It doesn’t take a true baseball expert to know that the Yankees and Mets, despite playing just seven miles apart, aren’t true rivals. After all, aside from the exhibition preseason “Mayor’s Trophy” games, they never met each other on a baseball diamond until June 1997 due to MLB’s relatively late introduction of interleague play.
The only time the two teams have ever met for anything of consequence came in 2000, when they faced off in a World Series that would give the two teams that divided the city
a chance to really become a rivalry, and there were storylines abound. Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza’s Game 2 incident. Former Met José Vizcaíno’s walk-off hit in extra innings of the Fall Classic opener, after a furious rally in the ninth led by Paul O’Neill’s tenacious at-bat against nemesis closer Armando Benítez. Mets legend Dwight Gooden facing his former team as a member of the Yankees’ playoff pitching staff. A chance for the Mets, 40 years into their existence, to step out of big brother’s shadow.
Of course, those dynasty Yankees were just a level above the rest of the competition, completing the three-peat with a five-game series capped by Luis Sojo’s heroics to complete a tumultuous 2000 campaign for the Bombers. But even in defeat, the Mets competed all series long, and it showed what this rivalry could be when both teams are nationally relevant.
But the problem that the Subway Series has often suffered is that there’s rarely mutual relevance. When the Mets won it all in 1986, Don Mattingly’s Yankees were in the midst of a franchise-record playoff drought. For much of the late-’90s dynasty, the Mets were just a step short. When the Yankees were back on top in 2009, the Mets lost 92 games. When David Wright and company revived them in 2015, the Yankees were fading as their veterans faded into the sunset. On, and on, and on.
2024 was something new. For the first time in over two decades, both teams had gone on a deep playoff run, and there was genuinely a world where the two teams could’ve squared off in the 2024 World Series. Alas, the Dodgers ended the “OMG” Mets’ unlikely run in the NLCS before beating the Yankees in the Fall Classic, but that proved to only be an appetizer for what came next.
Over the last two years, the Yankees and Mets have turned what was once a neat crosstown fling into something real, something that the city itself can embrace as an event. Considering the state of the other New York crosstown rivalries (looking at you, Knicks-Nets and Giants-Jets), it’s something that’s badly needed as spring turns to summer and the reality that the Knicks’ deep playoff run has to end at some point.
The real catalyst for what made this a rivalry was the signing heard around the world, just over a month after the 2024 season ended. As we all know, Juan Soto decided one year in pinstripes was enough and went across town, signing a deal that could pay him over $800 million over the next 15 years to make a true statement. Under billionaire hedge fund owner Steve Cohen, the Mets were done spending at a subpar rate.
Since then, the Mets have continued to add old Yankees across their ever-changing roster, converting former closer Clay Holmes into a pretty solid rotation piece and adding both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver this past offseason after spending the prior season as the closer and setup man in the Bronx for much of it. These moves weren’t made to create crosstown heat, but have certainly added to it as part of Cohen’s new edict.
Excellence was now demanded in the same way the Yankees had operated for decades upon decades. For the first time in over 15 years, both the Yankees and Mets spent at a New York level, both exceeding the luxury tax and reaching a once-unthinkable $300 million payroll threshold. While that spending resulted in nothing but extraordinary disappointment in 2025 and frustration so far in 2026, it’s lifted the Mets into a level of expectation and relevance they’ve rarely had.
It’s raised them to a point where they’re just not another interleague team on the schedule. It’s not at the level of a high-stakes divisional rivalry (although it may be if MLB proceeds with radical realignment upon expansion), but it’s threatening to test the boundaries of interleague baseball as a whole.
What are the best interleague rivalries, anyway? Yankees-Dodgers because of the prestige and history? The other two crosstown rivalries in Los Angeles and Chicago? Regional spats like Orioles-Nationals, Royals-Cardinals, and Reds-Guardians? None of these has the true potential of the Subway Series, which divides families, friendships, and the biggest city in the world down the middle.
As much as both sides tend to deny it, they both have eyes on the other side when their respective teams aren’t playing. Mets fans revel in the chance to slowly shift a decades-long power dynamic that has established the Yankees as the gold standard, while Yankees fans look towards ex-players struggling and that same power dynamic to hope for dysfunction elsewhere.
Tickets for this weekend’s mid-May series at Citi Field are very expensive, with get-in prices over $100 for all three games on secondary market outlets. The return series surrounding the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in the Bronx has similar price points.
There are countless times in the past when there’d be thousands of empty seats during these games or large fan takeovers due to one of the teams being in the doldrums. While 2026 hasn’t started out great for the Mets, there’s still enough buzz around the team that will make this weekend heated — at least in the stands, that is. They seem quite civil on the field.
