SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — These are most unusual times in New York sports, and if you wanted to know why, you needed a most unusual kind of ticket Thursday morning.
One to the Long Island Railroad.
The trains started before dawn, headed in each direction (that is, east and west) to two distinctly different slabs of sports heaven. On the eastbound trains, the fans were pastel-shirt-and-khaki-clad, wearing their Thursday best for the opening round at the 126th U.S. Open. The vibes were placid and subdued, and not only because of the early-morning fog. These fans were 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 U.S. Open. The expectation was a particularly idyllic kick in the face — a bloodbath at a botanical garden.
On the westbound trains, the fans were in decidedly different spirits. They wore blue-and-orange almost exclusively, and their energy (from the east end of Long Island, at least) was one of frenetic anxiety. For good reason, too: These fans were headed to the parade that was, as of the 8 a.m. hour, already rapidly running out of space for them. The parade was a most unusual affair: a ticker tape celebration for a city that has not had one of these in 15 long years, to celebrate a team that has not 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 U.S. Open is back in its rightful home. And oh yeah — have you guys heard about this World Cup business?
It is difficult to recall a time when the sports happiness of the city was as high as it is right now in New York, even for those of us who have lived in the metro area for a long time (I claim 28 years and about five months). The Giants won those Super Bowls in ’08 and ’11, but they were alone atop the New York sports mountain in the dead of 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 quality about New Yorkers, and, yep, delivered those victories for the city’s favorite team. When the championship was sealed Saturday night, it felt not just like the good times were back again, it felt like they might never leave.
But it was Robert Frost who first delivered the three words about life that no Knicks fan wanted to hear on Saturday night: It goes on.
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 they might try to make it to Shinnecock for the U.S. Open this weekend, but of course, that’s assuming they’re not too busy attending the biggest sporting event in the world happening just across the river in the Meadowlands, where “New York/New Jersey stadium” is preparing to host a World Cup final in just under a month’s time.
It’s all a bit dizzying, this delirious energy in New York, especially after so many Knicks seasons spent as lovable losers. And while this energy was distinctly new to me, I wondered if other New Yorkers were feeling it, too.
This is what brought me to Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, the legendary New York sports talk host, on Wednesday afternoon at Shinnecock. Principally, I wanted to know if Russo — a living, breathing anthology of sports history and opinions — could remember a time quite as vindicating as this one in the history of the city. He was similarly stumped.
“Good job, good job,” he said. “It’s right up there. You put all that together, it’d be difficult to top in the history of New York sports.”
Mad Dog, formerly of the sports-talk defining WFAN show Mike and The Mad Dog, said he could recall only one time when a team seemed to have captured the spirit of the city as wholly as these Knicks.
“Giants-Patriots for the first time, when the Giants beat New England on the Tyree catch,” he said. “That was a big one too, that was unlikely, but this is big too, this is as big as it gets.”
According to Russo, while each of the events taking place this week in New York has its own argument for top billing, there is a definitive order of importance.
“I think I’d want to be here at Shinnecock,” Russo said. “The World Cup game over at MetLife, if it’s not the United States, I’m not as wrapped up on that. I was at 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] over the parade.”
Unlike the throngs of fans climbing onto westbound Long Island Railroad trains this morning, Russo seemed less interested in the spectacle of the parade. Actually, less interested might be underselling it.
“You would not get me to the parade under any circumstances,” he said. “Quote me.”
Thankfully, he did not have to go far to find another option. In Southampton, the fun was only getting started.
You can reach the author with your (reasonable) New York sports opinions at james.colgan@golf.com.
