So it’s Wednesday morning and it’s just another routine day – I’m tooling around my house on my Hoveround like always, making myself one of those healthy breakfast shakes made of Lucky Charms, chocolate milk and a half dozen Yodels, when I suddenly realize it’s one of our great holidays – St. Patrick’s Day. With drinking, and uh, even more drinking, what’s not to like? Everybody grabs a pint of Guinness or a green beer, sings “Dirty Old Town,” wears their “Kiss me I’m Irish” shirt and at least pretends to be of Gaelic persuasion. I, on the other hand, am German, so I throw on my “Don’t kiss me I’m German – that would be inefficient, emotional and unsanitary” T-shirt, and head off to work. I’m not the only one around these parts who wears a variation on the “Kiss me I’m Irish” shirt, though; here are some like-themed T-shirts seen worn by local athletes past and present on St. Patty’s Day:

“Kiss me – I’m not …

We all know about the great athletes in New York sports history – Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Namath, Mark Messier, Walt Frazier – and even the busts – Ed Whitson, Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Stephon Marbury, Scott Gomez. But what about the slightly-to-highly-above-average athlete? The kind-of-great but not all-timer? They may not have been Hall-of-Famers, but they were All-Stars, fan favorites, cogs on a championship team or maybe even just pretty darn good. They’re the little brother that didn’t hog all the attention. But they’re certainly worth talking about and remembering. So when do they get their due? Well, now they will. Here is a series of the not-quite-legendary in New York sports history.

Buck Williams was Mr. Net, Mr. Rebound and Mr. Class. Julius Erving may have been the most talented player the Nets have ever had, but Williams was the best NBA player the franchise has known. In order to afford the fee to enter the NBA, the Nets had to sell Dr. …

Are the Rangers about to embark on their signature successful homestretch run in order to sneak into the playoffs? They’re in do-or-die territory, in ninth place in the conference, but they always seem to be in this position, at least the last few years they have been. Why? Probably because they don’t put in a consistent effort and they’re offensively and defensively challenged. Their five-year streak of making the playoffs is in jeopardy, just like their four-year streak was last year (and three-year streak the season before . . ). They’ve now won two in a row, though, and are 5-2-2 in their last nine games.

They easily whipped Atlanta, 5-2, on Friday night. Their number-one line (for this week) starred, with Vinny Prospal scoring two goals with an assist, and Marian Gaborik netting one and picking up two assists. Michael Del Zotto scored his first goal in a long time, and Henrik Lundqvist was his usual self. In his last 10 games, he’s only allowed more than …

I thought if I just make it through the winter and finally get done with all that shoveling, the warmth of spring and the start of baseball will ease the pain and make the North Pole−like blizzards a distant memory, and it will be smooth sailing from there on out. But apparently I’m the Mets of people (or is it the Mets personified?) – they thought last year’s injury nightmare was behind them only to have it all start over again this spring, and I had that “here we go again” feeling, too. As soon as I dug myself out of the snow (and thought, “It can’t get any worse than this, can it?”), I had to spend a boatload of money (that I don’t even have) to get my broken-down, good-for-nothing car fixed (twice), and then Saturday’s hurricane hit, and my basement was submerged (I think I found Nemo) and much of the siding on my house was ripped off in the gale-force winds. Let’s face …

Baseball season is right around the corner (hey, three weeks is like four days when you’re my age, so twentysomething days is “right around the corner” to me), and after all the snow this winter, I’m ready. But here comes one of those “the old days were better” ramblings – they don’t call me Old Man Freier in my neighborhood for nothing (actually they pretty much just ignore me because I start every sentence with “Back in my day”). I was recently watching part of game five of the 1976 Yankees-Royals LCS that YES always seems to show and an episode of The Bronx Is Burning on MSG (the one about the 1977 LCS, which intersperses real highlights from the series), and it’s safe to say that baseball has changed since then. It may not have been better, but it was different. It’s lost a lot of its toughness and boys-will-be-boys attitude. In the 1976 game, the first pitch thrown by Grant Jackson right after George Brett …

I’ve come here to laugh with the Mets, not at them. Or to laugh with them and not angst over them. Or just to laugh. Please God, let me laugh. The season hasn’t even started yet and I pretty much want to kill myself already. After all of last year’s injuries, this spring the Mets have given us the Great Carlos Beltran Knee Fiasco, Frankie Rodriguez’s pink eye, Kelvim Escobar’s sore shoulder and now Jose Reyes’ overactive thyroid, which we’ve just learned will take two to eight weeks (years?) to stabilize before he can resume baseball activities, which means he’ll most likely miss opening day. There have also been the usual miscommunications and misdiagnoses. And Reyes and Beltran are linked to a doctor in Canada who’s doling out HGH. How frustrated and angry can one fan base get? Don’t you have to laugh? Maybe I’m being desperate here and ignoring reality, but isn’t it easier that way (ignoring reality is how I usually deal with things in …

We all know about the great athletes in New York sports history – Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Namath, Mark Messier, Walt Frazier – and even the busts – Ed Whitson, Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Stephon Marbury, Scott Gomez. But what about the slightly-to-highly-above-average athlete? The kind-of-great but not all-timer? They may not have been Hall-of-Famers, but they were All-Stars, fan favorites, cogs on a championship team or maybe even just pretty darn good. They’re the little brother that didn’t hog all the attention. But they’re certainly worth talking about and remembering. So when do they get their due? Well, now they will. Here is a series of the not-quite-legendary in New York sports history.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, the Mets were in the habit of trading away their young talent for, well, basically nothing. Amos Otis for Joe Foy. Nolan Ryan (and a few others) for Jim Fregosi. And they did it again when they sent Ken Singleton to Montreal (with Mike Jorgensen and Tim Foli). But this time, they …

The Knicks recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of their first championship, which got me to thinking – and yes, this is what I think about while cracking open my ninth beer of the night: New York-area teams have a seven-decade championship streak on the line this year. For the last seven decades (and eight out of nine) a New York team has played in a championship game when the year ends in a zero. Sometimes they lost, sometimes they won, but they reached the final game or series. Coincidence? Yeah, but so what? Let’s look back anyway.

The year 2000 was a bonanza. The Yankees and Mets squared off in the World Series, the Devils won the Stanley Cup and the Giants made it to the Super Bowl but lost to Baltimore (the game was played in 2001 but it was the 2000 season). In 1990, the Giants beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl (wide right!). The Islanders won the first of four consecutive Stanley Cups in 1980. …

We all know about the great athletes in New York sports history – Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Namath, Mark Messier, Walt Frazier – and even the busts – Ed Whitson, Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Stephon Marbury, Scott Gomez. But what about the slightly-to-highly-above-average athlete? The kind-of-great but not all-timer? They may not have been Hall-of-Famers, but they were All-Stars, fan favorites, cogs on a championship team or maybe even just pretty darn good. They’re the little brother that didn’t hog all the attention. But they’re certainly worth talking about and remembering. So when do they get their due? Well, now they will. Here is a series of the not-quite-legendary in New York sports history.

The analysts on MSG’s Hockey Night Live, Butch Goring, Ron Duguay and Ken Daneyko, are three disparate personalities and were three completely different players, playing for different teams and playing different positions, but they all made their mark in New York sports history (ok, and New Jersey). From the gritty, down-to-earth Goring, to the flashy male-model-like Duguay, to tough-guy, …

The Mets are coming into spring training refreshed, confident and basking in the glow of the warm Florida sun. In fact they’re so confident they’re talking about playing in the World Series. They haven’t declared themselves the team to beat yet, though, but there’s still plenty of time left for that. Having confidence and setting high goals are great – no team, no matter how bad, is going to announce that they think they’ll finish in fourth place for the coming season – but you have to learn to walk before you can run. We’ve heard all the grand pronouncements and proclamations before, but it’s gotten them nowhere.

Jerry Manuel and the Mets have been talking about fundamentals here and there, and turning over a new leaf and wiping the slate clean, but mainly what we’ve heard so far in Port St. Lucie is: “We have enough talent to go the World Series.” Or “I’m the best pitcher in the division.” Or “We have the same core that …

Ok, so I’m at Penn Station in the men’s room the other day (and no, I wasn’t “loitering” or “hanging out” or “experimenting” – I was just “freshening up” before my train ride home), and this guy is holding a fancy Victoria’s Secret gift bag with a wrapped present sticking out of it, when he drops it on the floor as he’s zipping up. Now, of course, the floor in there is, shall we say, wet. In fact, it’s sort of like a pond. A pond filled with scum. And other things that you don’t even want to be stepping in, let alone dropping a fancy present in. The guy picks up his bag, gives it a wipe or two with his hand, splashing the run-off on himself now, and then goes on his merry way. Oh, that poor, poor girlfriend or wife. Little does she know the journey that her thoughtful gift has traveled. The only way she could find out, is if that schlemiel boyfriend of hers came home and announced, “Happy birthday, …

We all know about the great athletes in New York sports history – Babe Ruth, Tom Seaver, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Namath, Mark Messier, Walt Frazier – and even the busts – Ed Whitson, Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Stephon Marbury, Scott Gomez. But what about the slightly-to-highly-above-average athlete? The kind-of-great but not all-timer? They may not have been Hall-of-Famers, but they were All-Stars, fan favorites, cogs on a championship team or maybe even just pretty darn good. They’re the little brother that didn’t hog all the attention. But they’re certainly worth talking about and remembering. So when do they get their due? Well, now they will. Here is a series of the not-quite-legendary in New York sports history.

When Mickey Rivers walked up to home plate, he hobbled to the batter’s box looking like an old man shuffling out to the mailbox to retrieve his monthly AARP Magazine. The flakey center fielder came to the Bronx in a trade with the Angels (along with pitcher Ed Figueroa) in exchange for outfielder Bobby Bonds before the 1976 season. He …