Well, we were due for a day like this, right?
Call it an early Christmas present, a morning when we wake up in the greatest city in the world, this city of self-made success stories and swagger and confidence, doesn’t matter if it’s Chinatown or on Riverside, this city that beckons like a beacon to so many dreamers looking to melt away their little-town blues, king of the hill, top of the heap …
Well, start spreading the news.
Because not one sports team in New York City lost on Thursday.
Of course, not one sports team in New York City actually played on Thursday, so if you’re in the business of technicalities and asterisks and clarifications and the like, there is that to consider.
But, hey, you have to start somewhere, you must crawl before you can walk and you must not stink before you can be good, and sometimes it’s best just to lay idle, to cite this quote that has often been favored by West Point athletes across the decades in times of trouble, attributed to a 16th-century Scottish sailor named Sir Andrew Barton:
I am hurt but I am not slain
I’ll lay me down and bleed awhile
Then I’ll rise and fight again …
Or, as the 20th-century philosopher Casey Stengel once mused: “Without losers, where would the winners be?”
So this is where we are, 11 days before the start of a New Year that can’t possibly come soon enough if you are a New York sports fan, if you consider we are soon to host a Super Bowl culminating a playoffs in which neither New York team will be included, one that might well climax with a team from a cow town (Denver) meeting one from a coffee town (Seattle).
These are just some of the cities who are presently enjoying the kind of success that savvy New Yorkers would pay off an army of politicians to enjoy: Indianapolis. San Antonio (!). Kansas City. Portland (!!). Pittsburgh. St. Louis. And there aren’t enough exclamation points available to convey our proper feelings toward Greater New England.
This is the bottom line: It has never been this depressing to be a New York sports fan. There have been other bad eras. The year 1966 has always stood out as an especially sordid time, since the Giants bottomed out at 1-12-1, the Yankees finished 10th (last for the first time in 54 years), the Mets were actually ninth (though they lost six more than the Yanks), the Knicks were 30-50, the Rangers 18-41-11.
That’s some serious losing.
But in 1966, it was hard, damn near impossible, to buy a ticket to any of those teams, any of those games, for more than $10, which, factoring inflation, translates to around $72 today. And the overwhelming majority of seats could be had for at least half that much. A Yankee Stadium bleacher seat cost $1.25. You could get away with taking your kids to watch the kid quarterback at Shea — Joe Namath — for less than $40.
The teams may have been awful. But you didn’t feel held up. And so even if you griped about Allie Sherman or Walt Bellamy or Wes Westrum on the drive home, you probably weren’t nearly as bitter about it.
This is what our nine professional teams paid their players in 2013: $1,101,343,905.
That’s billion, with a “B.”
You can break down what that has brought you in any number of ways. Remarkably, if you just count every game thus far played in calendar year 2013 — regular season, postseason, all of them — the nine have gone 377-378-36, an almost impossible-to-believe ode to mediocrity.
But it feels worse than that, right?
Because it is worse than that.
Because that includes the portion of 2013 that belong to last season’s Nets, Knicks, Rangers and Islanders, all of them playoff teams then, all of them borderline (or far worse) now.
And because it costs. Jeez, does it cost. Let’s use the Fan Cost Index, which calculates four average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two modestly-priced souvenirs. From our cheapest “bargain” to our priciest, this is what you’ve gotten so far in 2013, this is the bang for your buck:
1. Mets, FCI: $223.70. And, honestly, when the Mets are your best buy in town … well, that isn’t an especially decorated sports town. Five straight losing seasons (74-88 in 2013). One phenom pitcher on the shelf. And a lot of fan damage that needs repair … for, again, the best buy in town.
2. Devils, FCI: $315.24. You can get to see two Hall of Fame lions in winter in Martin Brodeur and Jaromir Jagr at Prudential Center; the odds are you won’t see them win, since they’re 14-15-6 and presently on the outside looking in on the playoffs. In other words: Par.
3. Yankees, FCI: $324.30. We take a lot of shots at the Yankees and their checkbook and the fact you have to choose between a monthly car payment or a Heineken when you wander to the concession stands. But at 85-77 and less than $325 a pop? That’s value. Although this number surely will be different by this time next year.
4. Islanders, FCI: $372.84. Yes, it’ll set you back more to watch John Tavares and good-luck-naming-anyone-else than it does to watch the Yankees. Think about that. It’ll keep your mind off that 9-19-7 record.
5. Nets, FCI: $365.06. And this figure doesn’t factor in the roughly $35.6 trillion in extra expenditures Mikhail Prokhorov took on this year to obliterate the salary cap and squeeze out nine wins in 25 games.
6. Rangers, FCI: $417.16. Look, we know hockey fans are faithful and true, and they will keep showing up because the game is part of who they are. But at 16-17-2, who they are is hard to figure out from night to night.
7. Jets, FCI: $577.12. Maybe you expect a once-a-week event to be more pricey. It would probably be a bit more palatable if the team had more than a once-in-the-space-age track record at hiring competent quarterbacks. Maybe this will go down now that Santonio Holmes has agreed to work for tip money.
8. Giants, FCI: $582.76. So it costs less than five dollars more to be a Giants fan than a Jets fan? So if the Peter Luger’s porterhouse and the Quarter Pounder With Cheese are sitting in the window at the restaurant, the Jets fan goes for the hamburger every time?
9. Knicks, FCI: $643.78. But look at what you get for your dough: no championships since 1973 (and counting), no appearances in the Finals since 1999, seven playoff wins since 2001, eight wins in 25 games so far this year … for seats that cost exactly what an apartment in downtown Milwaukee costs, on average, for a month.
But at least you could root for the Packers there.