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Cool article on Bloomberg about the divide on Wall Street.

Wall Street's Mets Fans Relish Baseball Misery of Rival Yankees

By Danielle Sessa

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street's bonus season arrived early this year for fans of the New York Mets. Before reaping December cash, they got October payback time.

Ask Michael Rail, an equity trader at Jefferies & Co. in Manhattan. After his Mets advanced over the weekend in Major League Baseball's playoffs on the same day the cross-town New York Yankees were dumped from contention, Rail called it ``the greatest Saturday of my life.''

It marked the first time that the Mets moved ahead in the playoffs while the Yankees, owners of 26 World Series titles and the chief tormentors of all Mets fans, exited the postseason and cleaned out their lockers.

``The Mets won and the Yankees lost,'' said Rail, a 42-year- old Mets season-ticket holder. ``How can it be any better?''

Elsewhere on Wall Street, backers of the Yankees, who have made the playoffs every year since 1995, were licking their wounds.

``There is something just wrong about it,'' said Brian Pears, a 37-year-old Yankees fan who said he was greeted by taunts from colleagues when he went to work on Monday at Nyfix Inc., an electronic-trading services company. ``It's not supposed to happen this way.''

``The fact that the Mets are still going makes it much, much worse,'' he said.

The Mets, who have won two world championships, advanced after sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in their best-of-five first-round playoff series. The Yankees were eliminated, three games to one, by the underdog Detroit Tigers.

Yankees' Dominance

Over the past 10 years the Yankees have dominated New York baseball, winning four World Series titles, including one over the Mets in 2000. Counting this season, the Mets have made the playoffs only three times in that same span.

The Mets open the best-of-seven National League Championship Series tonight against the St. Louis Cardinals at Shea Stadium in Queens. The winner meets the Oakland Athletics or the Tigers in the World Series.

In addition to sending their fans into shock, the Yankees' loss prompted three days of speculation over whether manager Joe Torre would be fired after failing for the sixth straight year to win the World Series with the sport's highest-paid club.

Torre, 66, said yesterday that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who's had 15 different managers since buying the team in 1973, told him he's staying. Steinbrenner called the Yankees' season a ``sad failure'' in a statement after they were eliminated.

Schadenfreude

Predictably, Mets fans are expressing their amusement at the disarray in Yankeeland.

Stephen Melz, a J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. trader, said he was enjoying the schadenfreude -- taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune -- because he found Yankees fans to be insufferable.

``They feel so entitled,'' Melz said. ``When they don't win, they feel so distraught. Their entitlement and the arrogance is what Mets fans hate more.''

Melz and his wife, a fan of the Yankees' division rival, the Boston Red Sox, have already passed on their baseball philosophy to their four-year-old twins. Over the weekend, he said, the twins would yell ``Yankees stink!'' anytime they saw someone wearing Yankees gear.

John McMillin, a Prudential Equity Group Inc. equity analyst, said he enjoyed the elimination of the Yankees, who tied the Mets for the best record in baseball during the regular season -- 97 wins and 65 losses -- because it should make it easier for his team to win the championship. Had the Yankees advanced and won the American League title, they might have faced the Mets in the World Series.

Yankees Pinata

``Deep down, you know the team that had the best chance to beat us was the Yankees,'' McMillin said. ``The Mets will have it easier not to play them.''

Some Mets fans had more fun celebrating the Yankees loss than the Mets victory.

Attorney Kathy Cehelsky threw a party for about 40 people at her home in Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey, to watch the final game of the Mets-Dodgers series. She told guests to arrive early to watch the Yankees-Tigers game.

After the Yankees were eliminated, she hoisted a homemade Yankees pinata that children bashed with a miniature Mets bat.

``Once they lost, we felt we could really give them a beating,'' said Cehelsky, 42, who said she'll continue to host Mets parties throughout the playoffs for good luck.

Even if the Mets lose to the Cardinals or fall to the American League champion in the World Series, Mets supporters will take solace in knowing how the Yankees' season ended.

``We didn't choke in the playoffs and they did,'' said Melz.