I Suspect for most of you, the next three weeks will be a familiar ride along the crests and rabbit holes that define our relationships with the Olympics. There are some events — some swimming nights featuring Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte, some track-and-field events (specifically Usain Bolt), some basketball — that will be must-see TV for you.
There are some athletes you never have heard of playing some sports you rarely think about who will capture your imagination, and because of the helpful time difference, NBC will find ways to nudge you to the front of the TV on those given nights. Maybe there will be a reason to follow modern pentathlon. Or synchronized diving. Or that weird bike race where they just kind of stare at each other for a while before speeding home.
And there will be some nights when even the prospect of Kate Upton, Scarlett Johansson, Bar Refaeli and Mila Kunis playing a game of pickup beach volleyball won’t get you off the Yankees game. We are absolute creatures of summer habit, after all.
But that’s OK. Because thanks to our neighbors and friends across the pond, you will be able to enjoy the Olympics the way you enjoy the Olympics, the way you’re supposed to enjoy the Olympics — on your terms, following your own agenda, your own schedule, your own timetable. I do hope you reserve a little time on the subway or over breakfast to see what Marc Berman, Mark Cannizzaro and I have to say each day from the Games, but even that will require only a modest investment on your part.
We can thank our old landlords for that. We can thank the good people of the United Kingdom who, 231 years after conceding us the winning putt at Yorktown, did us another solid by stepping up and swiping these Olympics from New York City. Because this will be my sixth Olympics, and I’ve talked to plenty of residents of Sydney, Salt Lake City, Athens, Beijing and Vancouver while I’ve been there, and there is a familiar ring to how they feel about having the Olympics invade their towns.
1. The volunteers in the official shirts and hats smile and say, “Isn’t this great!”
2. The regular folks who spent the morning besieged by traffic and feeling overrun say, “No offense, but when do you go home again?”
Yep. This all could have been ours.
Remember? This was one of Mayor Bloomberg’s babies that made his assaults on smoking and soft drinks seem like a thumb-wrestling match. There certainly were some who were excited at the prospect of turning Greater New York into the world’s most intricate Olympic Park. The Jets certainly liked the idea of that old West Side stadium that would have been the main vessel of the Games and then become their very own stadium afterward.
Later, after the thought of stopping up the West Side Highway for three years was mercifully chucked, it was the Mets who nearly wound up with what they got anyway, a new place to play in Queens … although the master plan was for the park to open in 2009, let them play for three years, then spend this year at Yankee Stadium, and how do you suppose that would have gone over?
Beyond that, though, just imagine what life would be like around here the next three weeks. Actually, if you’re really that morbidly curious, have fun when the 2014 Super Bowl comes to town … then multiply that by 50.
You know how I know that would have been a bad idea? I wrote about it constantly back then, and I kept thinking someone would write in with a vehement disagreement. And no one — not that I remember anyway — ever did. Proving New York’s relationship with the Games: a good thing to visit.
But we wouldn’t want them to live here.
Whack Back at Vac
John Lovisolo: A brief list of things Knicks fans need right now: a) evidence Raymond Felton is sipping wheat grass from time to time; b) a car service for Jason Kidd; c) plenty of Ensure for Marcus Camby/Kurt Thomas; d) X-ray proof that Iman Shumpert’s knee doesn’t look like Marvin Webster’s; e) proof J.R. Smith isn’t studying World B. Free’s highlight reels; f) proof Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony are studying LeBron James/Dwyane Wade highlight reels; g) Tyson Chandler is still the man; h) Jeremy Lin taking his $25M and holing up in Vegas with Charlie Sheen and Dennis Rodman.
Vac: I would add: i) complete inactivity at the trading deadline by the Mets, so the conversation shifts back to the Wilpons again.
@Ajsoti: I think Gary Cohen and Ron Darling have reached that part of the season when they just try to say nice things about Jason Bay in hopes that will turn him around.
Vac: I’m not sure even James Lipton could say enough nice things for that to happen at this point, alas.
Alan Sperber: The calendar says July but consider: 1) the standings table at mlb.com states that the Yankees have a 96 percent probability of making the playoffs; 2) the Yankees already have sent letters to full-season ticket licensees announcing that invoices for the 2012 postseason will be mailed in early August. Suddenly it feels like 1998.
Vac: For some teams that might be considered hubris. For the Yankees, it’s called getting a good, honest look at just how good they are almost every day.
Mark Markarian: Guess what I did last winter? I tuned into a Knicks game. That’s something I haven’t done since the early ’70s, and that was all about Jeremy Lin. Now Jeremy is gone, and with him so is the excitement. I guess my next email to you will be in 2052 or the day after the Dolans are gone. Thank God George never sold the Yankees to them.
Vac: This is as good a time as any to remind everyone that there was a time, not too long ago, when George Steinbrenner made both the Dolans and the Wilpons look like Wellington Mara. And, by the way, a time not so long before that when Wellington Mara made Giants fans every bit as furious as Dolan makes Knicks fans. True story.
Vac’s Whacks
Jeremy Lin leaves New York City on Tuesday. Hailstorms hit New York City on Wednesday. Thank goodness Tim Tebow starts training camp soon so we don’t have to worry about an influx of locusts.
* Santonio Holmes really should try being better at his job before he tries helping me to be better at my job.
* Bobby Parnell reminds me of my very first cell phone. I couldn’t wait to take it out of the box. And soon enough, couldn’t wait to mail it back to Buffalo.
* Madison Square Garden stock reportedly lost $93 million in value in the days after the Knicks let Linsanity leave the building, but that was all before the Garden agreed to bring the NIT back for three more years. So let’s wait on those final figures.