I am a sports fan. First and foremost. I like watching meaningless games as much as I enjoy rooting for my teams. ESPN, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and a whole lot of regional sports networks help to sate my thirst for sports. Heck, I watched Wild World of Sports and the CBS Sports Spectacular just because they were on.
As much as watching a meaningful matchup between Texas and Alabama was enjoyable, so too was seeing highlights of Delaware playing Penn State for the first time ever in football. The Yankees are having a losing season—it puts a damper on the last 18 games as they swoon through September. But I still manage to check out Amazon Prime or the YES Network in the hope that the team wins a game or two to avoid the ending the season with a losing record.
I watched the Atlanta Braves when we received TBS. The Phillies on Channel 17. Even the odd NESN Red Sox game, too. I enjoyed watching out-of-market Stanley Cup hockey in the infancy of the MSG Network when the Rangers were eliminated. I don’t avert my eyes at the gym when a golf member controls the remote and his sport is on the tube.
I’m not going to say that I didn’t watch pro wrestling—though not the way it is broadcast now. I knew who Gorilla Monsoon was and that Haystacks Calhoun was no hillbilly. Vince Mc Mahon is still a heel—just a very rich one.
Name a sport—I have probably watched it. Australian Rules Football? Yup. Rugby? Of course. International badminton? Yes. Champions League? I’ve watched.
It’s not to say that I haven’t had my favorite sports and teams. Those who read this blog regularly know that I am a dyed-in-the-wool New York Yankees fan. My history with this franchise goes back to 1957. There have been more championships won than any other team during that span.
There have been bad teams. There have been winning teams like no other—the 1998 version is perhaps the greatest squad of all time.
Chris Chambliss. Bucky Dent. Aaron Boone. Heroes with walk off home runs.
Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski ruined my 1960 World Series, when he homered off Ralph Terry. Mariano Rivera’s 2001 meltdown in Arizona is another big hurt.
How about the Mets? I don’t hate the Mets. I just love the Yankees. I watched them from the outset in 1962. I’ve been to my share of games at the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium and Citi Field. The Bill Buckner error happened on my birthday in 1986.
I think their broadcast crews have been different than those the Yankees put on air. But I have also thought that while they play in the big leagues, the Mets are not the big, bad Yankees—even if they improbably won two Word Series.
It was a no brainer for me when both franchises clashed in 2000; my cheering was absolutely one-sided. Should they meet again, my feelings would be the same. Any other opportunity for the Mets, I am rooting hard for them.
I do like the Baltimore Orioles. Something about going to Camden Yards all these years has been intoxicating. However, when the Yankees and Mets visited, I was not pulling for the home team.
I have other favorites. Rutgers football and men’s basketball are on my list. I used to sneak into the old Rutgers Stadium with discarded tickets to see the Scarlet Knights play Lafayette, Columbia or Colgate. Ever since I went in 1965, I was addicted to Rutgers hoops—even having a partial plan to whet my chops. And while I only took a writing course in New Brunswick while in high school along with a bar review course in 1975, I did like going to the College Avenue Gym to play pick up basketball.
My love/hate relationship with the New York Rangers originated with Saturday night hockey on WOR-TV and a birthday trip to the old Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue. It expanded to an 11 year run with season tickets in the next-to-the last row of the present Garden.
Islanders and Flyers games were special. A few sniffs of the playoffs and some memorable overtime wins. Then raising a family called.
It’s not that I still don’t root for the Rangers. Just not when they are playing the New Jersey Devils. In the later 1980’s and 1990’s, I became part of a community of lawyers who had a Devils ticket plan. The local team became MY team. I saw the Stanley Cup paraded around the rink. And I watched the hated team from across the Hudson River eliminate the Devils. Scott Stevens. Martin Brodeur. Legendary Devils. Fan favorites as well as mine.
My attachment is such to this NJ franchise—all those cold walks on the pedestrian bridge over Route 20 notwithstanding—that my son are in the midst of trekking to all the Canadian NHL cities to see the Devils play. I do have my loyalty.
Then there is pro football. When I was young, it was the New York Football Giants (meant to distinguish the team from the baseball team which occupied the Polo Grounds through 1957). I cheered for the Giants when they were in the Super Bowl. They are the long-standing New York pro football franchise.
However, in 1961, the American Football League came into existence. The games were televised on NBC. They were exciting. Only the New York team—the Titans—was lousy. Plus with blackout rules, home games were not on TV.
When Sonny Werblin made a splash and bought the team, he showed he was also a genius at self-promotion. Which is why he outbid the NFL for one Joe Willie Namath, quarterback out of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and the University of Alabama. Namath was outrageous in his behavior, yet he had the talent to back it up. There is one Lombardi Trophy inside the Jets’ complex in Florham Park. Courtesy of Joe Wille Namath.
While I watched the Jets, I was still a Giants fan. I had always thought the coolest thing would be a Giants season ticket holder traveling on home Sundays to the Bronx. A packed Yankee Stadium was a sight to behold.
I made it through college and law school, passed the bar and found a job with the State of New Jersey Public Defender’s Office Appellate Section in East Orange. I teamed with my sister, a fledgling rare coin dealer, and we purchased both New York Jets and the aforementioned Rangers tickets.
My association with the Jets has been mercurial since 1977. My sister has her own tickets downstairs, as she is wildly successful. I transitioned from the fourth row at the 32 yard line at Giants Stadium to not purchasing a seat license and being on the same yard line, albeit in the ninth row of the upper deck of Met Life Stadium.
For many years, the Jets have been mediocre. Full of promise at the start, but never fulfilling the dream. I actually was under a half away from going to a Super Bowl when Denver roared back to win in 1999. That was my greatest disappointment—the closest I have ever come to attending the big game. Until Monday.
I was still sick with my Urinary Tract Infection, and though the doctors tell me I am getting better, with the illness, I had to give the tickets to a neighbor. Not very happy then.
This was the year of the hype. Future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers had left Green Bay to lead the Jets to the Promised Land. HBO’s Hard Knocks swelled the enthusiasm that this might finally be the season of redemption.
Which all fell apart four plays into the game when Rodgers was tackled and sustained an Achilles tendon tear. I was morose. Perhaps the most devastated I have been as a fan.
Yes, the Jets won the game behind Zach Wilson, the next in line of quarterbacks drafted to win here in New York. It took the Buffalo Bills to perform subpar and a miraculous winning punt return.
I still haven’t quite gotten over what happened on Monday night. Perhaps the greatest saving grace was that my wife and I weren’t there as originally planned.
The loss of Rodgers still stings—even if his coming to New York might never have panned out. Something we’ll probably never know.
What I am going to do is continue to support my team. Maybe this team is one of destiny after all. Perhaps the time Wilson spent with Rodgers tutoring him may have changed the wunderkind.
One thing never changes in the equation. For all of my teams, no matter how bad things get, I remain a fan.
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