Rooting for a team to root for.

It's seemed inevitable since mid-season somewhere. The Yankees were looking like a team that could not be stopped by anyone in the American League. There was just a certain buzz I felt about that team, that they were determined to put aside their 21st century failures, even destined, and noone was going to stand in their way.

It's hard to say this as a diehard Mets fan, but I think deep down I've been rooting for the Yankees to win it all this season. Maybe because I see the reactions of Yankee fans, the hope, excitement, and expectations, and as a Mets fan with somewhat Yankee-like expectations the past few seasons, I don't want to see those fans' crushed like I have been. It's just not right. That's not what we love sports so much for.

Of course, if you were to say those same Yankee fans deserve to be crushed, I would not blame you. A part of me would certainly be on that side of the fence. It's the same old argument. They have already won the World Series 26 times, let someone else share in the excitement, they don't need more, they buy their championships, etc. And the fans love to rub that number 26 in everyone's faces at every opportunity, and will simply call the haters jealous and inferior. I see t-shirts comparing the amount of Yankees trophies to Red Sox trophies. It's all fine and good to hate the Yankees and their fans.

But imagine yourself as a Yankees fan (unless you are one already). It's easy, even fun, to be a fan of the hated team when you're on top of the world, as they were from 1996-2000. But when you build yourself up as the Evil Empire, everyone is there to laugh at you when you fall. The Yankees have given their fans huge expectations and have failed to deliver the past eight seasons, including watching the Red Sox win twice.

You can point to teams such as the Cubs with longer World Series droughts and say Yankees fans have nothing to complain about, but no team gives as high expectations and promises of success as the Yankees do, and it's not even close. And Yankee fans are just as passionate about their team as anyone else, maybe more so. And don't give me the argument that you prefer to be a fan that wins less but is not "evil" like the Yankees, because if you were born a Yankee fan, you would still be a diehard Yankee fan today.

I can't believe I'm defending Yankee fans right now.

But I still hate them. I want them to lose. I do not want them to have a 27th to rub in all our faces and to be able to call themselves the defending champions.

I also hate the Phillies, and I want them to lose, too. And like the Yankees, it has seemed for awhile that they were destined to arrive in the World Series for the second consecutive year. It's just the final piece in the humiliation that Mets fans have to endure this season.

Am I saying that the Dodgers and Angels will lose their respective series'? No. Both teams dominated in the Divisional Series, and as I type this, the Dodgers have taken a 1-0 lead in Game 1. But I am saying I don't expect them to win. I just hope that at least one of them does, or this will be a very painful World Series.