Friday, February 01, 2008

The Home Stretch

"There goes Swifty" was probably the most common phrase uttered in my home growing up.(That and, "Mr. Greenfield! You promised!") Swifty was the robotic rabbit that the dogs chased at Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere. And that phrase was pronounced over the PA at the start of every race.

Yes, my house like every other mixed-blooded American's was a gambling one. And, this race is in the home stretch.


The Giants came out of the gate fast attacking the Pats' linemen as cheaters and predicting, nay, guaranteeing victory. But all the while the Patsies stayed their course. Thom Brady waxed all week on what an honor it was to be compared to the great QBs of all time and Bruschi talked about this game as the most important of his career.


Then something happened. The Giants let up. Following Strahan's approbation of Brady earlier in the week, Plaxico backicoed off his sure thing prediction and Osi APOLOGIZED to Matt Light. Weird. The bettors weren't impressed. The line didn't move. Still 12 points.


So, if we can't get anything from the players what about the media? Do you think they'll have anything to say?


Predictably, this isn't a battle between teams in the media's eye; this is an epic battle between cities, again. Boston is that smallish nasty walled outpost somewhere off across the Aegean that has stolen Helen (In this butchered parable Helen would be sports pride.) from Gotham and it's associated city-states. For years this was a pitched battle, but no more. Now it will be fought hand-to-hand. In this tragedy, the role of the Greek armies will be played by the new York media.


These annual comparisons are getting so dull. Who's better looking Thom or Eli? Duh? Who has the better chowder (Also, here.)? Then Mike Celizic shows his chops by writing an error riddled piece on why New York is better than Boston. (Spoiler Alert: New York is bigger.) In it, he doesn't know how many World Series the Sox have won and he says that the city is so boring that the band Boston never sang a song about the city Boston. Hmmm (see below). And, the kicker, he calls the Pats "the Foxboro Patriots". The Giants play in New Jersey. That brought out the big guns.


First Ken Tremendous at FJM.com ripped him apart then Mark Starr took him to task in his blog.


Now, the NYPost is at it again. In today's paper they lament that NFL.com is already selling "19-0" merchandise for the Pats. Which is sure to jinx the team. What they failed to report is that NFL.com is also selling "NY Giants Superbowl XLII Champions" merch. Jinxes even.


So, we at Thom's got a bit tired of all of the comparisons. We decided to weigh in. Check out a bunch of Thom's regulars on SNY today at 5:00 and 11:00 pm and 1:30 am (Towards the end of the show) defending their team.



Well, we were just another band out of Boston

On the road to try to make ends meet

Playin all the bars, sleepin in our cars

And we practiced right on out in the street

-Boston


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