SURE, now everybody is talking about the Giants and the Patriots and Eli Manning's emergence and Tom Brady's choke, and that unbelievable fourth quarter drive that secured a Super Bowl win for the New York Giants.

But as great as this past Sunday's Super Bowl game was, it was a mere battle in a much larger war. The war is nothing less than an epic athletic clash between the two greatest Irish American cities - New York and Boston.

For years this was not much of a battle. The Boston Irish became comfortable with the notion that they lived in a town of lovable sports losers.

No team epitomized that better than the baseball Red Sox. By now even casual fans know about the so-called curse of the Bambino. Irish American Bostonians had to endure decades of losing by the Sox, supposedly because they gave Babe Ruth to the Yankees back in the 1920s.

Even when the Sox were successful and had a shot at the World Series, they would lose in spectacular fashion. There was the incredible home run by Carlton Fisk in 1975, famously remembered in the Irish flick Good Will Hunting. But the Sox ended up losing to the Reds.

More importantly, when it comes to the Irish war between New York and Boston, there was 1986. That was the year the Sox took on the Mets, and boy did it look like Boston was finally going to reverse its curse.

But Bill Buckner, the Boston first baseman, let a simple ground ball roll through his legs. In the process, the Mets rolled right over the Sox.

Then there were the great Yankees baseball teams of the late 1990s. The Red Sox tried and tried to conquer Mount Yankee. They couldn't do it. Right up to 2003, when an otherwise forgettable Yankee named Aaron Boone hit an unforgettable playoff home run.

True, by the early 2000s the New England Patriots had turned things around. Still, the Sox were stumbling and Boston Celtics of basketball were a shell of their past glories.

Yes, it seemed like other than the Patriots, the Boston Irish were looking at decades of futility.

Then came 2004. It was the year the sports Gods seemed to turn everything upside down.

This time, it was the Yankees who seemed cursed. They lost four straight games in the playoffs to the Red Sox, the first time in history a team had ever collapsed like that.

For the New York Irish, it was bad enough the Yankees collapsed. To do so to the Red Sox seemed incomprehensible.

The Sox went on to win the World Series in 2004. What had the world come to?

Meanwhile, the New England Patriots kept chugging along. This as the football Giants struggled merely to attain mediocrity.

And the New York Jets? Well, they were always the Jets. Just plain awful.

The trend, sadly for New York Irish sports fans, continued. The Yankees now seemed to lose in the first round of the playoffs every year.

The Red Sox? They won the World series again in 2007.

Then came 2008. It started with the Boston Celtics jumping out to far and away the best record in basketball. This, of course, came just as the New York Knicks became synonymous with horrific basketball play.

Worse, as the Celtics were soaring, the Knicks were not only losing big time on the court, they were losing in court. Executives at Madison Square Garden (which owns the Knicks) faced embarrassing headlines about sexual harassment.

But, of course, the biggest sports story of 2008 was Tom Brady (whose grandparents were born in Northern Ireland) and the New England Patriots. They were going for a record season, the first team ever to win all those games without losing.

Meanwhile, the Giants started off slow, and even though they picked up steam as the football season wore on, they were seen as underdogs in every game they played.

The Jets, meanwhile, were the Jets. Awful.

What had become of the luck of the New York Irish? Boston teams were dominant, New York teams losers. It seemed inevitable, going into last Sunday's Super Bowl, that a Patriot win would not only cap an historic season, but also be a final nail in the coffin for New York sports fans.

The Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox were winners.

The Giants, Jets, Mets, Yanks and Jets were losers.

Well, someone forgot to tell, Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin and the Giants.

In just a few weeks, baseball season starts.

Is this the year the Yankees reverse the curse?