Is it baseball season yet?

Eventually, the weather around the New York City/New Jersey area will warm up.  Baseball fans will plan outings to Citi Field and Yankee Stadium without having to think about staying warm.  And, just maybe, the Mets will actually win more games than the Yankees.

Sports Illustrated thinks so.  The U.S.'s leading sports magazine predicts the Mets will finish 82-80 and the Yankees 77-85 this season.  That's not too much for Mets fans to get excited about, but it's been seven years since the city's National League team had a winning record.  Only once in the past 15 years have the Mets finished with more wins than their crosstown rivals -- and the Yankees beat them in the World Series that autumn.

Thanks to interleague play, the two New York teams will square off against each other at Yankee Stadium on April 24-26 and at Citi Field on September 18-20.  Optimistic Mets fans hope their team will still be in contention for a post-season spot during the latter series.

The Yankees hold a 56-42 advantage over the Mets in regular season games since interleague play began in 1997.  Mets fans, feeling their team is on the rise with the strength of its pitching staff, believe the Bronx Bombers are in decline and ready to cede most of the city's attention to Queens.  It's been 23 years -- when both teams finished in fifth place -- since the Mets have drawn more fans to home games than the Yankees.

Perhaps this is the year the Mets are once again a better team and attraction than the Yankees.  Maybe Sports Illustrated is right.  Then again, SI picks the Cleveland Indians to win this year's World Series -- which hasn't happened since 1948.  The last time SI picked Cleveland to win it all, in 1987, the Indians lost 101 games and finished in last place!  Don't bet on the Indians winning the World Series this year, either.

Charley's 2015 predictions:
NL East: 1-Washington, 2-Miami, 3-New York, 4-Atlanta, 5-Philadelphia
NL Central: 1-St. Louis, 2-Pittsburgh, 3-Milwaukee, 4-Chicago, 5-Cincinnati
NL West: 1-Los Angeles, 2-San Francisco, 3-San Diego, 4-Colorado, 5-Arizona
AL East: 1-Baltimore, 2-Boston, 3-Toronto, 4-Tampa Bay, 5-New York
AL Central: 1-Detroit, 2-Cleveland, 3-Kansas City, 4-Chicago, 5-Minnesota
AL West: 1-Seattle, 2-Los Angeles, 3-Oakland, 4-Texas, 5-Houston

What do you think, baseball fans?

The Joy of Mets

When New York City’s two major league baseball teams meet in Citi Field this weekend, there will certainly be many more happy Mets fans than happy Yankees fans. It’s been that way for most of the past 50 years.

Since the Mets joined the National League in 1962, the team has given its fans many years of happiness – 19 to be exact. There was never more joy in Metsville than in 1969 and 1986, when the team won the World Series. But Mets fans were also ecstatic in 1973 and 2000, when the team made improbable runs to the World Series, and happy nearly all other seasons when the team won more games than it lost. In fact, among the Mets' 23 winning clubs, only the 1987 and 1988 editions, which failed to follow-up on the ’86 championship, and the 2007 and 2008 teams, which collapsed in September, disappointed Shea Stadium faithful.

Yankees fans? Most of them were only happy the eight times in the past 50 years the team won the World Series: 1962, 1977-78, 1996, 1998-2000 and 2009. For Yankees fans, a World Series championship from a team that perennially has the highest payroll and a lineup of well-established players is an expectation. Anything short of a World Series title is a disappointment, and certainly nothing to be happy about. The 12 years between 1964 and 1976, and 15 years between 1981 and 1996, when no post-season games were held at Yankee Stadium, are considered the dark ages in team history, and rarely discussed by Yankees fans.

The images of Jesse Orosco on the pitching mound celebrating the final out of the ‘86 World Series are forever etched in the memory of Mets fans. Older Mets fans will never forget the picture of Jerry Koosman in the arms of Jerry Grote and a joyful Ed Charles on the mound after future manager Davey Johnson flied out to Cleon Jones for the final out of the ’69 World Series. Do Yankees fans have comparable memories of major moments in the team’s history? Probably not, since people rarely treasure an accomplishment that was merely an expectation.

Considering the Yankees have been in existence 109 years, all but 27 seasons have been considered failures by their fans. It certainly gives New Yorkers and other baseball followers across the country a new appreciation for the suffering of Yankees fans over the years. For Mets fans, satisfied with victories whenever they come and happy when the team finishes with a winning record, no such sympathies are needed. That’s why Mets fans will seem so happy this weekend, especially if their team wins two or more of the Subway Series games, and few Yankees fans will appear cheerful, since a World Series will not be at stake.