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Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk For Gothamites, a Subway Series is a God-given right
OK, all you baseball fans who are glad we're going to have an all-New York World Series, raise your hands. Hmm. I don't see many hands out there. You all out in the Midwest, please raise your hands high. I can't see them. Oh my, I get it: none of you are raising your hands. Let's look around now. There are a few in Florida, one or two in California. Uh oh, none up in New England. I hate to tell you nice people at the FOX network, you fellows who are telecasting the World Series, but about the only people in all America who want an all-New York World Series are the people in New York. Of course, Noo Yawkers themselves are absolutely charmed by the thought. The citizens of greater Gotham believe, in fact, that this is the way it is supposed to be. That God has merely been sleeping since 1956, when last there was held what is so preciously known as a . . . Subway Series. Back in the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s Subway Series were commonplace. And never forget that when another metropolitan area dared have its own World Series -- in 1989 in the Bay Area -- it was interrupted by an earthquake. Some things are meant for New York alone. In fact, it is New York's clean little secret that, hard-boiled as it's supposed to be, it can turn into a sweet, silly little Sinclair Lewis small-town burg -- especially when its sports teams are involved. Los Angeles, for example, doesn't even care if it has a football team. New York needs its teams. There are nine major league teams in the New York metropolitan area, and people are often seriously defined by which ones they identify with, which ones they love. Everybody hoo-hawed at Hillary Clinton when she said she was a Yankees fan, but the truth is that that is the most natural way for people who move to New York to become accepted -- to cozy up to a team. She just did what most new New Yorkers do. Anyway, the local television and radio sports reports are so cloying, so saccharine, they sound like they come from Lincoln, Neb. or Tuscaloosa, Ala. The tough-guy newspapers the past few weeks have, evidently, been edited by high school cheerleaders. Noo Yawkers also pride themselves on being the most sophisticated fans. They are, but only after a fashion. It's not that they really know baseball (or basketball or football) any better, but there is so much media -- two tabloids; all-talk, big-talk Big Apple radio; everybody's national headquarters; and so forth -- that fans in New York are more tuned into gossip than buffs in other cities. They do know the skinny. Otherwise, they're probably just as dopey as fans in all the other smaller cities. The real problem with sports teams in New York is that they keep score, and the standings are published every day. In everything else, New York probably has the best there is -- that's been the understanding for so long who can argue. Theatrer? Opera? Symphony? Restaurants? Attitude? Money? Important people? The cops are certified the "finest," the firefighters the "bravest." You can make it dere, you can make it anywhere. You hear me, pal? Everything else is Bridgeport. But New York's sports teams are just like everybody else's, even if maybe there are more of them. They win some, lose some -- and no arguing. In fact, some New York franchises are downright rotten. It's the sports teams that make New York like all the other places out there. That's why a Subway Series matters so much. Any podunk town can win a World Series, but to have one all by yourself -- hey, now that's New York. And if you yokels out there in the sticks don't wanna watch our World Series? Who needs ya, sunshine? These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the
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