Opinion: Why the Mets are the real working-class team of New York City

From President Donald Trump’s visit to the Yankees’ clubhouse last fall to Mrs. Met’s enthusiastic embrace of Mayor Zohran Mamdani this spring, New York City’s greatest sports rivalry has taken on a distinctly political tone. Central to it all is a question that sounds more at home in the pages of “The Daily Worker” than a WFAN shouting match: Which team best represents New York’s working class?

The struggle session began when a Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated X account asked this question in reference to the remaining playoff teams in October 2024. The Mets won handily, taking 61%, compared to 22% for the Yankees, and 17% for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was the predictable result. The New Left, from which DSA emerged, has loved the Mets since the beginning. Historically bad as they were, the team had been something like a late sewer socialist project of Mayor Robert Wagner’s little New Deal: their municipal home, Shea Stadium, a mid-century modern work of brutalism. Branch Rickey, the ex-Dodger owner who pushed the integration of baseball in 1947, helped win over old Brooklyn leftist fans, as the beatnik-like rants of Casey Stengel brought considerable attention from downtown bohemia. Activist Jerry Rubin said whenever someone asked him for the yippies’ political program, “I hand them a Mets scorecard.” Some of the players even felt the same – Tom Seaver linked their miracle 1969 championship run to ending the war in Vietnam.

The legacy continued with the volatile relatability of the 1980s party-rocker Mets, the union militantism of John Franco and Bobby Bonilla, the unifying pride of Mike Piazza’s post 9/11 home run, Dominic Smith’s walkout following the Kenosha, Wisconsin, shootings in 2020, and the progressive-coded humor, whimsy and joy of the Gay Grimace Mets.

A small left cadre of Yankee literati blasted the 2024 poll, however. They claimed the common sense that Mets are more working class is transplant propaganda straight from the Commie Corridor politburo. A broader, more authentic working class desires to become king of the hill, top of the heap.

This nativist triumphalism, far from encouraging an egalitarian spirit among its fanbase, instead lets them roleplay as “The Boss.” This is why they demand daily “roll call” acknowledgements from their players, quickly demand any player not living up to their statistical potential be fired and consider any year not ending with another championship an injustice against the cosmic order.

Us rabbinical scholars of losing have a very different perspective. We have directed far less ire this year, for instance, toward Bo Bichette and Brett Baty than David Stearns and Steve Cohen. We see the players for what they are: wage-earners who, win or lose, are ultimately just struggling through a shift at work. This is why Roger Angell once described our cheer-jeer “Let’s go Mets” as “yells for ourselves,” recognizing that the players are workers engaged in a bizarre workplace that resembles our own, because it is, in fact, our own.