Who Do the Mets Hate?

Matt Bruce

When did the Atlanta Braves lose their role as America's Team? For that matter, when did they become the arch-nemesis of the Mets?

These seem to be trick questions: The Braves really never were America's Team, though I doubt that there are many longtime New York baseball fans who consider Atlanta to be Enemy #1. All the same, I had both questions come to mind when I read that the Mets had openly preferred to play the Cardinals, and indeed that fans at Shea Stadium had cheered the St. Louis sweep.

For those of you who did not start following this game until the last 10 years or so, one of the hottest rivalries in the National League used to be between the Mets and Cardinals. Both teams regularly stood in each other's way in the 1980s, when Davey Johnson and Whitey Herzog were preaching remarkably different styles of ball.

Year	STL	Place	NYM	Place	Playoff Team
1981	59-43	1	41-62	5	lost playoff
1982	92-70	1	65-97	6	World Champs
1983	79-83	4	68-94	6	--
1984	84-78	3	90-72	2	--
1985	101-61	1	98-64	2	lost World Series
1986	79-82	3	108-54	1	World Champs
1987	95-67	1	92-70	2	lost World Series
1988	76-86	5	100-60	1	lost NLCS
1989	86-76	3	87-75	2	--
1990	70-92	6	91-71	2	--

Reaching the playoffs was a lot more difficult then, with just four teams making the post-season instead of eight. If the National League's current three-division structure had existed then as it does now, then the Mets would have won seven straight division titles. Guess who stood in the way, effectively preventing them from becoming what the Braves are now?

That same realignment seems to be at least partly to blame for killing off the Mets-Cardinals rivalry. The two teams are similar enough, with larger-than-life superstars (Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza) and opinionated, egocentric managers (Tony LaRussa, Bobby Valentine). This year, however, I have yet to hear anybody (save for my Cardinal fan roommate) describe them as anything more than circumstantial series opponents.

Then again, the Mets and Cubs have certainly kept up their animosity despite the divisional gulf. Remember the Valentine-Baylor feud earlier this season? One explanation may be dumb luck; another is that the Mets and Cubs have been similar teams for far longer, big-market losers who always fought for the cellar except for the two years (1969, 1984) that they fought for the penthouse.

It's possible that the "rivalry" itself was no more than teams who happened to be good at the same time and happened to have bad blood, both inherently temporary features. Nobody talks about the Red Sox and Blue Jays the way they did 10 years ago, or the Tigers and Blue Jays before that.

I remember a feud between Oakland and Chicago in the White Sox' previous incarnation of Kids Who Could Play, back when Dave Stewart told reporters that Jack McDowell belonged in Triple-A. (Bonus points to anyone who can refresh my memory: Who was it that Stewart said ought to have been selling insurance?)

Back in the day, of course, the A's themselves were despised by many true blue fans and followed outspokenly by the world's bandwagon joiners. The Bash Brothers and Rickey Henderson had a lot to do with both phenomena, but the team's success probably meant more. If you can believe it, almost nobody hated the Yankees in the 1980s because they were never good enough for their fair-weather friends to notice them.

(There were certainly no Yankee fans in Oklahoma when I was a kid, though odds are there are quite a few of them now, almost none of them actual New York transplants.)

Just as the success of the Braves has bred resentment on the part of the fans who've seen Atlanta stand in their teams' way, so has the success of the Yankees made them both so loved and so hated. By contrast, the Braves have done just well enough just often enough to lose the underdog status even as they also lost their bandwagon.

What went wrong? A major sports web site ran a piece last week excoriating today's Braves for not being Sid Bream or Terry Pendleton, by extension for not wanting it enough. It's hard to put into words just how wrong that author was, but one thing worth mentioning is that neither Bream nor Pendleton was in Atlanta in the dry years.

Year	ATL	Place	Playoff Team
1985	66-96	5	--
1986	72-89	6	--
1987	69-92	5	--
1988	54-106	6	--
1989	63-97	6	--
1990	65-97	6	--
1991	94-68	1	lost World Series
1992	98-64	1	lost World Series
1993	104-58	1	lost NLCS
1994	68-46	2	--
1995	90-54	1	World Champs
1996	96-66	1	lost World Series
1997	101-61	1	lost NLCS
1998	106-56	1	lost NLCS
1999	103-59	1	lost World Series
2000	95-67	1	lost Division Series

The only memorable thing about 1990, the last of the Bad Brave years, is that the PA system played Ernest P. Worrell singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," at least for a few games until the fans who showed up booed him off the mike. After that 1990 season, John Schuerholz came to Atlanta from Kansas City.

Bream and Pendleton, his two big free agent acquisitions, caused great puzzlement on the part of the Elias Baseball Analyst (At that time, Baseball Prospectus was then no more than a burning sensation in Chris Kahrl's throat), which suggested that these were moves normally made by a team needing the final pieces to a championship puzzle rather than a team lucky just to contend. Atlanta certainly seemed like the latter at the time.

The nucleus that began the breakthrough featured David Justice and Ron Gant in the field, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz on the mound. Steve Avery and Mark Wohlers both made their major league debuts that year -- given how their careers turned out, I guess Cox and Mazzone are not infallible after all.

The best Braves of the bunch did not actually make the big club until a couple years into their run. Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez and Ryan Klesko were the prospects that led those in the know to predict a dynasty. Greg Maddux made the rotation otherworldly by signing as a free agent in time for the 1993 season, the same year that Fred McGriff almost single-handedly led Atlanta to its stunning pennant-chase comeback against the Giants.

(The most impressive thing about the Braves' decade-long run is that they knew which prospects to keep and which Melvin Nieves types to hype-and-deal.)

Notice what happened: The kids broke in, but only after the Cinderella seasons. As long as they were young, they could be the underdogs, still seeking that first crown. Meanwhile, even the pickups had a mystique to them that the latter-day Bret Boones, Michael Tuckers and Terry Mulhollands somehow lack. Even the year after their title, they still had Andruw Jones and Jermaine Dye to be their post-season diaper dandies.

I say the Braves lost their aura in 1997, the year they moved into Turner Field and the year that the Marlins outdid their Cinderella act. Given how the Padres fit the same glass slipper a year later, one wonders: Without the 1994 strike, would the Expos have ended Atlanta's sacred cow status even earlier?

Ask yourself this, too: From 1996 to 2000, what superstars did the Braves call up? Anyone more likable than John Rocker? I'm sure Richmond gave them some talent, but the organization left itself with too hard an act to follow. They finally found a gem in Rafael Furcal, but does their rotation have enough oomph left to put him into the national spotlight?

All I know is, the A's and White Sox will hate each other again in a couple years. Who will the Mets hate? San Diego? Florida?

about the author

Matt Bruce takes almost as much guilty pleasure in rooting for the Braves as he does in remembering their true mediocrities. Send your favorite memories of Charlie Liebrandt, Derek Lilliquist and Pete Smith to mb@strikethree.com.