THERE are a number of differences between Yankees fans and Mets fans, and much of that has been on display this weekend during the first of these biannual inter-borough conventions.
Yankees fans like to think it’s a simple matter of the number “24,” which is the difference in the number of world championships between the two teams. Mets fans like to think it’s more fundamental than that, the basic tenets of human character that differentiate good from evil.
I suspect it’s even more basic.
The psyche of the New York baseball fan is divided into two wholly opposite halves: those who expect to be taken (Mets fans). And those who expect to do the taking (Yankees fans).
Let’s face it: Everything the Yankees have accomplished the last 85 years has been a direct result of the single-most-famous one-sided transaction in the history of American sports: the acquisition of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox for a few buckets of Jacob Ruppert’s cash. That one deal has fortified Yankees fans to believe that not only will they win games by the truckload on the field, they will perform similar acts of shrewd thievery off the field, and these flow as easily off the tongue as any championship memory: Red Ruffing-for-Cedric Durst. Enos Slaughter-for-Bill Virdon.
Roger Maris-for-Marv Throneberry. Sparky Lyle-for-Danny Cater. Bucky Dent-for-Oscar Gamble.
Paul O’Neill-for-Roberto Kelly.
It’s a staggering winning percentage, even if you factor in that bit of early’80s insanity that famously included the giveaways of Doug Drabek, Willie McGee and Fred McGriff.
The Mets?
Let’s put it this way: People who aren’t Mets fans get a fascinated kick out of watching the way Mets fans torture themselves every fifth day, whenever a kid left-hander named Scott Kazmir takes the ball for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and, more often than not this season, looks like a mixture of Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, Sid Fernandez and Bob Ojeda. The first reaction of the non-believers is a natural one: Move on. Bad deals happen.
They happen to every team. There was Brock-for-Broglio.
There was Ryne Sandberg-forIvan DeJesus. There was Jeff Bagwellfor-Larry Andersen. The Mets weren’t involved in any of them. Get over yourself.
But there is no getting over anything for Mets fans, because through their history, when the Mets make a trade, they generally get over on no one.
OK, that’s not entirely true.
The Mets won one championship because they were able to exchange Steve Renko for Donn Clendenon, and won another when they turned Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey into Keith Hernandez (and Lee Mazzilli into Ron Darling), and nearly got a third thanks primarily to Preston Wilson becoming Mike Piazza. What’s telling, though, is that these aren’t the deals that Mets fans tend to remember.
They remember Amos Otis (who played in exactly five AllStar games for the Royals)-forJoe Foy (who played exactly 99 regular-season games for the Mets).
They remember Rusty Staub (who’d just posted the first 100-RBI season in club history)-for-Mickey Lolich (who’d just passed his 70th birthday).
They remember Kevin Mitchell (a vital emotional cog in the ’86 Mets and a future MVP)-for-Kevin McReynolds (who displayed neither emotions nor vital signs while wandering through the Mets’ outfield for parts of five seasons). They remember Jeff Kent (whose best years were in front of him)-for-Carlos Baerga (whose best years were already a memory). They remember that, in the space of six weeks in 1989, they turned Len Dykstra and Mookie Wilson into Juan Samuel and Jeff Musselman, during the little-noted time when Isiah Thomas was apparently running the Mets. They remember Melvin Mora, still bashing the ball for Baltimore, for Mike Bordick, who went 4-for-33 in the 2000 postseason. Earlier this week, as they watched Jason Isringhausen wiggle out of that bases-loaded, ninth-inning jam in St. Louis, they probably had difficulty remembering just who the hell the Mets got for him at the trade deadline in 1999 (that would be the immortal Billy Taylor).
Lord knows, they remember Tom Seaver-for-Steve Henderson, Dan Norman, Doug Flynn and Pat Zachry, a trade that wouldn’t have been even if the Mets had gotten Rickey Henderson, Greg Norman, Errol Flynn and Zachary Taylor.
And God help you if you ever happen to bring up a certain fireballing pitcher named Nolan Ryan who, you might have heard, the Mets once traded for Jim Fregosi, in what is generally acknowledged as the worst trade since Manhattanforbeads.
Given that prism, perhaps you can understand why Mets fans look at Kazmir and see Sandy Koufax, why they remember Kris Benson as if he were Walter Johnson, why they are absolutely certain Lastings Milledge will eventually become Willie Mays and Mike Pelfrey will be a latter-day Bob Feller . . . for another team. After all: what fun is it being a Mets fan without all that attendant agony?
(Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His Yankees-Red Sox book, “Emperors and Idiots,” is available in paperback at bookstores everywhere.)
VAC’S WHACKS
I guess the only question to be asked is this: while Coach Brown watches that Pistons-Cavaliers series, you think he’s wearing a LeBron jersey or an old-school World B. Free jersey?
* How long you suppose it is before Jose Lima joins Kaz Ishii on a “Surreal Life” set somewhere?
* I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: some of the happiest times of my childhood were spent at Shea Stadium, I have a few dozen priceless father-son memories from there that I’ll treasure forever. And yet, to paraphrase David Wells: When they decide to tear the place down, let me press the button.
* You think when Vince Carter drives on the Garden State Parkway he leaves his E-ZPass at home so he can toss his toll in the basket?
Preferably, 35 pennies, one at a time, of course.