Let’s pretend I’m someone else. This other me wasn’t born into a generations-deep New York City tribe of team-specific sports devotees. He wasn’t raised with the idea that living and dying with the fates of his local franchises – The Four Traditionals, to be exact: Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers – is an automatic akin to blinking.
This substitute me does not have a grandfather who grew up a die-hard Yanks fan in Dodger-territory Brooklyn in the 1930’s and 40’s, apparently because said grandfather had a death wish at an early age.
Alternate me does not have a family who shared Football Giants season tickets for forty-nine years, nor did his twelve-year-old self cry funeral tears after the Knickerbockers lost in the ’94 finals.
No, this hypothetical me is a blank slate, a sports tabula rasa. He’s a New Yorker still, and he wants to choose his own favorite teams, from scratch, and get behind them through all the triumphs and (mostly) tribulations from this day forward. So, who will this neutral decide on?
Who are the five most objectively likable, adoptable, root-for-able NYC-area sports teams? There are no standardized factors here, no hard metrics, no numerals happening at all, really. Just gut choices.
(Again, I cannot emphasize this enough: I am purposely forgetting my sports allegiances for this one article and one article ONLY. Now, excuse me while I kiss a crisp, navy blue Yankee hat as penance.)
1. Islanders
Like so, so many NYC sports fans, hockey is #4 on my sports priority list. Playoff hockey is some of the best stuff on the planet, but I can’t pretend I’m all-in during the regular season. Why that is, I’m not sure. I didn’t play it growing up, but I didn’t play football either, and I’ve played a lot more video game NHL than I have Madden. Regardless, if neutral me had to pick a hockey team to get behind, I’m eskewing the glamor and glitz of Madison Square Garden and the Rangers for an underdog team from Long Island who’s actually had a dynasty. When the Isles get going and the Colisseum gets rocking even Rangers fans have to admit, that’s real local love right there.
2. Mets
Ah, the Mets. What hasn’t been said about them? Maybe the archetype of little brother sports teams. You have to realize, being a lovable loser in NYC is a difficult thing. A large percentage of America loves when New York loses at anything, and to a certain extent you can understand it. But the Mets have a proud history, they do. Their triumphs may have been few and far between but they’ve all been epic moments in the history of baseball (’69 and ’86, anyone?). Throw in that they’re the ying to the widely loathed and spoiled Yankees’ yang and it’s hard for a neutral not to pull for that team in Queens.
3. Rangers
Back to hockey. With all that said about the Islanders, a freaking Ranger game at the Garden is always a blast, and an underrated must-do night out in NYC. All you need, one time, is a beer in your hand while chanting the goal song with 20,000 other knuckleheads, and you’ll be hooked. Add to the fact that they’re a fanbase who’s suffered for the vast majority of their near-hundred year existence and come on: Go Blueshirts! This does put the neutral at a crossroads however, because if you choose the Rangers, you can’t choose Isles, and vice versa. Therefore, a sports-allegiance Sophie’s Choice must be made… if you don’t want to just ignore hockey altogether, that is. Which you can easily do.
4. NYCFC
Setting aside the fact they’re basically a wing of some Emirati oil-sports mega-conglomerate (they’d be higher on this list if they weren’t), the plucky Pigeons of NYCFC have found a cool little niche for themselves in New York. And now, with an MLS championship to their name (you might’ve heard New York likes a winner), that niche is only growing. But the real kicker that ratchets up the neutral appeal: they’re homeless. As in, they have no home stadium to call their own. They’re a roving band of misfits plying their trade from borough to borough and beyond – even playing in their rival Red Bulls’ stadium, just to add insult to injury. They’re the sports team version of the fun, drunk cousin who crashes on your couch for a few weeks at a time. But yet, they are very much the city’s team. Bloody likable tramps, they are. Hala Pigeons!
5. Jets
Someone on the West Coast once asked me, “Are there any Jets fans?” “Uh, yeah only millions of them,” I told her. Granted, she was a bit of a sports naif but still it shows there are, ahem, perceptions about the Jets. Non-hypothetical, actual-life me has some Jet sympathies, even though I’m Giants through-and-through-and-through. My stepfather and stepbrother (notice they’re not blood related) are die-hard Jet fans. So, in a way, I’ve experienced second-hand Jets misery through them. And I can tell you, even a sample of it is tough to take down. You need a whiskey chaser and a prayer book. At some point in time, however – it may be ten years, it may be a hundred years, it may be after science figures out how to eliminate inter-dimensional barriers – the New York Jets will win another Super Bowl. Can you imagine being there wearing green when it happens? Party for the fucking ages.
6. Knicks
(There are SIX on this list instead of five now, because I used two hockey teams and I get to make the rules because I’m typing.)
The Knicks are basically the Jets, plus glamor. The only difference is the Jets play out in the swamps of Jersey and the Knicks play at the fanciest schmanciest arena on the planet, right in the middle of Manhattan. Otherwise, the Knicks might as well play the Dolphins twice a year. They are the Jets of basketball if the Giants didn’t exist: championship-starved, infamous for dysfunction, New England rivals have racked up titles, glory days were the late 60’s and 70’s, and I’m sure Joe Namath and Willis Reed are eskimo brothers. And there are plenty of fanbases that love this fact, that never want to see the Knicks as contenders (and the Knicks have happily obliged). Thing, is, despite all of the losing, when you throw yourself in with the fanbase and see that they’re the smartest, most self-deprecating, most stupidly loyal supporters around, it’s tough not to fall in love just a little bit.
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There are a couple of honorable mentions on this list: the Liberty, Giants, and Devils all could have made an argument. They won’t, of course, because no one associated with their organizations will read this.
The Yankees (obvious reasons), Red Bulls (a walking energy drink advertisement), and the Knicks (breaking all article protocol by doubling them up – but their shittiness even frustrates other fanbases) are the least likable NYC teams.
Dare I ask, do you agree?
