THE FORTUNES OF WAR

Why is it that some teams, no matter what personnel they have can repeat the same scenario every year? Some teams are like bad habits, some seem charmed to a winning existence.

Having followed the New York Mets and New York Yankees, they each have their own way of making their fans crazy. Either crazy with bad expectations and losing like the Mets or crazy with the winning traditions the Yankees possess.

Look at the NY Giants, they seem to be like cockroaches, they have everyone after them, picked as losers and continue to win! How is that ever possible, if you look at the Super Bowl last year, look at the season they had last year, up and down, yet they are the world champions! Speaking of Super Bowls, look no further than the New England Patriots, perennial winners, year after year. The Jets are just teasers, some years they can be competitive and some years so bad you don’t watch, but NEVER a Super Bowl.

I watch hockey and I see the New York clubs, and again there is this thing that goes on. The Islanders just outright stink, year after year, while the Rangers can break your heart with winning, rarely achieving the Stanley Cup round. Teams like Philadelphia, Boston and Detroit make noise year after year and some teams you just don’t hear from at all.

By my thinking, the team’s fortunes are tied to their ownership and management. The owners that win are fans, those that lose are just businessmen, looking to make money.

Looking at some regimes that are holdovers form earlier times like the Yankees, the machinery in still in place and so they win, the Steinbrenner’s living off of the residuals of what their father built, and then there are the Wilpons, the wanna-be Yankees without a clue as how to spend their money for a winning team.

As for the New York Islanders, no team should be allowed to be that bad year after year and exists. How they draw at all is beyond me. After the 1980’s they just fell into the garbage can and should move to Kansas City or even Alaska, because they will always be second rate.

That’s all I wrote, folks!