We were talking last night with Jason Fry, the editor of the great Mets fan site Faith and Fear in Flushing, who has the misfortune of being not only a Mets fan, but also our good friend. We sat and drank and watched the Phillies pound the Dodgers to clinch their second World Series trip in a row, and we wondered: As a Mets fan, whom would Jason be cheering for in an increasingly less hypothetical Yankees-Phillies World Series? The supposed rivals from farther down the Northeast Corridor, the gentlemen who gleefully called the Mets “choke artists?” Or, you know, the Yankees. Jason left little doubt where Mets Nation stood: We are all Phillies now. (To be fair, this is a guy who, seconds after the odd “neighborhood play” that favored the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALCS, tweeted “Jerry Layne is a war criminal.” In case you were wondering where he stood on this.)
Jason went more into his thoughts on Faith and Fear last night.
My fellow Mets fans … Tonight we gather neither in triumph nor in joy. Rather, we have assembled out of necessity, driven by the need to oppose a deep-seated evil. Tonight we must make choices that will not sit well with any of us. Tonight we must make choices between unpalatable courses of action. Tonight we must do what many of us, in all honor, once swore we would not. … We have profound differences with our league-mates to the south. It would be the stuff of childish fantasy not to acknowledge this. We abhor their Hawaiian braggadocio. We reject their penchant for domestic violence. We disdain the partisan yowling of their maroon rabble. To offer them fellowship runs counter to all we profess and everything we hold dear. We are neither friends nor allies. It is only wisdom to state this clearly, calmly and without apology.
Yet wisdom is nothing without a sense of proportion. We must not profess blindness citing the mote in our eye, while ignoring the beam that would blot out the light for all. Our neighborly disagreements are profound and the canyon between us is deep. Yet deeper still lies the chasm into which we now both stare. ….
ICH BIN EIN PHILLIE.
Of course, it’s a bit presumptuous to just sign up for a Yankees-Phillies World Series; after all, the Yankees do still have a game to win. But the possibilities of Bronx versus Philly are tantalizing: It has a certain Godzilla versus Mothra feel, doesn’t it? Actually, now that we think about it, it’s more like Batman versus Spiderman, or Donald Duck versus Daffy Duck; corporate titans, existing in different universes, almost surrealistically clashing, at last. If you are the sort that lives in New York but can’t stand the Yankees — and you’re out there, there are many of you — the Phillies are the ideal World Series proxy. It is, after all, the Sixth Borough. (Hey, what crazy person came up with that moniker? Oh, it’s from this story. Whatever happened to that Pressler person, anyway?)
The Phillies have done their job. It is now time for the Yankees to wrap up theirs.
Of course, it’s a bit presumptuous to just sign up for a Yankees-Phillies World Series; after all, the Yankees do still have a game to win. But the possibilities of Bronx versus Philly are tantalizing: It has a certain Godzilla versus Mothra feel, doesn’t it? Actually, now that we think about it, it’s more like Batman versus Spiderman, or Donald Duck versus Daffy Duck; corporate titans, existing in different universes, almost surrealistically clashing, at last. If you are the sort that lives in New York but can’t stand the Yankees — and you’re out there, there are many of you — the Phillies are the ideal World Series proxy. It is, after all, the Sixth Borough. (Hey, what crazy person came up with that moniker? Oh, it’s from this story. Whatever happened to that Pressler person, anyway?)
The Phillies have done their job. It is now time for the Yankees to wrap up theirs.