SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
You'd think New York's Mayor Eric Adams would want to avoid setting off new controversies. He's been indicted on five counts of bribery, wire fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. There have been numerous investigations and resignations of his closest aides and calls for his own resignation. And the mayor is up for reelection next year. This week, at New York's Columbus Day Parade, Mayor Adams pulled on a cap with the New York Mets logo on one side and New York Yankees on the other. Both teams are in the playoffs of their respective leagues. If Mayor Adams hoped to strike a sweet chord for municipal harmony, it went sour.
People on X had thoughts - another charge to the indictment. This hat is the worst thing Eric Adams has done to the people of New York City. And almost predictably, lock him up. New Yorkers can be a tough crowd, and it wasn't even a Red Sox cap.
I'm actually astonished that a furious fan of either club didn't try to cover over the mayor's two-logoed chapeau with a well-aimed bagel and a schmear. Mayor Adams now stands accused of being what amounts to a phony by purporting to be both a Mets and Yankees fan. The mayor's office says its vintage merchandise from the 2000 World Series between the Mets and Yankees, which the Yankees won four games to one. I think I can understand why the mayor of one of just two cities in this country, where what they call a subway series as possible, would cheer for both his city's clubs to be contenders. A Yankees-Met series would lighten the hearts of citizens in all five boroughs. It would mean good business for local delis, bars and souvenir vendors who sell those big puffy hands with upraised index fingers to declare, we're number one.
A subway series would fill the 4 and 7 trains with Mets and Yankees fans, going back and forth between the Bronx and Queens game to game, smiling at one another in a shared civic spirit of sportsmanship and fair play. OK, maybe that last point is a little optimistic. But whatever he intended to show by wearing his two-sided cap, I think Mayor Adams just seemed to confirm a perception many people have, that politicians can talk out of both sides of their mouths - and this week, from both sides of a baseball cap.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAY Z AND ALICIA KEYS SONG, "EMPIRE STATE OF MIND")
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