It’s Hello and Goodbye To a Star, Depending on Your Allegiances
Yaakov and Eisav had a bitter rivalry and so have the Yankees and the Mets. But the birthright has clearly gone to the Yankees. Perhaps their fiercest opponent in a long time, the Los Angeles Dodgers, have armed themselves to the teeth, with Shohei Ohtani, who can also pitch, and the team recently signed lefty Blake Snell on top of a star-studded team that already beat the Yankees this year in the World Series.
Over the decades the Yankees-Mets feud has featured several instances of each team acquiring a player from the other, only fueling the cross-town rivalry.
This time it is the Mets who took a prime-time player – 26-year-old outfielder Juan Soto – away from the Yankees, in what is probably the most high profile player pilfering between the New York clubs. Steve Cohen, the richest owner in baseball, was able to outbid every team, and Soto will reportedly receive $765 million over 16 years, and possibly up to $800 million with incentives.
For the purposes of this article, let’s leave aside whether people hitting a ball should be paid such obscene amounts of money, and instead focus on what this means for the fan bases. Fans like to use sports to distract themselves from war, from family stress, job stress, not being as in shape as one would like, or at the very least, as a way to feel a part of something bigger than yourself – that you can cheer for and see tangible results. If only a rabbi could give a derasha and get 40,000 people to show up!
Juan Soto is among the top three players in baseball along with Ohtani and Aaron Judge. Is he the baseball version of a messiah? No. Does he guarantee the Mets a championship? No. There will be thousands of Jewish sports fans arguing whether or not the contract was a good deal for the Mets or not. But it was a statement that the power balance of getting a top player won’t only go with the Yankees or Dodgers.
Had the Dodgers signed Soto, Major League Baseball might have had to intervene. There is no salary cap in baseball, as there is in the NBA and the NFL, but there is a luxury tax. Nonetheless, Cohen doesn’t seem to care. Those who thought his owning the Mets would mean he would spare no expense to get the top player available were correct. But players don’t only opt to go for the most money. Many take all kinds of factors into consideration; for example, some players prefer to be on the West Coast where there is less pressure.
Many rabbis have told me it is not advisable to pray for a sports outcome, as prayers should be reserved for more important things. I have prayed for the Mets to win games. I did not pray for the Mets to get Soto, though I know people who did. I doubt G-d has time to worry about a baseball player.
People love something to talk about that doesn’t hurt anybody. Jubilant Mets fans can feel like big shots. There may still be more players to come. As it stands now, I doubt any team will beat the Dodgers, but we’ll see.
If there is a team that had divine intervention, it would be hard to argue it was any team other than the Mets who won the World Series in 1986 when the team was down to its last strike but came back to win.
I davened Mincha during Game 6 of the Mets-Cardinals National League Championship Series in 2006, though Carlos Beltran left the bat on his shoulder and struck out to end the team’s chances that year. In 2015, the Royals got lucky against the Mets and Lucas Duda threw a ball to the plate like he was playing hot potato. This past season, the Mets played the best they could in the playoffs against an impossible Dodger team.
As for the Yankees, they will likely retool and reload because they have Aaron Judge, a supreme power hitter, and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, one of the best pitchers in the game.
Expect the Yankees to be in contention to acquire Jewish pitcher Max Fried, and possibly pitcher Corbin Burnes and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez – all of whom are free agents. The Yankees and Mets are now Goliath and Goliath, while the Dodgers are Goliath on steroids. Mets fans that have taken abuse for years may want to unleash some hate on Yankees fans, but they should avoid that temptation.
We live in a culture that incentivizes extreme reactions. You will see Mets fans proclaim that they are walking on sunshine. Sports are both wonderful and terrible because they allow adults to act like children. But fans should not wag their finger and say, “Na, na, na na na; look what we have that you don’t.” Players are human and can get injured or not perform as well as thought. Pirkei Avot teaches: “Who is the rich? The one who is happy with his lot.’ Mets fans are much happier with their lot, even though it is not literally their lot. People want to live vicariously through their heroes and in this case many Mets fans will imagine themselves as Soto, smacking home runs to right field.
The Mets may no longer be the little brother. That is something. But the wrestling has only begun.
