Being the great city that it is, NYC is and always has been a great sports town. Baseball, football, hockey and basketball -- we got 'em all. Our teams have their ups (the Yankees) and downs (the Knicks) and they obviously don't win every championship every year but generally we have good teams who are usually competitive. The Knicks used to be great during the Pat Riley/Patrick Ewing era and many think it will be again (the turn down from LeBron James not withstanding). And even though it was sixteen years ago, the Rangers won the NHL championship in 1994 -- which I remember fondly.
That said, it's fair to say that NYC is, above all, a baseball town. Since the days of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants to the present of the Mets and the Yankees, New York teams has had more good teams and won more World Series than any other town. (Since 1986, the Mets and the Yankees have won six out of 23 World Series, more than quarter of them.) New Yorkers define themselves, almost to a person, as to which team they follow. NYC and baseball is a long, ongoing, passionate love affair.
NYC and football have had, it's fair to say, a more complicated relationship. Let's call it a FWB kinda deal. Every decade or so the Giants win a Superbowl and that's great but then they usually slink back into mediocrity for the next several years (the Giants aren't like a New England Patriots or the Yankees -- a team that is perennially feared). As for the Jets ... oh boy ... they're like the Cubbies of football. They last won a Superbowl in 1969 under Broadway Joe Namath and since then ... well, let's just say, it's mostly been a ongoing comi-tragedy of suckiness.
Until now. Last year the new quarterback Mark Sanchez took the Jets within a one game of the Super Bowl. And hopes are high that they'll "go all the way" this year. This extensive profile on Jets owner Woody Johnson shows the man and the mentality behind the team that is unrelenting on making it a great team again -- to basically undue forty years of failure and make the Jets NYC's best football team again. But the Giants are giving them stiff competition -- Eli Manning and the team opened the season on Sunday with a smashing 31-18 victory over the Carolina panthers. They're good ... and they're just as driven as the Jets.
So finally, after many years, it looks like football in NYC is going to be something to watch. It's way, way too early to start talking about a "Subway Super Bowl" or anything like that but, if the promise of these two teams is anything like the hype, it might become a reality after all.
Let's hope so.
That said, it's fair to say that NYC is, above all, a baseball town. Since the days of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants to the present of the Mets and the Yankees, New York teams has had more good teams and won more World Series than any other town. (Since 1986, the Mets and the Yankees have won six out of 23 World Series, more than quarter of them.) New Yorkers define themselves, almost to a person, as to which team they follow. NYC and baseball is a long, ongoing, passionate love affair.
NYC and football have had, it's fair to say, a more complicated relationship. Let's call it a FWB kinda deal. Every decade or so the Giants win a Superbowl and that's great but then they usually slink back into mediocrity for the next several years (the Giants aren't like a New England Patriots or the Yankees -- a team that is perennially feared). As for the Jets ... oh boy ... they're like the Cubbies of football. They last won a Superbowl in 1969 under Broadway Joe Namath and since then ... well, let's just say, it's mostly been a ongoing comi-tragedy of suckiness.
Until now. Last year the new quarterback Mark Sanchez took the Jets within a one game of the Super Bowl. And hopes are high that they'll "go all the way" this year. This extensive profile on Jets owner Woody Johnson shows the man and the mentality behind the team that is unrelenting on making it a great team again -- to basically undue forty years of failure and make the Jets NYC's best football team again. But the Giants are giving them stiff competition -- Eli Manning and the team opened the season on Sunday with a smashing 31-18 victory over the Carolina panthers. They're good ... and they're just as driven as the Jets.
So finally, after many years, it looks like football in NYC is going to be something to watch. It's way, way too early to start talking about a "Subway Super Bowl" or anything like that but, if the promise of these two teams is anything like the hype, it might become a reality after all.
Let's hope so.
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