You come here from your somewhere else and New York seems like this massive sweating heaving beast, stretching insanely towards every horizon, blocking out the sun above you, shaking the fabricated ground beneath your feet.
But it’s not. It’s not a beast or a monolith or a melting pot. It’s not one unified thing. What New York actually is, is the improbable collision and friction of every conceivable person and belief and idea and dream, want, need, desire and aspiration all at once, all the time. That’s what gives it that distinctive voltage you feel the moment you land at JFK, or emerge from the Lincoln Tunnel, or step off at Grand Central. It’s what you miss when you’re gone, what you can’t explain to people who’ve never been here, what drives you and the millions like you to not merely succeed, but to surpass the logical, the reasonable, the rational. That’s what New York City is, and that’s what was on display in Yankee Stadium on June 28th in the second Hudson River Derby.
Was it a perfect game? No. Was it messy and argumentative and confusing? Was there bad play as well as good? Disappointment and heartbreak and mendacity and pain? Yes, of course there was. Welcome to New York.
A local boy once said “I contain multitudes” and for this reason if no other, MLS needed two teams in New York. Two teams to represent the young and the old. The domestic and the international. The rich and the rest of us. The beautiful and damned and the naked and the dead. And while I was skeptical about the ability of the population to support two teams – especially after spending two seasons in an echoing and empty Meadowlands cheering the Juan Pablo Angel edition Red Bulls – it is clear that there are indeed multitudes enough.
Indeed, not only multitudes enough, but one could make the case that the best thing to happen to the Red Bulls is the arrival of the team they now love to hate. That it focused them, on the pitch and in the front office. That it gave their vocal fan base someone to vent their spleen upon who was not wearing red. A pretender to the throne. A “them” who did things differently, wrongly, not the way we do things here – and that thus forced them to define just exactly who they were, what they felt was right, how they did things.
A way that was reflected not only by the players on the pitch, but by the coaches in the post game press conference, when Jason Kreis noted that no, his team was not finished spending money, while Jesse Marsch credited the Red Bull’s youth academy with much of their success – this season and this game in particular.
Is one right and the other wrong? One more authentic because its been here 20 years than the other who actually plays in New York? One a more legitimate representative of a city of immigrants because more of its stars carry U.S. passports? One because they spend money like a coked up Hedge Fund manager at the 40/40 club, than the other who acts like paying retail is a crime against nature, excuse me for saying? Please.
The only real test of New York legitimacy has nothing to do with birthplace or money or longevity or geography or being or not being dead. It’s this: Do you give up?
The reason NYCFC lost the second Hudson River Derby isn’t because of what the scoreboard said. The reason NYCFC lost the second Hudson River Derby is because they gave up and RBNY did not. Josh Saunders didn’t lose because Josh Saunders didn’t give up. The fans – on either end of Yankee Stadium – didn’t lose, because they didn’t give up. Why? Why didn’t the ESC give up when Tommy McNamara slotted a beauty in the sixth minute? Why didn’t the Third Rail pack it in when Matt Miazga scored in the 73rd minute? Because they know – because they are real New Yorkers wherever they were born – that it’s always possible for that ball to roll between Bill Buckner’s legs. That there’s always the chance that Willis Reed is gonna come out of that locker room. That sometimes Mark Messier really is gonna put the entire franchise on his back. That Eli is somehow gonna avoid that sack and that David Tyree is gonna keep that ball from hitting the ground.
We believe it because we’ve seen it happen. Every day. The improbable. The impossible. The unbelievable. In New York there are many luxuries, but giving up is not one of them. In the second Hudson River Derby, RBNY showed they know that. NYCFC still has a half a season to show that they do.
Featured Photo: Bill Twomey/Bill Twomey Photography
