Honestly, I have no idea how they do it.

I have the good fortune of having many non-native NYC/metro area friends, people who have lived elsewhere and have moved here. As someone who grew up within an arm's reach of Manhattan, I often wonder what it must be like to pack up everything they own and move to a strange (and in our case, immense) city and completely start over. I marvel at their ability to surrender to that huge "unknowing".

The part that strikes me the most, though, is that most of them bring with them their preferences for their home teams. And so I have friends who are Phillies fans, Twins fans, and yes, *yes* even Red Sox fans. I have even dated a Red Sox fan. ...That was strange. And clearly did not last very long.

So in a city that is all about its home teams, I wonder how they can endure the constant barrage of Yankees and Mets coverage. One friend, who is a Twins fan, recently blogged about going to every single Twins game last week in the Bronx, and how dejected he had become ~ except for the last game which made him feel a glimmer of hope. (He's also blogged about how hostile Yankees fans can be, which I think is unfortunate. I mean, I love my Bomber boys but why spread the hate?)

When he blogged about the last Twins/Yankees game, he predicted that it would mark a turnaround ... and he actually gloated about the Yanks' loss. At first I felt the fire of defensiveness course through me (how dare he insult my team and my city) ... but then I thought, sheesh. How awful must it be for him to be living here (for work) and to be so cut off from his home team?

That would be like me moving to Boston. I can't even begin to *imagine*!!!