Saturday, October 17, 2015

The Unpopular Decision to Root Against Don Mattingly


I learned a very interesting tidbit of information this week that I previously didn’t know, apparently it is an unpopular decision for a fan of the New York Yankees, myself, to root for the New York Mets and/or against for Yankees great and captain Don Mattingly. Who would have thought that?

Look, I am a Yankees fan first and a MLB fan second. I have no second favorite team or an American League team and a National League team like some. I root for the stories more so than I do the players, the coaches or the managers when the Yankees aren’t in it. I expressed an opinion on Thursday morning that I was rooting for the New York Mets for one night only because I wanted the New York team to win the series, I didn’t see anything wrong with that. Boy was I wrong.

My Twitter feed was lit up, was lit up for 7:00 am in the morning anyway, with questions about Don Mattingly. They are legitimate questions but it’s all dependent on how old you are and how much baseball you watched in the 80’s and 90’s. Me personally, I wasn’t born until November of 1985 and didn’t really start watching baseball as a religion until the 1994 season. I probably only started watching it then because the Yankees were so good, remember it’s okay to be a bandwagon fan at the age of eight years old.

I wasn’t watching in November of 1985 when Mattingly won his American League MVP Award and I was barely watching before the strike and the team made it to the AL Wild Card against the Seattle Mariners. I have a loyalty to all Yankees players, past and present, but it’s just not as strong for players I didn’t grow up watching I guess.


In 10-20 years when Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada are being disrespected or discussed in a way that does not fully represent the player and the people that they were I guess I’ll understand. No disrespect was intended, I love Don Mattingly and I wish him nothing but the best in LA or wherever he may go. I was just rooting for the New York team but now it’s back to Go Yankees instead of Go Mets!

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)