Pats, Giants Work To Out-Obnoxious Each Other

The Patriots get cocky . . . the Giants stay cockier:

If the Giants win the Super Bowl on Sunday, the city is prepared to throw them a party.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said plans are in the works for a victory parade and ceremony to take place on Tuesday following the big game.

The parade would start at 10 a.m. at the U.S. Custom House and travel uptown on Broadway to City Hall, where grandstands would seat 5,000 fans for a 1 p.m. celebration ceremony.

Only One Thing Can Cancel Out Tom Brady — Giants Fans

I was beginning to feel a little proud of the Giants until I saw this:

When it comes to celebrating their home team’s first shot at the NFL championship in seven years, many New Yorkers are lacking neither money nor creativity.

Among the decorations for one Sunday Giants celebration is a 4-foot tall ice sculpture crafted to look just like the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy.

“Sports audiences are very physical and get very excited,” said Shintaro Okamoto, the founder of Okamoto Studio in Long Island City, who is making the ice sculpture. “We want to make sure our Super Bowl sculptures are very strong and durable.”

Okamoto said he is also fielding inquires from New York “hedge fund people and bankers” looking to spend upwards of $750 on ice sculptures in the shape of a Giants helmet for their private loft parties.

Isiah Thomas On The Difference Between Figurative And Literal

Get a hold of yourself, man, it’s just a dumb game:

His back to the wall, his personal space consumed by cameras and microphones, Isiah Thomas breathed deep and dutifully navigated a dozen questions over 11 minutes Tuesday afternoon.

. . .

“We’ve got to win our fans back,” Thomas said, vowing that the Knicks were up to the challenge.

“To me, it’s win or die,” he said. “And I literally mean death. I don’t mean walk away. I mean death. That’s how I approach it. And we got a job to do here, we’re going to get it done. I’m confident we got the right players, I’m confident we got the right people, and we’ll dig our way out of this.”

J-E-T-S — Breasts, Breasts, Breasts!

It’s convenient to view the Meadowlands as a giant red-light district for boorish New York sports fans:

At halftime of the Jets’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium’s two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts.

When one woman appeared to be on the verge of obliging, the hooting and hollering intensified. But then she walked away, and plastic beer bottles and spit went flying. Boos swept through the crowd of unsatisfied men.

Marco Hoffner, an 18-year-old from Lacey Township, N.J., was expecting to see more. Not from the Jets — they pulled off a big upset over the Steelers. He wanted more from the alternative halftime show that, according to many fans, has been a staple at Jets home games for years.

“Very disappointed, because we’re used to seeing a lot,” Hoffner said.

The mood of previous Gate D crowds — captured on video clips posted on YouTube — sometimes bordered on hostile, not unlike the spirit of infamously aggressive European soccer hooligans. One clip online shows a woman being groped by a man standing next to her.

Sunday’s scene played out for about 20 minutes, and at least one woman granted the men’s request, setting off a roar as if the former star running back Curtis Martin had just scored a touchdown. Martin was actually nearby, being honored on the field in the official halftime show, which had a far less intense audience.

And who thought the West Side Stadium would be a good thing? Oh yeah. May the (2-8!) Jets never, ever return from New Jersey.

Stoops To Conquer (It’s Literally Beneath You!)

Teams of the Mets’ supposed stature (not to mention payroll — $116 million in 2007!) shouldn’t be selling bricks like they’re raising cash for a church rec room, but then there are the Mets, selling bricks like they’re the Minnesota Twins or something:

Diehard fans of the New York Mets will get the chance to get in on the ground floor of the billion-dollar Citi Field stadium — literally. Last week the baseball club unveiled plans for the Citi Field Fanwalk, a plaza outside the planned Jackie Robinson Rotunda paved entirely with custom-engraved bricks purchased by baseball fans.

Three brick types are available: a $395 8-by-8-inch brick engraved with the Mets’ interlocking “NY” and four lines of text; a $340 8-by-8-inch brick with six lines of text; and a $195 4-by-8-inch brick with three lines of text. Each line of text can hold up to 15 characters, including spaces and punctuation.