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 …

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 …

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’re only one week into 2010 and I’m already dropping the ball on my resolutions. In the past I’ve been more successful, such as the year I resolved to quit smoking cigarettes. I used one of those quit-smoking programs, with the patches and the gum and the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, the side effects included nausea, dizziness, vomiting, disorientation, hallucinations, agitation, hostility, amnesia, blindness, a hacking cough, lung cancer, throat cancer, the sudden loss of one’s extremities, and addiction to cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars. Sure, now I can’t see, I’m always falling down, I have no idea who I am, I have a hole in my throat and I’m constantly having hallucinations that Art Howe is standing beside me trying to sell me a time-share, but at least I don’t smoke anymore. This year I decided to stop being so humble, demur and shy and to play up my strengths, which means wearing more tank top shirts to show off my impressive shoulder and back hair and to stop hiding my disgustingly smelly feet, …

The 2009 Giants started the season with Super Bowl expectations and ended it with their head coach saying, “I do think we tried. They all came to the stadium wanting to play.” Tom Coughlin seems to have lost his read on his players if he thinks his team tried. They may have come to the stadium wanting to play but once they stepped on the field, it was a different story. The Giants followed up their humiliating embarrassment of last Sunday with 60 minutes of even more humiliating embarrassment this week, if that’s possible. Maybe they wanted to do it twice in a row, and in different states, to get their point across. I’m just not sure what that point is.
Are there any possible reasons for mailing it in like they did the last two games? Were they just making sure Bill Sheridan gets fired? Maybe Kevin Gilbride, too? Did they catch the rerun of There’s Something About Mary the other night, and because Brett …

In the last game the Giants will ever play at Giants Stadium, the 2009 Giants decided to honor the team that ushered in the stadium, the 3-11 1976 Giants, by playing just like them. Actually they played worse. Craig Morton, Walker Gillette and John Mendenhall were nowhere in sight, but somehow their ghosts invaded Giants Stadium (and somehow they have ghosts even though they’re not dead yet), as this year’s edition played like a last place team. The final score was 41-9, but the game really wasn’t that close.

This game is probably beyond analysis, but we’ll try anyway. Tackling? Pathetic. Rushing? Pathetic. Defense? Pathetic. Offense? Pathetic. That pretty much covers it. With the season on the line, the Giants just didn’t show up, and now they’re as dead and buried as Jimmy Hoffa. And they closed out Giants Stadium in humiliating fashion, dishonoring all the teams that played before them. It was a sad and pitiful display of football, with the team showing no heart, …

Christmas is all about comebacks and overcoming adversity against all odds. Ok, it’s really nothing about comebacks and overcoming adversity against all odds but is about love, peace on earth, goodwill toward men, opening presents, then drinking all day long and passing out underneath the tree as an ornament falls and pierces one of your eyeballs, sending you screaming down the street bloody, naked and in horrifying pain. Ah, Christmas. One of the brightest, heartwarming stories of the week, though, is Jonathan Bender’s return to the world of basketball after not playing a game in four years. And on top of it all, he’s been productive. The Knicks, too, are on the comeback trail after starting out at 1-9. Bender’s return after a long absence brings to mind other great comebacks. So, without further ado, here’s a random list of notable returns over the decades (and even centuries).

Gordie Howe retired after the 1971 season, then came back in 1973-’74 to play with his sons, Mark and Marty, lasting …

Last night, the Giants went back in time to the carefree, innocent, halcyon days of weeks one through five, when they romped and had their way with opponents and were looking like the best team in the NFL. Of course, they were playing against some of the worst teams in the NFL. And on Monday Night Football, the Redskins sure looked like one of the league’s dregs, making life easy for Big Blue. But at this time of year, all that matters is a win. But if it’s a 45-12 win, then that’s all the better.
The “good” Giants showed up for this game, and what did they do right vs. the Skins? How about everything. It was domination, annihilation, whatever fun word you want to use. The D pressured the quarterback, rattled the quarterback, sacked the quarterback (five times), injured the quarterback and generally made life miserable for the quarterback. They dominated the line of scrimmage. They played with three subs in the defensive backfield …

On Saturday night I was flipping between another Rangers loss and the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Of course you can’t help but wonder, “What if George Bailey’s situation happened to me?” What if I were able to see the consequences of never being born? That thought lasted about a minute and a half, because everybody’s life would surely be better. My wife would have been able to marry a more successful, rich, interesting, well-rounded man instead of someone who has nothing but a monkey shooting a slap shot, a couple of empty beer cans and some old Rusty Staub highlights filling up his head. My daughter would have a normal father, one who doesn’t constantly quiz her on the proper French Canadian–accented way of saying the names Guy Lafleur and Gilbert Perrault. And nobody else’s life would be affected one way or the other.

But on that subject, what if, more importantly, James Dolan had never been born? The Isiah Thomas era would never have happened. …

The expected smashmouth, defensive, low scoring NFC East battle never materialized in the Giants-Eagles game, as it looked more like an old AFL contest. It was George Blanda vs. John Hadl. Well, the Giants defense made it seem that way, because they can’t stop anybody. If the 82-year-old Blanda stepped on the field against them today, he’d pass for 400 yards. Sure, both starting safeties are injured and they have a corner playing safety, but last night’s performance was downright ridiculous.
Does it even matter what the Giants did well – Eli Manning threw for 391 yards and three touchdowns (with no interceptions), Brandon Jacobs was back to being his old physical self, dragging six defenders with him as he gains eight yards, Hakeem Nicks had a great TD reception, Domenik Hixon came up with an impressive TD catch and run, Ahmad Bradshaw had some nice runs and a few good blocks, Steve Smith broke the franchise single-season reception record – because it was …

Here are some of the highlights, lowlights, scandals, trades and car accidents of the past week in the New York sports world.

Nate-Gate: The surging Knicks have won three games in a row, they’re spreading the ball around on offense and playing solid team defense – yes, defense (somewhere Dave DeBusschere is smiling). They’re moving up in the standings, but Nate-Gate is in full bloom, with chants of “We want Nate” raining down from the Garden faithful while Nate Robinson is tethered to the bench. Whenever he doesn’t play, the Knicks win, so the erratic guard may never see action again. Shooting at the wrong basket, too much goofing around and breezily fraternizing with the enemy have done him in. After realizing that he’s getting paid $4 million to watch NBA games a few times a week and is getting front row seats to boot, he’s not complaining, and is settling into his role as the Knicks’ Little Bit o’ Luck guy. He’s starting to make …