NYC Marathon

I have attended the New York City Marathon both as sportswriter and as spectator. On one memorable occasion, I went down as part of the pit crew for my friend, the late George Kimball, who committed himself to walking the entire race route for the purposes of writing about it. (As it happens, that was the race from which Finnish superstar Lasse Viren dropped out, enabling George to boast forever that he had whipped a quadruple Olympic gold medalist.) So it is with no little experience in the matter that I say that staging the marathon in New York this weekend, much less moving heaven and earth logistically to make it happen, is about the dumbest decision concerning an athletic event in my memory.

I have no idea what Mayor Michael Bloomberg is thinking of here, but he stands to completely punt all the good will that he's built up during the storm, to completely inflame the feelings of the devastated folk in the outer boroughs, to encourage an Everyone-Else-vs.-Manhattan rumble that may never end, and to make the destruction of Staten Island the public face of the disaster, not only because it deserves to be, god knows, but also because a story in which dazed storm victims and out-of-state rescue workers are tossed out of hotel rooms in favor of angry anorectic tourists from around the world is well-nigh irresistible. I know that I, for one, would not be able to resist it.

(And, speaking on behalf of myself, and on behalf of my colleagues who have to cover this fiasco, we've got enough trouble with the public hating us without having to deal with being so complicit in Bloomberg's heedless insensitivity.)

There should be no race. Sorry, Sven, back to Stockholm without the souvenir jersey. Every piece of equipment — especially power generators, you idiots — that has been diverted to this extravagant and criminally unnecessary diversion should immediately be put to better use, which is to say almost any other use I can imagine. And, not for nothing, but does anybody really want to run down the middle of streets lined on all sides by New Yorkers who haven't had a bath or a hot meal in a week?