As we walk the frigid bridge between the football and baseball seasons, the other side is approaching with warmer weather and hotter teams.
If the Jets and Giants were our twin tombstones of the NFL season, then the Yankees and Mets are the dual signs of sports life in the Big Apple. Forget the pitiful football teams, overrated NBA teams, and struggling NHL triumvirate – focus on the Yanks and Mets, the two bedrocks of one of America's last true baseball towns.
The Yankees you know. It feels like they've been playoff favorites since they bought Babe Ruth a century ago. They have all the pertinent playoff records, and despite a World Series drought that has left them bereft of a championship ring since 2009, they are still chalk to walk to the MLB playoffs. According to Vegas, the Bronx Bombers are +175 to win the American League East, +250 to win the American League pennant, and +600 to win the World Series, the latter second only to the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
For their part, the Mets are inching closer to contention. They are at +175 to win the National League East, +600 to win the National League pennant, and +1200 to win the World Series. Only the Dodgers, Yankees, Padres, Braves, and White Sox have better odds of winning it all.
While most major U.S. cities can say they could use some good news on the sports front to distract them from the perils of this pandemic, it's hard to think of a city hit much harder than New York City. We were the epicenter of the pandemic, the shores on which this COVID-19 landed, snaked through the Tri-State Area, and fanned out across the nation.
So sports were always a good place to find ephemeral relief. Sports have helped us feel normal again after many rough moments in our history (remember the scene at Shea in September 2001?), and would surely be a potent pill for our sore souls. The problem is that since the pandemic shut down everything a year ago, we’ve had three truncated or modified seasons, and an NFL campaign that yielded eight wins between two bad teams.
Now, MLB has its true shot of giving us some emotional vaccine before the physical one is spiked into our shoulders. The Yankees may not be perfect, but they've still got a lineup longer than a redwood. They have a decent pitching rotation that borders on pretty good and quite flexible, and a bullpen that should be at or near the top of baseball yet again. The Mets, like always, aren’t the Yankees, but good enough to make noise in the NL.
And New York City, beyond its nooks and quirks and epic skylines, its spinning technological wheels and money making machines, has some strangely homespun values. Indeed, the Big Apple may be the last true baseball town left. Boston finally got spoiled with titles from myriad sports; Chicago still adores its Bears, even after the Cubbies broke that goat hex; and Los Angeles has LeBron plus about a dozen options for the sports dollar.
The curtain is lifting on spring training, and in a bit over a month, we should have, if healthy, two rosters ready to charge into the season and soar into full contention this summer. So, in a city that's forced to love one team and hate the other, perhaps we can root for both Big Apple baseball clubs this season. Even though it's just sports, with no real world consequence, and just baseball, we could use a symbolic shot in the arm before we get the real one.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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