Sports Illustrated covered New York this week (they are covering a state a week), in a poll of state residents, the yanks clocked in at 50% of the state as their favorite baseball team, the mets at 25%. pedro edged out steinbrenner as enemy of the state, and the mets finsished second to the yanks as favorite sports team overall.

at first glance, the matchup 50% to 25% might seem depressing. i think it's actually encouraging. this poll was taken a few months ago, before the season started. think about it, the yanks just got a-rod, they've been the best team in baseball for the past 7 years, the mets coming off their worst year in some time, which in turn came on the heels of a bad year before. the mets got swept by the yanks last year, all the embarrassment of mo vaughn, alomar, etc. and we still clocked in at 25% favorite baseball team and 2nd favorite team out of any sport overall. that's encouraging.

my own opinion is that before the yanks run got steamrolling in 1998, there were more mets fans than yankees fan. i base this on general perception and cold hard numbers. the mets consistently outdrew the yanks through 1999. the yanks never hit more than 3 million fans in a season until 2 or 3 years ago, the mets hit it several times throughout their history.

i would garner that this recent yankees era coupled with mets embarassment will hurt the mets in the long-run as all these kids are yankees fans now, but i think once the mets get a little better you will see them close to even in terms of fan suppport.