While Hoboken may be the birthplace of baseball, New York City is credited for popularizing the sport. Back in 1846, when the first official baseball game was played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, it was remarkably similar to the version we know today. The game grew in popularity due to its shorter duration compared to the other popular bat and ball sport, cricket. Over the next hundred years, as New York City rose to be one of the largest cities in the world, baseball grew alongside it.
To best understand the connection between New York City and baseball, we must go back to the 1950s. During this time, there were three successful baseball clubs in New York: the Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the ten-year span from 1949 to 1958, the World Series was won by a New York team nine times — seven were won by the Yankees, one by the Dodgers, and one by the Giants. The success of these teams began to shape the culture of the city; the streets were flooded with kids playing stickball, trading baseball cards, and dreaming of playing in the big leagues while adults defended their teams and packed the stadiums. The fierce rivalry between all three clubs was at an all-time high and New York fans couldn’t be more satisfied. Then tragedy struck.
In 1958, both the Dodgers and Giants relocated out west (the Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco), and their owners, motivated by profit, left their devoted fan bases in the dust. This left a gaping wound in New York baseball fans. Without a team to root for, fans were lost. Some tried to follow their old club out west, while others remained without a team. While it may seem trivial, the Giants and Dodgers fans were heartbroken. New York was a city too big for just one team, and the city was not used to having a single loyalty; it needed rivalry.
In 1962, the abandoned New York fans would be introduced to a new ball club, the New York Mets, who took their colors from their predecessors: blue from the Dodgers and Orange from the Giants. Once again, the city’s baseball rivalry was alive and well. To show their appreciation, the fans once again packed stadiums to support their teams, despite dire circumstances. In the Mets’ first year, they went 40-120, which is the most losses by any MLB team in the modern era. Yet, the fans didn’t care as they loved their new team. Seven years later, they would go on to be nicknamed the “Miracle Mets” when they shocked the sports world by winning the 1969 world series. Although the Yankees have been historically superior, the rivalry persists. Since 1997, the Yankees and Mets have encountered each other in the annual Subway Series, which is the most iconic inter-city sports rivalry in the country.
New York City, even then, was home to the most professional sports teams in the country, yet it is baseball that has had deep influences on the city’s sports fans. The history of the city is intertwined with baseball history. In recent years, other sports have dropped baseball in prominence. Kids might not play in the streets like they used to, but come April, go see a game in the Bronx or Queens. With the Yankees and Mets both primed for another strong season, New York baseball could be entering another golden age. The rivalry is heating up and aiming for another all-New York World Series.
