IT’S A BIG TOWN

If you are a New York sports fan, living and following professional sports takes on a dimension all it’s own. It seems each major sport has it’s own rivalry within the confines of the area. Yes, the Yankees do have the Red Sox, but when it comes to fan based pride, the Mets are the target. Every year the two teams vie for ownership of New York. So far, the Yankees hold the title, deed and all the leases, licenses and the only thing the Mets own is a losing record!

The Babe

The list of immortal Yankees reads as it should, like a Who’s Who of baseball. Needless to say, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Rizzuto, Berra, Jeter, Rivera, Dickey, Martin, Ford, Reynolds and Raschi, just to name a few have dominated baseball through the years.

In basketball for years it has been the New York Knicks hands down. Even when the Nets had winning seasons and the Knicks were losing, it’s been a Knick town. Like the glamour and history of Yankee Stadium had, the Garden dominates with its excitement and geo-location.

Although the Championship seasons have been few and far between it seems, they still are a great ticket in town to have, no matter how dreary the team may be. This season, in spite of lousy ownership, excitement is being generated at a fever pitch. Meanwhile the Nets who don’t own a fan base and never will, will be moving back to the New York area once again, before they contemplate moving back to New Jersey, some time in the future.

ED-DIE. ED-DIE! Giacomin

Hockey, which is being elevated to ‘sport’ by this writer, since no one really watches it in NY, most fans come from outer space and land on the Garden roof to view the games. The Rangers own New York City.  There is a farm team that the Rangers practice with called the Islanders, a very good farm team that could probably finish consistently in third or fourth place in any minor league can’t really be called a rival. The Rangers again, like the Knicks, own a piece of Madison Square Garden. Although the Rangers only win Stanley Cups when they feel like it about once every 50 years, (They are planning a ticker tape parade for them in June of 2044) they still own the hockey part of NYC.

That takes me to BIG BLUE, the New York Giants, the titans of Gotham. To suggest any team other than the New York Giants own the town would be blasphemy, except maybe that team in green, the Philadelphia Eagles. (You thought I’d say Jets!)

For years the Giants have been steady, playing good enough to carry legions of fans from way back to the 40’s and new ones as they learn to hate Philadelphia today. Whenever I think about football, the Giants come to mind. Whenever I think about choke football, the Jets come to mind, especially when it comes to Philadelphia. The Jets have NEVER beaten the Eagles in regular season football, and the Giants always, and I mean always find ways to lose to the Eagles at critical stages of a game or season. Re: Herman Edwards, Philadelphia Eagles, last second TD for instance.

The Jets had Joe Namath, Joe Klecko and punt, the Giants have had: Andy Robustelli, Joe Morrison, Rosie Greer, Fran Tarkenton, Del Schofner, Phil Simms, Gifford, Patten, Webster, Huff and the names go on and on. New York Giant football is an institution of higher tradition, glory and downright greatness as a franchise. I write this as an avid Jets fan, too.

Joe Namath

The Giants have been around since leather helmets, have always been called the Giants, and are followed every Sunday by more people than follow God!

Phil Simms

Giant fans are loyal to a fault, want to fire the whole coaching staff, have been to every game ever played by the Giants including those at the Yale Bowl, Old Yankee stadiums and the games before they were even born!

Funny how I disparage the Islanders, they have more Championship trophies than the Jets, or the Mets or Knicks. But when you talk about ownership, the real duplex owners are the Giants in the winter and the Yankees in the summer.

David Wright

The Mets need miracles to win in ’69 and again in ’86 (thank you Bill Buckner), and the Jets, have only won one stinking Super Bowl by a gimpy kneed quarterback in panty hose, who the Baltimore Colts could not bring down because he couldn’t (Namath) bend because his panty hose were too tight.

It's all I wrote, folks!