I was born a baseball fan, and Fate decided that my team would be the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was a perfect match, a rag-tag team with a rag-tag kid, complete with dirty uniforms, one-of-a kind blunders in the field, jovial, loyal players who could occasionally play like stars but who, more often than not, broke my heart.
The Dodgers of the 40s and 50s were the antithesis of the hated-but-respected New York Yankees. The Yankee uniforms were always sparkling, their fans wore suits and ties, and they played the game like chess masters.
Five times in my childhood my beloved Dodgers faced off against the Yankees in the World Series, and five times we came up losers. The pain of those days comes rushing back over the decades even as I type this. Awful, awful memories, with revenge an impossibility because the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles in the late 50s.
When the Mets returned to the National League I began to hope for some measure of retribution, but the pain continued when the Amazins lost their only WS encounter with the Yanks.
But now I just dreamed up a spectacular finish to this season. It's so good it would actually wipe out the memories of the 40s and 50s.
What if the Mets and the Yanks met again in the World Series, the last year for BOTH stadia, and what if the Mets could send the Yankees into their new stadium as LOSERS? Citi Field would start out with one WS flag and the new Yankee Stadium woudn't have any! SWEET!
I would take any victory, but winning it in the 7th game with Billy Wagner shutting down the 3-4-5 slots would be perfection!
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