Fandom

Caveat¹

I moved to Ford City, Pennsylvania, in October of 1985. I was 12. I didn’t really care about sports. I cared about comics, cartoons, movies and acting. Music was starting to matter as something more than background noise or a soundtrack to memories. I wasn’t a late bloomer in terms of my attraction to the opposite sex. I had plenty of crushes by then. But sports didn’t matter to me. I had just learned to ride a bike that summer (told you I was a late bloomer). I liked baseball, like all boys do at some point. I mean, I grew up in the Reggie Jackson/Dave Winfield/Don Mattingly era. Everyone was a Yankees fan in the 70’s. I suppose that, if I had to name my favorite sports teams prior to moving to PA, I’d say the Yankees, the Jets and maybe the Islanders. You’re all cringing, but with the exception of the Yankees, these choices were predicated on who my dad cheered for. I didn’t know any better, I just wanted to hang with my dad when I could. The Yankees were the only outlier because I really REALLY admired and idolized Reggie and Winfield.

Then we moved.

And I started to miss NYC. So, in ‘85, I clung onto the two teams that kept me “in New York” so to speak; the Giants and the Mets. And boy, those two teams in the years of 1985 and 1986, did NOT disappoint. And then a funny thing happened in gym class. Derek “Duke” McDonald asked if I was interested in playing basketball. I was still making friends, and Duke was one of the first I made (and still have) so I figured, “Why not?”

What you need to know about the 80’s, as it pertains to basketball, was that everything centered on the Lakers and the Celtics…until it didn’t. Slowly, Michael Jordan was starting to creep up in the public consciousness. Slowly, the Detroit Pistons were building something. And back in New York, the Knicks were building what, to me, was the greatest team in basketball. Anchored by Georgetown Hoya, Patrick Ewing, and with Mark Jackson running point, the team would pick up Charles Oakley (perhaps my favorite basketball player of all time, followed by Shawn Kemp from Seattle), Larry Johnson, Anthony Mason and the spitfire, John Starks. This wasn’t the team I started to watch, mind you. I had to suffer a few rebuilding years, but the team was always in the hunt, usually knocked out by the Bulls or the Celtics. Something I’ve never told anyone…after any Knicks game I was lucky to see (usually against the Atlanta Hawks, since we had TBS, if they weren’t in the playoffs), I would walk down the block to a small basketball court, at the end of Sixth Avenue, and shoot or do layup drills, by myself. I wasn’t good, let me be clear about that. I played on the junior high school team and they made me the manager. A nice way of saying “water boy.” Football would be my sport from then on, but I would always play pick up games when I could. I used to fantasize about my ideal life: I’d wake up in the morning, work out, write, take breakfast, write, play basketball, lunch, then write. Again, I wasn’t even that good. Why was I centering my fantasies around basketball?

Time passed. I graduated in 1991. Three years later, on June 16, I’m at Jekyll and Hyde’s in Greenwich Village with my friend, Hector, watching the game and celebrating my 21st birthday when I notice the game (the Knicks vs the Houston Rockets) wasn’t on the tv anymore. It was a police chase in Los Angeles (five years later, I would live in LA for 3 months and car chases on tv were a normal occurrence). I asked the coat check girl what was happening, and she just said, “They’re chasing that white car.” A white Ford Bronco to be exact. A Ford Bronco belonging to former football player, OJ Simpson. The Knicks wouldn’t win the championship that year. Even with, what I considered, the greatest team ever.

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What happened last night can only be described as magic. And that’s unfair because that team of Knicks? Worked their asses off. They came from behind in every game to win (save for one loss; FDJT). Stats are a fascinating thing. They were behind 74% of the time in the finals.

I have watched this tip in off of a Jalen Brunson miss from every possible angle and I cannot stress how absolutely incredible this feat is. Too hard, it bounces off. Too soft, and it might get blocked. He could have slammed it, but that could have missed (he missed a few slams in Game 5, too). This “play” is absolutely insane and should have never gone in, but my God, how else would you describe this team and this play in these finals? A miracle? A dream?

I was convinced that if I watched these games, they’d lose and lo and behold, I didn’t watch MOST of these games. Your welcome, Knicks fans. I watched the one that Trump went to, and they lost, so maybe it was me (Spoiler: it was him), so I had to miss these last two games live (but watched them the day after…which did nothing for my anxiety, even knowing the outcome!).

The Knicks’ last championship was won on May 10, 1973.

I was born June, 1973.

I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment.

This Nike ad, which debuted minutes after the final buzzer…makes me weep.

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Fandom is a funny thing. Sports and comics don’t have the same emotions. I know you have die hard DC fans and die hard Marvel fans, and maybe they don’t diverge from that. Sports is so different, though. If you wrap your identity in a comic book character, you’re considered insane, but if you do it in a sport franchise, you’re “normal” in the eyes of the public. The closest thing to this, that I have experienced, is “Avengers Assemble.” Over 10 years, you were invested in every Marvel movie and it paid off in the moment Cap wields Mjolnir, Falcon returns with a posse and, staring down a formidable alien army, Cap says the two words we were waiting for. That is the closest thing to watching the Knicks win last night. Except, it was 53 years. I’m sure there are other allegories and other ways to compare the two, but I have to go back to the idea of identity. I became a Pittsburgh Penguins fan because the first time I watched hockey was after I moved here and watched Mario Lemieux and Paul Coffey on my little black and white tv. I became a Steelers fan because I followed Kordell Stewart from his college days (at Colorado) to being drafted as “Slash.” The Mets…since I moved to PA in 1985. They kept me homesick. And the Knicks…

…that 16 year old kid that watched Kenny “Sky” Walker win the Dunk Contest at All-Star Weekend and went to shoot hoops down the block.

…that 15 year old kid that got excited when Oakley was traded to the Knicks for Bill Cartwright and thought, “Now we have a shot.”

…that 12 year old kid, new to Ford City, clinging to his hometown.

…that 21 year old in Jekyll and Hyde’s.

…that 52 going on 53 year old, sitting in bed, watching the game a day later, weeping.

Go NY Go NY GO.

-V

1. I don’t know for sure where this post will go, but I want to say, up top, that I do not condone violence of any kind. I understand that the actions of some do not reflect on all, and I hope you do too.