SOUTHAMPTON, NY – These are the most unusual times in New York sports, and if you want to know why, you need a more unusual kind of ticket Thursday morning.
One for him The Long Island Railroad.
The trains left before dawn, heading in every direction (ie, east and west) on two different slabs of sports heaven. On the eastbound trains, fans were dressed in pastel shirts and khakis, donning their Thursday best for 126th US Open opening round. The whispers were quiet and muffled, and not just because of the early morning fog. Those fans headed to one of the most revered golf courses on earth, Shinnecock Hills, for one of the most revered golf tournaments on the calendar, the US Open. The reception was a particularly idyllic slap in the face – a bloodbath in a botanical garden.
On the westbound trains, the fans were in a completely different state. They wore almost exclusively blue-orange, and their energy (at least from the east end of Long Island) was one of frenzied anxiety. For good reason, too: These fans headed into the parade that, as of 8 a.m., was already quickly running out of space for them. The parade was a very unusual event: a tapestry party for a city that hasn’t had one of these in 15 long years, to celebrate a Team who hasn’t had one of these … ever.
After a very long winter, the sun is shining again on the big apple. The New York Knicks are world champions. The US Open has returned to its rightful home. And oh yeah – have you heard about this World Cup business?
It’s hard to remember a time when the city’s sports happiness was as high as it is now in New York, even for those of us who have lived in the metro area for a long time (I’d say 28 years and about five months). The Giants won those Super Bowls in ’08 and ’11, but they were just atop New York’s sports mountain in late winter. The Yankees welcomed World Series parades in ’00 and ’09, but those teams were EXPECTED to win… and again, they were the only show in town.
This Knicks run? It arrived the same week as summer in New York after a particularly bitter winter, for a team that seemed to embody every great New Yorker quality and, yes, delivered those wins for the city’s favorite team. When the championship was sealed on Saturday night, it didn’t just feel like the good times were back, it felt like they could never go away.
But it was Robert Frost who first delivered the three words about life that no Knicks fan wanted to hear Saturday night: She continues.
And as it turns out, that might not be a bad thing. These Knicks spent the week as the toast of the town, beginning a stretch of many, many years as the toast of the town. Rumor has it that they might try to make it to Shinnecock for the US Open this weekend, but of course, that’s assuming they’re not too busy attending the biggest sporting event in the world it takes place just across the river at the Meadowlands, where the “New York/New Jersey stadium” is preparing to host a World Cup final in just under a month.
It’s all a little dizzying, this delirious energy in New York, especially after so many Knicks seasons spent as lovable losers. And while this energy was obviously new to MEI wondered if other New Yorkers felt it too.
That’s what brought me to Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, New York’s legendary sports talk host, on Wednesday afternoon at Shinnecock. Mainly, I wanted to know if Russo — a living, breathing anthology of sports history and opinion — could recall such a vindicating time in the city’s history. He was similarly dazed.
“Good job, good job,” he said. “It’s right up there. You put it all together, it would be hard to top in New York sports history.”
Mad Dog, once a fixture on the defining WFAN sports talk show Mike and the Mad Dogsaid he could only remember once when a team seemed to capture the spirit of the city as much as these Knicks.
“Giants-Patriots for the first time, when the Giants beat New England on the Tyree catch,” he said. “That was big too, it wasn’t likely, but this is also big, it’s as big as it gets.”
According to Russo, while each of the events taking place this week in New York has its own case for top billing, there is a final order of importance.
“I think I’d like to be here at Shinnecock,” Russo said. “The World Cup game is over at MetLife, if it’s not the United States, I’m not that closed on it. I was in Game 4 — nothing’s going to top Game 4. Nothing. But that’s not this week, the parade is this week, and I’d take (Shinnecock) in the parade.”
Unlike the throngs of fans who boarded westbound Long Island Rail Road trains this morning, Russo seemed less interested in the spectacle of the parade. In fact, less interested may have under-sold it.
“You will not take me to the parade under any circumstances,” he said. “Quote me.”
Thankfully, he didn’t have to go far to find another alternative. In Southampton, the fun had just begun.
You can contact the author with your (reasonable) New York sports opinions at james.colgan@golf.com.
