The Human Rights Campaign's series of videos featuring famous New Yorkers in favor of gay marriage scored a big point today with its first video starring a football player. Former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan and his fiancee Nicole Murphy have now joined the ranks of Sean Avery, Moby, Vanessa Williams, Joan Rivers, Ed Koch, Kevin Bacon and the younger Barbara Bush in calling for marriage equality in New York. more ›

After two days of speculation, given the season-ending injury of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, retired Giant Michael Strahan will stay retired. He told Fox Sports, "I wish I could've had different news for Giants fans, but I've known for awhile I'm done...After long deliberation and throwing around a million scenarios in my head for the past day, I think it's just best if I stay retired," and said he couldn't "commit 100% physically, mentally, emotionally." Currently, the plan is to move linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka to defensive end. In other Strahan news, a three-judge panel says his child support payments should be recalculated, because things like diamond jewelry to the children's grandmother and a 10-day trip to the Bahamas for the children's nanny and her family were found to be questionable. more ›

A source tells the Daily News that the Giants have "reached out to Strahan Monday to see if there was any way they could lure him back for a 16th NFL season" now that defensive end Osi Umenyiora is out for the season. Most people think Strahan's return is unlikely--even Giants coach Tom Coughlin said, "His mentality was different last year. The last time I talked with Michael (two weeks ago in Albany) he had accepted his new challenge and was very happy about that." But new Jets quarterback Brett Favre thinks Strahan is the way to go, "If I were a Giant, I'd do whatever I could to get him out and have him back on my team." more ›

With defensive end Osi Umenyiora's knee injury keeping him on the sidelines for the entire season, you can't blame the Giants for trying to make sure they can defend their Super Bowl win. And that may mean asking Michael Strahan, who retired in June, to come back. The Daily News reports that Strahan might come back for "$8 million and a few kind words." Strahan, who has a sports commentating gig with Fox, said, "I haven't heard from anybody else, so to say if I would or wouldn't is premature, so I'm enjoying my retired life right now." Also to consider: It'd be pretty damn hard to go out on a higher note than he did. more ›

Saving his team plenty of uncertainty and resulting annoyance, Michael Strahan reportedly announced his retirement Monday. That means the team and the media are saved another dance in which the player hems and haws as he tries to avoid training camp while still collecting a high salary. Now, the Giants will move on with their talented and deep defensive line, anchored by Osi Umenyiora, and will avoid a major distraction when the team reports in July. more ›

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is out today! more ›

href="http://torontoist.com/2008/02/phototo_snowbal.php">photographing a big, organized snowball fight.

An estimated three million people assembled along Broadway during yesterday's ticker tape parade to celebrate the Giants' 17-14 Super Bowl XLII win over the New England Patriots. more ›

Update: Here are some of our photographs from the parade route - it look us a few hours to download the photos and decompress/shake out the confetti from the parade. We'll be adding a slideshow later. more ›

11:27PM: We're enjoying the postgame coverage of the Giants' victory, with sad Tom Brady, really excited Michael Strahan (singing Eli's praises), Peyton Manning being thrilled with his brother's success (aw!) and thoughts from the 1972 Dolpins, secure with their undefeated record for another year (but the Patriots still won more games in a row!). While we've been inside, there are a number of large crowds celebrating the Giants' win all over the city - the police have been called to break some of them up! more ›

After two weeks of hype, Super Bowl XLII is finally around the corner. The Giants have reached the ultimate game with a chance to prevent history by ruining the Patriots' quest for a perfect 19-0 season. more ›

A Giant hooked up to a shock device, numerous wedding proposals and an American Idol audition all added to the collective fun know as “Media Day” at the Super Bowl. What else can you expect when nearly 5,000 reporters have to shake out stories from 200 or so football players and coaches. more ›

to clean up the mess. The New York training staff has been giving the players every type of preventative medicine they can come up with to ward off the flu and hopefully having all the players together on a plane will not have an adverse affect. more ›

We know that Giants co-owner and movie producer Steve Tisch has been trying to ramp up the star power for the Giants sidelines. After Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz were seen at a game last fall, Tisch told the NY Times, he brings "the spices, the taste, the flavor" to the Giants (if the Giants experience were a soup; the other co-owners, the Maras, would bring the meat and potatoes). more ›

Tom Brady sure loves New York, huh? Not only does he walk around town wearing a Yankees hat, but he comes here to spend time with his ubermodel girlfriend Gisele Bundchen in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Brady was spotted walking to Bundchen's West Village apartment Monday carrying flowers (how sweet) and wearing a protective boot on his right foot. more ›

The Giants are going to the Super Bowl! Thanks to a 47-yard field goal in overtime New York defeated Green Bay on the infamous “frozen tundra” 23-20 to advance to Super Bowl XLII. more ›

After news that a Green Bay Fox affiliate would not be showing Seinfeld because it's Giants quarterback Eli Manning's favorite show (the Giants are heading to the land of Cheeseheads to play the Packers in the NFC Championship), it was up to Jerry Seinfeld to rise to the occasion. The Mets fan told the Post, "I'm going to send Eli a complete collection of 'Seinfeld' DVDs and a partial collection of 'Hogan's Heroes' for inspiration!" We think Eli's gonna have to ask Archie about Hogan's Heroes. more ›

The Giants are fortunate that Sunday’s game will be played in London. Fortunate because the venue should help them avoid taking the week off against a team that has nothing going for it. The Dolphins are winless and last week lost their best offensive player, Ronnie Brown, for the season. Brown’s injury came two weeks after the Dolphins lost their starting quarterback for the year and to make matters worse, one of their top defensive players, Zach Thomas, was hurt in a car crash and will miss this week’s game. more ›

John Madden said it best on the air, “Osi Umenyiora made the Pro Bowl in one night tonight”. Umenyiora turned in one of the greatest games by a defensive end ever, sacking Donovan McNabb six times officially and just missing out on a few other opportunities. And it wasn’t just Umenyiora, the defense had a dominating night. recording 12 sacks and holding the Eagles to only three points in the 16-3 win. Aaron Ross added some coverage to the secondary, Michael Strahan broke LT’s sack record, Kawika Mitchell had a fumble return for a touchdown and Antonio Pierce was everywhere. more ›

This was the Eli Manning we have been waiting for. With Brandon Jacobs hurt and the Giants down 17-6, Eli took his team onto his shoulders and proved that he can play quarterback at an elite level. The only problem is that he couldn’t play defense. more ›

The Giants enter 2007 with more questions than answers. The biggest one is how are they going to replace the 2,100 yards of offense generated by Tiki Barber last season? They don’t get any easier after that though. Will Michael Strahan play well after missing all of training camp? Can David Diehl play left tackle? Is Eli ready to take the next step? Is the secondary any better? Has Tom Coughlin really changed? more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a DOA floater in the Harlem River at Manhattan's 135th St., a homicide on Church and Nostrand Aves. in Brooklyn, and a jumper was up on the Williamsburg Bridge just before noon this morning.
• NYC local Steven Herbst won a Hall of Fame award at the International Whistling Convention in Louisberg, NC.
• When we wrote about former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's life-sized nude photo he had on display in his bedroom yesterday, we were thinking along the lines of Robert Mapplethorpe. It's actually less artsy than that.
• A bronze statue of Andy Warhol will be installed in SoHo's Father Fagan Park on 6th Ave. between Prince and Spring Sts. next month.
• Jean-Georges Vongerichten has pulled lobster dishes from all seven of his restaurants' menus and many other restaurateurs are following suit or hiking prices as the lobster fishing industry is having a particularly bad year.
• A drunk driver killed a woman who was driving with her three children early this morning in Queens.
• Brooklyn's oldest restuarant, Gage & Tollner (est. 1879), closed in 2004 to make way for a T.G.I.Friday's chain restaurant, but the successor never caught on in the neighborhood and closed. Now residents wish the space could be filled by an old-school chop house; some place with history and a little class.
• NY Giant Michael Strahan's ex-wife is a little cash-strapped with their divorce entangled in the courts, so she had a yard sale to sell off her and her ex-husbands personal possessions while their daughter sold lemonade.
• Eater has pictures of the plywood coming off the old 2nd Ave. Deli to reveal the gleaming new Chase Bank branch underneath.

Wellington Mara used to judge the success of a season based on whether the team was playing a meaningful game the last week of the season. Apparently his son and successor share that belief because Tom Coughlin will be back next year as Giants coach. Coughlin signed a one-year extension today, which could keep him as coach through 2008, but in reality it's just a way to keep him from being a lame duck next year. But he'll certainly be returning as a punching bag for the press. more ›

In keeping with our lists of events from 2006, here are some of the sports stories that Gothamist found compelling in the past year. It ranges from the playoff disappointment from the Mets and the Yankees to the welcome performances of last season's Rangers, this season's Jets and Rutgers. more ›

The Giants now face the daunting prospect of having to win their final two games and still possibly missing the playoffs. If Philadelphia wins this week over Dallas and Atlanta wins both of their remaining games, the Giants would miss the playoffs based on tiebreakers. Then again, the Giants could lose both games and make the playoffs too. more ›

The Giants finally caught a scheduling break; they get to play a team as injured and confused as they are. Carolina heads into this weekend’s matchup with their quarterback, both starting cornerbacks and various other players all listed as questionable. To make matters worse, the team has lost two in a row, including a heartbreaker to Philadelphia last Monday night. more ›