CELLAR FELLERS: Coach Rich Kotite crashed with the Jets,
and coach/GM Isiah Thomas (above) ran the Knicks into the ground. (Charles Wenzelberg)
Here’s today’s sports quiz for you:
How do you know when you’ve reached rock bottom? In real life, it’s a little easier: Your bank account tells you. Your soon-to-be-ex-wife tells you. Maybe, if you’re lucky, your friends and family build a human ring around you at an intervention, tell you you’re not leaving the room until you get help.
Sports fans? You don’t have anything like an intervention. As with anything else, you have to go on faith. Faith that things are as bad as they’re going to get, because you can’t even fathom it getting any worse. We have three teams staring at the possibility of rock-bottom right now; we’ll get to them last. Here now, a study of our nine pro teams and their respective rock-bottomness:
The Jets: If you want, you can laugh about there being more rocks here than in the Flintstones’ rock quarry, but the truth is it’s hard to fathom any bottom being bottom-ier than RKE: the Rich Kotite Era. Thirty-two games. Twenty-eight losses. Not even Lou Holtz or Charley Winner can top that.
The Giants: Even easier: the six or seven seconds it took Herman Edwards to prance into the end zone while authoring the Miracle of the Meadowlands. But this was precisely why rock-bottom can be so valuable: In rapid succession you had the “Fifteen Years of Lousy Football” flyover, you had Pete Rozelle convincing Wellington Mara to give up football duties, you soon had a clean house and within six years you had a Super Bowl.
The Devils: Too easy. Three words: “Mickey Mouse franchise.” When the Great One blesses you like this, it must be so.
The Islanders: They’ve resided perilously close to rock-bottom for years, but nothing ever will top the Gang of Four ownership, which nearly decimated the franchise and also, as a bonus, stole close to half a billion dollars. Sometimes, rock-bottom isn’t quite so easy to recover from.
The Rangers: The years right before the last lockout were almost unbearable, but at least there still was a relatively fresh Cup memory. The years from 1941-70 … well, there were some serious pockets of rock-bottomness there.
The Yankees: The period from 1989-92 was pretty bad, Stump Merrill-level bad, but think about 1965-75, when the Yankees weren’t only losing but in some years were outdrawn by the Mets 21⁄2-to-1. We could go back to 1912 and the Highlanders, but it’s fair to say the Yankees recovered nicely after changing their name and their location.
And now, the three present candidates:
The Nets: Like the Jets, there’s so much to choose from but, let’s be honest, last year had to be it. New ownership and fresh ideas give them a little bit of a cushion from pure rock bottom. But you can still see it from here.
The Mets: Sure, it seems to their fans that these are the worst of times, but in 1978, the owner, Lorinda de Roulet, actually asked why fouled-off baseballs couldn’t be retrieved, washed, and put back in play. That might be as rock-bottom as rock-bottom’s ever been … and this is a franchise that also has lost 100 games six different times.
The Knicks: It was bad in the early ‘60s, when the Knicks were such an afterthought their games were sometimes bumped to the Armory. It was bad in the late ‘70s, when dope and despair tried to ruin the whole league. It was bad in the mid ‘80s, when Ken “The Animal” Bannister and Eddie Lee Wilkins carried the day.
But nothing beats now. Even with Isiah out of the picture (for now). Maybe (hopefully) Amar’e Stoudemire changes that. But until further notice, our elevator stops here.
WHACK BACK AT VAC
Brendan Roberts: I know the Jets have a stadium complex, but they seem to have no problem using the Giants’ Vince Lombardi Trophy in the opening title sequence of “Hard Knocks” with Rex and the Jets insignia in the background. I am happy to see them sharing.
Vac: I’m sure the two teams have no problem borrowing each other’s lawnmowers and taking turns driving the kids to school either. That’s what good neighbors are for.
John B. Gedney: Roger Clemens is nothing but another sports bum who believes he can get away with anything he wants to. Isiah and Dolan are a couple others, and the list could go on and on. He looks good in the horizontal stripes. The hell with Cooperstown — how about Ossining?
Vac: Even after Barry Bonds got indicted, I had a hard time — still have a hard time — seeing him behind bars. I’m not sure why, but I have a different feeling about Clemens. And I hope I’m wrong. Life outside Cooperstown is enough of a prison for him.
Joe Brauner: Seems like the Mets’ greatest trait is outdoing themselves every year in regard to pulling off train wrecks and topping previous ones. K-Rod was unstoppable in Anaheim, Santana same in Minneapolis. . . . Money can’t buy you happiness nor a trip to the postseason.
Vac: Which is why I think Mets fans who rage about the Wilpons’ “thrifty” ways are off base. There’s plenty of reason to be angry at the way they misspend, less so at the amount they spend.
Greg Marshall: Why is it that a player under contract who outplays the value of a contract always feels he are entitled to more money? Can you imagine the outrage if ownership tried to negotiate downward the value of a contract of a player not performing to the value? As far as I am concerned, Darrelle Revis can sit out the year.
Vac: In any other sport I’d agree … but in football, owners do that all the time. Essentially, what you described is exactly what the Jets did to Thomas Jones, who had a “contract” and it didn’t matter.
VAC’S WHACKS
* Our teams don’t often do a lot right, which is why the conversation around here is always so interesting and lively. But the Yankees get HOPE Week right, and let’s hope that it stays a tradition every bit as long and important as Old-Timers’ Day.
* Saw a wonderful play written by my old West Hempstead pal Vin Amelio, proud son of Fordham, this past week at the New York International Fringe Fest. “How Alfo Learned to Love Women” is a terrific tale of family and baseball and life. You can catch it this Thursday at 9:30 p.m. at the Connelly Theater, 220 E, 4th Street, and you won’t be sorry when you do.
* You know that old Johnny Cash song “I’ve Been Everywhere”? I couldn’t get that song out of my mind as I was listening to Antonio Cromartie recite the names of his kids the other night on “Hard Knocks.”
* You’ll have to settle this little dispute between me and the missus: She says Katz, I say Carnegie (the subject being pastrami, of course). Who wins?
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com