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Let’s Go Rangers, Let’s Go Mets!

April 6, 2012

I may be living in the Middle East, but I’m still a dyed-in-the wool New Yorker.

And it’s a rare moment for a New York sports fan of my persuasion: both of my favorite teams are in first place. That would be the New York Rangers (hockey) and the New York Mets (baseball). It won’t last, so I’m savoring the moment.

I’ve been following the Rangers since 1973, suffering through many ups and downs. This year, though, the Rangers have had a spellbinding season, after quite a number of recent disappointments. They’ve built a team around a core of younger players mixed with a few bona fide stars: goalie Henrik Lundquist and forwards Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards. Here’s the best thing about the team: it’s talented and gritty, as shown by its commitment to blocking shots. (Would you put your body, even in hockey pads, in front of a slap shot traveling at about 100 mph?) With two games left in the season, they clinched first place in their conference, guaranteeing home-ice advantage in the playoffs until the Stanley Cup Finals. And, who knows, if they win tomorrow, they might even get that. The Rangers last clinched first place in the Eastern Conference in 1994, the magical spring in which they won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 40 years. They have a very good chance to repeat that feat this year, though as every hockey fan knows, the Stanley Cup playoffs is a second season altogether, grueling and unpredictable. But wouldn’t it be glorious, if Madison Square Garden could witness a moment like this one again:

I’ve been following the New York Mets even longer — since 1969 when I was in second grade and watched them win the World Series on a black-and-white television in the hallway of my elementary school. I’ve suffered a lot because of the Mets too, as readers of this blog know from my post “The Crypto-History of the Historic Collapse of the New York Mets.” (I really should update that post to take the humiliation of the Bernie Madoff era into account!) But today they’re in first place, having won their home opener 1-0 behind the pitching of Johann Santana and David Wright. The possibilities seem limitless.

Let me dream a bit. I’m well aware that the team’s spring training record was an abysmal 9-20-2, the 20th a loss to the Yankees in a game that the Mets were leading until the 7th inning. So, starting tomorrow, it’s probably all down hill. But right now, it looks like this:


Thanks to the magic of twenty-first century technology, I can stream the teams’ games in HD over the internet by subscribing to Gamecenter at nhl.com and to mlb.tv. The picture quality is amazingly good — good enough to watch on my big LED HD television. Afternoon baseball games turn into night games here, which is fine, but those 7:00 p.m. hockey starts are going to take their toll. (We’re 8 hours ahead, so you do the math.) But, hey, our school year ends in mid-May, and I fully expect the Rangers to be playing well beyond that. And if they do, I’ll be getting up at 3:00 a.m. cheerfully.

Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Rangers!

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The Athletic Sublime

February 28, 2010

I watch professional sports for the narratives they produce. In the pilot for the series Friday Night Lights, which is about big-time football in a small Texas town, the coach’s daughter, who is reading Moby-Dick in her English class, tells her father: “Moby-Dick is actually the perfect metaphor for this town. The cold black sea representing the season in all its uncertainties. The magical white whale is the Holy Grail.” Her dad gets the reference and realizes that if she’s right, then he’s Ahab.

I knew I would like the show once I heard those lines, not only because I love Moby-Dick, but also because I agree with Julie’s suggestion. A sports season is a narrative, sometimes dull, sometimes compelling, sometimes even sublime. The same is true for a single game or contest. And what I call is “the athletic sublime” is a climactic narrative moment when a player lives up to and exceeds all expectations.

Take today’s Olympic Gold Medal game, for example. If you’d been watching a film that dramatized its events, you’d have called it unbelievable, even corny. Team Canada, under tremendous pressure to win the gold medal at an Olympics held on Canadian soil, had lost to Team USA earlier in the tournament, forcing them to play an extra game in order to make the quarterfinals. They’d almost blown a 3-0 lead to Slovakia in the final seconds of its semifinal match, and tonight they did blow a 2-0 lead, as Zach Parise, the most dynamic U.S. player throughout the tournament, scored the equalizer with some 20 seconds left and the US goalie pulled for an extra skater.

I was due at an English Department event earlier in the evening, but stayed at home watching until the end of regulation. But, as I was walking along 14th Street, I noticed the game on a widescreen television in a nail salon and paused to watch. I’d told our babysitter that the four-on-four format for the overtime would favor Canada, which had some highly skilled skaters on its roster, most notably Sidney Crosby, the so-called “Next One,” the heir apparent to “the Great One,” Wayne Gretzky.

Crosby was mostly a non-factor during the tournament, perhaps due to the fact that Team Canada was built for an old-fashioned Canadian game that emphasized fierceness over than flair: this year, the tournament was being played on NHL-sized rinks which are smaller than the international rinks usually used in the Olympics. I always love watching the Olympic tournament precisely because the larger rinks bring out the artistry of the skilled player, with fleet passing and deft skating trumping crunching bodychecks. Not so this year, but as a result Crosby didn’t seem to find a way to shine.

Until, with seven minutes gone in the overtime, Crosby finds the puck on his stick after a quick cycle and pass from Jarome Iginla. Canada, as I suspected, had been dominating the overtime. A flash of Crosby’s stick, and the puck was behind goalie Ryan Miller. Canada had its goal. Miller would be named the tournament MVP, but it was Crosby who turned out to be larger-than-life.

The athletic sublime.

I would have preferred a U.S. win, which would have made Parise’s goal one of the most significant moments in the history of U.S. hockey, maybe even in U.S. international athletics.

But it’s a better story this way.

[Photo: Harry How/Getty Images from the account of the game posted at espn.com]

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