A Tale of Two Teams: The New York Mets & The New York Jets
October 20th was the end. The end of sports for 2024 for fans of the Mets and Jets. That night, the Mets were knocked out of the playoffs after losing to the Dodgers. At nearly the same time, the Jets fell to 2-5 after being defeated by the Steelers on Sunday Night Football, basically ending any hope they have of doing anything positive this football season. While it might have happened on the same day, fans of the two teams no doubt feel very different, perhaps even polar opposite ways, about the franchises.
An Introduction and Brief History Lesson
The title of this post is a nod to the famous Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities. The two cities that the title of the Dickens book is referring to are London and Paris. Today though, we’ll actually be focusing on just one city – the city that I call home, New York City.
You can debate how many sports teams are actually in New York City. A quick Google search will inform you that NYC has the most major league sports franchises with 11. This number includes the New Jersey Devils though. Newark, where the Devils play, might be the same metropolitan area, but there is an entirely different state even in the team’s name! It also doesn’t include any women’s professional teams. For our sake, we’ll just say that there are 10+ pro sports teams in NYC. Of those teams, I am a fan of two of them: the Mets and the Jets.
When it comes to baseball and football, most people who are Mets fans are also Jets fans, and most people who root for the Yankees also root for the Giants. It’s rare to encounter a sports fan that mixes up this Mets/Jets or Yankees/Giants pairing.
These pairings originated because the Mets and Jets both played at Shea stadium and the Yankees and Giants also shared a stadium for over a decade. When Sonny Werblin and his partners bought the New York Titans (for just over a million dollars) in 1963, Werblin renamed the team the Jets because the stadium was by the airport and since it rhymed with Mets. He was a very creative man.
Over the course of my life, 36 years, the Mets and Jets have combined to win exactly zero championships. The Yankees and Giants, over that same time, have combined to win eight championships (with the Yankees having an opportunity to win another World Series title this year).
Another “fun” fact is that out of the 72 opportunities the Mets/Jets have had over these 36 years to even win their respective divisions (36 chances for each of the two teams), they have combined for five division titles. (One of those was the Mets in 1988, and I don’t remember that one since I was only a few months old.) Needless to say, it hasn’t worked out well for fans of the Mets/Jets pairing.
But There is Hope?
It’s time to cancel the pity party, dear reader, because hope is on the horizon. Hope at least for one of the two franchises… the Mets. After the dud that was the team’s 2023 season, it seemed like fans of the orange and blue were in for more of the same this year.
The year began with an 0-5 record, and by the beginning of June the team was 11 games below .500. Rumor has it that some people who paid for a Hulu TV subscription for the sole purpose of watching the Mets on SNY considered cancelling it.
But then, the turnaround. And the 2024 season, which once had seemed destined for disaster, became one that will live on as one of the most positive and fun seasons of my lifetime.
Francisco Lindor transformed into the superstar he was meant to be after being moved to the leadoff spot. Mark Vientos morphed into an All-Star caliber player. A Latino pop singer named Candelita joined the squad and he sung a really fun song, called “OMG,” and hit for a .337 batting average.
And the OMG Mets battled. They had a dramatic win on the final day of the regular season to send a team that wasn’t supposed to do anything this year into the postseason. When it seemed like they were about to lose the Wild Card Series to the Brewers, Pete Alonso (Polar Bear Pete!) had his big moment. He hit a three-run homer that catapulted the Mets into the next round. No matter where he ends up playing next season, that hit cemented his status as a Mets star forever.
The Phillies were the trendy pick for World Series champions, but the Mets dispatched them in dominating fashion. Against the Dodgers in the National League Championship series, the Mets simply ran out of gas. They weren’t a team that was built for October baseball, and it finally caught up to them.
But next year, that will be different. Owner Steve Cohen’s plan is finally coming to fruition and the signs are clear. Cohen has his head of baseball operations: David Stearns. He has his manager: Carlos Mendoza. His superstar: Lindor. The Mets are but a few moves away from capturing the World Series title that has eluded them for decades. And they will make those moves in 2025. 2024 wasn’t ultimately the year for the Mets, but it was just the beginning.
Then, There’s the Jets
If it feels like a new beginning for Mets fans, for Jets fans, it feels like the end. How can anyone be a fan of this awful franchise? In 2022, I wrote an article titled, “Is it Time to Stop Being a Jets Fan?” In it, I went over what it’s been like over a lifetime of rooting for Gang Green. It’s clear now, that the answer to the question I asked in the title of that post is a resounding “yes.”
The Jets are 2-5 and they are disaster. Since the writing of that post, the Jets big move was getting Aaron Rodgers to save the franchise. To say that hasn’t worked out would be putting it lightly. Rodgers is no savior, and his darkness retreat revealed to him the wrong answer when he asked whether or not it was the right move for him to join the Jets.
After the beating Rodgers is taking both physically and mentally, I have no doubt that he will bow out of playing on the Jets. Whether he just retires outright or comes up with some sort of phantom injury that keeps him from competing after another loss or two remains to be seen.
Robert Saleh, who I expressed doubts about in that original post, is no longer with the team. Owner Woody Johnson fired Saleh in a move that many analysts think was too early in the season. It wasn’t too early though; it more just wasn’t the right move at the right time. Saleh is a bad head coach, but getting rid of the captain of a sinking ship while the ship is literally sinking to the bottom of the ocean isn’t going to save the ship.
Woody Johnson is one of the worst owners in professional sports. It all goes back to him. Who would want to work for him? There is absolutely no way any decent coaching candidate would choose to work for Woody on the Jets staff.
Woody has been more involved recently with the team – firing Saleh, getting Hassan Reddick to report, trading for Davante Adams, I believe, because he is desperate to win now for reasons unrelated to football. Under Donald Trump’s last term as President of the United States, Woody served as an ambassador and had to give up his football duties. He has political aspirations and, no doubt, hopes that Trump will win, and he will get a job that’ll take him away from being an NFL owner. Woody’s moves have all been made by personal desperation to win now.
But those moves haven’t worked out and now the Jets are doomed. Unlike the Mets, who weren’t supposed to be good in 2024, the Jets were supposed to compete for a championship. Instead, they’re a laughingstock and it’s not even November yet. It is, most certainly, time to stop being a Jets fan. At least, until the Johnson family mercifully sells the team.
And There You Have It…
The state of sports life as a Mets/Jets fan on October 21, 2024. Two seasons have ended (one literally and one figuratively), and these are two teams couldn’t be heading in more opposite directions. For the Mets, there is hope. The future is bright. For the Jets, there is the opposite of hope. Sure, it might’ve been easier as a Yankees/Giants fan, but a tiger can’t change his stripes. I’ll take my victories where I can get them, and right now, that’s the victory of being happy to be a fan of the New York Mets.