Giants unseen

This morning, the City hosted a ticker-tape parade for the New York Giants, who rode into town like the conquering kings they are. I and two co-workers left the office for a couple of hours to see if we could get close enough to high-five Eli Manning (yeah, right). There were three things going against us: We didn't leave early enough, we did not know anyone who worked in an office overlooking the parade route, and we were not cops.

So, along with about twenty bajillion other people, we ended up walking around lower Manhattan in circles, prevented from getting close to the parade by the NYPD's best. We had to return to our office and watch the live video feed streaming on CNN.com, but not before I snapped these photos:

About half the people wore Giants apparel. Those who didn't bring their own could buy them from sketchy street vendors peddling t-shirts with slogans like, "Patriots: From Spyin' to Cryin'." Predictably, the most popular jerseys worn were those of Manning, Strahan, Shockey, Burress and Jacobs (I also saw a couple of Gary Reasons jerseys, which looked like they hadn't been washed since 1989).

To give you an idea of how crowded it was, this photo was shot at least five blocks from the parade route.

The Naked Cowboy may rule Times Square, but the rest of Manhattan is fair game for the Naked Author, who showed up in "eye-black" face paint and little else. I'm glad I didn't have to ride next to him in a crowded subway train on the way back.

The strangest thing has just happened

As I type this, I can hear a whole city of people yelling from their apartment windows. The New York Giants have just won the Super Bowl.

And you don't want to know the words they're using to refer to Tom Brady.

UPDATE: Now women are flashing passers-by on the street. It's like Mardi Gras out there.

Cold comfort

I just turned off the TV. Remember when I wrote that 2007 was a bad year for New York sports? Well, 2008 is already turning out to be a great year for the New York Giants, who have just won the NFC Championship game and are heading to the Super Bowl.

I'm not a football pundit, really, so instead of a lame post-game analysis, here are tips on how to get dinner in NYC during the half-time segment of a Giants football game, without calling ahead and ordering:

• Get dressed at the end of the second quarter, preferably before the two-minute warning.
• Do not pack your cell phone. If you do, your wife might call you after you leave and change her order. This must not be allowed to happen!
• When the clock runs out, so should you.
• Make sure you select an eatery within two blocks of where you live. I decided to go to Whole Foods, which has a prepared food section. Appropriately manly dinner options: fried chicken, mac and cheese, hot wings, french fries, potato chips, salsa and dip. Unacceptable options: sushi, any sort of green vegetables, fruit salad, cake.
• Use the express checkout lane. If you have more items than allowed in the express lane, you have bought too much.
• Pay using a credit or debit card. By doing so, you can begin the payment process before the checkout lady has finished scanning your items.
• Be nice to the checkout lady, but don't pause to chat.
• Once back home, express shock at the fact that your wife has changed the channel. Command the woman to switch back, then apologize for your rudeness and make up for it by patiently explaining the difference between a "touchdown" and an "end zone." Do not laugh at wife when she asks, "Are they at the touchdown yet?"
• Enjoy the second half.

Giant step

The NY Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys tonight to make it to the NFC Championship game. 2007 may have been a bad year for New York sports fans, but so far, the new year has proven victorious for NYC's favorite football team. They play the Green Bay Packers next weekend. If they win, it's off to the SuperBowl.

A point of clarification for regular readers of this blog: I am not really a Giants fan, sorry to say. Football is a new and still relatively unfamiliar sport to me, so I haven't really decided who "my team" is. You might say I'm still at the fair weather stage of football fan-hood, although I will profess longstanding admiration for Brett Favre (who, along with Marshall Faulk, was one of the few NFL players I knew by name while I was a fresh-off-the-boat, wet-behind-the-ears foreign student in Indiana).

Fumbles

Glaringly obvious comment ahead: 2007 was a bad year for New York sports. The Knicks lost 15 of their last 19 games to end the regular season last season. Playoffs? Not even close. Two months into this season, they've won eight games. Eight out of 31. The Giants have more wins than that in 16 games.

Speaking of the Giants, they squeaked their way into tomorrow's AFC wild card game. I say squeak because there was a point in the regular season that New York fans began worrying their team wouldn't make the playoffs. Now that they're in, they have to contend with Jeff Garcia, an arch-nemesis if there ever was one.

In Major League Soccer (which, by international standards, is sort of like the soccer you play with your cousins on 4th of July weekend while waiting for the cheese to melt on the burgers), New York's Red Bulls were dismissed by the New England Revolution. (If this blog were titled One Year in Boston, there'd be plenty of good news in sports, by the way.)

I'd mention something about baseball, but it's too early in the day for rage and depression.

And what about my beloved Rutgers, the closest thing to New York's official college football team? They finished the '07 season with a 7-5 record, good enough to be invited to a bowl game so inconsequential that it's being played in Canada.

So long, and thanks for all the turkey

Today is Thanksgiving, a uniquely American holiday that, to the outsider, appears to celebrate the deliciousness of turkey. In reality, it celebrates gluttony, the four-day weekend, and pre-Christmas shopping. Or something like that.

In keeping with recent tradition, we hightailed it to central New Jersey to have a Thanksgiving meal with Sarah's family. This year, due to my new interest in football, I actually enjoyed watching the Thanksgiving Day football game on Fox, in which the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions. Brett Favre was not the first football player I'd heard of while growing up in Malaysia (a gentler land where "football" means soccer and American football is about as popular as getting punched in the face). But Brett Favre and the Packers won the Superbowl the year I came to the United States, so his name is, to me, synonymous with Americana. Favre is 38 years old now. He's still the starting quarterback for the Packers. It's actually sort of amazing.

Here's the other thing about Thanksgiving: it's the day before Black Friday, ostensibly the biggest shopping day of the year. Today, apart from the areas surrounding the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Manhattan was a ghost town, the calm before the storm. Tomorrow, I expect pandemonium.

Michigan rising

Finally, I see New Yorkers wearing University of Michigan apparel again. When Michigan, a perennial championship contender, went 0-2 to begin the college football season, including a stultifying loss to Division I-AA school Appalachian State, there was nary a maize-and-blue t-shirt in sight. Then, last Saturday, the Wolverines shut out Notre Dame for the season's first win. On Sunday, I saw a guy on the subway wearing a Michigan sweatshirt. And today, on my way to work, I rode the elevator with a gentleman wearing a button-down shirt, necktie, and a Michigan cap on his head.

Winners and losers

My mother in-law, echoing a popular and accurate sentiment, often says, "New York loves a winner." This is especially true for the city's professional sports teams. Now, I'm no sports pundit, and the only pro sport I follow with any true conviction is basketball. Unfortunately for me, the New York Knicks, once an NBA powerhouse, has in recent years been about as exciting to watch as my cat's attempt to remove an ice cube from her water bowl. I did attend a couple of games last season at the famed Madison Square Garden, both times using free tickets, both times leaving disappointed as the home team sort of gave up altogether. I've never really been a fan of the Knicks, though, so it's hardly a personal loss.

For more successful sports organizations, there are always the Mets and the Yankees, New York's major league baseball teams. Confession: Having been born and raised in another country, I only recently figured out the game of baseball. Until about two or three months ago, I didn't know what RBI stood for. Until tonight, I didn't know what ERA stood for.* And I'm still learning. I don't know for sure if an understanding of various acronyms and statistical categories is essential to enjoying the "American pastime," but it sure does enhance the enjoyment for me. Tonight, as I watched the Yankees hold off perennial rivals the Boston Red Sox in the ninth inning to win the game by a precarious margin, it occurred to me that I might be in danger of becoming a fan.

It's not hard to be a fan of the Yankees -- they're the most successful North American professional sports franchise in history, winning 26 World Series championships (by comparison, the Boston Celtics, the most successful pro basketball franchise, have a paltry 16 NBA titles). Fairweather fans are a dime a dozen in this city, but still, you have to appreciate the support from the New York area for the phenomenal success of the Rutgers college football** team, who last year finished the season with a 10-2 record, the best in the school's history. Not too long ago, they were lucky to win two games in one season. When I was at Rutgers, several years ago, I never ever went to a game. In fact, when I was at Rutgers, I didn't even know how the game of football is played.

Rutgers is 40 miles outside of the city, but it's the closest you can get to a winning local college football team in a city that desperately wants a college football team to root for. I was on the train today heading back into New York from New Jersey, and in between standard announcements ("ThisstationstopisMetroparkpleasewatchyourstepasyouexitthetrain"), the driver came on the PA system to announce that "Green Bay is beatin' up on the Giants." Then he reported that "Rutgers is number nine in the country," meaning that the Rutgers football team was now the ninth-best*** college team in the nation, according to the AP Poll. In spite of myself, I let out a celebratory "whoo-hoo!" and the teenaged boy in a Nike baseball cap sitting next to me flinched and gave a me furtive glance, as if worried that I might behead him with my cellphone.

*Yes, I know I could have looked up these things online, or asked one of the many sports nuts I know, but it's been far more rewarding learning the game as I watch it on TV.
**By "football" I mean gridiron, or American, football. Not to be confused with "soccer" which, while indeed a beautiful game and one I grew up playing, is merely the second-greatest game in the world.
***Rutgers is actually ranked 11th. Apparently the train operator's information was as reliable as New Jersey Transit's schedules.