First and foremost, Willie Randolph is a Yankee, having spent most of his 18-year playing career in the Bronx, including on two World Series championship teams. Those years are at the heart of this memoir, but he also spent several years managing the Mets, which gives him a interesting perspective on the big-league rivalry in the Big Apple.
Here's an excerpt from "The Yankee Way":
“Call it part of what some think of as Yankees’ arrogance, or just simply the fact that we played in different leagues and I played at a time when there was no inter-league play, but in a lot of people’s minds the Mets were a kind of distant moon around the Yankee planet.
“Personally, I’ve never agreed with that. Despite the intense interest the Yankees generate, New York is a National League town historically, and there has been interest in the so-called Senior Circuit since before the Yankees existed. The New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers were both NL teams. I don’t know if it’s the history, the fact that there’s no designated hitter in the NL, or what, but the Mets buzz is different than the Yankees. When they are winning, as they were in 2000, it’s not like when the Yankees are winning. Maybe Yankee fans are so accustomed to success that they don’t get as hyped up about the regular season as the Mets fans do. Maybe the Mets’ success, being a rarer commodity, is more valuable.”