The Times Points At Your Overpriced Beer And Calls It Half Empty

If you conveniently disregard the Yankees and perhaps the Giants — and maybe the Islanders and the Devils, too — then New York is “loserville” when it comes to sports teams:

Yes, yes, there are the Yankees. But in New York, a city of self-styled sports sophisticates and billion-dollar franchises, they are the exception. Quite an exception to be sure — 27 World Series titles — but an exception all the same.

O.K., Giants fans, we hear you. We will concede: your team is not an epic loser. The Giants have won seven N.F.L. championships, three in the 45-season Super Bowl era, the last one in stunning fashion over the 18-0 New England Patriots in 2008. Not bad. The Jets would take it. But there is this fact to face: The Giants started playing during the Calvin Coolidge presidency in 1925.

. . .

One might wonder: what about the teams we’ve left out, like the Devils, who have drunk from the Stanley Cup three times since the Rangers? Or the Islanders and their four titles in the 1980s?

Well, their victory parades aren’t conducted up Broadway. Still, you can count them if it makes you feel better.

Which is to say, the Rangers, Mets, Knicks, Nets and Jets are all total underachievers.