LET’S be very honest: 2005 stunk.
It was a tough year to be a sports fan in New York City. The Knicks were grisly. The Jets were gruesome. The Mets were frustrating. St. John’s basketball is still trying to get its sea legs. Hockey spent three-quarters of the year in hibernation. The Yankees and Nets, our standard-bearers, won two playoff games between them.
Yes, the Giants have given their fans a nice couple of months. And the Rangers are acting like they expect to keep the Garden’s lights on far deeper into the spring than they’ve been accustomed to the last few years.
But that’s it.
Well, we have a new year starting this morning, and new years always bring fresh helpings of optimism, no matter how bad the previous year might have been. It’s the way it is when you’ve been dumped by your girlfriend, and you swear off women and dating and anything having to do with a social life … until the woman three seats ahead of you on the train gives you one of Those Smiles. Then all bets are off. And anything is possible. Even if it’s only in your imagination.
2006 is that woman on the train right now. All bets are off. And anything is possible. Who knows? We may even get The Perfect Year this time around. And if we do get that – and lord knows we’re due – this is what that might look like:
The Giants, next week, will begin one of the great playoff climbs in their history, and they’ll make it all the way to Detroit for the Super Bowl, for seven days of Manning vs. Manning hype, the likes of which football has never before seen.
Of course, since this is the Perfect Year, even Giants fans will have to concede the only way that can happen is if Tony Dungy is carried off the field after an epic overtime thriller. But the Giants will take comfort in the 13-2 start that’ll dominate 2006.
The Jets, after a season in which nothing went right, will have a season in which nothing goes wrong. John Abraham re-signs for a reasonable number. Chad Pennington’s shoulder surgery takes this time. Curtis Martin’s legs return to form. And realizing they can’t get a franchise-changing player where they sit in the draft, Terry Bradway has a career day, filling several different spots, ensuring the Jets will remain in the hunt for a playoff bid until the final hours of 2006.
The Nets keep winning, and winning, and winning, blazing through the Eastern Conference, giving us the kind of basketball show only a three-headed tilt-a-whirl like Jason Kidd-Vince Carter-Richard Jefferson can. It won’t be enough to beat the Spurs, of course, but we’re asking for a Perfect Year, not a Miracle Year.
And as such, the best we can ask from the Knicks is that they just sit in the corner and keep quiet and not break anything.
(As an interlude, here are a few other things that wouldn’t be so terrible to see in the coming year: Katie dumping Tom off the couch and returning from her cruise of planet Pluto; DeNiro or Pacino, just one of them, making a movie we can sit all the way through again; Fox giving “Reunion” one more chance).
The Yankees and Mets will give us one of the great summers we’ve ever had here, better even than 2000, when both of them wound up meeting in the World Series. The Yankees will score 1,000 runs and allow only half as much, and they’ll cruise through the playoffs with a minimum of angst.
The Mets? The Mets will go all 1986 on us, will start winning early and not stop, the dueling Carloses, Beltran and Delgado, combining for 75 homers and 240 RBIs, Pedro making a run at 20, and the Braves finally disappearing in the NL East. And this time, we get a real seven-game Subway Series, and we won’t even speculate who’ll win in the 15th inning of Game 7, because by that point, will it really matter?
In hockey, we’ll get a replay of 1994 all over again, meaning that not only will the Rangers, Devils and Islanders all make the playoffs, they’ll wind up in each other’s faces throughout the spring. Maybe they’ll all win a round to get things cranked up right.
Then the Devils will beat the Islanders in a seven-game epic in the Eastern Conference quarters, and the Rangers will beat the Devils in a seven-game classic in the finals, and even fans of the vanquished will take comfort in the fact that hockey is back again, that it matters again, that it really isn’t just the circus-level freak show it seemed doomed to be during the endless lockout. And, of course, the Rangers will hoist that beautiful Cup again.
March will be truly mad, because for the first time since the betting scandals in the ’50s, New York will be viewed as one of the real capitals of college basketball. Manhattan will win the MAAC (beating Iona in triple-OT in the finals), but the Gaels will take an at-large bid. Wagner will win the Northeast Conference (beating St. Francis of Brooklyn in the finals, in double-OT) and will then take Texas to the buzzer in the NCAA Tournament. St. John’s will eke out a .500 record, then storm to the NIT title, winning the finale in front of 19,763 fanatics. (I’d love to say that Fordham will make a miracle run through the Atlantic 10 tournament, but it’s my column, and my Perfect Year, so that’s going to be the resurgent Bonnies of St. Bonaventure instead. Sorry.)
Hey, anything’s possible on New Year’s Day. Even if it’s only in your imagination.
(Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His Yankees-Red Sox book, “Emperors and Idiots,” is available in bookstores everywhere.)
VAC’SWHACKS
Whichever team inevitably feels it is wrongly excluded from next year’s BCS would be wise to follow the examples of Oregon this year and Cal last year and, you know, show up for whatever bowl bid they do get.
Has anyone, anywhere, in any sport, done a better coaching job than the one Nick Saban has done with the Dolphins this year?
After Notre Dame beats Ohio State and USC beats Texas, is there any way we can get the boys together for a rematch? Even if it’s only flag football? Or two-hand touch?
I look at the good guys hiring Les Goodstein away from the Daily News as our Johnny Damon deal: helps us, hurts them. Good enough for me.
