New York's 10 Greatest Teams

New project: The Top 10 Teams for each of the metropolitan areas with major league sports teams.

Starting with the one I know the best: The New York Tri-State Area, including Northern and Central New Jersey, Long Island, and Southwestern Connecticut.

Honorable Mention to the 1950 City College of New York (CCNY) basketball team of Manhattan, the only local team to win basketball's NCAA Tournament.

New York University (NYU) of Manhattan reached the Final in 1945. St. John's University (SJU) of Queens reached the Final in 1952, and the Final Four in 1985. Seton Hall University of South Orange, New Jersey reached the Final in 1989. Princeton University of Princeton, New Jersey reached the Final Four in 1965. Rutgers University of New Brunswick, New Jersey reached the Final Four in 1976.

Despite jokes about it being "The University of New Jersey at Durham," no, you can't count Duke University as a "New York team." And, given the distance, no, you can't count Syracuse University, either. They will be included among the Honorable Mentions when I do this list for Western New York (Buffalo). The University of Connecticut is in Storrs, closer to Boston than to New York City, and thus will be included among the Honorable Mentions when I do this list for New England.

Honorable Mention to local teams that won the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), in the years when it was considered more of a basketball national championship than the NCAA: 1939 and 1941 Long Island University (LIU) of Brooklyn, 1943 and 1944 St. John's, and 1950 CCNY -- the only time the NCAA/NIT double had ever been done, and, after the 1951 point-shaving scandal that relegated the NIT to 2nd-class status, no team has ever been allowed to enter both tourneys again.

Seton Hall won the NIT in 1953. St. John's won it again in 1959, 1965 and 1989. Princeton won it in 1975.

Given its distance from Midtown Manhattan and its international student body, I'm not going to include the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, so the National Championships won by the football team at "Army," including 1944 and 1945, will be, here, a footnote. Nor am I going to include "National Championships" retroactively awarded for the 19th and early 20th Centuries to Princeton, and to Yale University of New Haven, Connecticut. It would have been like winning a league with only 8 teams in it, and calling yourselves "World Champions."

And I am going to "go dynastic" here. It's easier that way, instead of differentiating, say, the 1949 Yankees from their 1950, 1951, 1952 and 1953 teams that won 5 straight World Series.

So, here goes:

Honorable Mention to the 1888-89 New York Giants (baseball). The City's 1st Pennant winners, they won 2 National League Pennants.

Honorable Mention to the 1889-90 Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Several of their players had gotten married in the 1887-88 off-season. They won the Pennant in the American Association in 1889, were admitted to the National League in 1890, and won the Pennant again.

Honorable Mention to the 1899-1900 Brooklyn Superbas. Since their manager was Ned Hanlon, who'd led the 1894-95-96 NL Champion Baltimore Orioles, and had taken some of their players (including Willie Keeler) with him, they were renamed for a famous circus troupe of the time, Hanlon's Superbas. Their Pennants, with no postseason opposition possible at the time, made this the last Brooklyn team to win baseball's World Championship for 55 years.

Honorable Mention to the 1904-05 New York Giants (baseball). Managed by John McGraw, with Christy Mathewson as pitching ace, they they won 2 National League Pennants, and the 1905 World Series, and set the standard by which New York baseball would be measured until Babe Ruth came to the Yankees. They nearly won another Pennant in 1908.

Honorable Mention to the 1911-17 New York Giants (baseball). McGraw's men won 4 Pennants in 7 years, but lost all 4 World Series. In 1911-13, they followed the 1907-09 Detroit Tigers as, to this day, the only teams ever to lose 3 straight World Series.

Honorable Mention to the 1916-20 Brooklyn Robins. Now named for their manager, Wilbert Robinson, they won the Pennant in 1916 and 1920. But, other than those 2 seasons, the team had losing records every year from 1904 to 1923.

Honorable Mention to the 1921-24 New York Giants (baseball). 4 seasons, 4 National League Pennants, 2 World Championships. John McGraw's last great team stood in the way of the Ruthian Yankees reaching baseball supremacy as long as they could, with considerably less talent than the Bronx Bombers who replaced them, their best player being Frankie Frisch.

Had they hung on in Game 7 of the 1924 World Series against the Washington Senators, they'd be a lot higher on this list -- and some of the players Frisch, as a member of the Hall of Fame's Committee on Veterans, got elected would seem like less dubious selections.

Honorable Mention to the 1926-33 New York Rangers. 8 seasons (the 1st 8 in franchise history), 2 American Division titles, 4 trips to the Stanley Cup Finals, 2 Stanley Cups. The 1st great hockey team in New York history, advertised as "the Classiest Team in Hockey." Yes, the Rangers. This was a long time ago.

Honorable Mention to the 1927 New York Giants (football). They won the NFL Championship with an 11-1-1 record. (No NFL Championship Game, under any name, until 1932.) They also finished 2nd in 1929 with a 13-1-1 record that remains the best, percentage-wise, in franchise history.

Honorable Mention to the 1933-37 New York Giants (baseball). 5 seasons, 3 National League Pennants, and the 1933 World Championship. A close call for the Pennant in 1934, and winning only 3 games against the Yankees in the '36 and 37 Series combined, prevents the team of player-manager Bill Terry, Master Mel Ott and King Carl Hubbell from being in the Top 10.

Honorable Mention to the 1933-41 New York Giants (football). 9 seasons, 6 Eastern Division titles, 2 NFL Championships (1934 and 1938). New York's 1st great pro football team, led by Mel Hein, perhaps the greatest center in NFL history, and the aptly-named running back and kicker Ken Strong.

Honorable Mention to the 1940-42 New York Rangers. The Broadway Blueshirts won the Stanley Cup in 1940, and finished 1st overall in 1942. At the time, there was no Presidents Trophy for doing that, but having the best overall record in the regular season was considered nearly as important as winning the Cup. Then World War II's manpower drain caught up with the Rangers, and in the 76 years, they've been to just 5 Stanley Cup Finals, winning exactly 1 of them.

Honorable Mention to the 1947-56 Brooklyn Dodgers. 10 seasons, 6 Pennants (plus 2 other near-misses, 3 if you extend it back to 1946), and the 1955 World Series win. The "Boys of Summer," led by Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider, were beloved, but for all they achieved, on the field and off, they never really fulfilled their promise.

That 1 title, not long before they were moved across the continent, meant that they wouldn't have been the Buffalo Bills of baseball -- but they could be considered the 1950s version of the the 1990s Atlanta Braves.

Honorable Mention to the 1949-53 New York Knicks. 5 seasons, a regular-season Eastern Division title, 5 straight Eastern Division Finals, 3 straight Eastern Division titles -- but lost the NBA Finals all 3 times, including 2 Game 7s. Dick McGuire, Nat Clifton and their teammates had everything but luck.

Honorable Mention to the 1951-54 New York Giants (baseball). Maybe they didn't deserve the 1951 Pennant, but they did win the 1954 World Series, sweeping the 111-win Cleveland Indians to do it.

Honorable Mention to the 1955-58 New York Yankees. 4 seasons, 4 American League Pennants, 2 World Championships -- and they other 2 World Series, they lost in Game 7. Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford. It's not that the AL was so weak -- with 8 teams, some people called it "The Yankees and the Seven Dwarfs" -- it's that the Yankees were so good.

Honorable Mention to the 1968-69 New York Jets. They won Super Bowl III, and the AFL Championship Game 2 weeks earlier. Would you believe that those were the only postseason games that Gang Green won in their 1st 22 seasons of existence? And they've still never been to the Super Bowl since, going 0-4 in AFC Championship Games.

Honorable Mention to the 1969-73 New York Mets. 5 seasons, 2 National League Pennants and the 1969 World Championship. The '69 "Miracle Mets" remain the most beloved single-season team in the history of New York sports, ahead of even the '55 Dodgers and the '70 Knicks. Had they won Game 7 of the '73 Series, I might be tempted to put Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones and company in the Top 10.

Honorable Mention to the 1972-76 New York Nets. 5 seasons, 2 Eastern Division titles, 2 trips to the ABA Finals, 2 ABA Championships (1974 and 1976). Not the best basketball team in New York Tri-State Area history, but the flashiest, and, although it was the ABA, still the last one around here to win a league championship.

Honorable Mention to the 1972, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1982 New York Cosmos, North American Soccer League Champions. It's hard to measure them against the great teams of European "football," since the competition they were facing wasn't exactly top-flight. But they did win 5 championships under their jurisdiction, and the only other Tri-State Area teams to have done that are the Yankees and both the baseball and the football Giants.

Seriously, here's the count: Yankees 27, Giants (football) 8, Giants (baseball) 7, Cosmos 5, Rangers 4, Islanders 4, Devils 3, Mets 2, Knicks 2, Jets 1, Dodgers 1, Nets 0 (although 2 in the ABA), Liberty 0 (although 4 Conference Championships), Red Bulls 0 (although 2 Supporters' Shields), NYCFC 0.

Honorable Mention to the 1976-81 New York Yankees. 6 seasons, 4 American League Eastern Division titles, 3 AL Pennants, 2 World Championships (1977 and 1978). This was the 1st great sports team I ever watched, and it hurts a little to not be able to put them into the Top 10. And I could have... if not for the next great Yankee team, which I'm still glad I got to see.

The Bronx was burning -- with the Yankees steaming mad at each other, and taking a flamethrower to the opposition. Maybe they weren't as good as the 1927, or 1936, or 1953, or 1961, or 1998, or 2009 editions of the Pinstripes, but no baseball team in New York history ever showed more guts.

Honorable Mention to the 1984-90 New York Mets. 7 seasons, 7 seasons finishing no worse than 2nd in the National League Eastern Division. But only 2 Division titles, 1986 and 1988; and just 1 Pennant and 1 World Series. And given all that had to happen in October 1986 for them to win that title, maybe baseball historians have been calling the wrong Met World Series win a "miracle."

Face it: Kid, Mex, Doc, Straw, Nails and the rest weren't that good. Certainly, they weren't particularly accomplished. The great Yankee teams? The '86 Mets weren't even as good as the '69 Mets.

Honorable Mention to the 1992-97 New York Rangers. 6 seasons, 2 regular-season Division titles (1992 Patrick, 1994 Atlantic), 2 Presidents Trophies for best regular-season record, 2 trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, 1 Stanley Cup (1994). So many stars, so little results.

If the Vancouver Canucks had won that Game 7 at Madison Square Garden, think about how Ranger fans would have reacted. Mark Messier would have gone from "The Messiah" to the greatest failure in the history of New York sports. They could have taken him downstairs to Penn Station and literally run him out of town on a rail. And then, instead of "78 Years, 1 Cup," it would be 78 years, no Cups!

Honorable Mention to the 1993-99 New York Knicks. 7 seasons, 2 Atlantic Division titles, 3 Eastern Conference Finals, 2 Eastern Conference titles -- but no NBA Championship. They had their chance, with Michael Jordan not being available for 1994, and they beat the Chicago Bulls, but they lost the Finals. The really odd thing about this team is not that Patrick Ewing never won a title, but that, in 1999, they did every bit as well without him as they ever did with him.

Honorable Mention to the 1997-2002 New York Liberty. 6 seasons, 4 trips to the WNBA Finals, but lost them all.

Honorable Mention to the 2002-06 New Jersey Nets. 5 seasons, 4 Atlantic Division titles, 2 Eastern Conference Championships. Jason Kidd and company had the misfortune to smack into the Shaq-Kobe Lakers and the Robinson-Duncan Spurs, but they are, for the moment, the last Tri-State Area team to reach the NBA Finals. Indeed, here's how bad it's been for local basketball: Since June 17, 1994, nearly a quarter of a century, the Knicks and the Nets combined are 3-14 in NBA Finals games.

Honorable Mention to the 2007-12 New York Giants. 5 seasons, 2 NFC Eastern Division titles, 2 Super Bowl wins (XLII and XLVI). Not the best football team in Tri-State Area history, or the most productive, or the flashiest. But because Eli Manning and his teammates beat the New England Patriots in both Super Bowls, this is the most satisfying gridiron aggregation ever to set up shop within a 50-mile radius of Times Square. And their Super Bowl XLVI win, on February 6, 2012 -- 6 years ago -- remains the Tri-State Area's last World Championship.

Honorable Mention to the 2008 New York Red Bulls. This team, which lost the MLS Cup Final, remains the closest that the MetroStars/Red Bulls have ever come to winning a league title.

Honorable Mention to the 2009-12 New York Yankees. 4 seasons, 3 American League Eastern Division titles, but only 1 Pennant and 1 World Championship. Brian Cashman let too many good players go, and Joe Girardi made too many pitching mistakes. This team should have won more.

Honorable Mention to the 2009-11 New York Jets. They made back-to-back AFC Championship Games, winning 4 Playoff games, all on the road: At Cincinnati and San Diego in January 2010, and Indianapolis and New England in 2011. But they couldn't get over the hump. Or, as head coach Rex Ryan might have preferred to say, they couldn't get their foot in the door.

10. 1956-63 New York Giants (football). 8 seasons, 6 Eastern Division titles, but only 1 NFL Championship, in 1956. Their close defeats in the 1958 and 1963 NFL Championship Games meant that what was probably the best team in New York Tri-State Area football history, led by Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle and Sam Huff, was also the most frustrating.

9. 1984-90 New York Giants (football). 7 seasons, 3 NFC Eastern Division titles, 2 Super Bowl wins (XXI and XXV). The 1986 Giants of Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor set a Tri-State Area record with a 14-2 performance, and ended the Jets' 18-year run as the most recent NFL titlists in the area. Perhaps they weren't as good as the 1956-63 edition of Big Blue, but they were more accomplished.

8. 1995-2003 New Jersey Devils. 9 seasons, 5 Atlantic Division titles, 4 Eastern Conference Championships, 3 Stanley Cups. They weren't as star-laden as the '94 Rangers that delayed their rise by a year, but they were more accomplished.

7. 1969-74 New York Knicks. 6 seasons, 2 Division titles (1970 Eastern, 1971 Atlantic), 6 Eastern Conference Finals, 3 Eastern Conference titles, 2 NBA Championships (1970 and 1973). No, Red Holzman did not invent "team basketball," but he might have perfected it with Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and the rest. Given the amount of hype then, and nostalgia since, for this team, it's amazing that the glory days only lasted 6 years.

6. 1949-53 New York Yankees. 5 seasons, 5 World Championships. As a man who was on all 5 of those teams, Yogi Berra, would have said (he actually said it about Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series), "It's never been done before, and it still hasn't."

Making the transition from Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle, this team wasn't quite as loaded as the 1936-39 version that won 4 straight, but 5 straight titles is 5 straight titles.

5. 1960-64 New York Yankees. 5 seasons, 5 straight Pennants, 2 World Championships (1961 and 1962). Led by the M&M Boys, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, but the aging but still effective Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford at his ace-iest, and a great infield anchored by catcher Elston Howard, teams didn't get much more effective than this. As with 1955-58, they were 2 Game 7 losses away from being so much higher.

4. 1978-84 New York Islanders. 7 seasons, 5 Patrick Division regular-season titles, 3 Presidents Trophies for best overall regular-season record, 5 straight trips to the Stanley Cup Finals, 4 straight Stanley Cups. Love 'em or hate 'em, but, for sustained excellence, this was the best hockey team ever based in America, better than any the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Red Wings or the Pittsburgh Penguins -- and certainly the Rangers -- has ever produced.

3. 1936-43 New York Yankees. 8 seasons, 7 Pennants, 6 World Championships. It started as Joe McCarthy's team of Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and the young Joe DiMaggio. It ended with Gehrig dead, and Dickey holding together a team that had seen DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich and Phil Rizzuto play, then go off to war.

Dickey went to his grave thinking that team should have won 8 straight Pennants, taking the missing one in 1940. In the 4 seasons before that, 1936 to 1939, they became the 1st team ever to win 4 straight World Series, going 16-3. The 1947 Yankees, managed by Bucky Harris, were the last gasp of this team, as they did not win the Pennant in 1948, and in 1949, under Casey Stengel, had become a different team.

2. 1921-28 New York Yankees. 8 seasons, 6 Pennants, 3 World Championships (1923, 1927, 1928). A stunning Game 7 loss in 1926 prevented a 3-peat, and may be the only thing that keeps the "Murderers' Row" Yankees of Babe Ruth and, in the latter triad of Pennants, Lou Gehrig from being an easy choice as the greatest baseball team of all time.

The 1932 Yankees won 107 games, and swept the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, but were a transition between the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees of 1926-28 and the Gehrig-Dickey-DiMaggio Yankees of 1936-39, and thus aren't included here.

1. 1996-2003 New York Yankees. 8 seasons, 6 Pennants, 4 World Championships (1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000). This team could beat you with contact hitting and power hitting, in each case to the opposite field. It could beat you with good baserunning. It could beat you with great starting pitching and with even better relief pitching. And it could beat you with defense.

The traditional argument for the Islander dynasty is their 19 straight postseason series won. Well, 16 teams qualify for the NHL Playoffs. In MLB in this era, 8 teams did, meaning that, for 8 years, the Yankees had a maximum of 24 rounds, and they went 16-4 -- including 11-0 from the 1998 AL Division Series to the 2001 AL Championship Series. They went 11-2 in the '98 postseason, and 11-1 in '99. They didn't care about home-field advantage: Over those 8 years, their postseason record was 32-16 at home and 29-15 on the road.

Their conquests included perhaps the most talented teams ever put together by the franchises of the Texas Rangers, the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, the Cleveland Indians, the San Diego Padres, and the Seattle Mariners. They included a Mariner team that tied the MLB record with a 116-win regular season; a very motivated Met team that finally got the franchise's 1st Subway Series, only to get outwitted by the Yankees 4 games out of 5; and, in 1999 and 2003 if not 2004, an even more motivated Boston Red Sox team.

You say that Yankee team used steroids? Look at the teams they played: The 1996-99 Rangers, the 1996-97 Baltimore Orioles, the 2000-01 Oakland Athletics, the 2000 Mets (don't tell me Mike Piazza was taking acne medication), and, of teams that actually beat them, the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2003 Florida Marlins, and the 2004 Red Sox. The Yankees were no less "legitimate" than their opponents.

Whether the Joe Torre Era Yankees will turn out to be the last baseball dynasty remains to be seen. But the evidence suggests that they are the greatest sports team in the history of the New York Tri-State Area, and possibly the greatest baseball team ever.