Of course, if George Steinbrenner were still around, the Yankees' lineup might look a little more imposing. For Steinbrenner, beating the Mets was always a priority.
"The Boss wanted to win all 162 games and 30 in spring training," said the former Yankees closer Rich Gossage.
"As players, we couldn't care less, but it was like it's the seventh game of the World Series," Gossage said of spring training matchups with the Mets. "It was like he would rather win that game than win a World Series."
Long before the 2000 Subway Series or the beginning of interleague play in 1997, the Yankees and Mets would square off in spring training. They began meeting in 1962, the year the Mets were founded, with the teams splitting a pair of games in St. Petersburg. With some interruptions, they continued to meet through 1996, the year the Yankees moved from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa.
Steinbrenner took control of the Yankees in 1973.
For the Mets, the spring training games against the Yankees were essentially a novelty and, often enough, a chance to measure themselves against a team that was far superior. For Steinbrenner, though, the Yankees-Mets games were a big deal, a sentiment increasingly hard to fathom in an age in which few fans even know the exhibition records of their own teams.
According to Gossage, Steinbrenner would march through the clubhouse before the games to let everyone know that he wanted to beat the Mets. Who cared if the Mets weren't any good? The Yankees' manager — maybe Billy Martin in one of his countless stints — would hear about it, too.
"If you didn't play well in those games he might send you to Triple-A," said Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, an assistant in those days. "It was kind of crazy. He wanted to win those games badly; everyone knew it."
In addition to the exhibition games, the Yankees and the Mets, for years, also met during the regular season in the Mayor's Trophy game, a charity event that actually dates to 1946, when the Yankees beat the Giants, 3-0, at the Polo Grounds. In fact, the Yankees have been playing exhibition games against other New York teams for over a century.
The earliest games go back to 1910, when the Yankees and the New York Giants faced one another in an ad hoc six-game series in October. One can only imagine how quickly Major League Baseball and the players association would squash that concept today, but in a year in which the Philadelphia Athletics and the Chicago Cubs played in the World Series, the Giants beat the Yankees four games to two behind three victories from Christy Mathewson.
Then, on April 21, 1912, a week after the Titanic sank, the Giants beat the Yankees, 11-2, in an exhibition game at the Polo Grounds to raise money for the survivors of the disaster. The game raised $9,425.25 for the victims.
In 1944, the Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers played a unique triangular game, with each team batting and playing defense for six innings.
The Mayor's Trophy games were played between the Yankees, the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers most years between 1946 until 1955, then resumed again with the Mets from 1963 to 1983. They were played anywhere from late April to late August, at Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium.
During Steinbrenner's tenure, the Yankees went 6-3, but the players disdained the whole idea.
"It was a pain in the butt," said Ron Guidry, the former Yankees pitching star. "It was supposed to be an off day and they made us play another game. It didn't mean anything, except to George. Bragging rights? Who cared? A couple of times guys got hurt and we just said, forget it."
According to Marty Appel, the Yankees' public relations director from 1973 to 1977 and author of the forthcoming "Pinstripe Empire," the demise of the series essentially had to do with scheduling conflicts and a dwindling lack of interest. Attendance for the final game was only 20,471.
"It died of natural causes," Appel said. "The teams finally decided to just donate the money to the charities and skip the game."
From 1989 through 1993, the teams met in the Big Apple Series and Mayor's Challenge, with one game apiece at Yankee and Shea Stadiums right before the start of the regular season. It was there that two of the biggest stars in New York, Dwight Gooden and Don Mattingly, had a chance to face one another (Mattingly grounded out twice).
But if the Yankee players dreaded this mini-series, some Mets had fun with it. David Cone, then a Met, said he enjoyed the opportunity to play in Yankee Stadium.
"We didn't take it too seriously," Cone said. "Guys didn't take B.P., and I remember Darryl Strawberry rolled out of bed and hit a monster bomb. Classic Straw. He hadn't touched a bat all day, his shoe was untied, and he went upper deck."
As for this year's series, which concludes Wednesday in Tampa, it was quietly conceived by the Yankees' traveling secretary, Ben Tuliebitz. The Yankees' schedule had two open dates for this week, so Tuliebitz called the Mets and asked if they wanted to resume the spring rivalry. The Mets said yes.
If only Steinbrenner were still around to take part. Jeter might be playing all 18 innings.
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