Press Release

THE MANY ARGUMENTS IN NEW YORK SPORTS

Anywhere two or more New Yorkers might gather, you can find fans arguing about the in’s and out’s of baseball, football, basketball, hockey, tennis, boxing, and the rest. Not infrequently, fans’ voices are raised, arms are waved, chops are busted, and stray pretzels are tossed. And all that’s before the die-hards start hitting the city’s talk radio, lighting up internet sites, or devouring reams of newspapers, magazines, books, and every other conceivable platform for raging debate.

Forget baseball- around New York, the real national pastime has fans arguing all sports, all the time.

A new book tackles New Yorkers’ favorite arguments in all their glory. Syndicated columnist Peter Handrinos has written a new tome entitled ‘The Best New York Sports Arguments: The 100 Most Controversial, Debatable Questions for Die-Hard Fans’, and it’s a doozy.

“I wanted to write something that reflected all the important sports, and look at them in a variety of ways, from stats to society, humor to history, comparisons to culture,” says Handrinos.

An ambitious mission statement, indeed, but the first-time author may have succeeded in fulfilling it. A glance at the book’s Table of Contents reveals chapters on every major franchise, from events as old as 1902 and as recent as 2006. Apparently, New Yorkers practically invented big-time American sports and we’re still generating some of its more fascinating questions.

Handrinos has a couple of theories on Gotham’s a-chugging sports machine. “A lot of it has to go to the fact that the country’s biggest market has always attracted the best of the best, in athletics as in all walks of life,” said the Norwalk, CT native. “Apart from that, there’s a way that our athletics reflect the city itself. Most New Yorkers have to be intense competitors to survive in daily life, and they’re naturally attracted to the intense competitors to be found in diamonds, gridirons, courts, and the rest.”

Sure, but why all the sports nuts’ yelling and bickering?

“Oh, don’t think of it as yelling and bickering,” chuckles Handrinos, 34. “Think of it as loud, passionate conversation- beneath all the bluster, most fans are pretty big-hearted, friendly people, and they simply utilize sports to bond with those they care about. Whatever team they might root for or against, they’re united in their caring.”

Hmmm. Raucous New York sports fans are actually . . . friendly and united? Now there’s something you could argue.

pch@UnitedStatesofBaseball.com

‘The Best New York Sports Arguments:

The 100 Most Controversial, Debatable Questions for Die-Hard Fans’

SourceBooks, Inc. • On-Sale Date: November 28, 2006 • 270 pages

$14.95 • ISBN: 1-4022-0823-5

Posted 9/1/2006 @ 5:13 PM | Press Release