Sports

Power to the people

Myor Bloomberg

Myor Bloomberg

RIGHT MOVE: A worker dismantles the finish line of the New York City Marathon, which Mayor Bloomberg anceled after backlash from New Yorkers in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Those voices are to be commended, writes The Post’s Mike Vaccaro. (UPI, Warzer Jaff)

You did this. You made this happen. You changed his mind.

Stand up. Take a bow. Wave, because you are the star. You are the voice. You are the reason. You were the instrument of change. You. All you.

Yes, this newspaper took a stand on Friday morning — a big one, an important one — appealing to the Mayor’s conscience to call off the New York City Marathon. Yes, there were plenty of pundits, print and radio and TV, who took up the baton, who rightly and loudly tried to shame the Mayor into doing the right thing. Yes, there were some solid men and women of principle among our elected officials (sadly, I am not talking about you, Gov. Cuomo) who rebuked the Mayor, who were offended that the marathon would begin in a place where bodies still are being recovered, that it would run through the streets of a city still in agony and loss.

All of them — all of us — can be proud of that.

But they are not the stars of this tale.

You are. Your voice, and your anger, and your outrage. This is exactly as we want to believe our nation can be at its best, at its brightest. We want to believe our opinion matters. We want to believe we can be heard, and so often we aren’t, so often we are tuned out, marginalized, ignored.

Sports fans know the feeling. Sports fans enjoy this kind of unofficial referendum every day, taking to social media and email and talk radio and letter-writing to be heard about trades, about firing the manager, about steroids, about ruinous ticket prices and arrogant owners and oblivious players. In normal times, such raging fills airwaves and inboxes, and in those moments the laments seem like the most pressing issues in the world.

And in those moments, it seems, the voices almost never matter. The popular player is traded. The despised coach is retained. Ticket prices always spiral upward. That doesn’t stanch the tide of opinion, though, because we still believe next time, someone will hear us. Someone will listen. Someone will care.

And how about this:

This time, someone did. Someone does. This time, it is Michael Bloomberg — staunch opponent of tobacco, firearms and Big Gulps — whose heart almost always has been in the right place in his three terms, whose sense of right and wrong almost always has been hard, if not impossible, to question, who only two days earlier had strong-armed the NBA and the Nets into doing the right thing, not holding a basketball game in the middle of a weather war zone.

Look, even the smartest leaders sometimes lose their way, lose sight of what’s right, wrong, important. You easily can get lost in your bubble. And for the mayor, that bubble included some tricky things: restoring normalcy, exhibiting a typical New York defiance and, not least, the enormous economic windfall the marathon brings every year.

He is a smart man. He has been a good mayor. He was wrong here. And he needed to be told how wrong he was. And that’s where you stepped in. That’s where you started flooding Facebook with fury and Twitter with temper, where you called the FAN and ESPN, WABC and WOR and everywhere else where they lend your voice a bully pulpit. For all the times your opinion vanished into the ether, this time was different.

This time, it was epic.

This time, the Mayor listened, the Marathon was canceled, the right thing was done. Credit one man and every man, one voice and every voice. The people have spoken. Sometimes, that really does still matter. And it is beautiful to see.

Whack Back at Vac

Wayne Vanyo: Should I be concerned that A-Rod Syndrome (the inability to produce under pressure) is a contagious disease? First it spread to the Detroit Tigers, and now the New York Jets’ offense.

Vac: See, now I think that’s unfair. The Jets’ offense doesn’t produce even when there’s no pressure on it.

@rgsaunders1: I’m pretty sure Nucky Thompson was just coldcocked by Chris Christie!

@MikeVacc: That Atlantic City mayor better not try to go anywhere by way of Tabor Heights, because Gyp Rosetti will be waiting in the governor’s car.

Vince Moore: Why is it, when we’re playing the game of summer, that everyone’s wearing flannel and goose down?

Vac: And opting for hot cocoa instead of cold beer.

Ken Socha: As an ex-New Yorker and life-long Notre Dame fan, I greatly enjoyed the Post’s coverage of ND-Oklahoma. It is a special place, and Manti Te’o has made it even more so because of the kind of man he is.

Vac: I lost my Heisman vote a few years and several newspapers ago, but if I had one it would be Te’o’s trophy to lose.

Vacs Whacks

Judging by Opening Night, it sure seems the Knicks have found, at long last, a successor for Herb Williams, and his name is Rasheed Wallace.

* There are some arguments where both sides, technically and literally, are correct. I believe Eli vs. Ben is one of those arguments.

* There really are times lately that it seems the people who bring you “Homeland” on Showtime sit around a room, betting on what plot twist will be able to top last week’s plot twist.

* We read too often about the dark side of times like this. But this is a thank you to the overwhelming majority of neighbors who share generators, coffee, flashlights, WiFi networks and good cheer; to the police who are never more gallant and gracious than when the rest of us are in need; to pols who forget party affiliation and usually figure out what The Right Thing To Do is; and to family members whose love and warmth ensures the promise that better times do lie ahead, somewhere, Out There.