Mets fans rooting for Phillies

Some "we're the team to beat" comments from Jimmy Rollins and a couple of September pennant races in 2007 and '08 that went south for the Mets pale in comparison.

"It's always the enemy of the enemy is my friend," said Mike McGann, who runs a Web site for Mets fans called Flushing University. "There's been some discussion [on his site] of this. I think we're all pulling for the Phillies."

Don't misunderstand: Mets fans, seeing a Phillies-Yankees series for the first time since the Mets came into existence in 1962, won't bring much fire to their rooting this time.

"Yeah, this is a tough one," said Mitch Ardman, who now lives outside New Hope in Bucks County, but grew up in Buchanan, N.Y. "I'm rooting for a few snow-outs, 34 degrees and some bone-chilling drizzle, and a brawl."

However, Ardman admitted, "since the Mets tanked so early, I guess I actually lost some of my anti-Philly/Yankee passion."

The flip side: With a return trip to the World Series, Phillies fans are finding out what Yankees fans have always felt. Who cares about Mets fans, anyway?

Historically, Phillies fans have cared, and loved it when Rollins ramped up the rivalry or Cole Hamels called the Mets "choke artists" last winter on a New York radio station.

Mainly because the Mets and Phillies haven't been good at the same time too often, the Phillies remain down the list of Mets rivals, still below the Braves and probably the Cardinals, said McGann, who grew up in Passaic County, N.J.

Even current individual Phillies "have a long way to go to get past some of the great ones," McGann said. "Chipper Jones - when you name your kid after Shea Stadium because you hit so well there, and frankly, Pat Burrell drove us more crazy because he didn't hit so well against anybody else. Rollins talked a lot, but so have Mets players."

With their team long out of it, actual rationality is popping up from these Mets fans. McGann, who now lives deep in Phillies territory, in Pocopson, Chester County, said a lot of Mets fans look at Chase Utley and say they'd love to have him at second base. (He's like a David Wright who actually hits home runs, McGann said.)

McGann also guesses that a lot of people will be pulling for Pedro Martinez since they loved Pedro when he pitched for the Mets and he has a Yankee-killing history.

"There was confusion - they so badly needed pitching, how come they didn't try to bring him back?" McGann said of the Mets and Martinez this year.

"Both those teams have some individual players you can root for," Ardman said in an e-mail, mentioning Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, and Pedro for the Phillies. And even on the Yankees, Ardman said, "Teixeira is actually playing defense, and I have come to appreciate that Mariano [Rivera] is really that good."

Don't get him wrong about this series - "it's going to be annoying either way," said Ardman, mainly because he lives in Phillies territory and works in Yankees territory in Central Jersey.

But even in Queens, don't look for any Mets fans jumping off the Whitestone Bridge.

"We survived the Yankees-Braves series [in 1996 and again in 1999], which at the time was much worse," McGann said.