The Great NY Debate - Epilogue

 In 1962 the National League expanded into Queens and the New York Mets were born. To honor the previous NY teams that left, they chose to color their team in Dodger blue and Giant orange and to utilize a familiar NY on their caps. They even had Casey Stengel managing the club to give fans a mix of all the NY teams to come out for. Meanwhile, the Yankees were still around, doing their best to also continue the tradition of winning that NY fans were used to seeing in the city.

There was no elite threat in Center for the Mets, though Ashburn was chosen as the lone representative for the all star game. Ashburn and Hickman platooned in Center for the inaugural season. The team was garbage, setting the record for losses at 120. As bad as they were, the city had a soft spot for their scrappy infant team. With the Yankees still elite, fans were just thankful to have an NL team and supported them.
The Yankees in the meantime had been laboring to keep the city on top. They missed the World Series in '59 but returned in '60 and lost. Then they stormed back in '61 and handled business to win their 19th title in history. While the Mets were setting records for losing in 1962, the Yankees were on the other end of the scale and won the World Series yet again.

The Mets wouldn't be cut the same slack in 1963 and beyond as the fans quickly grew tired of the losing. The Yankees of '63 and '64 would return to the World Series but come up short both times, then finally become human and run into a string of failure because of bad team ownership. It would take a "miracle" for the city to see winning again for a while.

The city did have something cool to talk about in 1963 though...

Duke Snider was back in the city, purchased by the Mets to join their outfield jumble. Just like how there was no "regular" Centerfielder in 1962, the Mets used several players to man the different outfield positions at different times. Casey Stengel loved platooning his players, unless you were an all time great switch hitter named Mantle. Snider was at the tail end of his HoF career, but his former rivals in NY were still going strong...

Mays and Mantle met for the last time in the 1962 World Series, where it was a new location but the same result for the Giants as Mays had to watch Mantle celebrate yet again. Both continued to lead their teams well in 1963...

Snider would call it a career after 1964, but before he quit he decided to take the advice of "if you can't beat em, join em" and team up with Mays.

After Snider joined Mays, it left Mantle alone again to lead the Yankees to his final World Series. The Mets were still bad.

The Mets aren't their own team. They're the awkward combination of the Giants and Dodgers in attempt to appeal to fans. It helped their cause when they brought in Snider at the end of his career, and in 1972 they completed the set by trading for Mays.
In 1973 it was just Mays alone. Snider had retired after teaming up with Mays and Mantle retired after '68. Mays would spend his final season in the city where it all began. It seems fitting that way.

Unlike the '40s and '50s, the city didn't quite have the same luck with all their teams being good at the same time. The Yankees would resurface in the late '70s but instead rekindle their rivalry with the Dodgers. The Mets would get things working in the 80's but faced the Red Sox in the fall classic. Then when the Yankees were starting up their dynasty in the '90s the Mets were stuck under the heel of the Atlanta Braves in their division. But in 2000, the stars aligned in NY. The Yankees were continuing their domination of the AL while the Mets finally caught a break and navigated their way via the wild card to give the city it's first Subway Series since 1956.

 The Centerfielders of this series were far cries from the HoF trio of the past. Both Bernie Williams and Jay Payton have official Showdown cards from their 2000 WS seasons, so instead I'll showcase their rookie seasons to show how far both had come before meeting in 2000. It's worth noting that Williams, like Mantle before him, anchored a dynasty in his own time, batting cleanup for the powerhouse 90's Yankees that won him 4 rings. Four may not seem like many compared to Mantle, but it was more than Payton, Snider and Mays combined.

Anyway...

In 1951, baseball had Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider and the debut of Mantle and Mays, and all of them called New York their home. 23 years later all four of the greatest Centerfielders of all time were gone. The men who had led the city to a near endless string of greatness had left. But baseball can be funny sometimes. The same year that saw us say goodbye to Willie Mays, another man was entering the baseball picture who would make it his mission to keep NY in the championship picture.

The terrible ownership that had led the Yankees off the mountain top of the sport was ending as the team was sold that season to a group that included a man named George M. Steinbrenner III. Thankfully for the city, just like the NY teams from John McGraw's Giants to Mickey Mantle's Yankees, George liked winning.