Rodney Hampton

One of the things I’ve always found comical about living in New York is the asinine way in which people latch onto our local teams as soon as they start winning. This happens here because we have so many fucking teams, and so many options to run from the front when one of them makes good and wins a title like the Giants did.

I saw this happen with the Yankees back in 1996. From 1981 to 1996, the Yankees didn’t do shit. In fact, all they did in ’81 was make it to the World Series and lose, so technically, they hadn’t really done shit since 1978. When I’d run into one of the many jerkoffs back then who’d insist upon getting in my face and telling me how great the Yankees were, I’d simply ask him to tell me who played shortstop for the team before Derek Jeter did. This was something most people in New York couldn’t do, because none of them paid a shit-lick’s worth of attention to the Yankees before they started winning.

Where the fuck were these people in ’88? Screaming their heads off for the Mets, that’s where. Or, better yet, paying no attention to baseball because it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t fashionable, and the two options we had to root for in this city both sucked ass.

So, yes, this is targeted at all you people who became Giants fans two weeks ago. I know your whole deal, because I know how fandom operates around here. You’re not reinventing the wheel, believe me. Yankees fans already wrote the book on this shit. If the Jets had won the Super Bowl – which is, admittedly, a ridiculous hypothetical – most of the two million people who showed up for the parade today would be storming around Manhattan wearing green and white. That’s the way it goes here. In other cities, you’re given one team, and you kind of have to support them if you’re going to watch sports. In New York, it’s not like that.

The Super Bowl is fun, and it’s a major event when the home team is playing in it – and wins it – but let’s be real for a minute. If, when they show the graphic introducing the starting offense and defense for the team you’re supposedly a fan of and you’ve never heard of twenty of the team’s twenty-two starters, you probably haven’t paid enough attention to justify wearing a jersey and jumping around and screaming like a jerkoff.

Talk to me next year when the Giants suck again and everyone’s back to wondering why Eli doesn’t seem to care. I’ll still be wearing my Mark Bavaro jersey in section 308. Will you?