My parents, both baseball fans, knew when I was born that I would root for a team from New York.

I’m sure they expected it to be their team, the Yankees. The Yanks had just won the World Series for the fifth straight year. And given the Italian heritage of the team – Lazzeri, Crosetti, DiMaggio, Rizzuto and Berra – it seemed likely.

My Dad had grown up in Brooklyn and been to his share of Dodger games, especially during World War II when kids got in for bringing old tires or scrap metal to the gate. He had a soft spot for them – they were the team of Duke Snider, Carl Furillo and Jackie Robinson. And they were pretty good, having won the past two National League pennants.

Neither of my parents were fond of the Giants, who played in Manhattan across the Harlem River from the Yankees. But the Giants had inspired all of baseball in 1951 when Bobby Thomson’s famous home run capped a spectacular comeback. And they were getting their young phenom, Willie Mays, back from two years in the military.

So which of those three teams would the new gleam of their eye cheer for when he turned 70 years old in 2024?

Meet the Mets.

No, kids, the Mets did not exist in 1954 – although you could have confused them with the hapless Washington Senators of Douglas Wallop’s best-selling novel, “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant,” which was in the process of becoming a Broadway musical.

New York baseball fans did not imagine that the Dodgers and Giants would leave. Maybe the Giants, although they won the World Series in 1954 with the help of Mays’ play known simply as “The Catch ” Brooklyn loved the Dodgers and Ebbets Field, the bandbox where they played, and that bond seemed unbreakable.

But Walter O’Malley – who bought the Dodgers in 1950 – wanted a new, modern stadium – and he wanted it in downtown Brooklyn, where the Barclays Center arena is today. The city, in the person of “Master Builder” Robert Moses, offered him a place in Flushing instead, thinking O’Malley was bluffing about moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles. 

Bad call, Bob. O’Malley took the team west – and convinced Giants owner Horace Stoneham to go to San Francisco.

From 1958 through 1961, New York had one team. The Yankees. But there were way too many National League fans for that to last too long. After a lot of threats to form a third league, New York was granted a franchise to begin playing in 1962.

There were a lot of things that made the Mets attractive to me. They were building a stadium very close to where we lived in Flushing. My Dad took me to the ground breaking for what would become Shea Stadium in 1961. 

And then, when Yogi Berra was fired as manager after the Yanks won the pennant but lost the World Series in 1964, that was it. My grandfather and I were Mets fans.

Being a Mets fan is a lot harder than being a Yankees fan. A lot. Mets fans have suffered through some of the worst baseball ever played. The team still holds the modern record for the worst season ever – 40 wins, 120 losses in 1962. There are a lot more losing seasons than winning ones. Yes, there’s the occasional miracle – see 1969 – but heartbreak is the default mode.

And we’re fatalistic to a flaw. 

One time, my Mom and I were watching a game entering the ninth inning with the Mets up 4-2. I said “Goodbye, Mom.” And she responded, “How can you leave? Don’t you want to see them win?”

I said. “No, I don’t want to see them lose.”

My mother was too used to rooting for a team with Mariano Rivera as its closer. “Oh, ye of little faith. Stay and watch them win.”

“OK,” I said. “I’ll stay to prove my point.”

Which the Mets did. Final score: San Francisco 5, Mets 4.

But it’s also a lot more fun to be a Mets fan. When we’re winning, we’re happy and loud, full of braggadocio for a team that more often doesn’t have much. Met fans brought clever banners to the ballpark and embraced quirky players from Marvelous Marv Throneberry to Daniel Vogelbach. They’re the team of Hayden “Sidd” Finch and Chico Escuela, who don’t really exist, but the Mets went along with the joke. 

It seems like work to be a Yankee fan – if the team doesn’t win the World Series, the whole year is an abysmal failure.

So let Los Angeles have the Dodgers. Let San Francisco have the Giants. Let the Bronx have its Bombers. They might have all been here in 1954, but two of them are gone now.

We have the Mets. LGM!