Somewhere around the seventh or eighth inning of the interminably long game at Yankee Stadium, a weekend of working and drinking and football and poker caught up with me, and I started nodding off.  Probably didn’t help that I took down a cheeseburger not twenty minutes before; probably didn’t help that I’d taken two pills to ease some unprecedented and unwelcome pain in my right leg–which in itself was the result of sitting on wooden chairs for something like fourteen hours over two days.

None of these things helped, but the drowsy sleep on my couch, while maintaining minor verticality… sweet.  I love the unintended nap.  Hell, the Saturday afternoon baseball game was made for the unintended nap, unless you’re at the game itself.

Having a DVR has killed the anxiety I used to feel over doing this, too.  And boy, howdy, anxiety.  I love television like I want it to be my job.  I’d feel so bad in the days before DVR and Hulu and iTunes, having napped through something I’d looked forward to watching all week.  DVR mitigates much of that sadness.

Tonight, as I met the physiological perfect storm, I tried to stay awake despite the poor baseball being played by the likes of Scott Kazmir and others not necessarily named Scott Kazmir.  I figured I had one more good Vladimir Guerrero joke rattling in my head, and it needed out.  But I couldn’t, so I didn’t, and I went from a close-up of a pitcher boot-quaking to a melee on the mound, and put two and two together there, excused myself to my roommates, and went to bed.

I may have mumbled some wonderment at that awful steel roll-down gate in Yankee Stadium, left of center field.  For all of Citi Field’s faults, bullpen tarps inclusive, it doesn’t have a gate just begging for Kuma Moose or Neck Face or Fray to come and “graffito-tag.”  It’s just an eyesore on television.

I didn’t need to rewind to see how they’d wound it up.  I’m not that desperate to watch a Yankee game.  A bit conversely, let it be known that while I’ve recently compared the New York Yankees to Stalinist Russia, I have no seething, boiling hatred for the Yankees, and am on record on this many times over.

I slept for about five hours, and woke up thirsty and annoyed at being awake.  I enjoy sleep, especially after a good weekend, and especially aware that this upcoming week will be a bear, and committing to deejay a Halloween party means my upcoming weekend will mean the death of sleep then, too.  You should be able to tell that this post is not the most hip or polished; the stones are rolling out in no particular order.  I’m here for something more than simple boredom, but in complete honesty, boredom is not a weak motivator for this post.

As the Series match-up is set, let me mention again my rooting preference, for the sake of neatness.  Find it here.  I’ll also make something like an apology, in fact, to Jason Fry over at Faith And Fear In Flushing, who wrote the post that essentially inspired mine.  I don’t apologize for feeling as strongly as I do, certainly.  But big old bold italicized type, and intimating a connection with appeasers to the most heinous regime in modern history? Probably not cool.  That’s the unfortunate business of Godwin’s Law, and while employing it made me laugh and all that, there’s a line somewhere no one should want to think about treading.  So mea culpa, mea culpa, turn three times and spit.

This Yankee hatred from Mets fans is a growing concern to me.  I’ve been close to violating a personal guideline, which at this early hour I’ll ham-fistedly define as, “Don’t argue against another person’s hatred.”  I get hate and on the proper occasion it can be useful, even as a catalyst for catharsis.  What’s prevented me from violating that guideline is the unofficial survey I’ve been running, whose data shows that Yankee hatred in Mets fans is breaking down along generational lines.  If your first generalized baseball memories are of late eighties Met dominance, you probably care less about the comings and goings of a team in a different league that plays by different rules.  You’d much rather glare and shout obscenities at noxious Braves fans, back when they were all snorts and brimstone, and not hiding in caves or whatever they’re doing now.  If you’re older, your chances of reviling the New York Baseball Highlanders more than holes in the ozone layer, wet socks, and Crystal Pepsi are probably higher.

Again, this is a purely unofficial survey; your mileage may vary.  I don’t root for hate, but I understand it and where it might come from, even though in most cases I don’t share it.

I want to stress my opinion here, though, and while I’ve apologized in one respect, I don’t want that to take the force out of my argument: there’s no sense rooting for the legitimization of a noxious fan base, especially if you believe another noxious fan base already exists and enjoys tormenting you.  There should be no reveling if the Phillies are swept out of the Series; there should be hard, direct conversations of what tools a great many of their fans are, and some effort made to come to an understanding.  There needn’t be love, but a cessation of outright hostilities is certainly called for.  I’d like to go to a Mets-Phillies game at Citi Field unmolested.  I’d like the extended fixation on how Mets players conduct their celebrations to stop.  Other things.  It’s late enough in the night that it’s early now, and you’ve certainly got your own list.

Justify rooting for the Phillies all you want: National League; Yankees beat us when, money spent hand over fist (despite the Mets having quite large hands and fists themselves).  John Sterling, for all his annoying hucksterism, never suggested a Met take “one in the neck.“  If you need a reason besides that and Jimmy Rollins praising Johan Santana out one side of his mouth during their World Series celebration, I have more, but they won’t help you anyway.  Somewhere someone hurt you more, hurt you deeply.  This is fine if this is your motivation.

But you keep that.  Friends and I are gaming this out over the course of years to come, and the picture looks quite bleak when considering dual hegemonies: a local media darling to the north, and a smash-mouth gross team to the south; these taking different tacks and riding roughshod over Flushing.  These friends and I are not in favor of that.  One must be stopped, and the smash-mouthers to the south are more vocal, more seethingly creepy with their hate, when they hate, and that goes beyond baseball.  We’ll be rooting for them to be stopped.

Here’s something I’ll suggest as less of a thought experiment and more as a, “Hey, why not go ahead and do it, and tell me how it goes”: if you read this and are still convinced I don’t know my *** from a hole in the ground, get yourself a round trip Amtrak ticket to 30th Street Station in Philly, hail a cab there to Ninth and South Streets, find yourself a bar, and hunker down for one of the games.  Don’t forget your Mets cap.

**Related note: Mets fans who still do root for the Phillies are still real Mets fans, and stil real baseball fans.  I may consider them woefully, atrociously misguided, but they’re still fans.

Oh, please.