Honestly though, having grown up in central Jersey, I was a hardcore NY Mets fan, with the Yankees pretty high on the list. I didn't like the Phillies - I liked the Phanatic, but at the time, the Phillies were quite bad. I remember I used to always want to go to Mets and Yankees games, but my dad would never take me because he hated driving into the city; so periodically he'd take my brother and I to Phillies games. Still fun, but usually I'd be rooting for the other team.
I must admit, having lived in the Philly area for the past 4 or 5 years, the Eagles and the Phillies have grown on me. I mean, I'm no die-hard sports fan in general - I love playing sports - but as far as following - not nearly so much. I like the Phillies, but I also like the Yankees. The question now becomes, which one do I like more... enough so that I would root for one over the other. It's a tough question, especially when all my close friends here seem to be pro-Phillies all the way.
So who really cares and why is this on my mind? Well, I'm comforted by a NY Times article posted today that shows that I'm not the only one torn up on this issue. The article is about my tiny hometown, and how it's smack dab in between NY and Philly. Now, you see... the reason why I'm struggling with this goes much deeper... it goes down to my roots...
As far back as Colonial days, its Cranbury Inn served as a popular halfway stop on the two- or three-day journey by stagecoach between New York and Philadelphia, and these days both Yankees and Phillies rooters can be found at the inn’s bar.
“We swing both ways here because we have so many connections to both,” said Gay Ingegneri, who with her husband, Tom, has owned the inn for the past 14 years. “We’re definitely on the fence. Our emotions seesaw a lot.”
Exhibit A for this quandary of allegiance is Mrs. Ingegneri herself. She grew up in a small town in eastern Pennsylvania and spent four years living in Philadelphia when she was training as nurse, so she roots for the Phillies when they play any other team except the Yankees. But as the teams prepared to square off in the World Series opener Wednesday night, a childhood memory nudged her heart toward the Bronx.
....
But geographically speaking, there is no town that more capably serves as a midpoint between Yankee Stadium and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
The town of 3,200 people is in both cities’ orbits, about 50 miles from both New York and Philadelphia, and residents travel to both by driving 15 minutes to the Princeton Junction station, which is on the Amtrak and New Jersey Transit lines. The town also gets television channels from both New York and Philadelphia.
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for the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/nyregion/29midpoint.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
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