It was the 4th of July in 2025, and you could just feel the summer on your skin. Thanks to some very thoughtful planning by my partner, I can now say that my first ever baseball game was a Subway Series — Mets against the Yankees, at Citi Field, on Independence Day. To say it was iconic would be an understatement.
The energy at the ballpark that day was electric. There is nothing quite like catching that first glimpse of the diamond — the grass always greener than you’d imagine. Droves of people in team jerseys and caps were making their way to their seats. The concession stands were bustling: popcorn, fries, hot dogs, Coors Lights, Surfsides. It was like something out of a movie.
I have always been in awe of how effortlessly sport can galvanise strangers. During my years in England, it was almost impossible to escape the way football is woven into the fabric of national pride. The same is true, of course, of India and cricket. And yet I had always stayed on the sidelines of spectation. Not for lack of wanting the fraternity of it — I had friends who loved their sports — but my family had never felt any strong kinship with a team, or a game. I played tennis for about seven years growing up, and even that remained a casual after-school thing, nothing more. Somewhere along the line, I suppose, I simply chalked sport up to something that wasn’t really for me.
Baseball is an intimidating sport for anyone new to the game. You are immediately met with a rolodex of statistics that bear on real outcomes, until it feels almost as though you cannot be a fan without knowing what they all mean. So I didn’t expect much that day — just a good time in the sun and some good food. I certainly did not expect to fall in love.
How do you find your team, or your game, if you did not inherit it? Do you try and fail, and fail again, until something just — I don’t know — catches? They say love happens when you least expect it. That July 4th afternoon, as my partner sat patiently explaining the rules and the numbers, often more than once, I felt my inhibitions about loving a sport melt away. I didn’t need to know all the numbers and what they meant. I didn’t need to know the whole history, all the players, who was traded and why. I didn’t need to love the game the way everyone else did — I could love it the way I loved it. That was enough.
The Mets won that day. I had worn a Mets jersey out of respect — I hadn’t picked a team yet, and I was in their house. That summer, I found myself at quite a few more games, settling deeper into a familiarity I was slowly earning. Mets fans barbecuing in the lot outside Citi Field before first pitch. The small sacrament of walking through the halls of Yankee Stadium. Strangers turning warm and friendly the moment they clocked a team jersey. It felt as though the tradition of sport had finally welcomed me into its fold.
As the season ended and I went home, I hibernated for the winter. I didn’t follow the baseball news, or even the World Series, closely. I didn’t feel like I had to.
This May, I found myself back in New York, back at Citi Field for the third game of this year’s Subway Series — and it all came flooding back. This year, I was excited to find my team, to watch the game and see if something clicked. But as we found our seats, my partner filled me in: the Mets had gutted the roster. A number of the players whose names I had learned were gone. There were now four ex-Yankees in Mets colours. Last year, when the Mets won, my partner had joked that I might be a good luck charm. This year, for most of the game, it looked as though they would lose — right up until the bottom of the ninth, when, in a moment that can only be called an instant classic, they staged a stunning comeback and won it in the tenth.
So tell me, how is a girl to choose? Yankees or Mets? Whom do I claim — or better yet, who claims me? God, I wish I knew. The teams change faster than I can work out whose colours I should wear. How do you love something that just won’t hold still? Maybe I need to put in more time before I get my when you know moment. Maybe I love the freedom of caring only about the game. I suppose loving the game was always going to come before loving the team.
Or maybe the heart picks a team long before the head agrees to wear the jersey — and mine simply hasn’t told me yet. So, until it does, you will find me in the stands in a borrowed jersey, there for nothing but the love of the game.
The Big Smokey Apple 