This will be a column unlike any you’ve ever before read. This will be a column talking about the New York-versus-Philadelphia rivalry, written by a New York writer, and it will make a pointed effort to avoid taking any cheap, obvious, lazy and cliched shots at Philadelphia.
So there will be no reference made to booing Santa Claus. There will be no allusion made to punching police horses in the muzzle. We will not use the words “Michael Irvin” and “injured” and “cheering” in the same sentence. We will refrain from citing greased telephone poles in the name of preventing mayhem.
(Ah, jeez. On further review I guess I mentioned all of these things already. But it took me two paragraphs to get there! Call Elias. Isn’t that a record?)
VOICEOVER: Philly/New York rivalry. Take 2. Action!
Look, we really don’t need any gimmicks, OK? We don’t have to make this personal. Up front we will concede Philly cheesesteaks are a supreme comfort food, if in return you acknowledge New York pizza is the greatest foodstuff known to man. We will grant you that the Phanatic is a better mascot than Mr. Met, as long as you give the Garden the nod over The Palestra as a hoops venue.
See? We can be friends!
And look: the Giants play the Eagles Saturday night in Philadelphia, and we could make a snide comment about how, if you’re going to the game at Lincoln Financial Field you’d be wise to carpool with a friend who lives in New Jersey because a car with that license plate is less likely to be wheels-up and lit up like a candle than one with New York tags when you get back to the parking lot, especially if the Giants win.
Brian Daboll and the Giants are hurtling toward the next chapter of the New York-Philly sports rivalry.Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post(Oops. I did it again.)
VOICEOVER: Philly/New York rancor. Take 3. Action!
The thing is, when it comes to these two cities, the action on the field has always been enough. Going back to 1905, New York and Philadelphia have met each other 38 times in the postseasons of the four major sports. New York has won 17 times. Philly has cheated 21 times ….
VOICEOVER: I’m really getting tired of this …
(Sorry. I’ll be good. Swear.)
VOICEOVER: BLOOD FEUD! TAKE 4!
That first time, the Giants of Manhattan, who a year before had refused to play in the World Series because manager Muggsy McGraw believed the American League was an inferior form of baseball, walked the walk after talking the talk, smacking Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics in five games — three of them shutouts thrown by the great Big Six, Christy Mathewson.
Afterward — true story, honest — Muggsy, never afraid to speak his mind, said of the one-sided thumping: “We believed we were the better team, and we proved we were the better team.”
Giants manager Muggsy McGraw struck one of the earliest blows in the war between the two cities.Bettman/CORBISHe was less sure when the A’s returned the favor in both 1911 and 1913, and if Mack — far more a gentleman and a sportsman — felt like crowing, “We beat ’em and tossed their bloodied bodies in the wooder …”
VOICEOVER: HEY!!
(Don’t blame me! That’s just how they pronounce “water!”)
VOICEOVER: Keep rolling …
Getty Images… it wouldn’t have occurred to him to do so. Besides, if the legacy of Philly-New York playoff confrontation tells us one thing, it’s to not get so cocky, either side. There’s always a puddle of karma waiting around the corner, eager to drown you.
The Knicks were the first victims of Moses Malone’s epic “Fo, fo, fo” prediction in 1983, and they complied, losing four straight by 10, 7, 2 and 3 points (the Bucks did take one game off the 76ers a round later). The very next year, though, as defending champs, the Sixers lost all three home games to Micheal Ray Richardson and the Nets. And five years after that the Knicks polished off a playoff sweep of the Sixers by actually and literally breaking out brooms after the final buzzer.
Moses Malone and the Sixers demolished the Knicks after he proclaimed they’d beat them in four in 1983.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesHockey? The Flyers didn’t just end the close-but-no-Cup Rangers era of the early ’70s in 1974, the Broad Street Bullies stole their meal money, too, while leaving the ice at both the Spectrum and the Garden bloody. The payback for that was two-fold: the Islanders beat the Flyers for their first Cup six years later; and one night in the 2000 playoffs the Devils’ Scott Stevens nearly drew and quartered Eric Lindros with one of the most vicious (and perfectly clean) checks anyone has ever seen.
So, no. It’s never boring. In December 1981, the Giants, playing their first postseason game in 18 years, walked into old Veterans Stadium and beat the defending NFC-champ Eagles. Twenty-seven years later the Eagles stepped into Giants Stadium to face the defending-champ (and top-seeded) Giants and turned that into the last playoff game ever held at that old building.
So, yeah. What happens on the field is usually plenty. Even if what happens off the field, especially in Philadelphia …
VOICEOVER: CUT! PRINT!
