By Alex Trickett BBC Sport Online

The teams:

Baseball: Yankees and Mets
American Football: Giants and Jets
Basketball: Knicks
Ice Hockey: Rangers

New Yorkers can lay claim to other pro teams as well.

"Yankee Clipper": Joe DiMaggio

The NBA's New Jersey Nets play in the same compound as the Jets and Giants and ice hockey's New York Islanders are based in Uniondale, Long Island.

In the 1950s, the city was devastated when two of its beloved baseball teams - the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers - relocated to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Die-hard fans have never forgiven this disloyal act, even if 26 World Series wins by the Yankees have softened the blow.

Success has been less constant in other sports, but New York teams tend to attract glamorous players and play-off excitement.

The venue:

Modestly calling itself "the world's most famous arena", Madison Square Garden is now in its fourth incarnation and sits above Pennsylvania Station in lower Manhattan.

Great One: Gretzky ended career in the "Garden"

"The Garden" has staged just about every sporting event from athletics to wrestling via boxing.

The 1971 world title bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier was perhaps the most eagerly-anticipated heavyweight match-up of all time.

Frank Sinatra took photographs for Life Magazine to secure his spot at ringside and Frazier prevailed on points after 15 exhilarating rounds.

Regular home to the Knicks and the Rangers, MSG has also witnessed its share of basketball and ice hockey thrills.

In 1999, it played honoured host to Wayne Gretzky's last ever game in the NHL

The legend:

Forget Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. The biggest hero to hardcore Yankee fans is an Oklahoma boy of Irish descent.

Mickey Mantle signed for New York as a fresh-faced 17-year-old in 1949.

Mantle belongs at the Hall of Fame

By the time he retired 20 years later, he had won the American League MVP title three times, helping his Yankees to 12 World Series.

He won a rare Triple Crown in 1956, driving home 52 home runs and 130 RBIs at a batting average .353 to top the league in each category.

"I always tried to kill the ball. I wanted to make it explode," he once said.

But there was more to "The Mick" than fearsome hitting.

He was a social force in bars around the country, charming the ladies with his looks and the gentlemen with his drinking.

Alcohol sped up his sporting decline and ultimately led to his death - by liver cancer - in 1995.

New Yorkers still remember him, however, frequenting his sports bar to watch the latest crop of Yankees.

Man about town:

Undisputed king of that new crop is short-stop Derek Jeter.

Modern Hero: Derek Jeter

Already one of the best ever to play his position, he tasted rare defeat in the 2001 World Series, when the Yankees were beaten in game seven by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Jeter made his debut in 1995 and helped New York win the Fall Classic in four of his first five full seasons in the league.

He continues to combine sharp, error-free fielding with a strong batting average and is often compared to Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra, two rival shortstops.

Jeter looks certain to have his number two shirt retired when he finally leaves the game.

At which point, he will join Yankee legends Mantle, Ruth, DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig in Cooperstown's Hall of Fame.