Tag Archives: New York

New York Ticker Tape Parade

Nationality: Irish

Occupation: Financial Engineering

Residence: New York, NY

Text: 

“After the Giants won the Super Bowl in 2008, they did the traditional victory parade through New York. The parade goes along a narrow section of Broadway in lower Manhattan called the ‘Canyon of Heroes’, where all of the employees of the banks watch the parade from their office windows. When I worked at BGC my office was along this section of Broadway, and that morning someone had left out boxes full of thin strips of paper. As the parade went by everyone threw the paper out of the window like it was confetti. Workers used to throw ticker tape, hence the name, but ticker tape was obsolete by 2008 so we just used paper.”

Context:

New York City has been doing ticker tape parades since long before my father moved to America in the early 90s. Historically the parades were done to honor anyone considered worthy, including returning soldiers, astronauts, and politicians. However in the time my dad has lived in New York, they have only been done for championship winning sports teams, and he only worked in an office on Broadway for one of them. Historically, these parades featured employees at financial firms throwing ticker tape; ticker tape is a thin strip of paper which was used to receive live stock market updates through telegraphs. The employees would throw the tape out of the window in celebration, and it would fall down like confetti. After the internet rendered ticker tape obsolete, employees began throwing slits of paper out of the window instead.

Analysis:

Both the use of ticker tape (and the paper that replaced it) and the parade going down the “Canyon of Heroes” are ways that New York differentiates itself from other cities when conducting championship parades. First, there is the deliberate choice to use paper that replicates ticker tape instead of using normal confetti (like any other city would). Ticker tape symbolizes Wall Street and the stock market, which are major parts of the fabric of New York City. Additionally, the parade route going through the financial district to have employees watch from windows is very different from other parades. Most parades go through areas with areas for spectators, but in New York the parade is meant to be watched from an office window. This is a reflection of the work culture of New York, especially in the financial industry. At businesses where employees often work 60+ hours a week, nobody would have time to leave the office to watch a parade, so instead the parade follows a route allowing it to be watched from the office. Ticker tape parades turn generic championship parades into unique celebrations that reflect New York City.

The George Santos Curse

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text:

In March of 2023, just before opening day, Congressman George Santos published a video on Twitter wearing a Mets jersey where he incorrectly chanted “Let’s go Mets”. This video was posted while he was enveloped in an enormous fraud scandal, which would ultimately lead to him being expelled from Congress and sentenced to seven years in prison. The moment that the video was released, my friend was convinced that George Santos had just cursed the Mets for the 2023 season. Despite starting the year as World Series favorites, the Mets went on to win less than half of their games and miss the playoffs. In 2024 after George Santos was expelled from Congress, the Mets unexpectedly made a playoff run which was proof to my friend that Santos cursed the Mets and the curse was lifted when he was gone.

Context:
My friend lives in New York’s third congressional district, which is the district Santos represented and where the Mets play home games. He was not old enough to vote when Santos was elected, but he hated him and wanted him to be removed from office. After Santos posted the cringeworthy video on Twitter, jokes appeared online that he had just cursed the Mets and that the Mets could never win with him in office. My friend latched onto this idea, and throughout the season whenever the Mets lost he would text me about how the George Santos curse is killing the Mets.

Analysis:

This belief is a clear example of Frazer’s idea of the Law of Similarity in magic. The Law of Similarity states that a magician will produce a desired effect by mimicking it. In this case George Santos was (unintentionally) the magician, and he transferred the negativity surrounding himself onto the Mets by wearing their jersey. Following this idea, it makes sense that the curse would be lifted after Santos was expelled. Prior to being expelled from office Santos was hated for being a fraudster, but after he was expelled people began to find him amusing. This changing energy surrounding Santos was reflected in the Mets turnaround, where they unexpectedly had a great season in 2024.

Worker Chosen by Babe Ruth

Nationality: American

Occupation: Corporate Event Planner

Residence: New York, NY

Language: English

Text:

When Babe Ruth showed up for work, he didn’t look or act like a professional athlete. He ate way too much, drank way too much, and would often wake up with a different woman in his bed. When he was playing he was often hung over, which made it harder for him to deal with all of the attention he was getting as a superstar baseball player. Back in that day in the late 1920s, a bunch of kids would line up outside the stadium in hopes of being the bat boy, and the players would pick one and they’d get paid a nickel for the game. [My aunt’s] great-uncle lived in the Bronx, and after a few weeks of showing up at the stadium he finally got chosen to be the bat boy. He was always very quiet, which Babe Ruth loved; all the other bat boys would constantly try to talk to him which he found annoying. With him as bat boy, the Yankees went on a winning streak and went on to win the World Series. Because of his quiet nature, Babe Ruth gave [my aunt’s] grand-uncle the nickname “Silent Pete”, which stuck for the rest of his life. Eventually Pete became the full time equipment manager for the Yankees, and was with the team for 20 World Series titles.

Context:

The truth of this story is very difficult to measure. The nickname of Pete was given to him by the Yankees (although it is unclear if it was Babe Ruth himself), and he went by Pete his entire life instead of his real name of Michael. There is some proof that he was paid five cents per game to be the bat boy, and the reports of Babe Ruth showing up hungover were likely true. However, the part of the story where kids lined up outside the ballpark and the players personally would pick a bat boy is probably false; he held the bat boy job for almost a decade, which would not make sense if they were picked fresh each day, and it is unlikely that the incredibly famous players would choose the bat boy themselves. My aunt claims to have told me this story exactly as she heard it from her father, who claims he tells it exactly as he heard it from Pete Sheehy, but it is likely that they both enhanced elements of the story.

Analysis:

There are two main elements to this story in my opinion. The first is a simple, classic American rags-to-riches story, where Pete Sheehy was a poor young boy living in the Bronx during the great depression, and through hard work and a positive spirit he worked his way up the ranks of the Yankees organization and ended up as their equipment manager. This is very similar to the common stories of someone starting in the mailroom and working their way up to being the CEO of the company. The other main element to this story relates directly to my family. My family were at the time recent immigrants to America, and faced many of the hardships that recent immigrants face. This story was used to tie my family to Babe Ruth, an American legend, which was a way within my family of solidifying status as being “real Americans” when many other people would have discriminated against them as recent immigrants.

Yankees Eating Contest

Nationality: American

Occupation: Corporate Event Planner

Residence: New York, NY

Language: English

Text:

In 1919, during Yankees spring training in Florida, a Yankees player boasted that he could eat more spaghetti than anyone else on the team. His teammates did not argue with him, because they had seen how much spaghetti he could eat. Eventually, his teammates got tired of him talking about how much he could eat, so they arranged for a spectacle of a competition they were sure he would lose; they would have him compete in an eating contest against an ostrich. Somehow they set up this eating contest between a ballplayer and an ostrich, and in the end the ballplayer won. He passed out after eating eleven plates of spaghetti, and the ostrich ran away after eating seven, making him the winner.

Context:

My aunt told me this story, and she first heard it from her great-uncle Pete Sheehy, who is famous for being the equipment manager and clubhouse attendant of the New York Yankees for 50 years. Sheehy had not yet joined the Yankees in 1919, so he would have heard this story from other players or employees that he worked with. When I asked her if she had any folk stories to share, she said that there were tons of stories involving the Yankees that were famous and well known, and she listed some like Babe Ruth calling his shot and Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, but then she remembered and shared this story as a more niche Yankee moment.

Analysis:

There are tons of stories about the New York Yankees in the early 20th century that have become legends, but almost all of those stories are about how dominant the team was and how great all of the players were. This story is not about a great player, nor is it even about baseball. It is just a bizarre story. However, the detail that the food being eaten in the contest was spaghetti jumped out at me. The Yankees fan base has always had a large Italian American population, and at the time of this story Italian Americans were a marginalized group. The fact that a member of the “Murderer’s Row” Yankees, which is often still regarded as the best baseball team ever, was Italian and ate a lot of spaghetti would be incredibly significant to the Italian American fans who were underrepresented at that point in time. Given how my aunt repeated numerous times that the food was spaghetti, it was clearly an important part of the story.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Informant: “I first heard the proverb ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ in the parking lot of the Palisades Mall in New York when my family was unable to find ideal parking and had to settle with a bad spot. I remember being 8 years old and not knowing what my dad meant by this. He repeated it as some sort of justification for making us walk the length of the entire parking lot. I could see the defeat and emasculation in his eyes due to his inability to find sweet parking. While this proverb is about the wisdom of settling, to me, it represents a false sense of being content.”

Interpretation: The old proverb says, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” it is better to be content with what one has than to risk losing it in the quest for something greater. But the informant’s own experience reinterprets it as a sign of grudging acceptance rather than genuine satisfaction. Their father’s use of the expression to defend choosing an unfavorable parking space conveys both common sense and a sense of silent defeat, implying that there are instances when “settling” is more about a lack of alternatives than wisdom. Irony and comedy are added by the informant’s early viewpoint, which reads the saying as an attempt to cope with disappointment rather than as a lesson in thankfulness.