What Mets Fans Have Resorted To While They're Team Goes Down In Flames, Writing Articles Blaming The Yankees For Everything:
WSJ - Ever since Citi Field opened before the 2009 season, the Mets' new home has drawn the ire of players and fans for its cavernous dimensions, making hitting a home run a Ruthian challenge. The situation became so dire that in January former Mets outfielder Jeff Francoeur called the stadium a "joke." That same year, a new ballpark opened in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium quickly earned a reputation as a launching pad, with home runs flying out at a record pace. In the stadium's second month of existence, first baseman Mark Teixeira shattered his bat—and sent the ball soaring over the fence. With that in mind, and the Subway Series set to resume in Queens this weekend, we decided to try a little experiment. Just how well would those Yankee sluggers do if they had to play half their games at Citi Field? The answer is striking. With the help of HitTrackerOnline's Greg Rybarczyk and the ESPN Stats and Information Group, we looked at every home run hit at the new Yankee Stadium by seven key Yankees (through Sunday). Of the 242 homers, only 120 (49.6%) would have cleared the fence at Citi Field, assuming average weather conditions. Rybarczyk, an engineer, tracks the distance of all home runs hit in the major leagues, using software that accounts for trajectory and atmospheric conditions. Using his data, he is able to estimate the number of parks in which any round-tripper would be a home run. Shortstop Derek Jeter would have been affected most, with just four of his 20 homers leaving Citi Field. For Robinson Cano, who hits most of his home runs into Yankee Stadium's short right field, the number is 18 of 40. Even Alex Rodriguez, one of the all-time best home-run hitters, would have lost 41% of his homers if he played his home games at Citi Field. The Mets' inability to hit homers at Citi Field immediately sparked a fierce debate among fans: Was the new ballpark to blame for their team's power outage, or did the Mets simply lack firepower in the lineup? After all, no team in baseball has hit fewer homers than the Mets in the past three seasons—something had to be held responsible. Statistically speaking, there's no doubt that Citi Field has played a tangible role. Wright, for example, hit 10 homers in his first season there after swatting at least 30 in the previous two years. Jason Bay has hit exactly 10 home runs in two seasons with the Mets after compiling 181 in the six years prior. Then there's the effect of psychology. In 2009, Atlanta's Chipper Jones said he thought Wright was becoming frustrated with the stadium's dimensions. Though Wright denied it, other players have acknowledged that hitting at Citi Field requires a certain mental makeup. "If you try to hit home runs at Citi Field, a lot of them are going to be flyouts and your average is going to go down, and you're not going to be that effective," outfielder Scott Hairston said. "You really have to battle yourself to stay within yourself and hit line drives." Wright may have been hurt by Citi Field more than anyone because of his propensity for hitting home runs toward right-center field—a trait he shares with many of the Yankees' best hitters. Cano, Teixeira and Curtis Granderson all hit a majority of their home runs in that direction, and Rodriguez also has power to the opposite field. None of the Yankee Stadium homers hit by Jeter or Rodriguez into right or right-center in the past three years would have left Citi Field. With three games scheduled this weekend, the Yankees hope to survive—and quickly head back to their bandbox in the Bronx. "Yankees' hitters are obviously excellent hitters," Hairston said, "and it makes them even better when they're playing in a ballpark like Yankee Stadium."
Now I know my close friends who are Mets fans are going to be up in arms about this, but let's just read an email I sent to the guys who sent me this at work. First of all, this was back in July before I started this blog and I just came across it.. With all the Super Bowl hype and football talk, figured I'd break it up with some good old Yankees/Mets shit:
Long article/write-up/response so hit the jump:
July 20, 2011
Let me preface this by saying that you may not be a Mets fan like the one I'm about to describe, but I'd say 97% of the Mets fans I know are like this:
Favorite part of this article – “An Injustice”. Haha, so the franchise that I root for designs one of the worst hitters ballparks in America, so what or who do I complain about? The Yankees. Typical Mets fans. I mean it has to be the Yankees fault that the Mets can’t hit or build a new stadium correctly. I don't know if a single article sums up such a whiney fan base better than that one. Look - David Wright and Jason Bay are off the sauce. Once the clubhouse/car wash guy got nabbed there was no more juice flowing into the clubhouse therefore the HR's started to drop and the injuries started going up. I don't hear the Tigers players and fans complaining about their stadium, or the fact Granderson averaged 24 bombs a year there. Mets, just like every other team in baseball, play half their games on the road, why can't they hit HR's there? Play plenty of games in Philly, take advantage! I'm not even a Mets hater; I wish they were in better shape than they are right now, makes the city more fun to be in. But now all summer I have to listen to this "feel sorry for me" babble and be hated by all Mets fans because the franchise I root for is the greatest on the planet. Sometimes it's tough to root for a team with 27 Championships, wait no it's not. I don't get it, what was the debate as a kid? Monument Park filled with men who changed the game, all Hall of Famers.... Or a giant apple? No brainer. I'm a kid, fruit sucks - give me candy and championships!
Keep in mind that's written over work email, I couldn't curse and still think I got my point across. Like what a bunch of fuckin' babies huh? You play half your schedule on the road, how do you explain your lack of power in Philadelphia? Haha - other teams don't seem to have a problem launching home runs in Citi Field.. Nice cocksucker line about the Yankees "trying to survive" in Citi Field, yeah how'd that work out? Yanks took 2 out of 3, losing the last game in extras aka throwing the Mets a bone. Look this article was no doubt written by some nerdy Mets fan who grew up in Great Neck and blames everyone but the players for them losing. If it's not the owners it's the fans not cheering hard enough, if it's not that then it's the traffic pattern on Northern Blvd, it's the wind stopping the ball from going over the fence, it's the engineers who build the stadium on a 3 degree gradient, it's the architect who didn't copy every other stadium by providing the Mets with a place to hit home runs. But before any of that, it's obviously the Yankees fault. Newsflash, your lineup fucking SUCKS! Maybe the fact your clean up hitter was Daniel Murphy, or the fact you had Justin Turner hitting second? Carlos Beltran middle of the lineup leading the team in HR's and not playing a full season with the team. Really not the dimentions at fault here when the power part of your order can't hit the ball out of any stadium outside of Colorado. Seriously, a major league lineup that didn't have one player touch 70 RBI's. And the dimentions of your field had something to do with that? Fuck outta here. Quit whining and stay quiet for the next 10 years until your team is relevant again. Maybe start rooting for a real major league team, no one will blame you.
PS - Love the "loyal" Mets fans who call Yankees fans frontrunners, okay have fun with that "loyalty" (bitterness) complaining about absolutely everything and calling yourself loyal. It's like they think it's cool to be fans of such a shitty team, like they somehow get respect for hating their team but saying they're loyal, like that's better than rooting for the greatest franchise on the planet.
PPS - My apologies to the Co-Cap's and Jim Basnight's of the world, I respect your Met fandom. Craig I still think you play both sides.
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