Bringing Home the Championship New York So Richly Deserves

We all know this decade (the Ohs? The aughts? Just two more months of this damned uncertainty!) hasn't been kind to the New York sports fan.

Sure, the Giants won a Super Bowl for the ages a couple years back, but aside from that it's been pretty slim pickins. The Mets brought home a pennant in 2000 and looked like aces in 2006, but they fell short of the ultimate prize both times.

The Knicks? Please; the team hasn't been the same since they swapped Spree for Keith Van Horn. The Rangers? They seem to make the playoffs with some regularity, but from what I gather, once there, they specialize in first or second round losses.

The result was nine mostly quiet years and ten mostly quiet months, an eternity by New York sports standards.

Yesterday, that all changed. Yesterday, the sons and daughters of Brooklyn rose up and won one for all of New York, ending the collective thirst for another championship after all these years.

Thanks in part to the intrepid first basemanship of Y2K Godfather Sippy Momo and the heroic left fieldsmanship of yours truly, Team 2 brought home the Eastern Athletic Softball Leauge title with two wins on a beautiful Sunday morning at Van Voorhees Park.

I'd heard the forecast, but, chastened by a week's worth of crisp, fall-turning-into-winter weather, when I left the house for the ballgame I was bundled up; sweatshirt, warmup pants, the whole thing.

By 10am it was as beautiful a day as we've had in weeks (months?), the kind of day that, with fall all around you and winter at your doorstep, reminds you of the warmer days left behind and offers promise of the warmer days still ahead.

It had been a great season; all fall long it was just great being out there. Ever since I graduated from college I'd been looking for a softball league. I finally found one and it was everything I'd hoped for; good level of competition, good field, all that.

More than anything though it was about the people.

It was a great way to reconnect with Sip, the world traveler. We were also paired with a former teacher of ours, Smitty, who was like the cool, young teacher while we were in school and hasn't changed a bit in that respect. Smitty's girlfriend and a friend of hers played on our team, and it was great getting to know them.

Dave the Speedster, Big John the MVP (of our team and the entire league), C.C. the Pitcher (who tossed a shutout in the title game), Jesse the Rico Brogna of the league... Otto, Mr. Clutch. Them and many others; just a really good group of people. We came together and we won it all.

For now we set softball aside. It doesn't seem fair or reasonable after a day like yesterday, but we know that yesterday was just a respite from the coming chill of winter.

When we return in the Spring it will be a new decade, complete with new hopes for our fair city's return to championship prominence. As this tortured decade draws to a close, it was nice to be part of one final redemptive act for the five boroughs.

This one's for you, New York. Now it's the Mets' turn.

- A.F.O.M.G.