That the Cubs have won four in a row, is only bettered by the Mets losing 10 in a row. Why does that make me happy when the Mets success or failure really doesn’t have any bearing on the Cubs overall success? From 1969-1993 both teams competed in the NL East. I get why the league has expanded and more teams make the playoffs, but I prefer teams playing their division foes 18 times a season.

Unlike older Cub fans, the 1969 Cub collapse wasn’t as traumatic for me. I was only 4 years old at the time and my Dad didn’t mope over the playoff-omission. Rather, I grew to dislike the Mets and several players over the next fifty years, just because and most of their fans are pretty annoying too. I know several fans my age an older who still harbor ill feelings for their former division rivals. Some would say to let it go, but I think that is what’s fun about sports rivalries. One can respect individual players for their greatness or effort, but one needn’t like them. If a heated rival joins your team, that conundrum is personal. Bulls fans cozied up to Dennis Rodman when he joined the team and helped them win three more titles.

With the exception of ’69 and ’86, the Mets haven’t been as great as New York and the media pretend. In fact between their WS appearances in ’73 and ’86 they were pretty mediocre at best.

Even without the aid of Baseball Reference in similar sites, I’m able to list hundreds of former Mets from my youth and I liked several, but never openly rooted for them. I can cite a hundred Busters that failed miserably for each of the NL East teams from the 70’s and early 80’s. Unfortunately, a bunch of them wore Cubs pinstripes.

Michael Conforto is the most recent guy to have played for both the Cubs and Mets and I’m hoping his Cub career surpasses what he did in NYC. Fans of any franchise can do the same exercise with their hated/heated rivals. In some cases, the players do well for both teams, other times, the guys are busts for both teams, but the fun stories where the guy fails miserably for his second team. Fans can hold that over one another even if they never meet or talk.

Because the Cubs broadcasters of my youth rarely discussed a player’s CV, I had no idea that J.C Martin ever played for the Mets and White Sox. He was just a third string catcher that batted lefty. However, I think every Cub fan realized that Dave Kingman was a big time home run hitter before he got to Wrigley. To this day, I have no idea if Kingman was as miserable tool in the Big Apple as he was in his hometown.

I’m already looking forward to seeing fifty unhappy Mets fans at tomorrow’s afernoon tilt at Wrigley and would love to see Conforto win it with a couple homers and not because of 1969, but rather the sweep in 2015. Editor’s note: The Cubs took the season series 7-0 but got swept in the playoffs and I was at Game 4.