The New York City Marathon took place on November 6th. It is a massive event that was established in 1970 and is always held on the first Sunday of November. It has only been canceled twice – in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy, when many runners traveled to Staten Island and Brooklyn to support recovery efforts, and in 2020 due to COVID. In 2021, the pandemic precautions limited the number of competitors to 33,000, but this year 50,000 racers were expected. The marathon grew from 100 spectators watching 127 competitors in 1970 to the largest marathon in the world, with around 2 million spectators lining the course and millions watching it over ESPN broadcasting and online streaming as well.…
Posts published in “Sports”
It is January 2017. Roger Federer and Serena Williams have won the Australian Open. Little did we know, this was their last dance together.
2017 was the year of the throwback. It wasn’t long after Roger, Rafa, Serena and Venus had all been declared “done,” “over,” or “washed” (depending on what part of the world you were from). Roger and Rafa went on to split all four Grand Slams that year. Serena beat Venus in the 2017 Australian Open final while she was two months pregnant. As someone who grew up in the era of the “Big 3” and as an unapologetic Rafa Nadal fan, the Australian Open in 2017 was the most fun I have had watching a Grand Slam, despite the result (Federer beat Nadal in the fifth set after beating a breakdown).…
Well this is odd. I mean, I’m not upset about it. After all, I’ve spent two years writing silly columns in The Oppy with a reference to the Mets in my bio. Clearly, I’m a fan.
Ok, maybe not so much a fan as a zealot or devotee, a blind follower who inextricably links his mental state to the current place in the standings for the New York Metropolitans. I cannot fathom a life well-lived if it doesn’t involve eventually seeing another World Series title in Queens.
Anyways, I’m burying the lede here. The Mets are good. I think. Like, really good.…
At the risk of dating myself, which could probably be the lede of any article I write, I was thinking recently about 2001, when the Seattle Mariners signed some Japanese outfielder named Ichiro Suzuki. Eventually, he became kind of famous, but any true baseball fan knows the biggest Japanese import that season was actually New York Mets outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo. Yeah, Shinjo may not have had the longevity of Ichiro, and also unlike Ichiro he didn’t win Rookie of the Year, a batting title, and League MVP in his first Major League season, but man he was fun to watch.…
By Henry Mumford
What could be better than walking around outside with a bunch of Sternies, having a few drinks, and (if you want) beating up on those people uptown at CBS in some friendly competition? We agree, not much. That’s why People at Stern who love Golf * are partnering with the Young Benefactors of First Tee – Met NY to bring back the Gotham Cup!
Join us on April 23rd at Dyker Beach for the Gotham Cup. Play in the competitive Battle of the MBAs (sponsored by Five Iron), or relax in the friendly division – golfers of all skill levels are welcome.…
One of the funny things about working in sports media for more than a decade is you assume everyone knows when the Super Bowl is. After all, over the past half century the NFL’s championship game has developed into less a sporting event than a cultural one, with more eyeballs often keyed on the commercials and halftime show than the football. I have generally figured the Super Bowl, if not on your social calendar, was at least in your general field of awareness.
Then I came to Stern and learned that, apparently, not everyone schedules their lives around football games. Whoops!…
It was the perfect fall morning. I had only gotten four hours of sleep, despite daylight savings. But that’s to be expected. It’s rare to get a good night’s sleep the night before a big race. With marathons, you typically focus on getting a lot of sleep the week leading up to the race. I hadn’t managed that either, but I knew I’d survive.
I was supposed to be on the 5:45am ferry to Staten Island. Yeah, okay. There was no way I was going to be on that ferry. I had no intention of spending multiple hours hanging out in Staten Island before a 9:10 start.…
Ok, look. I know sports have actually been back for some time. In fact, Major League Baseball has allowed full attendance for months now, with some folks like myself attending many more New York Mets games than your doctor would recommend. In a global environment in which sharing physical space with strangers is, at best, a questionable choice, I somehow managed to go to baseball games in five different stadiums across four cities this year.
I’m not saying it was wise. I’m just saying it was possible.
Still, this fall is cause for celebration in the sports world, and here’s why.…
Just before kickoff Sunday night, I tweeted an extremely clever and definitely-not-too-subtle-by-half joke about Tom Brady’s “dubious” claim to the title of GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). A while later, I did it again. I will be the first to admit that sometimes my sense of humor is a bit too dry, but more than one friend asked me what I was talking about, so after watching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV in what could charitably be called a dismantling of the Kansas City Chiefs, I’d like to clear some things up.
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If you’ve been following my columns this year, (which I’m sure most of you haven’t, but hi, mom!) you’ve probably noticed I’m “the politics guy.” That is to say, I’m the Oppy staffer who got stuck with putting political opinions in a public space where they can do me only personal and professional harm. But did you know I’m into sports, too?
It’s true!
I’ve written about it for The Oppy once or twice, and would you believe I wrote about it professionally once upon a time? If you need any indication for how respected my critical eye was in the world of sports journalism, well, I’m in business school now.…