NYC's Championship Drought Getting Bigger By The Day
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Will New York City ever have a championship parade again?
Sports fans have to be at least a little concerned now that the five boroughs' best hope this year, the Yankees, have been eliminated.
"I don't see any championships coming this year, that's for sure, in any of the sports," one fan told CBS2's Otis Livingston on Wednesday, just hours after the Red Sox clinched the AL Division Series with a 4-3 victory in the Bronx.
Not three weeks after celebrating the AL East title at Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox ended their longtime rivals' season late Tuesday night. And to rub salt in the wound, the Sox blasted the Yankees victory song, "New York, New York," in their clubhouse during the champagne celebration.
That was apparently payback for Aaron Judge playing the same tune as he walked out of Fenway Park following the Yanks' 6-2 win in Game 2 on Saturday. Former World Series champ-turned-television analyst Mark Teixeira ripped Judge for poking the bear.
"When you go out there and wake a sleeping giant in Boston on your way out, back to Yankee Stadium and then get your butts kicked two games in a row, I think you want to just let your bat do the talking," Teixeira said.
The Red Sox's biggest payback was outscoring the mighty Yankees' lineup 20-4 in the two games in the Bronx. And the poster boy for the Bombers' struggles was their other big slugger, Giancarlo Stanton. The former NL MVP was supposed to be the missing piece to a championship puzzle. And though he had a good, albeit inconsistent, season, his worst moment came in the bottom of the ninth inning on Tuesday night when he struck out in the midst of what could have been a series-changing Yankees rally.
"You gotta put the ball in play, gotta get a pitch out over the plate," Stanton said.
So with the Yankees' early exit, is all hope lost for New York sports fans now?
It's a busy time of year, but the Jets and Giants are a combined 3-7. The two teams at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and Rangers, are in the middle of major rebuilding phases. And no other local teams, at least among the four major team sports, are close to being championship contenders (The Red Bulls and NYCFC each have a legitimate chance to win MLS Cup this year).
The last time New York City enjoyed a championship was following the 2011 season when the Giants upset the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Before then? The Yankees' six-game win over the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009. A near-miss since? The Mets losing to the Kansas City Royals in five games in the 2015 World Series.
Despite the Yankees' disappointing exit this year, some New Yorkers are remaining surprisingly optimistic.
"I don't think all hope is lost. I'm a pretty faithful person, so the Knicks are 3-0 so far in the preseason, which is really good. So I think there's still a shot for us here," New York sports fan Kimberly Pinkney said with a laugh.
"It's not depressing. It's the greatest city in the world. We have the best teams. We just don't win every year," Yankees fan John Burke said.
The Yankees' first spring training game is on Feb. 23 in Fort Myers, Florida, against -- you guessed it -- the Red Sox.