The Great Deb8te: Greatest Teams in NY Sports

While we wade through the early days of March searching desperately for something to talk about, the time has finally come to make ourselves a list. Hoping to fill in alongside more music and entertainment columns, a new series is starting today that will look back in the past at some of the greatest characters, stories and moments of NY sports (and possibly topics more at-large, too). The reason for settling on the number eight is fairly simple, perhaps no man contributed more to baseball in NY and its place in our cultural zeitgeist like Yogi Berra. A 10-time World Champion player with the Yankees, Berra became one of the most beloved players in franchise history. He then, as manager, led the “Miracle” Mets to the 1973 World Series, so if there’s one figure everyone can love unilaterally, I think it has to be Yogi. Today I’ve taken the liberty to put together a list of the eight greatest teams in the history of New York sports. It’s the full intention of these lists to spark conversation and disagreement, so feel free to put down your own as well. As always we get the first word, not the final say.

8) 1993-94 New York Rangers - 52-24-8 (Won Stanley Cup Finals 4-3)

The team that finally laid the dreaded cat-call of “1940” to rest, the 93-94 Rangers will always be remembered and adored by this city as the team that broke the curse. However, as we get further away from that fateful spring, it seems as if time is slightly forgetting how great that team really was. Led by Hall of Famers Mark Messier and Brian Leetch, as well as Rangers franchise-legends Mike Richter and Adam Graves, the Blueshirts won the President’s Trophy for the second time in three seasons in 1994 before winning eight of their fist nine playoff games against the Islanders and Capitals. Demons did come to haunt the charmed Rangers when the upstart Devils pushed them to the brink of elimination in the Eastern Conference Finals. After that it was a guarantee by captain Mark Messier, a 2-0 deficit erased with a hat-trick by the same man, a legendary goal in double OT in game seven, and on to “Mount Vancouver.” Though it took longer than most fans would have liked, the Rangers climbed that hill too, insuring that every fan lucky enough to be there in that moment in time will some day be able to die in peace.

7) 1969-70 New York Knicks - 60-22 (Won NBA Finals, 4-3)

It’s hard to imagine a time when the Knicks were this dominant, and for it not being preserved on film I suspect some might throw the Knicks winning a championship in the category with Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points. Yet, it did happen, and by all accounts it was truly glorious. The Knicks dominated the NBA in 1969-70, finishing with the league’s best record by four games and capitalized on the long-awaited retreat of a mind-boggling 12-year Celtics dynasty to reach the Finals for the first time since 1953. Center Willis Reed was the MVP of the league, averaging a double-double per game both in the regular season and playoffs before suffering a succession of devastating injuries. Though a severe thigh injury and torn muscle kept him out of Game 6, Reed and the Knicks were not to be denied. In one of the most memorable moments in NBA and Madison Square Garden history, Reed took the court for the Knicks in Game 7 and scored the game’s first two baskets. Though his body would not allow him to play into the second half, his heroics were no longer needed. Young legend-in-the-making Walt “Clyde” Frazier was pacing the inspired Knicks with the game of a lifetime, and when the final buzzer sounded, the New York Knicks were resounding world champions. After the game, legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell famously said to Reed, “You exemplify the very best that the human spirit can offer.” The Knicks have not had a finer hour since.

6) 1939 New York Yankees - 106-45 (Won World Series, 4-0)

A team that many baseball experts consider the greatest of all time, the 1939 Yankees made history by becoming the first professional franchise in North America’s four major sports to win a fourth consecutive championship. The first genuine dynasty of the Yankees franchise, the late 30s team is as littered with Hall of Famers as any team in the organization’s fruitful history. Being led by a young sensation from San Francisco in center field, the Yankees in 1939 had officially become Joe DiMaggio’s team after the heartbreaking retirement of Yankee captain Lou Gehrig due to the disease that would go on to take his life, and his name. Despite this tragedy, the Yankees were simply too powerful to succumb to any one loss, no matter how great. Complimenting the Yankee Clipper were Hall of Famers Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez, as well as fantastic players that for one reason or another time has forgotten, like Charlie “King Kong” Keller, whom many believe if not for leaving the game to serve in World War II would be remembered today as one of the game’s great power hitters.

5) 1986 New York Giants - 14-2 (Won Super Bowl XXI, 39-20)

In their fourth year under head coach Bill Parcells, the football Giants had officially arrived as a force to be reckoned with in the NFL. The 86 Giants lost just two games the entire year by a combined seven points, and while the team rarely blew out their opponent in the regular season, when the game’s got serious so did the G-Men. Opening the playoffs by absolutely massacring the great 49ers, 49-3, the Giants rolled to the Super Bowl in Pasadena thanks to one of the best defensive units the game has ever seen. Lawrence Taylor was perhaps the most dominant player alive, and a linebacking corp of he, Harry Carson, Carl Banks and Gary Reasons was too much for opposing offenses to handle. On Super Sunday, however, it was the Giants offense and their workman-like QB Phil Simms who stole the show. Simms led the Giants back from a 10-9 half-time deficit to complete 88% of his passes thrown that afternoon to see the Giants through to a 39-20 victory over a young John Elway and the Broncos. The 86 Giants were unable to stop making history, as after the game the team established two precedents that still stand today: a gatorade shower for coach Parcells and an exclamation from Simms that he would be headed to Disney World.

4) 1986 New York Mets - 108-54 (Won World Series, 4-3)

One of the most iconic teams in the history of this city, for every reason imaginable. While the antics and controversies of this team are perhaps too well-documented at times, the fact that the 86 Mets were constantly on the verge of implosion and still managed to be so mind-numbingly fantastic at baseball only adds to their legend. While they did not have the sustained period of success they likely should have, this collection of stars was perhaps not meant to sustain but to shine so brightly with a frantic cocaine-energy that could only be harnessed for a brief, but incredible moment. Young stars Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden electrified the city like the Yankees had not in a decade, and their seven game saga with the Boston Red Sox remains one of the most legendary in World Series history and the longest-lasting monument to the Curse of the Bambino.

3) 1998 New York Yankees - 114-48 (Won World Series, 4-0)

Perhaps it is slightly controversial to place the 90s Yankees one spot ahead of the 86 Mets, but context is key here. The Yankees of the 1990s are the last legitimate dynasty the game of baseball has seen to this point, but the measure of their dominance has become somewhat overlooked. After losing the opening two games of the 1996 World Series to the Atlanta Braves, the 1996-2000 Yankees won a staggering 14 consecutive World Series games! In total the Yankees went 16-3 in World Series play in that timespan, consistently knocking off some of the game’s best pitchers in the process. At the height of the steroid era in baseball, the Yankees played a throwback brand of baseball centered around patience and timely hitting. While we have seen teams execute their model to momentary success today, it is becoming more and more unlikely we will ever see a team so preternaturally dominant again.

2) 1981-82 New York Islanders - 54-16-10 (Won Stanley Cup Finals, 4-0)

No list of the greatest teams in NY sports could ever be legitimate without a healthy hat-tip to the early 80s Islanders. It could easily be argued that there is no greater singular-team in NHL history than that Islanders team of the late 70s and early 80s, in truth there is nothing the team didn’t have. In his prime, Mike Bossy was every bit the goal-scoring machine that Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux would become once Bossy’s body started failing him all-too-soon. Though maligned in perpetuity by Rangers fans, captain Denis Potvin was one of the finest defenders the game has ever seen. Supporting these stars was a litany of Hall of Famers and franchise luminaries such as Bryan Trottier, Bobby Nystrom, Clark Gillies, Buch Goring and Billy Smith. It took time for this team to believe in itself, but upon getting over the hump they became one of the most dominant machines the NHL playoffs have ever seen. The peak of the Islanders dominance was certainly the 81-82 season, where they not only won 54 games in route to their third consecutive Stanley Cup, but saw them look past the ghastly “Flying V” uniforms of the Canucks in a four game sweep. Watch the highlights and you will understand that was no easy feat.

1) 1927 New York Yankees - 110-44 (Won World Series, 4-0)

Though I tried in vain to pick a more scintillating choice for the number one slot, frankly, no other answer would seem that legitimate. The 1927 Yankees must be the number one choice for greatest team of all time as they have become the very measuring stick for all great teams that have come since. Similar to how any band or musician making a landmark record has become the act of making one’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a team which assembles so much talent to the point where the pursuit seems laughable is known today as building a “Murderer’s Row.” Truth be told, no team could ever dream of acquiring a Babe Ruth, developing a Lou Gehrig and surrounding them with Tony Lazzeri, Earle Combs and Bob Meusel. Add that to a stable of tremendous pitchers such as Waite Hoyt, Urban Shocker, Herb Pennock, Bob Shawkey and Wilcy Moore and you have a team so fearsome the legend has somehow become more bombastic than the already-absurd reality. While stories of the Yankees scaring the Pittsburgh Pirates into submission during a pre-World Series batting practice seem to be largely unfounded, the legend of this team needs not extend the bounds of reality. The 1927 Yankees established a legacy of dominance that has lasted nearly a century, and as The Babe exclaimed after walloping his 60th home run that year, “Let’s see some other son of a bitch match that!”