The genealogy of baseball team loyalties

Dedicated with sympathy to Ken Levine and the Linkmeister.

Don't know if God's a baseball fan.  Friends out in the Midwest assure me He's not just a football fan, He roots for Ohio State.  But if He doesn't follow baseball, then some of his angels do, and umpires should take note and call them for fan interference.

You can spot the angels at work early in the season.  The teams that seem to be getting all the breaks?  Bet the farm on them.  The angels are in their dugouts.

Last night, the angels were playing for the Mets.  Proof?  The home plate ump's migrating strike zone.  Jeff Kent's poke deep into left that should have scored Kenny Lofton but skipped into the stands for a ground rule double stranding Lofton on third.  Those dying swan fly balls off Mets bats, one after another!

I should be thrilled.  Probably as the coffee kicks in and after I've read the sports pages I will be.  But right now I'm still feeling a little disappointed and sorry.

Part of it is I don't like playoff or World Series sweeps.  I want every best of five series to go five, every best of seven to go the whole seven, preferably all of them decided in the bottom of the ninth in the final game.

Mostly though it's that we're visiting the old Mannion homestead this weekend and I watched the game with Pop Mannion.

Pop Mannion's a lifelong Dodger fan.

He wanted LA to win at least one game.

He's a little tired of saying, Wait till next year.

He's a generous fan too.  The Mets were his father's team and two of his sons root for them, several of his grandchildren do too.  He loves baseball, so he can appreciate a great team---except if they're wearing navy pinstripes---and he's followed the Mets all season on TV and he'll have no trouble rooting for them the rest of the way.  Those Tommy Lasorda ads aren't meant for the likes of him.

Lasorda, by the way, has a blog.

Makes it hard, though, to be ungenerous around him.  I found myself agreeing with him that the ump was a bum, that the Mets' hits were cheap, that the Dodgers are going to have to let Garciapara go to make way for James Loney, that Jeff Kent is headed for the Hall of Fame, that it would have been fun to see the Dodgers come back and for the series to go the whole five.

And at the final out, instead of jumping up and cheering, I sat quietly and said, "Gee, that's too bad."

Couldn't even bring myself to say, Ha, that's for '88!

But, know what?  In 1988, as soon as the Dodgers won I started rooting for them and thoroughly enjoyed watching them thrash the A's in the World Series.

Where have you gone Kirk Gibson, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

It's not so much that Pop taught me how to be a generous fan.  It's that in our family, up until the latest generation, our baseball loyalties have had a common ancestor.

John J. McGraw.

I've told this story before.  The reason I root for the Mets is that when I was a little kid my very first baseball heroes were the players whose pictures my father and uncle had pinned up to the walls of their room at my grandparents' camp at Lake George.  When we used to spend the weekends there that was my room and I fell asleep every night watched over by Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, and Roy Campenella.  Hodges was my favorite, and when he became the Mets' manager I became a Mets fan.

So, I'm a Mets fan because Pop's a Dodger fan who's a Dodger fan because his father was, before the Mets, a Cardinal fan who was a Cardinal fan because his father was a New York Giants fan.

Worked like this, although family lore doesn't tell us why my great-grandfather chose the Giants out of the three New York teams to be his team, my grandfather inherited his team loyalty and rooted for the Giants until the day they traded his favorite player Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash, to St Louis.

From there on out he was a Cardinal fan.

And one fine summer day he took the very young Pop Mannion to Ebbets Field to see the Cardinals play the Dodgers.  They sat in the bleachers and at some point in the game, little Pop Mannion turned to his father and asked innocently, "Dad, which team are we rooting for?"

A hundred Brooklyn fans lowered their beers and turned in their seats to glare at my grandfather and wait for his answer.

"Um," said my grandfather, "The guys in blue."

Comments

[Chrys]

Baseball playoffs. Don't get me started! What a wonderful time of the year! Gives everyone something to talk about. Everyone has an opinion. The umps are never consistent. Your team is never lucky...if you win. Your team has TALENT! But if you lose, then it has lots to do with bad luck. This is fun. So much fun!

And, those dying swan fly balls off Mets bats last night. My son, the professional baseball player, assures me that those hits aren't lucky hits. He says they practice hitting bloop hits like those for hours during spring training. Not easy to do, he claims.

I like the story of how your grandfather became a Cardinals fan after the Giants traded Frankie Frisch. Imagine what he'd think of baseball today and the fact that you never know what team a player will be on from year to year. I, for one can't look at Greg Maddox and Nomar and think of them as Dodgers. That's just plain silly! But, that's just me. My sons have grown up with players switching teams and look forward to trades. They laugh at the concept of "team loyalty".

By the way...loved the Gibson-limping-around-the-bases homerun clip. That's a classic.

[Chuck]

I like series that go five (or seven) games, too, but I have one exception to that rule. Anytime the Yankees lose (and quickly), it's good for baseball.

As a longtime Braves fan, I was bummed to see Greg Maddux lose the finale of the playoffs, but, yeah, it's strange seeing Maddog in Dodger blue.

[mac macgillicuddy]

Today isn't a good day for Yankee fans anywhere. Although, since the Yanks are often viewed as the corporate raiders of baseball -- especially since Steinbrenner -- you might say no time is good to be a Yankee fan. Anymore than it was ever a good time to be a Dallas Cowboy fan if you're talking football (which we're not doing). Anyway, yes, I'm a Yankee fan. And happy to report my daughter is, too.

Not sure why she is, but I am because the first baseball game I ever glimpsed on TV was the World Series between the Yankees and the Cardinals. I remember every detail: The Cardinals wore red; the Yankees wore blue. I liked blue, then, so I rooted for the blue team.

That's all it took. That, and Mel Stottlemeyer (sp?).

[Linkmeister]

Bleeping 100-foot pop flies. Bleeping funky strike zone. But most of all, bleeping middle relief from the Dodgers. It's been a crapshoot all year, and it failed again. Having three erstwhile starters down there (Sele, Tomko and Hendrickson), one left-handed specialist who idiotically cut his hand on a glass in a bar the day before the playoffs began, and a big horse of a kid who occasionally loses faith in his fastball (Broxton) just wasn't gonna cut it, particularly when Dodgers starters had only thrown one (one!) complete game all year.

Ah well, the kids are nearly here. Martin, Ethier, Loney, Billingsley, Broxton; they all made memorable contributions this year, and they'll hopefully be even better next year.

I can't root for the Padres, but I'm not very fond of the Cardinals either. If the Mets were still the 1969 or 1973 version I might like them better, but they're not. I'm still deciding whether I'll just switch allegiances to the Tigers from here on out.

[Linkmeister]

Oh, and Chuck? When the Dodgers tied it up and went ahead 5-4, Maddux was off the hook. He didn't take the loss.

I hope we can sign him for next year if he wants to play. He's a joy to have on your side.

[Mike Schilling]

There is one Evil, and Tommy Lasorda is its prophet.

[Chuck]

Linkmeister, you're right. I misspoke, but still wish he could have had a stronger post-season. He made those mid-90s Braves teams lots of fun.

[JD]

This Midwestern says phooey to Ohio State and football and maintains that baseball is God's own game. But I say, go Tigers. ;)

[Domoni]

I don't see how Yankee fans take it year after year. Last year was the only time my team has been in the series in my lifetime and I was a wreck every pitch. And they swept. I don't think my family could have handled a seven game series.

This year I'm so much more relaxed. I'm happy to see the Twins gone. I followed the Tigers in Spring training so I wouldn't mind seeing them win it all.

But, and I hope I'm not cursed for this, I don't want to see the Mets make it. It's a New York bias, I know. But not only that. The first World Series that I followed was the Tigers and the Cardinals. I'd like to see that happen again.

(On the other hand, Frank Thomas winning one with the As would be a nice "how-do-you-do" to Ken Williams.)

[Lance]

Domoni, St Louis rooting is allowed here, and not just in memory of my grandfather. The ten year old's cheering for the Cardinals. He's vowed to hate the Mets forever if they win.