A PTU Salute to WFAN

The idea that there was ever a time without sports radio is crazy to most of us. For as long as any of us at PTU can remember, 660 on the AM dial has been nothing but middle aged men yakking about New York sports. Any extended trip in a car with your father or a stop in a pizzeria for a slice was accompanied by a WFAN host arguing with a caller. You had Steve Somers and his creepy uncle vibe late afternoons with Russ Salzberg (who would later take his sweaters to UPN/My9 News), Bill "you had no idea I was black until I worked on MSG" Daughtry in the evenings, Mike and the Mad Dog all the damn afternoon along with John Minko and 20/20 sports updates and Don Imus before the world hated him and his cowboy hat in the morning. World spanning NBC sports anchor Len Berman was an original host, as was HBO boxing guy Jim Lampley and Greg Gumbel. Mike Breen and Clyde Frazier did the Knicks games (one a national announcer now and the other the coolest man in the world), and of course the Fan has been the home of the Mets for decades now (Let's go Mets! F.A.N.) It all seems commonplace now but in the late 80s it was revolutionary. Today, it's a formula that's been replicated all over the country. Two assholes sit in a studio for 4 hours taking calls like this:


Host: Vinnie in Bayside on the line, how ya doin Vinnie?

Vinnie: How ya doin, Mike? First time, long time. I wanna talk about the Mets.

It's really simple but that kind of exchange didn't exist until July 1st, 1987. Now you have nationally syndicated shows, and every city has at least one station dedicated to talking about their sports teams. Sports fans are almost all obsessive, and we don't go a day without talking about some type of sport for at least a couple minutes, be it on e-mail, text, social media or even sometimes in person. Blogs like this wouldn't exist without people's insatiable appetites for all things sports (ok this blog would probably still exist) but it's hard to fathom that there was ever a period in this country during which people thought there wouldn't be a market for that kind of stuff. For better or worse (probably for better), WFAN blazed the trail for the round the clock sports culture. A lot of the voices have changed but it's still the same basic format and Vinnie is still mad at the Mets. I'm going to get a slice of pizza this weekend and listen to the bickering.

NY Dumbass Hall of Fame: Amar'e Stoudemire

Today's as good a day as any to introduce a new feature at PTU: the New York Dumbass Hall of Fame. New York sports has seen some truly stupid athletes throughout the years, from John Starks to Plaxico to the Mets, but we have to begin with our inaugural inductee: Amar'e "Glass Joe" Stoudemire. As everyone's heard, he followed up last night's invisible performance vs Miami with one of the more idiotic moves in sports history, punching the glass case to a fire extinguisher out of frustration and possibly ending his season. That's next level stupidity, some real Kevin Brown type shit. Does this mean the Knicks season is over? It was probably over already anyway, and it's been proven that Carmelo plays better when Amar'e's not around, so I'm not shedding any tears for his loss. Our 100 million dollar man, however, has now proven that not only does he have a weak body, but his brain is also made out of pudding. Figures that one time the Knicks put up some fight in this series, it's against a fire extinguisher. I actually liked Amar'e last season; he put the team on his back (and in the process probably ran himself into the ground) and brought life back to the Garden for the first time in seemingly ages, but since the arrival of Melo he's been at best a less than complimentary player and at worst an outright liability on the court. There's been thesises written about why Amar'e can't play defense or grab rebounds. Is it because he played for D'Antoni for so long? Did he put on too much muscle? Is it the off the court distractions? Maybe Amar'e just suc'ks at defense. Maybe he's just la'zy. And we all know that he is definitely stu'pid. His corn rows must have been wound too tight, cutting off whatever oxygen he had going to that pea brain of his. And now he's done for the season most likely, but at least we know that he is capable of hitting the glass.

Amar'e, welcome to the PTU NY Dumbass Hall of Fame.

Who's Your Daddy? Best New York Sports Chants of All Time

Last Friday night, the Knicks blew out another miserable team at home, absolutely dominating a truly awful Wizards team. There was some controversy over whether or not the Wiz could beat Kentucky a couple weeks ago. After witnessing this game, I'm not sure they could beat Brooklyn College. Their girl's basketball team. One positive that came out of the extensive garbage time, however, was a new chant from the Garden crowd. This time it was "FORTY-SEVEN!" coming down from the cheap seats, a reference that at first escaped me (and apparently Steve Novak) to the score the Wiz were stuck on for close to an entire quarter of basketball. New york crowds often receive praise for being the most intelligent fans in sports (as well as some of the loudest) but we sometimes forget their mastery of the art of the group chant. We all know the basic chants: De-fense, charge, aaaashole. Those are all classics in their own right but from time to time we hear some truly inspired chants. It's easy to mess them up like that character on Conan O' Brien's show used to, but here are a few of my favorites.

"YOU"RE NOT JE-SUS"



That "LET"S GO YAN-KEES" rythym is so versatile any four syllables can be inserted in it's place and it sounds pretty good (besides We Want Tacos which is just bush league). Before Johnny Damon was a Yankees World Series hero, he was just another idiot on the eventual champion Red Sox with some decidedly un-Yankee like hair. Besides the great line "Looks like Jesus, throws like Mary" the Yankee Stadium bleachers also came up with "you're not Jesus" to try to get in his head. It mostly didn't work but was a great chant.

"UG-LY SIS-TER"


New York has known it's fair share of sports villains throughout the years but perhaps no one this side of John Rocker has inspired as much hatred amongst tri- state area fans of Reggie Miller. Just the sight of that monkey face on TNT still makes my blood boil. One silver lining to seeing Cheryl's more feminine brother every spring was a couple great chants. Of course there was "REGGIE SUCKS", "CHEEEERRRYYYYYLLLL" and the best of all "UGLY SISTER". Because nothing hurts a man worse than hearing 20,000 people simultaneously insulting your sister. And as you can tell by that horrifying photo, they weren't lying. This same chant was later used by Mavericks fans (amongst other Laker haters) when Khloe Kardashian's husband Lamar Odom was still an actual basketball player.

"WHO'S YOUR DADDY?"



Pedro Martinez was yet another Red Sox thorn in the Yankees' side for years. From the Don Zimmer fight to his many dominating performances against them to Grady Little fatefully leaving him on the mound an inning too long, Pedro and his Jeri Curl were smack in the middle of so much Yankee history. After a regular season loss to the Bombers, however, Pedro made the mistake of calling the Yankees his "daddy" and the rest was chant history that would last all the way until his reincarnation as a washed up pitcher with the Phillies in the 09 Series.

"POTVIN SUCKS"



We don't get into much hockey talk at PTU (and when I do I just make stuff up) but it's undeniable that hockey crowds know a good chant. One that's spanned decades is the ever present "Potvin Sucks" that is sometimes used to replace "Let's go Rangers" that refers to a guy who played for the Islanders 30 years ago. Like a good crosstown rivalry, a good chant never dies.

"WIIIIFE BEEEEATER"



Jason Kidd is one of the more respected veteran players now in the NBA but there was a time that he had some dirt on him. While his image is now pretty squeaky clean this wasn't always the case. During the early 2000s things were much different. The Nets were actually an exciting, fun team to watch that did nothing but win after replacing Stephon Marbury with Kidd at the point, and for a few years there dominated the Knicks (on the court if not in the papers). Present for most of the fun was Kidd's hot wife and weird looking child, sitting courtside until revelations about their domestic abuse were revealed, including Joumana throwing a cookie at Jason and Jason hitting her with a purse (or the other way around). Either way, they broke up and the Garden crowd was provided with a chant that was questionable in taste but truly insulting to Kidd. The way all great chants should be.

"FIRE ISIAH"



Simple yet gets the point across.

Mark Sanchez Is As Good As Joe Namath

If you ask any Jets fan about Mark Sanchez, you are bound to hear praise. Comments ranging from how awesome he’s been in the clutch to how he’s the best quarter back in New York. Some of them even go as far as saying that although it is early in his career, he may be as great as Joseph William Namath.

Well Jets fans, you’ve all got one thing right. In his early career, Sanchez is very similar to his older Jets counterpart. Aside from loving booze and ladies (try and Google “Namath & Susie Kolber" followed by “Marc Sanchez freshman arrest”), both Sanchez and Joe Willy have a skill possessed by few athletes. They own the ability to distract everyone from the important stuff like a poor passer rating, completion percentage, yards per game, or even TD’s. Instead of focusing on those things, they force you to look at team results, earned by talented players, whose hard work got the team a win but barely got them the post game interview love they deserved. While his defense is licking its wounds from a hard hitting game, his running backs are icing knees that had to fight 8 men fronts all day, and his receivers are getting massages for the hits they took outreaching for yet another overthrown ball, Sanchez is front and center for the interview. Could you imagine a world where Trent Dilfer got some love for actually winning the Super Bowl and that Ravens “D” was a secondary story?

If you speak ill of their beloved “Nacho” (thank you Bart Scott and HBO’s Hard Knocks) Jets fans will quickly go into a defensive mind set. They will tell you that he is still young and has the most post season wins of any Jets QB in history. They will not tell you that prior to last year, that record stood at two wins with Joe Namath, Richard Todd and Chad Pennington owning that distinction. They will omit that those playoff wins should be attributed to a great defensive scheme and excellent execution and their failure to make it to a Super Bowl falls squarely on the shoulders of their lack of a consistent offensive game (Sanchez does show flashes of good play, but flashes aren’t beating the Steelers in December).

They will also omit that he was 29th in completion percentage, 27th in QB rating, 25th in yards per game, and 19th in TD passes. You should be careful of mentioning these stats around Jets fans, as they may tell you that “their” Jets are a run first team. These fans would be shocked to know that of all QB’s in football, Sanchez was 9th in attempts, which is more than Flacco, Brady, and Josh Freeman (who is a personal favorite of Snoot and mine, mostly for his awkward fro).
These are all similar positions Jets fans take with regards to the team’s Godfather. After guaranteeing a win in Super Bowl III, Joe Namath threw for exactly zero touchdowns and did not throw a single pass in the 4th Quarter. Despite all of that, Namath still won the Super Bowl MVP (the only guy to do so without throwing a TD) and is heralded by Jets fans as the savior of the AFC. All poor Matt Snell did was carry the ball 30 times for a 121 yards and a TD. Jet fans will also defend their hero’s status as a hall of famer despite his QB rating being lower than all HOF’ers aside from Bobby Layne, Bob Waterfield, George Blanda (a man who had diabetes and lost some toes), and Jim Finks. All of those guys had their first start between 1945 and 1949…not a very pass friendly league in those days. They will also ignore his losing record as a starter and the fact that he threw more picks than he did touchdowns.

I’ve tried having a discussion with Jets fans about Namath and Sanchez for a while. It usually just gets me frustrated. I’ve learned that the next time a Jets fan says something about Sanchez, it’s better to just tell them, “Bro, he’s as good as Joe Namath.”