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| Posted By | Discussion Topic: New York voted number 1 Sports town by Sporting News | ||||
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| TeenWeek what's a status? | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 7:36 AM |    | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00  | Where New York, ranked No. 1 on our 2001 list, has finished in TSN's previous Best Sports City lists: 2000 - #2 1999 - #1 1998 - #7 1997 - #9 New York, New York By Bob Hille The Sporting News Once upon a time (last October) in a strange land (Manhattan), a young man beknighted (OK, in a few hours it would be night) rode his trusty steed (the No. 7 outbound) toward a date with destiny (Game 5 of the World Series) in a place far, far away (the Willets Point-Shea Stadium stop in Flushing Meadows). It was part of a magical time, this time a time sprinkled with scary adventures and wind-blown hot dog wrappers for in this place for 12 months every sports story was a fairy tale, a fan's dream come to life in a land dotted with fantastic things, real (a Subway Freakin' Series) and only imagined (an improved Rangers team). In this fairy tale, there were kings (the Yankees) and Queens, and postseason improbabilities (the Knicks); there were heroes (Kerry Collins) and damsels in distress (but enough about Katie Couric's contract); and, alas, there were dreams unfulfilled (the Nets and Islanders). In this fairy tale, there were Giants, Pirates and Devils. There was a Red Storm, there were Gaels. This was New York, and a sage (me) and a sorcerer (intern/number cruncher Steve Walentik) divined that this was The Sporting News Best Sports City for 2001. Reflecting on his adopted hometown during the NFL playoffs last January, Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, his team bound for Super Bowl 35, searched for just the right description for the St. Petersburg Times; then he said of New York: "This is the toughest city in the world to play in. Anybody who plays here knows it. There's more pressure in this place than a pot when you're boiling some chitlins." Yet in the 12 months, July 1, 2000 to July 1, 2001, that serve as the Best Sports City snapshot in our eighth annual ranking, New York teams responded with a spectacular gutsiness to that pressure cooker, turning out results that were food for the fanatic's soul. New York's nine professional teams that fill out our Best Sports City criteria (see "How'd they do that?" on Page xx) combined for a .514 won-lost percentage. More to the point because even that number is skewed by the slackers in the group, New York served up fully half of the participating teams in our continent's sports spectacles: the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals and Stanley Cup finals. Love the place or hate it, you've got to admit that when things were cookin' in Hell's Kitchen and beyond, there was nothing like New York during this 12 months: The Yankees, under manager Joe Torre's patient hand and behind megawatt stars Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Roger Clemens, continued a remarkable run by winning 87 games and reaching the World Series, where they defeated the Mets in five games for the Bronx Bombers' fourth title in five years. The Mets, adding strong pitching to tight defense and offensive pop, went 94-68, savored not having to face their nemesis, the Braves, in the playoffs and were past the Cardinals in the 2000 NLCS and into the World Series faster than you could say, "Benny Agbayani." The Giants who when they won Super Bowl 21 were viewed by then-mayor Ed Koch as traitors who merely called themselves "New York" when they lived and played in New Jersey‹dressed up in uniforms that paid homage to the team's rich past, went an NFC-best 12-4 and routed the Vikings, 41-0, in the conference championship game. The defending NHL champion Devils, adding offense to their trademark defense, went 48-19-12-2 and rolled into the Stanley Cup finals before bowing before‹speaking of fairy tales‹Ray Bourque and the Avalanche. The Knicks, despite saying farewell to longtime star Patrick Ewing, were 48-24 (.585) in the regular season, fourth-best in the NBA Eastern Conference, before losing Games 4 and 5 to Toronto and being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Senior Nakiea Miller led Iona to a 22-11 season that included an NCAA Tournament berth after winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference conference tournament. In short, New York-area teams' excellence was unsurpassed. "All within a short time frame," the Giants' Strahan pointed out. "It's just unbelievable what has happened in this city the last couple of years." I've said it before (two years ago, to be exact, when New York last was No. 1 on our Best Sports Cities list) and I'll say it again: The Mets and Jets, Giants and Yankees, Knicks, Rangers and Islanders, not to mention the Nets and Devils (and, yes, we credit them to New York in our accounting) share this relatively cozy geographic neighborhood. The nation's biggest city, with more than 7 million potential fans in its five boroughs alone, throbs 24 hours a day, and, with apologies to Reggie, the straw that stirs the melting pot, all day and every day, is sports. Further proof: The buzz du summer is minor leaguers in this most major of major league markets: the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones. No wonder, then, that even New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani gets involved in‹and like all New Yorkers relishes‹an internecine rivalry that spills over into New Jersey and Connecticut and out onto the Island but finds its roots in those five boroughs. "My father's love for the Yankees was passed on to me in what would have been a natural development in a father-son relationship," the mayor wrote for The Sporting News, "if not for a couple of interesting factors: First, my mother and her side of the family were lifelong Dodgers fans; second, we lived a mile from Ebbets Field, right in the heart of Dodger country. "I grew up as a Yankee fan in the most hostile of environments; that instilled character. And I grew up during the heyday of the Subway Series; that instilled a love for the game that filled every April with promise, and every October with excitement." So when on July 8, 2000, for the first time since 1990, New York's baseball teams played one another in two games in two stadiums in one day, it was An Event that drew national attention and fairly crackled with both April promise and October excitement. (Understand that for the other 264 days a year, New Yorkers think the world begins and ends on their side of the Hudson, that if they're not living at the center of the universe then certainly you can see it from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.) "Four years of interleague play has produced plenty of drama," the mayor wrote, "but the day that came the closest to capturing the spirit of the Subway Series era was the historic day-night doubleheader on July 8." On that date, New York was, indeed, the center of the sports universe. "Our city was gripped by the showdown," Giuliani recalled. "Fan loyalty divided workplaces, neighborhoods and households. Subway platforms, diners and the media were filled with debate about who was the best hitter, which team had the best pitching and what it would take for one team to win in the other's stadium." Game 1, at Shea Stadium: Yankees 4, Mets 2. Game 2, at Yankee Stadium: Yankees 4, Mets 2. More important than the results, however, was that this interleague interlude had served as a delicious foreshadowing of a Subway Series that magnified the city's passion for its teams and, honestly, the rest of the country's disdain for Big Apple parochialism, a cocksure attitude captured by Denver-based sports cartoonist Drew Litton, who in October drew a Mets fan asking a Yankees fan, "Do you think people outside the state of New York care about this World Series?" The Yankees fan's response: "There are people outside the state of New York?" Truth be told, as we headed toward the clubhouse turn in the 2001 Best Sports City race, the Bay Area was nipping at New York's heels. The possibilities were this: If the Giants, Knicks and Devils didn't fare well in the playoffs and the Raiders, Sharks and Stanford men's basketball advanced deep into the postseason with at least one of them winning a title, then. I hate to ponder the possibility. What, then, would a dear letter writer have sent my way? You see, in February, I had written tongue-in-cheek at the start of baseball's spring training that "Pitchers and catchers report" are the four sweetest words in baseball, followed very closely by "Yankees lose! Yankees lose!" A couple of weeks later, I received a two-page, handwritten letter. Among the points the writer made (punctuated by 10 F-bombs and nine other words and implausible physical feats unprintable here): "Now that the Yankees‹the Greatest Sports Power that man has ever known, a team with more class than a duchess at tea that is loved & admired by 6 billion American haters worldwide & do you rejoice in the restoration of Sports Greatest Team no you hope they lose." I'll spare you the nouns and adjectives that were the mouth of this stream of consciousness. (The postmark, by the way, was Jacksonville, Fla. Tampa, I could understand, but then I don't know if George was in town at that time.) My point is this, and I'll let the Giants' Strahan make it: "I think our fans are getting a good feel of successful sports here in this city," he told the St. Petersburg newspaper. "And the great thing about it is they get spoiled, and they want it every year." Enjoy yourselves, New York fans. This is a time to feel alive, to savor every second, to revel in the moment. Cut loose, celebrate, wear something that's not black. For this shining time, for the second time in three years, your sports city is our Best Sports City. Remember, though, fairy tales end. Only then can the rest of us live happily ever after. | ||||
| Lent Black Rock Coalition Do you have a basketball in your car? | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 10:24 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: May. 00 | Yes, NY is #1. It's the way it should be. --Lent, the poster formerly known as Rowelentless-- Ignore the women in the sigpic, I'm a 20 year old guy who just loves teens. | ||||
| BaLLooN NoT | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 11:02 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | thats because New Yawk is the best place around & has the best fans & deffinataly the most loyal... fo example me i am a huge METS fan & this year they suck & i have liked them for about almost 20 years  SIG PIC CREATED BY Jolene78 E-Mail Me METS will go ALL THE WAY THIS YEAR !!!!!!!!!!! (ok maybe not this year but i aint chainging this) Yankees & the Braves SUCK !!!!!!!! Resident Strip Club Pimp Very Proud Member of the OA.com Stalker Society | ||||
| The Sleeper Being a Minor is a Threat to my Social Life PoseUr i ahve 2 threads at teh top, i feel like maynard | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 11:10 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | I wonder if LA is last. | ||||
| Unicron | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 11:12 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Mar. 01 | New Jersey Devils are NOT New York. I love New York...but i am a Jerseian, and i have to say, F New York for thinking we are a part of you. Anyways...NY should always be #1. There is no other sports town like it.  What should i do I don't want to be sad anymore All i want is you. | ||||
| The Sleeper Being a Minor is a Threat to my Social Life PoseUr i ahve 2 threads at teh top, i feel like maynard | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 11:20 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | quote: Yet they play in the same sporting complex as the NY Giants and Jets. Maybe if they moved to Newark or South Jersey or something it would be different. But E. Rutherford is part of the tri-state area that makes up the NY sports market IMO. | ||||
| Francine Banger | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 12:30 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Dec. 00 | We dont want/need your Devils. In case you havent noticed 99% of New York doesn't give a shit about them. | ||||
| Unicron | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 3:03 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Mar. 01 | 99% of New York dosn't give a shit about the Rangers either, so i ain't feeling bad. WAR DECLARED! | ||||
| Francine Banger | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 5:22 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Dec. 00 | quote: Judging by the 1 Million People who showed up to the Rangers Stanley Cup Parade in 1994, I would say your right on the money with that remark. Too bad the Garden doesnt have a parking lot. | ||||
| Ronreddog | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 5:45 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | It is all because of the Sportsguys everyone! LMAO Sig pic courtesy of the one and only CBH, one sick F! Please WOW this bully today! E-Mail Me | ||||
| FoundryMusicPaintballJoe | posted on 08-08-2001 @ 7:25 PM | | |||
| Psychopath Registered: Oct. 00 | Are you suprised that we're the best. Anyway, YA GOTTA GIVE US A LOTTA CREDIT!!  AIM: PaintballOpAnt19 Im A Racist Prick. I'm Gunna Find You Petrizzi..And Eat Ya. | ||||
| Unicron | posted on 08-09-2001 @ 10:33 AM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Mar. 01 | yea franny, 1 million when you won the cup.....how about now? Ranger Fans = Fair Weather Fans. WAR DECLARED! | ||||
| Francine Banger | posted on 08-09-2001 @ 12:13 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Dec. 00 | Please Unicron, Ive said this a million times, you claiming that the Rangers have a small fan base is as ridiculous as me saying the Rangers are as good as the Devils. All I know is the 1 million people at the parade was more than the few thousand in the parking lot. Rangers fans are fair weathered fans? Yeah that explains the sell outs every night. And dont give me your Comp ticket nonsense. This message was edited by Francine Banger on 8-9-01 @ 12:15 PM | ||||
| Cluster F | posted on 08-09-2001 @ 12:15 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | Hey, the Rangers had a 54 year drought between Cups, and still sold out the Garden every damn night. Then we win, and there is a huge parade and celebration. Now our team sucks again, but the fans are still gonna watch and defend them. Now lets look at devils fans. First off, if the devils have a 5 year stretch of losing, the fans will abandon them and talks would start about moving the Devils to Canada. And second, if your team wins, and granted it was a parking lot celebration, but it doesnt matter, ALL of the devils fans should be there then. But, nobody cares about the devils, and their fans could care less, and are just on the bandwagon now cause they are halfway decent. Point is, Ranger fans care more about their team than Devils fans do about theirs. | ||||
| TeenWeek what's a status? | posted on 08-09-2001 @ 12:33 PM | | |||
| O&A Board Regular Registered: Oct. 00 | The majority of Devils sellouts come when they play the Rangers. | ||||
Displaying 1-15 of 15 messages in this thread. |