Mark Calabrese of Hoboken is a diehard Yankees fan, but his fiance Tara Morgan is a lifelong Mets fan.
The relationship got pretty shaky last week.
Calabrese has worshipped the Yanks since he was a little boy. “Don Mattingly was like a god for me,” said the 24-year-old Hoboken resident last week. “I wanted to be just like him. I love the Yankees.”
But Calabrese also loves Tara Morgan, whom he plans to marry in June of next year. The two are practically inseparable, except for one thing.
“Mike Piazza is my favorite,” Morgan said last week. “I love all the Mets. I had Mets stuff on the walls of my bedroom when I was a girl. Mookie Wilson, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez. When other girls were playing with dolls, I was rooting for the Mets.”
Needless to say, last week was very trying on the Calabrese-Morgan romance. That’s because New York’s two baseball teams were embroiled in the World Series, the first “Subway Series” the area has enjoyed since 1956.
And it was a World Series that not only gripped the attention of practically everyone in the area – baseball fans and non-baseball fans alike – but also set off a frenzy of fan devotion that has caused arguments among families and filled restaurants and taverns nightly.
Calabrese and Morgan simply began avoiding each other, staying far away until the smoke cleared. “I was going to try to watch the Series with Tara, but then it happened,” Calabrese said.
The big ‘it’
It was the incident between Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens and Met slugger Piazza Sunday night, when Clemens took the jagged edge of Piazza’s broken bat and fired it toward him. The incident, which came on the heels of a beaning that Piazza had received from Clemens in July, forced Clemens to receive a $50,000 fine – but drove the separation between Yankees and Mets fans even further apart.
“She kept harping that it was intentional and that Clemens was a bum,” Calabrese said last week. “Over and over again. So I moved out. I’m staying with a friend of mine until it’s over. If I want to stay engaged to Tara, it’s best that I stay away now.”
“I still love him, but right now, I hate him,” Morgan said. “He’s a jerk when it comes to the Yankees. He thinks they can’t do anything wrong. So he’s staying with a friend and I’m staying put.”
That’s how it was until the Yankees finally clinched the Series at the end of last week. There were also cases where husbands were pitted against wives, brothers against brothers and sisters against sisters.
Elyse Morales of Weehawken vowed not to speak with her sister, Merlinda, until after the World Series was over. Elyse is a Yankee fan, while Merlinda roots for the Mets.
“We were going to go out and have dinner together to watch the games,” Merlinda Morales said. “But I knew once something happened, I would have wanted to pull her hair or yell at her or something. She’ll still be my sister. She’s just on the other side right now.”
On the bright side …
The World Series was also the cause for pride from the respective camps. Yankee fans hung posters and banners from the windows of their homes. Businesses throughout the county showed their support by allowing workers to dress in Met and Yankee garb. Some hung banners and signs outside their businesses. Needless to say, it was pure Subway Series mania.
George Markowitz of North Bergen vividly recalled the 1956 World Series, won by the Yankees over the Dodgers, the last Subway Series before this year. As a Yankees fan, Markowitz remembered vividly how Jersey City native Johnny Kucks got the start and won the game for the Yankees.
“Back then, the World Series in New York happened every year, with the Yankees against the Dodgers or the Yankees against the Giants,” said the 70something Markowitz, who still roots for the Yankees. “So it really wasn’t that big of a thing. But now, when I walk my dog along the Boulevard [East] in the morning, I can see the eyes of the people waiting for the buses. This is bigger than anything I could have imagined. It’s really brought out loyalty, but it’s also brought out some anger. I think people have to realize that it’s just baseball and shouldn’t take it so personal.”
It has also caused a craze within the memorabilia and sporting goods industry, with people looking to buy anything and everything that has “Subway Series” plastered all over it.
Dan DeCongelio, the owner of Stan’s Sporting Goods in Hoboken, perhaps the most known sporting goods store in Hudson County, reported that sales on World Series material went through the roof.
“It’s definitely a lot more than usual,” DeCongelio said. “I kind of figured that it would be that way. Everyone wants to have something on to support their team. And the sales have been kind of equal, between Mets stuff and Yankees stuff. I sold out of Mets stuff right away and had to reorder. Usually, at this time of year, we don’t do that much in sales of merchandise, but this has been a constant flow. I sold out of jerseys and hats and people still continued to call.”
A representative for SportsWon, Inc., a North Bergen based supplier of T-shirts, sweatshirts and hats, reported that sales of World Series related merchandise were up 350 percent since the 1999 World Series between the Yankees and the Braves.
“We can’t stop making them,” Edward Kelly of SportsWon said. “We’ve been mass producing hats and T-shirts at a record pace since the end of the (American League and National League) championship series.” And Kelly reported that there have been far more requests for Yankees’ merchandise than for the Mets – and that wasn’t just in New Jersey.
“We ship to stores in Queens, and even there, the demand for Yankees’ stuff is higher,” Kelly said. “After all, they’re the defending champs.”
And who was Kelly rooting for?
“The Yankees, of course, all the way,” he said.
Booming business
Money speaks louder than team loyalty.
Restaurants and taverns also reported booming business, with fans streaming in to catch the games.
“I can’t believe the amount of people we’ve had in to watch the games,” said a representative at Texas/Arizona in Hoboken. “Usually, our crowd starts to thin out after 7:30 or so, but we’ve had a steady, solid crowd throughout. It’s been a lot of fun to see all the people come out.”
“It’s been steady every game,” said a representative from Houlihan’s in Secaucus’ Harmon Plaza. “Every night, we’ve had a good crowd, better than usual.”
Helping the hungry gives kids reason to cheer
While it may not have had the tension of a Roger Clemens-Mike Piazza confrontation, the Hoboken Catholic Academy had a little competition themselves surrounding the Subway Series last week. Students who were fans of both teams were encouraged to bring in cans of food for the hungry. Mets fans contributed to one pile of cans in the lunchroom and Yankees fans contributed to another a few feet away.
As of Wednesday, the can drive competition was going much the way the World Series went. Yankees fans had contributed 449 cans and Mets fans contributed 169. Off to the side sat three solitary cans.
“We have one student who is an ardent Red Sox fan so we had to include those too,” explained Assistant Principal Maria Fusiak Wednesday.
Fusiak and her colleagues seemed to have sparked a genuine enthusiasm for the drive amongst the kids, who swarmed around their respective piles whenever they were given the opportunity last week.
Part of their enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that every day a student brought in a can, school administrators allowed him or her to wear a team shirt and hat in lieu of the school uniform that day. “This is great,” said Elizabeth Caurera, a 13-year-old eighth grader. “We’ve got lots of cans and we get a break from the shirts we usually have to wear. I wish we could do this everyday.”
Although the kids seemed to be swept up in the age-old question of who was the better team, the larger issues behind the drive were not lost on them.
“I’m a Mets fan and proud to be one,” said John Hennessy, 10, who admitted to having a “Yankees suck” sign at home. “But what’s more important is doing this because people are hungry. I just feel bad for those people who don’t have the things that we have.”
So does this mean that Mets and Yankees fans have found a deeper bond that ties them together? “You could say that, but really it is the disliking thing going on around here,” said 13-year-old Alex Carnot. “That’s why we do it.”
Whatever the reason, administrators say it has been a smash success. “Since the World Mission Sunday – an effort to raise food for the hungry – takes place this year around the time of the World Series, we decided to combine the two,” said Fusiak. “It’s worked out well.” – David Danzig