The Worst: Faux New Yorkers who are Dallas Cowboy Fans
As an impassioned, lifelong New York Football Giants fan, the last decade has been horrible. Not in the: Wow, we’ve been mired in a pandemic and many folks I know, including my father-in-law, have died of COVID-19. More like: Damn! Another weekend of wondering what the Mets are planning for next season.
Like almost any other true fan—no matter how successful their team (are you reading this, Yankee fans?!)—there’s gonna be those times when you wonder WHY you ever choose to support this God-forsaken squad?
As a Mets’ fan, I’ve suffered through MANY periods like this (let's not go there, alright? Now’s pretty good!). As a Giants fan this is a BAD time (and much as I loved Joe Judge last year when he would do his tough guy act for the media, now I just tune him out… not looking good for ANOTHER Bill Belichick disciple). But I can live with this due to February 3, 2008, one of the greatest sports moments in my five decades of fandom:
David Tyree. The Catch. “Nuff said!
Qualifying my devotion, I became a Giants fan in 1973 when I was 12. My dad, a lifelong football fan, took me and two of my brothers to New Haven for a Packers-Giants game at the Yale Bowl (Green Bay’s Chester Marcol hit a game winning field goal, sending most of us—my older brother was a Packer fan—home to Jersey with a slow burn). I stayed with the team through the TERRIBLE 70s (and boy were they bad; I remember watching as the Bill Arnsparger-coached 1976 squad lost 19-17 on opening day to the Washington Redskins on a last seconds touchdown pass by a bruised / battered Billy Kilmer. The Giants collapsed after that with a nine-game losing streak to open that season, costing Arnsparger his job).
So, no matter HOW BAD owner John Mara, and GM Dave Gettleman and Judge screw up the team of my youth, I’ve still got memories. From 2008, and 2012. From 1987 and 1991 (that was awesome; a bunch of my friends—all Giants fans—sat around a TV and alternately fretted / celebrated an incredible performance by Jeff Hostetler and the G-Men defense in beating Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV).
Go ahead; mock my fandom. You think I care? I’m a METS fan who grew up in the 70’s at the Jersey Shore, surrounded by a gaggle of smug Yankee fans.
And, of course, I remember the Dallas Cowboy; their head coach Tom Landry was OUR guy! He was a genius with the Giants who the Maras stupidly let get away (but, you gotta get in line on that; the Maras also stupidly let Vince Freakin’ Lombardi walk away, so let’s not talk about Landry). Roger Staubach was such an exciting player to watch, even while he was beating the crap out of my team in the sad-sack 70s.
Given all that, I could NEVER root for the Cowboys over the Giants. As America’s Team, there was a sickly-sweet quality (read that: revolting) to the ‘Boys in the 70s; by the 90s it became a full out revulsion because of their swagger and winning. When I hear Chris Christie talk about growing up “Cowboy” in Jersey, I want to throw up in my mouth. What a phony front-runner—and the worst part is he regularly justifies his sports betrayal by pointing to Dallas’ success—as if his stubbornness in the face of logic (two words: Lawrence Taylor) is somehow noble.
LT. Greatest football player I’ll ever watch.
Which brings me to Karol Markowicz. I’ll be upfront and say I can’t stand her columns in the New York Post. Her bizarre sense of entitlement in criticizing how one of the country’s most liberal cities operates is both infuriating and amusing—especially as she claims to be from Brooklyn (though born in Russia). But who cares? I disagree with SO MANY different people, that her political leanings don’t move the needle for me.
What does is that Ms. Markowicz attended Sunday’s Giants vs. Cowboys game at the Meadowlands festooned in Cowboy gear. And gloated about how the G-Men’s’ home field was transformed to AT&T Stadium North. If this was the aforementioned Christie, I would shrug my shoulders and rationalize that the former NJ governor has his nose so far up Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones’ butt he can taste the Doritos.
But a faux-New Yorker (in MY world, you’ve got to be BORN here to be claim that mantle; I was born in New Jersey and have been visiting for forty years) who makes fun of our city and then roots for the HATED Dallas Cowboys?! What do I say to that?
Hey Karol… You Suck!