Evan is a huge Nets fan, but admits that he hated Vince Carter when he was a Net but loved him after he was gone – and that led to a discussion on Wednesday’s show about how guys like Patrick Ewing, Eli Manning, and others got the same treatment.
Even Tiki Barber got a little bit of that, too.
“I think it was more as I was leaving,” Tiki said. “We had some bad teams, so it was like, who are you rooting for?”
“I agree – people turned on him because of the leaving,” Shaun Morash chimed in. “Tiki was as beloved a Giant as there was from my generation.”
Tiki never won a Super Bowl as a Giant, although they won the year after he left and then another one a few years later – and that’s when Morash gave Tiki an interesting comp.
“In many ways for people my age, Tiki's kind of Don Mattingly for the Giants,” Shaun said. “Beloved, but they won the year after they left.”
“Ugh…that’s like almost an insult. I reject that comparison!” Evan said. “Tiki played in a Super Bowl, but Mattingly couldn't sniff a playoff game until he was in his final year.”
Evan and Shaun argued the success factor, but Tiki understood that Shaun meant “beloved player whose team won the year after they left.”
“Is Don Mattingly a legend for the Yankees? Yes, and Tiki Barber is a legend with the Giants, and on the way out, you realize, damn, this guy I rooted for, for 15 years, missed it by one year.”
“I reject your comparison,” Evan shoot back again.
“You know, there's no such thing as a perfect comparison between athletes. You try to find the closest thing!” Morash replied. “I'm telling you: I’m 36 years old, I grew up idolizing Tiki Barber. People a little older than me grew up idolizing Don Mattingly, and in the end, we all kind of feel the same feeling about said player, even if it's not the perfect comparison.”
Evan perhaps had a better one?
“David Wright,” he said, prompting Loogy to snipe: “Oh God, it always comes back to the Mets with you!”
“Tiki Barber was three times the player David Wright was,” Shaun said, and when Tiki said that Wright didn’t miss out on one like he did, Morash expounded: “Exactly! The very next year when our favorite player is gone, the team wins and we all are celebrating, but there is a piece of Giant fans that are like, that sucks that this guy I loved, we didn't have that moment watching him in that spot. As a mid-thirties Giants fan, that’s what it feels like to me.”