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.
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