Somebody call Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer and tell them to find a new line of work. They may be The Original Kings of Comedy, but today comedy has new kings.
Meet the hysterical duo of Noah Fowle and Dave Goldiner. These comic geniuses have penned perhaps the funniest article ever written. It appears — where else? — in that noted comedy bible known as the Daily News.
The headline tells you that the story is going to be a scream:
City's in funk as Bombers bombing
I don't want to give away all the punchlines (you can check the American League standings for those), but I can't let this opportunity pass without — spoiler alert! — sharing this one joke they tell about all the damage the Yankees' recent losing is apt to do to New York's collective psyche:
“It might not be a coincidence that the Bombers' bad runs in the '60s and late '80s and early '90s coincided with eras of rising crime and economic stagnation.”
Several hallmarks of a great joke are present here.
1) It is preposterous. “It might not be a coincidence…” It also might not be a coincidence that I sat on my ass and watched TV yesterday and then it rained. But since I sit on my ass and watch a lot of TV and that doesn't necessarily lead to rain, I'm going to say it was indeed a coincidence. Their assertion is preposterous, therefore it is funny.
2) It is nonsensical. “It might not be a coincidence…coincided with…” Actually, when things coincide, it is generally indicative of a coincidence. Nonsense can be very funny.
3) It is illogical. “…the Bombers' bad runs in the '60s and late '80s and early '90s coincided with eras of rising crime and economic stagnation.” How did that work exactly? Every time Tom Tresh went 0-for-4, a liquor store was robbed? Andy Stankiewicz got a start and an investment bank moved to the suburbs? High-larious conclusions by the writers! Next time someone's driving while handling a cell phone, somebody arrest Jason Giambi (though I hear he can't get arrested…no matter how hard he tries).
This is one of those gags where you don't just laugh, but you applaud, so bravo fellas! And bravo to the editors who put stuff like this on page 2 of their newspaper and continue to devote almost all of their space to the floundering Yankees while practically ignoring the humdrum achievements of the first-place Mets (whose New York-based fans may not join their neighbors on this inevitable Yankee-related crime spree since our collective psyche is hanging in there OK). The Daily News' overwhelmingly Yankeecentric coverage of baseball in the Big Apple continues to be the sports-journalism equivalent of open mic night at Caroline's.
Some things are just funny because they're funny. In Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys, cantankerous Willy Clark explained words with the “k”-sound in them are funny. By his reasoning, the “Yankees” are funny. The idea that the “Yankees” are sending New “Yorkers” into a “funk” should have us doubled over in laughter.
And it does!
That's hilarious. Clearly flamebait , my friend. Don't feed the trolls.
Also amusing to note that the only thing keeping the Yankees out of appearing in last place in the printed standings is that alphabetically, “New York” comes before “Tampa Bay”.
Crossed my mind, but with New York in such a funk, I thought we could all use a little something to cheer ourselves up.
Yeah, I'm in a funk because the Yankees are losing. I'm a New Yorker, aren't I? And “Yankees” is a synonym for “New York.” Our world revolves around their fortunes, and the entire city sinks into a general morass when the Yankees don't do well. All of us. Met fans, fans of other teams, people who don't give a flying fig about baseball… ALL OF US. The Yankees ARE New York, and we all depend on their success. Yankees don't win, New York is like Night of the Living Dead, and we can barely stumble through our meaningless lives.
It's May. The Yankees are losing. And that of course is enough to put the greatest, toughest most vibrant city on Earth in a FUNK.
And as Laurie reminded me, wasn't the Bronx famously and literally burning (and much of New York looted) the year the Yankees returned to glory in 1977? Nothing funked up back then.
EXACTLY!
I posted as much on Baseball Think Factory this morning:
And as Laurie reminded me, wasn't the Bronx famously and literally burning (and much of New York looted) the year the Yankees returned to glory in 1977? Nothing funked up back then.
However, the 2003 blackout–in a year which saw the Yankees LOSE the World Series–was a crime-free block party. Love, laughter, peace and harmony reigned in the streets… unlike the festival of crime/looting that characterized the blackout of '77, a year of Yankee victory.
Coincidence? Hmm…
Two can play at that game, Daily News.
1977 was the fucking SUMMER OF SAM.
(Sorry about the profanity but in this case I felt it was necessary.)
Does this apply earlier? Did the Yankees pennants end the Depression in the 30s?
I'm in a funk because WFAN has become utterly UNLISTENABLE as every moron in the world calls in a frenzy, utterly unable to function. And then, criticizes Mets fans for, perhaps, being conciliatory (when we're in a good mood).
i keep waiting for them to rewrite bonfire of the fucking vanities.
Cures for AIDS and male pattern baldness are only being held back by Yankee failures. The various Iraqi contingents would shake hands and form a representative democracy on November 1 should Captain Intangibles wield the trophy in October. Rumor has it that mankind would have been granted immortality had Luis Gonzalez' liner been caught in 2001.
The quotes in that article were priceless: From some gin-slinger: “A lot of my regulars are disgusted. They don't want to come if the team is losing. It's just not the hot ticket in town”. From a season ticketholder: “If they keep losing I'll sell my tickets or give them away.” Ah, the Yankee fan… dedicated, passionate, live-or-die-with-their-team rooters. The same turds who showed up in '96, bought red Yankee hats and jerseys with names on them, rooted for Clemens, and had no idea who preceded Tino Martinez until Mattingly was named coach.
To say nothing of the '65 Blackout when the lights went out and nobody destroyed anything because a certain dynasty had just come to an end.
Oh wait — power grid failures and the fortunes of local baseball teams have nothing to do with each other.
I was in a restaurant Sunday and across the room, I saw the unthinkable: an ORANGE MFY hat with a BLUE vertical swastika!
Hey, you bastards! HANDS OFF!
Last time I checked, the Yankees losing was good for my psyche.
And for that of most Mets fans.
Leave it to the News to print pap like this.
The better story would have been how the bandwagon is being evacuated. Hell, they had enough quotes about people not going to games. One losing season and they run for the hills.
True fans.
Not.
Plenty of evidence to support Ed's contention.
Yeah, imagine if Met fans decided to abandon ship because the team wasn't winning?
I wonder how many of us would still be around. Seriously, if we were in it just for the good times, we would have left loooong ago. Especially those of us who have been Met fans a lot longer than the advent of the relatively successful “Wright/Reyes Era.”
That vile trull is exactly the kind of … oh, wait a minute, she's just a Yankee fan acting like a Yankee fan. Never mind.
I dunno, there are only two situations in which I listen to the FAN outside of game hours:
1. Yankee fans are screaming for various heads to roll, culminating with some morosely half-hearted assault on the Mets.
2. The Mets have lost some game so horribly that I've gone insane and think that, say, Scott Schoenweis should be sent to Triple-A posthaste. Within five minutes some FAN dimwit will suggest that Scott Schoenweis should be released and his uniform burned in a public ceremony. Which is so over the top that I laugh and calm down.
Needless to say, I like the first one better than the second.
“It might not be a coincidence that the Bombers' bad runs in the '60s and late '80s and early '90s coincided with eras of rising crime and economic stagnation.”
Hi Greg,
Sounds quite reasonable to me – we all know when Yankee fans weren't in the stands they were roaming the streets at night wearing their colors.
As another one mentioned, the Son of Sam terrified us in 1977. Since that was the year of the Met demise, we should assume that each group has one rotten apple. Notice there were no other rises in crime when Shea was empty? We're all socially conscientious citizens.
Okay, I've been listening to the fan almost 24 hours a day now since the Yankees began their little flop. Hi-larious! I love hearing the Yankee fans call in and say that Mets fans shouldn't be enjoying this. Yeah, right – I'm enjoying this a little too much!!
That's an old chestnut. According to the other side, Mets fans shouldn't be enjoying anything. It's the hoary Fun Police thing.
“Whydon'yacallbackwhenyagottwennysixringsan'thenyacanchirp?”
Circa 1999 it was irritating as all get out. Today it's a light mist that eases the humid air.
Charlie,
He was just masquerading as the fan of a winning team. Navy and white are not very comfortable colors to wear these days.
I distinctly remember living in Phoenix in the fall of 2001, when the Diamondbacks were about to upend Mariano and the 24 Dwarfs in that year's WS. That was, of course, right after 9/11 and all the hue and cry about whether rooting against the Yankees was “un-American.” I reassured my fellow Phoenicians that hating the Yankees was a perfectly all-American thing to do — it was, after all, precisely what we would be doing if those planes had never hit the buildings, and besides, plenty of Yankee-haters died in that catastrophe too. So there.
Greg, you nailed it, this is one hilariously holey slice o'cheese. I hope the Mets have it on the clubhouse bulletin board and are rupturing a collective kidney giggling about it.
You're totally right, Anonymous. I remember reading about a study showing that violent crime dropped for a day or two every time a big violent blockbuster movie was released. Some claimed that this was evidencer that violent films allow us to work out some psychological somethingorother, but the more likely explanation is that the people who like violence were too busy watching a movie to get tanked up and punch people. Same goes in this case!
You're also not Anonymous, Joe.
Neither are you, Joshua, LOL.
During the unrest in San Francisco in 1966, the Giants agreed to suddenly televise a game in hopes it would cool down the situation for a while. Even Willie Mays went on TV to alert the populas about the game being on (at that time, only the nine games played in Dodger Stadium were televised in San Francisco).
As expected, the situation did cool down that evening.
if you think that's funny, you should check out “yankees for justice“…
And one day later, the esteemed NY Post has to chime in, putting A-Rod on its front page stepping out in Toronto with a busty blonde who is distinctly not Mrs. Rodriguez.
It's all too much.
It's like they're rubbing our noses in it– “Yeah, the Yankees are 14 1/2 games out, but they still get chicks.”
I'm beginning to feel like a kid on Halloween night after a three hour candy bender.
Too much schadenfreude.
I'm full already.
HeeHee.
Yes, I'm sure A-Rod is just thrilled to death about the coverage. As is his spouse.
This is actually the exact same sort of tabloid piling-on that characterized the early-90s and early-00s Mets breakdowns, with all the hysteria about players being involved in adult peccadillos like pot, adultery, etc., which you wouldn't have heard boo about if the team was winning. (I'm not counting acts of violence, which no player should get away with ever.) I've not seen the Post story yet (can't load it for some reason), but it wouldn't surprise me if Andrea “The Church Lady” Peyser's prissy little pawprints were all over this one too.