Author: YankTank

Kris Pollina lives and works in New York City as an advertising copywriter. She lives and dies by NY sports and is the first to admit she can be wildly irrational in defense of her teams. She spends too much time thinking of fantasy team names, too little time reading injury reports. She doesn't understand people who keep score at baseball games. She has more interest in the Kreb Cycle than she does in the NBA, tennis, golf, or anything that is limited to running around a track. She doesn't mind the NFL overtime rules, thinks hockey is wildly underrated, and hates the expression "step up to the plate." Most importantaly, she doesn't believe in wearing baseball hats with football logos on them. Football players wear helmets.

Categories
MLB New York Yankees

A Thing or Two About That A-Rod Story

 

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue. -Moliere

I am the proud owner of a blue iPod mini that I received as a Christmas present in 2004. Now every time I use it, I feel like Josh Baskin toiling away on his turn-of-the-century Macintosh. The reason for this being that I’m reluctant to invest in a new iPod until I know for sure that an even better one won’t hit the shelves 40 minutes later. 

Similarly, I’ve been biting my tongue on the almost comical sequence of Yankees plights because I know it’s only a matter of time before a new chapter is added to the ever-growing anthology of controversy.

Continue reading “A Thing or Two About That A-Rod Story”

Categories
General Sports High School Sports MLB

First, Class: Elevating the Role of Ethics in Sports

 “Winning is nice if you don’t lose your integrity in the process.” –Arnold Horshak, Welcome Back, Kotter

Forget steroids. Forget asterisks. Forget gambling, sideline taping, dogfighting, DUIs, and firearm possession. While they all are the headlining stars of the dramatic Demise of Sports feature film, they are also eclipsing other infractions that may be technically legal, but are much more cancerous.

The most salacious sins and underhanded offenses occur squarely in the gray area, the insidious trap of loopholes and defendable vices. On the contrary, performance-enhancing substances and criminal misdemeanors stack up neatly in the black and white areas, the right and wrong silos.

Continue reading “First, Class: Elevating the Role of Ethics in Sports”
Categories
General Sports NFL

Girls on the Side(lines)

“A woman with a woman’s viewpoint is of more value when she forgets she’s a woman and begins to act like a man.” –Leonor Kretzer Sullivan, American Congressman

On January 20, 2009, the first African American President of the United States was sworn into office. The country wept with pride, hope and relief, with a renewed faith in their nation for breaking down barriers. It was a truly monumental occasion in American history.

Except for the fact that we elect a president every four years.

Continue reading “Girls on the Side(lines)”
Categories
MLB MLB General New York Yankees

Major League Baseball’s Communist Manifesto

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.” -Benjamin Franklin

The New York Yankees showcased their latest holiday impulse buy yesterday when they introduced 1B Mark Teixiera to their $223 million toy chest. Coming on the heels on the A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia purchases, the Yankees are undoubtedly making an unabashed statement to the rest of Major League Baseball. But in the context of the ever-disintegrating economy, their off-season spending binge does not connote aggressive World Series campaigning so much as it invokes the contempt and ire of fiscal-conscious Americans.

Continue reading “Major League Baseball’s Communist Manifesto”

Categories
General Sports

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem: How Sports Have Skewed My Sanity

“The fan is the one who suffers.”
-Frank Robinson

When you’ve spent enough time screaming at the TV in public or when you have worn enough team-branded clothing, you become known as the sports you support. You become the first person people think of when your team loses or wins, which means the sound of 489 text messages coming in at the same time runs the gamut from “Merry TEIX-mas!” or “%&#!! Did we really just give up a four goal lead to the Caps?”

Continue reading “The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem: How Sports Have Skewed My Sanity”
Categories
General Sports

For Love Of The Game: Retirement Case Studies To Help Jamie Moyer

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”–Orson Welles

My dad tells this story of his friend’s big night at the craps table in Vegas. It was one of those scenes that generally doesn’t exist in reality–the casino’s population all concentrated around this one table, my dad’s friend spurred on by the rallying cries of everyone around him.  He was holding court, throwing more and more colored chips on every space of felt left on the table, which at that point looked like the streets of New Orleans at the height of Mardi Gras. The story is legendary, as the entire table was up thousands of dollars.

Continue reading “For Love Of The Game: Retirement Case Studies To Help Jamie Moyer”

Categories
MLB General

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: Choosing Sides in the 2008 World Series

“There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person whom in one impulse, one value, assumes ascendancy over all others.” -Milton R. Sapirstein

There are few things more aggravating than trying to escape mushrooming media hype of a story you just don’t want to hear. The internet is a demon the day immediately after your team blows Game 7, or your idolized all-star is caught in salacious mischief, or your star QB’s season-ending injury is documented in 14,000 different photo angles.

You’d think that New York City journalism would be so overwhelmed with news that it could avoid spinning out the same stories over and over. But as it stands, the only thing transpiring in Manhattan is the election. And the World Series. And trying to decide what’s less interesting is like trying to pick between sharing a cell with Omarosa or Andy Dick.

Continue reading “The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: Choosing Sides in the 2008 World Series”

Categories
New England Patriots

A Tale of Two Cities: Schilling’s shocking discovery of New York-Boston animosity

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” -Plato

Curt Schilling reminds me of the generic and requisite Real World stock character: the cantankerous jackass who falsely assumes his “candor” is anything more than pathetic and offensive white noise. The guy whose audition tape sounds something like, “I dont give a $%^& what people think. I just keep it real and say what no one else will say. I’m not afraid to go there.” And while he’s initially embraced by the other housemates, he ultimately alienates himself from the group, leaving him with nothing left to do but self-indulgent confessionals.

Continue reading “A Tale of Two Cities: Schilling’s shocking discovery of New York-Boston animosity”

Categories
New York Giants

"14-6: The Historic Championship Season of New York’s Imperfect Giants"

“We can’t all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” -Will Rogers

About 50 blocks south of me the New York Giants are holding court in the Canyon of Heroes. Thousands are flooding lower Manhattan in an overwhelming parade of gratitude. Thank you, Big Blue. For doing for your fans what the Red Sox did for Boston in 2004. We needed more than just a Super Bowl, and somehow the Giants gave it to us.

Continue reading “"14-6: The Historic Championship Season of New York’s Imperfect Giants"”

Categories
NFL General

Patriot Games: A formality before immortality?

“That’s why we took the damn field! Now, if you want to crown them, then crown their ass!” -Dennis Green on playing the Bears, MNF 10/16/06

I’m surprised management splurged and actually flew the New York Giants to Arizona. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just come to terms with the foregone conclusion of the Patriots’ perfect season? Big Blue is overmatched, and Tom Brady is clearly Christ himself. Hell, New England already has applied for a trademark patent on “19-0.” (I’m not making this up.) Does it matter who they’re playing? The Giants are merely slated to be another blip of road kill on the Patriots’ road to perfection.

Which means the Patriots go down in history no matter what. As perfect or as chokers. And the Giants? Only a catalyst to either.

Continue reading “Patriot Games: A formality before immortality?”