For New York sports fans, this millennium began with a bang.
What better way to ring in the 2000s than with the first — and, to this point, only — World Series between the Yankees and Mets?
That’s one of many sports highlights to grace the city over the past quarter-century, even if the ultimate goal of a championship has eluded many of New York’s teams.
As 2025 comes to an end, the Daily News looks back at New York’s best sports moments since 2000.
SUBWAY SERIES
The players and coaches from those Yankees and Mets teams often reflect on the pressure they felt to win that 2000 World Series and claim city bragging rights.
In the end, it was the Yankees who emerged victorious in five games for their fourth championship in five years.
Derek Jeter was the MVP of that World Series, during which he hit .409 with two home runs, including a leadoff shot to begin Game 4 at Shea Stadium.
BOONE WALK-OFF
Aaron Boone was mired in a 2-for-16 slump and began Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS on the bench.
But three innings after he entered that game as a pinch-runner, Boone delivered one of the biggest swings in Yankees history.
Boone’s walk-off home against Boston knuckleballer Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of Game 7 sent the Yankees back to the World Series and eliminated the rival Red Sox in the process.
And while the Yankees would lose that World Series to the Miami Marlins in six games, Boone’s epic blast immortalized him in Yankees lore.
HELMET CATCH
Nobody expected Eli Manning and the underdog Giants to have a chance against Tom Brady and the previously undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII in February 2008.
But the Giants pulled off the ultimate upset, thanks in large part to Manning’s fourth-quarter escape act on 3rd and 5 and his 32-yard heave to David Tyree, who pressed the ball against his helmet to somehow complete the instant-classic catch.
That all-time highlight set up Plaxico Burress’ game-winning touchdown catch as the Giants won, 17-14, and the Patriots finished with an 18-1 record.
2009 WORLD SERIES
The Yankees endured a championship drought — at least by their standards — after that 2000 title, including losses in the 2001 and 2003 World Series and blowing a 3-0 lead in the 2004 ALCS.
But 2009 marked a return to glory for the Yankees, who added CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher during the preceding offseason.
That quartet contributed to the Yankees’ 27th championship in their first season at the current stadium.
But nobody was bigger than Alex Rodriguez, who batted .365 with six home runs and 18 RBI during that playoff run.
Hideki Matsui was named World Series MVP after hitting three homers in the six games against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Mr. 3,000
Always one with a flair for the dramatic, Jeter joined MLB’s exclusive 3,000 hit club with a home run off of Tampa Bay’s David Price on July 9, 2011.
That was part of a 5-for-5 afternoon for Jeter, who would finish his career with 3,465 hits — the sixth most in MLB history.
LINSANITY
Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere.
Undrafted out of Harvard in 2010, Lin spent time with the Golden State Warriors, Dongguan Leopards and Houston Rockets before he joined the Knicks as a down-the-bench backup point guard in December 2011.
But Lin erupted for 25 points against the Nets on Feb. 4, 2012 — kicking off an incredible run that captivated New York like few have before.
Lin scored at least 20 points in eight of the next nine games, including 38 in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers. He drilled a game-winning 3-pointer against the Toronto Raptors less than two weeks after his breakout performance.
Lin averaged 20.9 points per game in that month of February.
And while the journeyman never matched that level of production again and ultimately returned to the Rockets that summer, February 2012 will live on forever as “Linsanity.”
SUPER BOWL REMATCH
The Patriots got their chance for revenge against the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI in February 2012.
But the Giants, after another improbable playoff run, followed the same formula to beat Brady, Bill Belichick and the Pats once again.
The Giants’ pass rush disrupted Brady all night, setting the stage for another Manning game-winning drive. Mario Manningham’s 38-yard sideline catch with 3:39 left in regulation was the lasting highlight in this one.
The Giants won, 21-17, as Manning claimed his second Super Bowl MVP.
LONG-AWAITED NO-HITTER
It took more than five decades for a Mets pitcher to throw a no-hitter.
On June 1, 2012, Johan Santana ended that streak in dramatic fashion, throwing 134 pitches against the St. Louis Cardinals to record the first Mets no-no in the franchise’s 8,020th game.
The no-hit bid was aided by a missed call from umpire Adrian Johnson, who ruled a fair ball off the bat of then-Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran to be foul.
Mets left fielder Mike Baxter later made a running-catch to preserve history.
In the end, Santana accomplished something that Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman never did with the Mets.
MELO MADNESS
Carmelo Anthony never won a championship, but he certainly delivered his share of epic moments with the Knicks.
None was more epic than Jan. 24, 2024, when Anthony broke the Madison Square Garden record with a career-high 62 points against the Charlotte Hornets.
The previous record was 61, which the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant set in 2009.
END OF AN ERA
The Yankees’ Core Four gradually called it quits over a three-year stretch, with Jorge Posada retiring in 2012, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte following in 2013, and Jeter the last to go in 2014.
The latter three had epic sendoffs.
In Rivera’s final relief appearance on Sept. 26, 2013, at Yankee Stadium, Jeter and Pettitte surprised him with an emotional mound visit to take the ball.
Days later, Pettitte hurled a complete-game gem in Houston in his final game.
And on Sept. 25, 2014, Jeter capped his last game in the Bronx with a walk-off single to beat the Baltimore Orioles.
OBJ CATCH
On Nov. 23, 2024, a national audience was introduced to Odell Beckham Jr.
That’s when the Giants rookie wide receiver re-adjusted after being interfered with, leapt backward, reached his right hand behind his head and used three fingers to catch a deep pass from Manning for a jaw-dropping touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys on “Sunday Night Football.”
The incredible one-handed catch was so difficult and happened so rapidly that even seasoned NBC announcers Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth struggled to comprehend what they just watched.
“That may be the greatest catch I’ve ever seen,” Collinsworth remarked.
More than a decade later, that sentiment remains for many awestruck observers.
62
It took 61 years for someone to break Roger Maris’ American League single-season record of 61 home runs.
That someone proved to be Aaron Judge, who hit his 62nd home run of 2022 in the 161st game of the season.
Judge’s record-setting homer at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, came against Rangers right-hander Jesus Tinoco, who challenged the Yankee slugger after many others pitched around him during his pursuit of history.
Judge became the third player in AL history with a 60-homer season — a club that added a fourth this year with Seattle’s Cal Raleigh.
GIVE US LIBERTY
The Liberty remain New York’s most recent champion, having won their first-ever WNBA title in 2024.
It required winning a hard-fought series with the Minnesota Lynx in which all five games went down to the wire.
On a night Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu struggled on offense, Jonquel Jones scored 17 points in the Liberty’s 67-62 overtime victory in the winner-take-all Game 5.
Jones was named Finals MVP after averaging 17.6 points on 56.1% shooting and 7.8 rebounds per game in the series.
MR. MET
After a 2024-25 offseason of uncertainty, Pete Alonso returned to the Mets last season with a chance to become the franchise’s all-time home run king.
He did just that on Aug. 12 with the 253rd home run of his career, breaking a tie with Darryl Strawberry.
Alonso hit that record-setting blast against the Atlanta Braves’ Spencer Strider at Citi Field, then added another homer before the game was over.
He finished the season with 264.
But that’s where the franchise record will remain for the foreseeable future, as Alonso left the Mets this month for a five-year, $155 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles.
