks NEVER made it and I really didn't know what the emotion of 'elimination bitterness' felt like...

Well said, unpopster, but I think we've already survived worse.

I think I can live with Oakland.

That's right.

Neifi!

The teasing and ribbing will be really bad this year, especially when the Yanks were the favorite going into the playoffs.

Plus I really want the A's to win to finally shut up the anti-sabermetrics crowd. Not that it will prove anything, but to the anti-saber crowd, a WS legitimizes the approach.

Payback's a b*tch, right?

This is why I avoided all the "Boston Massacre" talk in August. Yes, we essentially eliminated Boston's playoff chances that weekend, but I think the Yankees left something on the field that they never got back. The fire did not burn quite as brightly afterward. I don't believe jinxes, well - not really - but I was afraid that giving that weekend a "name" was a bit premature.

(sigh)

it was renewed again literally 20 minutes after game four of the ALDS this year. i stepped out my front door and a neighbor, who i am certain has seen me sporting yankee t-shirts, shouts from across the street, "you like the game?!? beautiful."

eh. whatever. my team didn't finish behind the blue jays.

my sympathies if the mets pull this off... but it would be really impressive given their pitching situation... which would only exacerbate your situation...

go tigers!

38 39 Most of my Mets lovin' friends are the mild-mannered variety, and if they hate the Yanks, they at least respect them. That said, it's already getting bad now that they're "advising" me how the Yanks need to fix themselves -- but that I can handle.
I don't think we'll ever see anything less gracious, and more obnoxiously in our Yankees-loving mugs than the '04 Red Sox fans. At least I hope not.

Willie, meanwhile, is working on getting his 7th, and I would be very glad for him if he did.

29 Maybe the "trade A-Rod" stories are dead now anyway - but if the A's winning would put those stories out for good, I'd happily listen to 6 months of "Billy Beane = genius".

I would also be fascinated to see Joe Morgan's reaction, as he continues to believe that Beane wrote Moneyball. Or at least he did the last time someone asked him in a chat.

Also, (ditto to Shaun P) thanks Sliced for making me laugh with 44.