By Foster Kamer 7/31/12 1:00pm

SPORTS AND THE CITY

616px-Jerry_jones_owner_dallas_cowboys

Mouthy Rich Texan Issues Homoerotic Threat to Local Football Team

Jerry Jones is known as the composite human caricature whose lifeblood was drawn from Dallas‘ J.R. Ewing, all the characters Jim Varney invented that were too unfunny to use, and those “NEW YORK CITY?!“ salsa commercials. He also happens to own the Dallas Cowboys, the NFL team with the most expensive stadium in the country, which features the biggest TV screen in, like, the universe, because the people who go to Dallas Cowboys games are the kind of people who would rather focus on a high-definition televised event of that which plays out live and directly in front of them instead of watching the actual event. Jerry Jones makes James Dolan look like Fred Rogers’s unshaven cousin from Long Island. Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/01/12 11:03am

SPORTS AND THE CITY

New York Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner gives

Steinbrenner Syndrome: The New York Sports Sickness

I first recognized it on Dec. 14, 2009, though I didn’t know its name then.

The news broke that Hideki Matsui—the George Harrison of the Yankees, the quiet, stoic performer, and the 2009 World Series MVP—wouldn’t play for New York the following season. The Yankees told Mr. Matsui’s agent that he wasn’t a priority, so Matsui took a one-year, $6.5 M. contract with the Anaheim Angels.

The same team who gave Carl “Ass Injury” Pavano a $40 M. contract (for which he earned $17,646 per pitch, having thrown in only 26 Yankees games) not four years before let Matsui go, just one month after he was named the MVP of the World Series he’d helped the team win. Even now, when I speak with fellow Yankees fans about this travesty, they just shake their heads and shrug, as if to say: Yeah, we know. What’re you gonna do?*

It was a classic, symptomatic moment of Steinbrenner syndrome, a disease characterized by short attention span, poor memory and fits of ecstasy followed by angry outbursts. It affects nine out of 10 New York sports fans (and 10 out of 10 New York sports editors). Its only treatment is frequent, intense doses of winning. Read More

2/13/12 9:15am

Fashion Week Observed

7 Photos

Felipe Oliveira Baptista is a terrible skiier. (Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Ramses Barden Wears Diamonds for Lacoste and Felipe Oliveira Baptista Takes Us Skiing

Portuguese artistic director, Felipe Oliveira Baptista (—the name just oozes sex appeal, no?) is more likely to be spotted perusing Paris marché aux puces, Port de Clignancourt. But since 2010, he treks to New York two times a year to present his collection for Lacoste. The Observer, was regrettably about to miss this momentous event… But thanks to some really athletic sprinting through the snow, we blazed into Lincoln Center at 10:27am. We spotted Leigh Lazark’s hair getting flurried by the impressive rectangular-shaped snow globe that stretched the entire center aisle… How appropriate: snow—something that is sadly lacking this winter. Read More

By Steve Huff 2/10/12 2:58am

PUBLIC HEALTH

(Flickr/Francisco Javier Argel)

You Probably Didn’t Catch Measles at The Super Bowl

If you were among the crowds in Indianapolis rooting for the New England Patriots or New York Giants last Sunday, there’s a chance you received more than a beer and barbeque hangover or big foam finger for your troubles: health officials in Indiana report at least two cases of measles in the Super Bowl village.

While the patients who came down with measles didn’t go to the game, they did pass through Super Bowl village along with 200,000 others. Since measles is highly communicable, Indiana officials elected to alert state health departments across the country. Read More

By The Editors 2/07/12 6:46pm

opinion

New York’s Giants

They were the epitome of determination during a season that seemed lost on more than one occasion. To be sure, they looked overmatched at times, pretenders who had no business being mentioned among the league’s elite teams. But their coach preached a single word—finish—and eventually the message took hold.

And so the Giants finished their season in high style, winning their second Super Bowl championship in five seasons. Like their title run in 2007-08, this one seemingly came out of nowhere. A season that seemed like the very definition of mediocrity became, almost in an instant, a magical, memorable season of brilliant moments and unforgettable images.

Through it all, through the depths of a four-game losing streak that seemed to doom their playoff chances, through the blitz of called-in demands for coaching changes and doubts about the quarterback, the Giants’ owners did precisely what Giants’ owners traditionally do.

They did nothing. More to the point, they did nothing rash. They said nothing to incite back-page headlines. They issued no demands of their players. They ended no sentences with the phrase “or else.”

The Mara and Tisch families run the Giants with a sort of patience and class that seems so very old-fashioned in the 24-hour sports-media cycle. Read More

By The Editors 2/07/12 6:42pm

Opening Shot

Madonna strikes a pose. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Madonna, Manning and Musicals!

Yesterday, New York residents found themselves split into two categories: the people who celebrated the New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl—for the second time!—by reveling in the ticker tape parade that stretched all down Broadway, and the people who spent the day trying to get through their daily commute. We’re not saying that Eli Manning shouldn’t be celebrated like the “elite” quarterback (take that, ESPN) and god of pigskin that he is, but why couldn’t the city have the parade over the weekend?

Not that we’re complaining—O.K., we are complaining—but if there’s anyone whom we should be cheering on for their performance on Sunday night, we’d pick Madonna over Victor Cruz. Read More

By Drew Grant 2/06/12 12:27pm

viral videos

Video

This is going right up on the special IRS YouTube channel

Man Wins $7.5k in Super Bowl Bet, Taunts IRS (Video)

When we think of how the housing bubble almost wrecked the U.S. economy, we think in terms of those sneaky Wall Street bond traders and insurance companies like AIG; the type of people Michael Lewis writes about in The Big Short as greedy and oblivious to the apocalyptic scenario they were creating when they bundled all those subprime mortgage loans as CDOs and authorized credit default swaps.

And there’s a reason for this: we don’t like to think of the average American who took out those teaser-rate mortgages as being stupid or greedy themselves; they were just duped by a system that was either lying to them or too complicated to understand.

But that’s not entirely true. The human instinct, when presented with an option too good to be true, doesn’t necessarily act in his or her own best interest. Because this is America bitches, and if you’ve just won $7,500 in your office’s Super Bowl pool, the first thing you do is videotape yourself screaming about how you should be put on “IRS YouTube! Yeah!“ Read More

By Steve Huff 2/06/12 12:23am

unrest

Screengrab

UMass Amherst Students ‘Riot’ After Patriots’ Super Bowl Loss [Video]

As many as 2000 students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst rioted in the streets tonight following the New England Patriots’ 21-17 loss to the New York Giants. There were riot squads at the ready. Police used flashbangs and smoke bombs break up the action and supplemented with horseback officers who waded into the crowd gathered in student residential area. Police were on hand because reports indicate rioting in conjunction with major events is simply something students at UMass Amherst sometimes do: Read More

By Steve Huff 2/05/12 10:47pm

sports

M.I.A.: is that a middle finger or are you just glad to sing for us?

New York Giants Win Super Bowl XLVI

It turns out the New York Giants were prescient when they briefly put their website on a championship footing Saturday: in spite of a strong effort by the Patriots in the 4th quarter including a failed Tom Brady Hail Mary pass, the Giants won their Super Bowl match-up against the New England Patriots, 21-17.  The Giants profited as much off Patriot foul-ups as they did from quarterback Eli Manning‘s efficient move into high gear in the fourth quarter, when Mr. Manning led what would ultimately be the game-winning drive, culminating in a touchdown by Ahmad Bradshaw with less than a minute left in the game. The AP reports as many as 100 million viewers may have tuned into the game on NBC. Read More