When the Mets returned from the All-Star break with a visit to Yankee Stadium last month, Brandon Nimmo, their energetic outfielder, began the game by taking a five-pitch walk, dropping his bat and — as is his custom — racing to first base.
Waiting there to greet him was a face he had known since childhood: Greg Bird, the Yankees’ first baseman.
“I was thinking, who would have thought that all those years ago, when we were 11 or 12, that we’d be in the same spot in the Subway Series with the Yankees and Mets?” Nimmo said.