Daniel Murphy was once a third baseman. Apparently he wasn’t particularly good at that position, but that was his natural spot out on the field. When he was first called up to the majors in August 2008, the Mets threw him out in left field, as obviously they already had a third baseman (where was Murphy in 1970 when they needed him?). He learned the position on the fly. He wasn’t great, he wasn’t even good, but he wasn’t Todd Hundley-like bad either. After the season, instead of working on his outfield defense, the Mets had him play second base in winter ball. He wasn’t good; he didn’t have the footwork and quickness needed at that position, and that was the end of that experiment. He was given the left-field job in 2009, dropped a fly ball against Florida, and it was all bad (ok, really, really bad) from that point on. And finally, he was moved to first base, where he wasn’t really, really bad. He made physical errors. He made errors in judgment. …

This is the 40th anniversary of the 1970 World Champion New York Knicks, and the franchise will honor that outstanding team tomorrow night at the Garden. By now we all know about the May 8, 1970, heroics of Knick captain Willis Reed, who hobbled onto the court, scored the team’s first four points while basically playing with one leg and led his team to its first championship. Just the sight of him on the floor intimidated the Lakers and inspired the Knicks to victory.

Reed’s performance in the series was good enough to earn him the Finals MVP (and by the way, he had to guard three Hall-of-Fame centers during the playoff run: Wes Unseld, the artist formerly known as Lew Alcindor and Wilt Chamberlain). That season Reed also won the regular season MVP, the All-Star game MVP (he was the first player to win all three awards in the same season), was on the All-NBA first team, the Defensive first team, was the Sporting News MVP and …

The first-ever slam dunk competition was held this week during halftime of the ABA All-Star game at McNichols Arena in Denver. Julius Erving of the New York Nets wowed everybody with his running dunk from the foul line. Dr. J bested Denver’s David Thompson, Artis Gilmore of the Kentucky Colonels, and San Antonio’s George Gervin and Larry Kenon. As for the game itself (after some pregame entertainment by top-of-the-chart recording artists Glen Campbell and Charlie Rich), the league eschewed its former format of East vs. West, instead having the first place team at the break taking on a group of ABA All-Stars. The Denver Nuggets, coached by Larry Brown, scored 52 points in the fourth quarter to overtake the All-Star squad by a final score of 144-138. Thompson was named the game’s MVP, scoring 29 points, and Dr. J led the All-Stars with 23 points. In the NBA All-Star game, Dave Bing was named MVP (16 points, four assists) after leading the East to a 123-109 victory …

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.

With the Knicks celebrating their 1970 World Champion team this coming Monday, let’s take a look at the forgotten man on that squad – Dick Barnett. Everybody knows about Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere and Bill Bradley, and even the additions to the early-’70s powerhouse team, Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas, but not a lot of fans may …

Pitchers and catchers are only days away, but, unfortunately, the Mets pitchers and catchers are mainly a bunch of back-end rotation guys slotted in behind Johan Santana and a group of backups to catch them. Omar Minaya seems to be going with a (broken, fragile) wing and a prayer for the team’s 2010 rotation. Not overspending on average-to-mediocre talent is all well and fine, but since they didn’t make a big play for the only number-two starter out there, John Lackey, they really should have tried to come up with a healthy innings eater to hedge their bet against all the injury-prone pitchers they’ll be going with. Even their depth is coming off injuries. Where is the creative, wheeler-dealer Minaya this offseason? Something akin to last winter’s three-way trade with Seattle might have been a nice tonic for them again (of course, that trade didn’t exactly pan out, but at the time it was looking pretty nice).

We can look into our crystal ball and make an educated guess as to how the seasons of Mike …

Super Bowl Sunday combines everything that’s great about our country: Drinking, eating 15 pounds of Buffalo wings, gambling and British classic rock. Why, oh why is this day not a national holiday? Here in New York, did we care who won? Well, if you had a wager on the game you did. Or did one of those squares things at work. So even if you don’t have a true rooting interest, it’s still hard to watch the game in a nice, relaxing manner when you’re yelling at the TV for the Colts to get a safety so they could end up with a score that ends in 5. The halftime show is always fun. The Who (or what’s left of them) rocked as only senior citizens can. Let’s give them credit, though, when I’m their age I’ll be lucky if can eat solid food and remember where I live. But the band is getting too rickety to smash their own equipment, so they have roadies do that …

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.

Giants linebacker Brad Van Pelt was the bridge between the Alex Webster/Norm Snead/Ron Johnson era and the Lawrence Taylor/Phil Simms/Bill Parcells years. He played for five different coaches (Webster, Bill Arnsparger, John McVay, Ray Perkins, Parcells) and in four home stadiums (Yankee Stadium, the Yale Bowl, Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium). And he was a Giant through and through. He …

“If you don’t play this game with a big heart and a big bag o’ knuckles in front of the net, you don’t got dinky do.” Donnie Shulzhoffer (aka Mike Myers) in Mystery, Alaska

Some things just seem out of place or don’t go together, like the time Chris Drury hosted Soul Train for a year, and the Rangers playing a full 60 minutes, battling in front of the net and doing all the little things to win seems out of character for this year’s edition of the Rangers. But their rivalry with New Jersey seems to bring out the best in this team, so maybe if the Rangers played the Devils every game they would have a lot more “dinky do.” Or maybe they should just pretend every other team is the Devils.

Sure, it was near the end of the game on Saturday night, but at one point almost every player on the ice was piled up in a big heap in front of the Rangers’ net …

We sports fans are a dramatic bunch when it comes to our teams – everything is life and death – but in real life we shrug sadness and tragedy off like it’s nothing. “My Uncle Maury died? What are ya gonna do? He had a good run. Can you pass the ketchup?” But if the team we root for goes into a slump or, God forbid, gets knocked out of the playoffs, we’re screaming, tears are falling like Niagara Falls and we’re pulling what’s left of our hair out. Think back to the 1994 Stanley Cup and tears of joy start falling. Think of the Wilpons or James Dolan owning your team, and tears of sadness reign down. And if you’re like me and Rip Torn, you’ll get so drunk you’ll mistakenly take a local bank for your house, break in and pass out as I did when the 2007 baseball season ended and the Mets pulled off the collapse hear round the world. I was in such bad shape that I was nearly fired …

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.

Al Toon was the antithesis of Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens and other receivers cut from the aggrandizing, look-at-me cloth. He proved that all receivers don’t have to be showboating boneheads. Toon wouldn’t even spike the ball after scoring a touchdown. Instead, #88 played eight productive, classy seasons for the New York Jets, ducking the attention that he deserved. Besides …

Glen Sather did his Cal Naughton Jr./Magic Man impression by making Scott Gomez disappear in the offseason, and now he’s taken part of that bounty (ok, bust/underachiever/good-for-nothing, take your pick) that he stole from Montreal and shipped off Chris Higgins along with free-agent blunder Ales Kotalik to Calgary for Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust. It seems like a good trade for the Rangers, but how many times is Sather going to have to get rid of his mistakes (Gomez, Kotalik, etc.)? I guess we’ll just have to hope it’s not the last time.

The main positive of this trade for the Rangers is the jettisoning of Kotalik’s three-year $9 million contract. They also erase Higgins from the roster (he’s an unrestricted free agent after this season). Whether fair or not, Kotalik was a healthy scratch much of the time lately, and Higgins didn’t do much of anything after given chance after chance and plenty of ice time. Maybe they’ve both just been unlucky, but all the Blueshirts lose …

The dream is over. This year’s version of the J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets certainly doesn’t look like “the same old Jets,” though. They’re more like the 1973 Ya Gotta Believe Mets, arriving out of nowhere to come oh-so-close to a championship. They’re a team we’ll look back on with positive feelings and one worth celebrating. They went further than anyone imagined, and have a future that certainly looks bright, with a successful coach and franchise quarterback in place (though Mark Sanchez now needs surgery on one knee and will be rehabbing the other – maybe he really is the reincarnation of Joe Namath). The whole weekend was pretty much a nightmare for New York sports, though: the Rangers were embarrassed by Montreal on Saturday night, 6-0, the Knicks were humiliated by Dallas, 128-78, the Nets lost to Utah, 116-83, the Islanders lost to New Jersey (ok, one local team won, but one of them had to) and, of course, the Jets were knocked out of playoffs.

Unfortunately, I can think …