“A lot of the people I’ve met in New York have always said true New Yorker’s are Mets fans. So I’m excited to get a chance to see them all out there.”

Two sentences, 32 words. Apparently, that’s all it takes for Curtis Granderson to set the sports world ablaze with hilarious (or hellacious) comments and media backlash.

A glance at the Yankees’ 27 World Championships, average attendance (which smashes the Mets by well over 10,000) and $228 million payroll, it would make sense that the Yanks would dwarf the Mets in each and every fashion.

But before we delve into whether or not his comments are true, let’s take into account that Granderson is not a modern day Cicero, and like many other professional athletes, has been trained in the advanced art of talking in clichés.

There are many aspects people consider when conjuring up an image of a “true” New Yorker. One may think of a blunt, over-stressed and fast walking individual. That’s only if they forgot the ups, downs and historic baseball moments the city has grown up with. So for arguments sake, I’ll define a “true” New Yorker as a baseball lover. And when you narrow it down to a love of baseball, there may be some truth in the three-time-all-star’s statement.

As Jay-Z once said, “I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.” Pop culture icons like Jay have shown their love for the pinstripes, adding on to their popularity; in fact anyone would be hard pressed to find a prominent rapper from the early 2000s who didn’t don a Yankee cap from time to time.

The Yankees are a worldwide brand, you can find a Yankees hat in London almost as easily as you can find it in New York City and there are 27 different reasons why that is possible.

Unfortunately, with great popularity comes great dilution of the standard fan. There is a status associated with rooting for the pinstripes: you become a member the evil empire of baseball, the dark side. You become the team that has the money to do it all and wins while doing it—and not to mention, you get to wear those o’ so popular New Era 59FIFTY Yankee caps.

While the Yanks’ will always have their moderate diehards and life-long fans, they will also always have the fans who love their fan-gear but couldn’t tell you one reason why it’s a good thing that Phil Hughes is finally gone.

The New York Mets, on the other hand, don’t have the same issue. There will always be the few who wear gear solely because of the colors but the majority of people who dress the part of a Mets fans, actually are Mets fans. Not being a worldwide brand, coupled with the Metropolitans’ lack of success in recent years, makes finding a “true” fan a lot more likely.

We’re as real as cold, hard, depressing reality gets Grandy. Welcome to the Mets side.