Joel Sherman's article in the NY Post, "The Mets Can Take Ownership of NY from the Yanks - Right Now" http://nypost.com/2014/07/14/the-mets-can-take-ownership-of-ny-from-the-yanks-right-now/ brings to mind a letter to the editor I wrote that was published in Beckett Baseball, a monthly magazine for baseball card collectors, back in May 2005.  My letter was in response to an article a previous month, an article whose author, like Sherman in his article today, seems to have forgotten that the Mets did in fact once own the city.  Here's my letter, which Beckett headlined with "There's An "NY" On Mets' Caps, Too"

I enjoyed reading your article about the Mets in the March issue of Beckett Baseball. However, as a lifelong Mets fan, I have to take umbrage with the statements, "That's not to say the Mets are ready to overtake the Yankees as the team in New York. Quite frankly, that will never happen" and "In good times and bad, the Yankees own this town." Apparently writer Mike McAllister wasn't in NYC in the mid- and late 1980s when this was the Mets' town.  A quick look at attendance records shows that from 1984-1992, the Mets outdrew the Yankees each of those years, and over that span the Mets drew almost four million more fans to Queens than the Yankees did to the Bronx.  They also did what the Yankees have done for the past 10 years - own the backpages of NYC's papers.  While it's true they will never be able to match the history of the Yankees (what team can?), the fact is the Mets have shown in the past that NYC can be their town.