The view from Jersey

Did I miss anything?

Actually, I was in New Jersey, surrounded by people who suffer from a cruel affliction: They’re Yankees fans.

Trust me on this: You don’t want to be around Yankees fans when they find out that Big Papi and Manny juiced their way to breaking The Curse.

Still, being in the Garden State, far from the mean streets of Cambridge, afforded a certain detached lens through which to view Skipgate.

People in New Jersey view our reaction to anything remotely contentious between black and white with a sort of chuckling, patronizing shake of the head. As far as they’re concerned, it isn’t a full-blown racial incident until Al Sharpton shows up.

The Sergeant James Crowley-Henry Louis Gates Jr. dust-up is further evidence to those from the southern boroughs of New York known as New Jersey that we’re a bunch of self-absorbed, small-town losers.

Of course, it was the national media, not to mention a certain guy from Chicago who went to Harvard Law, that hyped this beyond recognition. Had this happened in, say, February, it would have been a much smaller tempest in a teacup. News runs in cycles and when it comes to summer, people in my business need something, anything, to fill the space between July Fourth and Labor Day.

Skipgate is this summer’s Clark Rockefeller story. Last summer, the German con man whose real name is Christian Gerhartsreiter gave us something to talk about besides that yawning infomercial known as the Olympics. Just think how much better this summer’s soap opera would be if Gerhartsreiter were one of its principals.

Sergeant Crowley: “Sir, do you own this house?’’

Herr Gerhartsreiter: “Own this house? My good man, I’m a Rockefeller. I own this street.’’

As for speculation that has posed as analysis, my favorite was the claim that the cops wouldn’t have arrested Alan Dershowitz if he had given them lip.

Here’s some speculation: If Alan Dershowitz, who coined the term “testilying’’ to describe what he says cops do on the witness stand, had similarly mouthed off, the cops would have Tasered him. Then hauled him off to headquarters, where the cop holding the smoking Taser would have been given a promotion and a rousing chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’’

Everybody and his brother has been asked their opinion on this, but the only guy who bothered to consult the Constitution is Harvey Silverglate. Harvey is a civil liberties lawyer from Cambridge, but before you profile him, consider that he’s taken on Harvard and those who suppress free speech as often as he’s taken on cops who make bad arrests.

Harvey’s take: Skip Gates had the constitutionally-protected right to yap at Crowley in his own house, but the consequences were predictable.

“There’s such a thing as racial profiling, but I don’t think this was an example,’’ he said. “It’s about free speech, primarily. And class. But you’re not going to get that discussion in Cambridge, much less the rest of the country. There’s something to learn here, but we tend to focus on the wrong issue.’’

Can you guess why Harvard was horrified that he ran for its board of overseers?

Not for nothin’, but when I was in Jersey, the feds locked up 44 politicians, bagmen,and rabbis - rabbis! - as part of a massive investigation of corruption.

The mayor of Hoboken, corrupt? Unbelievable.

Of course, the story was greeted with mostly yawns in a place where Jimmy Hoffa sleeps with the goalposts and the term “corrupt politician’’ is considered redundant.

Which goes to prove, everything’s relative.

And given what the Spotlight Team just revealed about the Red Sox and the ’roids, Skipgate now sleeps with Jimmy Hoffa.

There’s no place like home.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com