On the bus ride over (it was a trip sponsored by my father’s Masonic lodge), I asked him who he was rooting for. He said, ‘The Giants.’ I said, ‘The San Francisco Giants?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. I was all of 7 years old, and oblivious to the fact that my father was a third-generation Giants fan and a huge Willie Mays fan (Mays was inducted into the Army for Korea service, and mustered out, three days before my father). All I knew was that the Giants played in California, which was way far away. I looked at him and said, ‘How can you root for them? I’m going to root, root, root for the home team.’ Or something like that. And I became a Met fan.
The next year, the Miracle Mets won the World Series.
I remained a Met fan until at least 1986. In the meantime, I had spent some time in Massachusetts, so I became a Red Sox fan. (I couldn’t be a Yankee fan. It’s against the rules to be both a Met fan and a Yankee fan.) When my two clubs met in the World Series, I decided to sit on the fence. My posterior hurt a little bit, but I enjoyed watching the Series as a neutral observer.
Ever since, I’ve gone to games all over the place, and I root, root, root for the home team. After all, if they don’t win it’s a shame.