NEW YORK — At exactly 7:12 p.m. on a cloudy night in the Bronx, the tax on Juan Soto’s $765-million contract with the Mets came due.
This was not a sum that he had to pay the IRS, but rather, a special fee that 47,700 fans of the team he left behind extracted with rising decibels, vulgar chants and single-finger salutes.
A few tried to turn their backs in a silent protest. But for the most part? The reception at Yankee Stadium was every bit as ugly as expected when Soto stepped to the plate and, leaning into the role of a WWE villain with panache, tipped his batting helmet.
“They were really loud," Soto said later, acknowledging that in a major-league career with nearly 3,500 at-bats, this was the most vicious booing he had ever heard.
It was loud, yes, but hardly surprising. Soto had to know this night was inevitable 156 days earlier when just six weeks removed from a World Series trip with the Yankees, he signed a 15-year contract with their hated crosstown rivals.
He had to know this treatment, maybe the angriest reception a former player had received from his old team, would be part of the (historic) deal. He swore he was ready for it.
“It’s going to be fun,” Soto had promised the day before. But as he stepped out of the on-deck circle and into the batter’s box at Yankee Stadium, the crowd had a much different F-word on its mind.
Soto is not the first star athlete to switch teams, of course. Michael Jordan had to play in Chicago in a Wizards uniform. Tom Brady returned to New England with the skull and swords of the Buccaneers logo on his helmet. Even Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, two iconic Mets, played for the Yankees later in their careers.
In the history of New York sports, however, it is hard to find a higher-profile player who switched from one borough to another in his prime like Soto did last winter. The move not only solidified the Mets as National League contenders but signaled them as top dogs (and spenders) in New York baseball.
Yankees fans do not forget, and unless he somehow ends up wearing pinstripes again, they are unlikely to forgive.
Here is the full minute-by-minute breakdown of Soto’s return to the Bronx:
3:24 p.m.
The hallway that leads to the visiting clubhouse is lined with pallets of hot dog buns and bottled water, and the few people passing through this area of Yankee Stadium that fans do not see are too busy with their jobs to worry about Soto’s arrival.
Besides, Luis Rueda said, it’s early. Rueda, a longtime Yankees employee, is the man who makes sure only authorized visitors gain access to the visiting clubhouse. The traveling teams usually arrive together, via team bus, but some stragglers will come a little early.
“A few even take the subway,” Rueda said.
Just then, from down the hall, a figure comes into view as he walks past a line of golf carts. It is hard to imagine Soto taking the 4 train, but here he is, dressed in white jeans, a white T-shirt and a fashionable blue blazer.
He makes a peace sign as a photographer snaps a few photos.
“Hi, Juan,” a sportswriter said.
“Wassup, wassup!” he replied.
And, just like that, we’re off.
3:51 p.m.
“We’re open!” Rueda said.
Twenty-seven minutes later, the media are allowed through the door that Soto entered, but the veteran scribes know better than to expect an actual sighting of the Mets star at his locker. “He is never in here before games,” one said, and sure enough, his locker is empty.
But, on this night, Soto is full of surprises. He comes to his stall for three minutes — to put on his cleats and fetch his sunglasses — as two young clubhouse attendants stand guard as the least intimidating security detail ever.
He then slips out of the clubhouse, but not before making one quick stop ... to hug longtime Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman.
4:36 p.m.
Howie Rose knows that this night might become something far more memorable than just another of the 162 games he’ll call this season. Still, after 30 years as a Mets broadcaster and another 20 in the business, he isn’t about to get overheated with the hyperbole.
“You just see it and say it,” said Rose, the play-by-play voice on WCBS 880 (880 AM). “You never think about it. Your body tells you. I like to think of it that your body is like a tachometer in a car. If you’re used to idling at 5,500, a game like this might get it up to 7,000. But it’s involuntary. You’re not messing with the engine. It’s messing with you.”
Rose figures the fans will dictate what he’ll say — and, even then, “we’ll have to say very little because what they’re yelling will speak for itself.” Some of his calls of the bigger Mets moments, especially Francisco Lindor’s dramatic postseason home runs last October, have gone viral.
The moment makes the call possible. Would Rose get one on this night?
”I don’t think we have to preheat the oven before Soto leaves the on-deck circle," Rose said with a laugh.
4:44 p.m.
So how should the fans react?
That question filled up hours of sports radio chatter this week, even with the Knicks playing the Celtics on Friday night for a chance to reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in a quarter century.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone had pleaded for creativity, which is another way of asking for something other than the usual ‘F--- Juan Soto’ chants. “Hopefully, everybody stays in line and appreciates to very good teams,” Boone said.
Good luck with that.
Carlos Mendoza knew better. The Mets manager (and former Yankees bench coach) has seen the Subway Series from both sides of the rivalry. He knows the key to beating the Yankees in the Bronx is not to let the vitriol fuel you.
“Being around him for the last two months now, if anybody is able to handle it, it’s Juan,” Mendoza said. “He’s just got to enjoy it, embrace it and be himself.”
5:01 p.m.
There is safety in numbers for fans when they are entering enemy territory. And, for Mets fans on Friday night, that number is “22.”
In the long line outside Gate 4 in the minutes before the doors opened, at least nine invading fans were wearing Soto’s No. 22 jersey. Two of them, Jay Krakowsky and his daughter, Brooke, had made the 90-minute drive from Barnegat for the game.
“So far, nobody’s reacted to (the jerseys) — I’m really surprised about that,” Jay Krakowsky said. “But I guess it’s early.”
Less common were the fans in the No. 22 home jerseys. Jimmy Carbone, from North Haven, Connecticut, was one of them.
“I got this after he signed with the Mets — it was, like, $100 off. I figured somebody would wear No. 22 sooner or later,” Carbone said, and for the record, it was much sooner. “Now I’m the biggest Ben Rice fan out there!”
Ayden Hughes wasn’t wearing his No. 22 to celebrate Rice, the first baseman who switched to that number from the unsightly 93 when Soto left the team. The 15-year-old from Long Island taped a folded sheet of paper to the back of his jersey over the number with a message for his favorite team’s defector.
“SELLOUT!”
5:23 p.m.
Twenty-three minutes. That’s how long it took for the Yankees fans to start booing Soto, and frankly, it was surprising it took that long.
Soto has made an appearance in right field to shag balls during the Mets batting practice, but the actual shagging part of this exercise is secondary to the conversations he is having with his Mets teammates. The fans are undeterred.
“BOOOOO!” a few hundred of the early-arriving fans yelled.
Soto was unmoved — literally and figuratively. Then, finally, a long line drive comes too close to where he was standing for Soto not to try to make the catch. When his lackadaisical effort fails to corral the baseball …
“YEEEAAAH!” the same fans roared and laughed.
He would spend about seven minutes in the outfield, and the one ball he did catch, he tossed to a fan hanging over the wall along the first-base line. It was a Yankees fan. See, everyone? He’s not all that bad.
6:49 p.m.
The giant scoreboard screen in centerfield was going through the usual pre-game routine of showing fans mugging it up for the camera when it caught one with his pinstripe jersey unbuttoned in the front. The fan started to pull it all the way open to reveal a message on a T-shirt underneath, but the quick-thinking cameraman jerked to his right in time to prevent a complete reveal.
This is what fans saw on that T-shirt for just a second:
*CK
UAN
OTO
7:19 p.m.
From the seats just beyond the short porch in right field, the fans were ready.
The Mets had stranded Soto on second after his first-inning walk and stolen base, and when he came running out to take his spot in right field, the boos started as soon as he stepped out of the visiting dugout. This wasn’t quite as loud and sustained as his first at-bat, but it was close.
Soto tapped his heart with his left hand and pointed at the jeering fans. Some of them pointed back at him, only with a different single finger.
“I get why they’re mad,” said Matthew Liberato, another Mets fan in a Soto jersey, from his right-field seats five rows up. “He’s a great player — and we got him on our side."
The Yankees fans around him now had a full half inning to serenade Soto, who stood just 10 yards away. And, maybe taking Boone’s advice, they dropped the F-bombs and started getting creative.
“WE GOT GRISHAM!” they chanted, referring to Trent Grisham, one of the surprise players who’s replaced Soto’s production in the lineup this season. If Soto heard that one, he didn’t react.
8:23 p.m.
The Yankees are cruising, but that’s not on Soto. He followed his first-inning walk with another free pass in the fourth inning, scoring on a Brandon Nimmo single.
Even with a 6-1 lead in the fifth, the Yankees fans greeted Soto in his third at-bat with nearly the same intensity as his first. He worked the count full and picked up another walk.
Maybe the fans were chanting something else ...
“WALK JUAN SOTO?”
For variety, Soto grounds out to short for the first out in the seventh inning.
9:27 p.m.
The game is a snoozer, but the crowd comes alive when the good news from nine miles away is posted on the big scoreboard screen.
Halftime: Knicks 64, Celtics 37
The way this night is going, plenty of fans are going to save some energy from booing Soto to cheer for the hometown NBA heroes. Who could blame them?
10:03 p.m.
Two outs. Runners on second and third in the top of the ninth. A once-comfortable Yankees lead looking suddenly shaky at 6-2. Who stepped to the plate for the fifth and final time?
Who else.
Even with a four-run lead, Boone opted to bring in his closer, Luke Weaver, to face Soto. One swing could cut the Yankees lead to a single run, and on Weaver’s second pitch, Soto took a huge cut ... and hit a lazy fly ball to center.
Frank Sinatra serenaded him with “New York, New York” as Soto trotted off the field, tapping his old teammate, Weaver, on the leg as they crossed paths.
“It’s just another game, you know,” Soto, already dressed in that same stylish blue blazer, said when the clubhouse doors opened to the media. “It’s really (unfortunate) that we couldn’t get the win, but I don’t focus at all on the fans. We have to be a professional and focus on winning the game.”
It was 10:19 p.m. when he walked out of the clubhouse and back down that Yankee Stadium corridor. In less than 15 hours, he had to run back on this field and do this all over again.
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