For the second and final time this regular season, the Yankees and Mets are meeting in a cross-town battle. In British football they’d call this a derby, but since we’re talking about baseball in America, we call it an Interleague match-up. Regardless of the nomenclature, the meeting of the two teams for a four game set later this week – with the first game at Yankee Stadium and then three games in Queens – is important for both teams.

For the Yanks, they’ll be trying to continue their upward momentum despite the recent loss of pitcher Chien-Ming Wang; for the Mets (and new manager Jerry Manual), the set against their American League rivals serves as an opportunity to jumpstart a thus-far mediocre season, or perhaps hasten the beginning of the end for Omar Minaya and this iteration of the Amazin’s. Read the rest of this entry »

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This week, Swarm Defense takes a slightly different tack than normal. Most weeks, we look at something fun and simple in the New York related to sports. A professional or semi-pro event that you can go see on the cheap with some friends is the main fare of this column, along with sporting events and leagues that you can participate in yourself.

This week, however, we deviate from our regular format to discuss a poorly executed event in local New York sports, and it’s immediate ramifications, the recent firing of Willie Randolph and his coaches from the Mets.

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Somewhere in New York City, there is a clandestine group of females training at this very moment. These girls are improving their speed on eight wheels, honing their forearm blocking and elbowing techniques, and gearing up for monthly matches. What dastardly blood sport of hard hits and short skirts could these girls possibly be practicing for?

None other than roller derby, that classic 1970’s roller-rink sport which has come roaring back to life in a number of American cities over the past half-dozen years.

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Last night, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings played an epic Game 5 in the Stanley Cup Finals. After 100 minutes of play, the score was knotted at three as the teams headed to triple overtime. With their season on the brink of being over, the Penguins finally scored on the power play, as a nice pass from Malkin set up Petr Sykora’s game winner.

With an exhausting game five in the books, the question for New Yorkers — both die hard hockey watchers and casual fans alike — should become, quite simply, where the heck can I watch game six on Wednesday night?

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One of the great aspects of Manhattan, both in design and execution, is the existence of Central Park. Originally conceived of by Olmstead and Vaux in the late 1850s as a “democratic development of the highest significance” – few large, publicly funded city parks had yet been created anywhere – Central Park today is the epicenter of outdoor sports in Manhattan.

Offering both organized leagues such as softball and soccer, and plenty of hilly, open space for pick-up games of Frisbee, kickball, or even freeze-tag, Central Park is one of the first places Manhattanites head when they want to get outside and stretch their muscles.

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Each year, JP Morgan Chase sponsors two evenings of runs in Central Park called the Chase Corporate Challenge, an event that benefits the Central Park Conservancy here in New York. (Chase sponsors other races around the world with other charity partners.) Taking place this year on Wednesday, June 18th and Thursday, June 19th, this increasingly popular event is seen by many New York corporations as a way to get their employees outside and moving around, using it as a team building event and something that can generate synergy (and other corporate buzz words).

Now in its 32nd year, this 3.5 mile run has, to many people, grown too large to be managed — with so many individuals running, most teams have difficulty finding each other during and after the race, and many feel that the race has become too large to be really enjoyable. As firms and individuals look around for a different spring time activity to try and build team morale (and to create an excuse for a company happy hour), many have turned to the Wall Street Run/Walk, an event being held tonight in lower Manhattan.

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So you want to find a new activity to do where you can throw a ball around, get a little non-gym-based activity, and maybe meet a few new people in the process. Basically, you want to play the adult version of intramural sports. That makes sense, believe me — a lot of people like playing sports in the city. Problem is, your office doesn’t sponsor a beer-league softball team and you’re not quite good enough at soccer to keep up with the D-III college starters who dominate most of the New York leagues. So what shall you do?

While a wide assortment of options present themselves to the athletically inclined Gothamite (many of which I’m sure to talk about at some point), let us take a look today at one aggression-fueled stress reliever that I happen to enjoy on occasion: dodgeball.

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Ahhh, the Staten Island Ferry. Gateway to… Staten Island. Unless you live there, or are in search of a cheap way to see some great views of Manhattan (without, of course, ever actually setting foot in the elusive fifth borough), it would seem like the type of trip an intrepid sports fan would never need to take. But there, of course, is where common wisdom fails. Lying at the far side of the Ferry (and with its own great views of both the sunset and lower Manhattan) is the Ballpark at St. George, home of the Staten Island Yankees, the Bronx Bombers’ Single A affiliate.

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In the annals of great bar sports, a few classics come to mind – pool, darts, Big Buck Hunter. These days, however, a classic game is finding new life and making a play to join the mighty triumvirate, at least in the East Village and Alphabet City. That game is Air Hockey, a game long played at seedier dive bars around the Village, and around which has recently coalesced a new bar league: Air Hockey NYC.

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Madison Square Garden: the World’s Most Famous Arena.

Whether that tag-line is a true sign of the enduring power of New York sports or just a great marketing ploy by the Dolan family, the fourth incarnation of Madison Square Garden has certainly played host to a number of great teams and a plethora of high-profile events. And while one of the two main tenants of the Garden, hockey’s NY Rangers, is currently making noise in the Stanley Cup playoffs, another of the arena’s teams is in the midst of its own playoff push. Not the Knicks — thanks for nothing, Isiah — but rather the New York Titans, members of the National Lacrosse League.

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