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A Sports Sociological Moment

My son Josh lived his whole life, college included, in Boston, until March, when he moved to New York to seek his fortune. As a sports journalist, I am interested to see how his fandom (which is not extreme) will be affected.

In baseball, nothing has happened. Josh decided to follow and patronize the Mets, to avoid conflicts of interest. Football is a TV sport, and one can root for any team in any large city and still find a community with which to root. New Yorkers hate the Knicks worse than anyone else does these days, so there's little chance Josh will be lured to Woody Allen's dark side.

So far, so unassimilated. Until last night that is. Josh called to proudly announce that he had scarfed a Labor Day ticket to the US Open.

Watching US Open tennis in person is the ultimate New York City sports fan experience. Nobody else does it. The Open is so New York it was in a Seinfeld episode. And doing so on Labor Day, surrounded by swells who came in from the Hamptons to celebrate their end of summer eating $15 hot dogs at staring at Rafael Nadal's pecs, well, it just doesn't get any more gloriously, sickeningly Gotham than that.

So I'm a little worried. If Josh ever quotes Mike Francesa to me, I'll REALLY worry.

posted by Michael Gee @ 9:02 AM