Congratulations to the newly-elected members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. New members are annually announced on the day before the Super Bowl, and that was done again yesterday. In addition, as part of the celebrations of the NFL's 100th season, a "Centennial Class" was elected, which included several people who should have gotten in years earlier.

Here are the record 20 new electees, listed here in chronological order:


* Duke Slater, two-way tackle, one of the NFL's early black stars, 1922 Milwaukee Badgers, 1922-25 Rock Island Independents, 1926-31 Chicago Cardinals.


* Ed Sprinkle, two-way end, 1944-55 Chicago Bears, including their 1946 NFL Championship.

* Mac Speedie, two-way end, 1946-52 Cleveland Browns, including their 1946, '47, '48 and '49 AAFC Championships, and their 1950 NFL Championship.

* Bobby Dillon, defensive back, 1952-59 Green Bay Packers.

* Alex Karras, defensive tackle, 1958-70 Detroit Lions.

* Steve Sabol, who joins his father and co-founder of NFL Films, Ed Sabol.

* Winston Hill, offensive tackle, 1963-76 New York Jets, including their win in Super Bowl III.

* Cliff Harris, safety, 1970-79 Dallas Cowboys, including their wins in Super Bowls VI and XII.

* Harold Carmichael, receiver, 1971-83 Philadelphia Eagles, including their loss in Super Bowl XV; 1984 Dallas Cowboys.

* Donnie Shell, safety, 1974-87 Pittsburgh Steelers, including their wins in Super Bowls IX, X, XIII and XIV.

* George Young, general manager, 1979-97 New York Giants, including their wins in Super Bowls XXI and XXV.

* Jim Covert, offensive tackle, 1983-90 Chicago Bears, including their win in Super Bowl XX.

* Paul Tagliabue, NFL Commissioner 1989-2006.

* Jimmy Johnson, head coach, 1989-93 Dallas Cowboys, including their wins in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII; 1996-99 Miami Dolphins.

* Steve Atwater, safety, 1989-98 Denver Broncos, including their wins in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII; 1999 New York Jets.

* Bill Cowher, head coach, 1992-2006 Pittsburgh Steelers, including their win in Super Bowl XL.

* Isaac Bruce, receiver, 1994 Los Angeles Rams, 1995-2007 St. Louis Rams, including their win in Super Bowl XXXIV; 2008-09 San Francisco 49ers.

* Edgerrin James, running back, 1999-2005 Indianapolis Colts, 2006-08 Arizona Cardinals, including their loss in Super Bowl XLIII; 2009 Seattle Seahawks.

* Steve Hutchinson, guard, 2001-05 Seattle Seahawks, including their loss in Super Bowl XL; 2006-11 Minnesota Vikings, 2012 Tennessee Titans.

* Troy Polamalu, safety, 2003-14 Pittsburgh Steelers, including their wins in Super Bowls XL and XLIII.

Dillon died last year, Hill in 2016, Sprinkle in 2014, Karras and Sabol in 2012, Young in 2001, Speedie in 1993, Slater in 1966. The rest are still alive.

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Inductees are listed here with a team if they played, or coached, or were an executive, with them for at least 4 seasons.

I have divided moved teams accordingly (i.e., Johnny Unitas never took a snap for the Indianapolis Colts). "Sure future Hall-of-Famers" are not included, because, as we have seen in baseball, there is no such thing anymore. 

Tenure as a player, or a coach, or an executive is only counted if they were elected as such. In other words, Raymond Berry coached the Patriots into a Super Bowl, and Forrest Gregg did so with the Bengals, but they were elected as a Colts player and a Packers player, respectively, so those are the teams with which they're included.

Ties in the rankings are broken by more players, as opposed to other categories; and then by time in the league. So a team with 4 players is ahead of one with 3 players and 1 coach, and a team with 3 players in 50 years is ahead of one with 3 players in 80 years.

Figures are listed here as follows: Players in chronological order of their Hall of Fame service with the team (even if they had other functions with that team), then coaches, then executives, then broadcasters.

1. Chicago Bears, 31: George Halas (founder, owner, general manager, head coach, player), John "Paddy" Driscoll, George Trafton, Ed Healey, William "Link" Lyman, Red Grange, Bill Hewitt, Bronko Nagurski, George Musso, Dan Fortmann, Joe Stydahar, Sid Luckman, George McAfee, Clyde "Bulldog" Turner, Ed Sprinkle, George Connor, George Blanda, Bill George, Doug Atkins, Stan Jones, Mike Ditka (player & coach), Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Walter Payton, Alan Page, Jim Covert, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Brian Urlahcer, Jim Finks (executive).

The election of Covert now gives them 5 from their 1985-86 "Super Bowl Shuffle" team, as opposed to 4 from their 1963 NFL Champions, and 7 from their 1940s "Monsters of the Midway" team -- 8 if you count Nagurski's 1943 comeback.

Willie Galimore and Gary Fencik should be in. Thomas Jones is now eligible, and while he didn't spend 4 seasons with any team, his 3 years with the Bears were his most productive period, so I'd list him with them if he got in, and with over 10,000 career rushing yards, he should be in.

2. Green Bay Packers, 28: Earl "Curly" Lambeau (founder, owner, executive, head coach, player), Cal Hubbard, John "Johnny Blood" McNally, Mike Michalske, Arnie Herber, Clarke Hinkle, Don Hutson, Tony Canadeo, Bobby Dillon, Jim Ringo, Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Jerry Kramer, Ray Nitschke, Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, Willie Wood, Herb Adderley, Dave Robinson, James Lofton, Jan Stenerud, Reggie White, Brett Favre, Vince Lombardi (coach & executive), Ron Wolf (executive), Ray Scott (broadcaster, later the main voice on CBS' NFL telecasts).

Nearly half of the Packer figures enshrined in Canton, 13, are from the Lombardi Era, including Lombardi himself. This doesn't count Emlen Tunnell, who played the last 3 seasons of his career with the Packers and retired after the 1st title of the Lombardi Era, 1961.

Now eligible from the Mike Holmgren era, and they would join White and Favre, are Holmgren himself, LeRoy Butler, Adam Timmerman and Gilbert Brown. Eugene Robinson could be considered, but he was only a Packer for 2 seasons, although both ended in Super Bowls, but only 1 won. Sean Jones played 3 seasons for the Packers, and would qualify as a Raider and an Oiler if he got in. Donald Driver is the only figure from the Mike McCarthy era yet eligible and worthy of consideration.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers, 27: Walt Kiesling (also coach), John "Johnny Blood" McNally, Bill Dudley, Ernie Stautner, Jack Butler, John Henry Johnson, Bobby Layne, Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Mel Blount, Donnie Shell, Rod Woodson, Dermontti Dawson, Jerome Bettis, Troy Polamalu, Art Rooney (founder-owner), Dan Rooney (owner), Bert Bell (coach, later NFL Commissioner), Chuck Noll (coach), Bill Cowher (coach), Myron Cope (broadcaster). 

While the Steelers were rarely competitive for their 1st 40 seasons, they did have a few players who were Hall-worthy, but note that 14 of the 27, more than half, were involved with the club during their 1972-79 "Steel Curtain" dynasty. Hines Ward is now eligible, and while that touchdown he scored on a kickoff return for the Gotham Rogues as the field collapsed behind him in The Dark Knight Rises does nothing to help his candidacy, if he does get in, you know that highlight will be played over and over again.

4. New York Giants, 22: Steve Owen (elected as a coach, also a pretty good player for Giants), Ray Flaherty, Benny Friedman, Red Badgro, Mel Hein, Ken Strong, Alphonse "Tuffy" Leemans, Emlen Tunnell, Arnie Weinmeister, Frank Gifford, Roosevelt Brown, Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Y.A. Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Harry Carson, Lawrence Taylor, Michael Strahan, Tim Mara (founder & owner), Wellington Mara (owner), Bill Parcells (coach), George Young (executive).

Gifford has also been elected as a broadcaster. So has Pat Summerall, but as a CBS & Fox broadcaster, not as a Giants player or broadcaster, so he can't be included here. Tom Landry was the 1st great defensive back to be only a defensive back, after the early 1950s shift to two-platoon football, and was the defensive coordinator on the Giants' 1956-63 contenders. But was elected to the Hall based on his service as a head coach, and he only served as such for the Cowboys, and thus can't be counted here.

There are 6 from the 1956 NFL Champions, but only 3 from Parcells' Super Bowl-winning teams, 5 if you count Parcells himself and the newly-elected Young. Phil Simms has not yet been elected, and you can also make a case for Mark Bavaro (tight ends are in short supply in the Hall), George Martin and Leonard Marshall. I wonder if anyone will be willing to vote for Tiki Barber, who is now eligible.

5. Washington Redskins, 22: Cliff Battles, Turk Edwards (also coach), Wayne Millner, Sammy Baugh, Bobby Mitchell, Sonny Jurgensen, Charley Taylor, Sam Huff, Paul Krause, Chris Hanburger, Ken Houston, John Riggins, Art Monk, Russ Grimm, Darrell Green, Bruce Smith (last 4 years of his career as a Redskin), Champ Bailey, George Preston Marshall (founder & owner), Ray Flaherty (elected as a Giants player but coached 'Skins to 2 NFL titles so I'm counting him as one of theirs), George Allen (coach), Joe Gibbs (coach), Bobby Beathard (executive).

Jurgensen and Huff have also been broadcasters for the team. Grimm is the only one of the "Hogs" yet elected, but Jeff Bostic and Joe Jacoby should also be elected. A case can be made for an earlier Redskin lineman, Len Hauss.

None of the men who have thus far quarterbacked the Redskins into a Super Bowl is in: Not Billy Kilmer, not Joe Theismann, not Doug Williams, not Mark Rypien -- and good cases can be made for all but Rypien, who just didn't play long enough. If Jan Stenerud got elected as a kicker (who didn't also play another position, as did Lou Groza and George Blanda), then why not Mark Moseley?

6. Dallas Cowboys, 20: Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Bob Hayes, Rayfield Wright, Mike Ditka, Roger Staubach, Cliff Harris, Randy White, Tony Dorsett, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Deion Sanders, Larry Allen, Charles Haley, Tom Landry (coach), Jimmy Johnson (coach), Bill Parcells (coach), Tex Schramm (executive), Jerry Jones (owner).

Parcells did coach them for 4 seasons, so that counts. Ditka is so identified with the Bears (with whom he practically invented the position of tight end and won an NFL Championship in 1963) that people forget he was a Cowboy, and won a Super Bowl each as a player and as one of Landry's assistant coaches -- as did Dan Reeves, although if he ever got elected it would be as a head coach, and therefore not as a Cowboy.

Don Meredith was elected as a broadcaster, but was never a broadcaster specifically for the Cowboys. A case can be made that he deserves election as a player. Drew Pearson, Charlie Waters and Herschel Walker also have their advocates.

Oakland Raiders, 19: Jim Otto, Fred Biletnikoff, George Blanda, Ken Stabler, Gene Upshaw, Willie Brown, Art Shell, Dave Casper, Ray Guy, Ted Hendricks, Mike Haynes, Howie Long, Marcus Allen, Jerry Rice, Warren Sapp, Tim Brown, John Madden (coach), Al Davis (owner-coach), Ron Wolf (scout).

Madden has also been elected as a broadcaster. Rice and Sapp were both there for 4 seasons, so they count. Now that Guy is in, who's the most obvious Raider not in? I'd say Jack Tatum, if anybody's got the guts to elect a great cornerback who needlessly paralyzed a man in a preseason game. Also worthy of consideration are Ben Davidson and Lester Hayes.

Note that I'm making an exception to my one-city-only rule for the California-era Raiders, treating them as a continuous Oakland franchise, since they did return, even though their Los Angeles edition became a cultural icon (and not for good reasons). Counted separately, the Oakland Raiders have 16, and the Los Angeles Raiders have 3 (Haynes, Long, Allen). I have now relegated this team to former team status, and the Las Vegas Raiders' Hall-of-Famers will drop to zero for many years to come.

7. Kansas City Chiefs, 18: Bobby Bell, Len Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas, Johnny Robinson, Curley Culp, Jan Stenerud, Derrick Thomas, Marcus Allen, Willie Roaf, Will Shields, Tony Gonzalez, Hank Stram (coach), Mary Levy (coach), Lamar Hunt (founder-owner), Bobby Beathard (executive), Charlie Jones (broadcaster, did Dallas Texans/K.C. Chiefs games before becoming the main voice for NBC's AFL and then AFC broadcasts).

Dawson has also been elected as a broadcaster. 

8. Cleveland Browns, 17: Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, Mac Speedie, Frank Gatski, Len Ford, Mike McCormack, Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, Gene Hickerson, Leroy Kelly, Paul Warfield, Joe DeLamiellure and Ozzie Newsome, Paul Brown (coach-executive).

It says something about this franchise that there have been no players who have played so much as a down for them since 1990 that can be called a Browns' HOFer -- and only DeLamielleure and Newsome have played for them since 1977. Tom Cousineau hasn't made it, and neither has Clay Matthews Jr. (father of the current star Packer linebacker and brother of Oliers/Titans HOFer Bruce Matthews -- Clay Sr. played for the 49ers in the 1950s, but wasn't HOF quality).

And yet, look at just what they produced in the 1940s and '50s. And that doesn't include players they let get away, like Doug Atkins, Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, Len Dawson, and (while they did both play long enough for the Browns to be counted with them) Mitchell and Warfield.

Maybe that's the real reason Art Modell isn't in the Hall: It's not that he moved the original Browns, and screwed the people of Northern Ohio, it's that he was a bad owner. (Though, to be fair, his firing of Paul Brown and installation of Blanton Collier in 1962 did bring the 1964 NFL Championship, Cleveland's last title in any sport until the 2016 Cavaliers.)

9. San Francisco 49ers, 17: Bob St. Clair, Y.A. Tittle, Joe "the Jet" Perry, Leo Nomellini, Hugh McElhenny, John Henry Johnson, Dave Wilcox, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Montana, Fred Dean, Ronnie Lott, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Charles Haley, Terrell Owens, Bill Walsh (coach), Eddie DeBartolo (owner).

Tittle, Perry, McElhenny and John Henry Johnson are the only entire backfield that all played together to all be elected to the Hall, and they were known as the $100,000 Backfield. The Jimmy Johnson listed above was a black cornerback in the 1960s and '70s, and should not be confused with the white coach for the Cowboys -- although this Jimmy Johnson, unlike the coach, was actually born in Dallas.

Rickey Jackson only played 2 seasons for the Niners, but he did win his only ring with them. Deion Sanders played only 1 season for them, but got the same Super Bowl XXIX ring that Jackson did. So, due to insufficient longevity, I can't cont either of them as 49ers HOFers.

From their 1980s champions, Dwight Clark, Roger Craig, Randy Cross, Guy McIntyre, Harris Barton and Ken Norton Jr. have not been elected, but all are worth consideration, and Craig absolutely should be in.

10. Los Angeles Rams, 15: Bob Waterfield, Tom Fears, Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, Norm Van Brocklin, Les Richter, Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Tom Mack, Jackie Slater, Jack Youngblood, Eric Dickerson, Kevin Greene, George Allen (coach), Dan Reeves (owner, not to be confused with the Denver/Atlanta coach), Dick Enberg (broadcaster).

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs, winners of the Super Bowl for the 1st time in 50 years.

And congratulations to Andy Reid, finally the head coach of a Super Bowl winner. I hereby formally take back every prediction I  made that he would blow this game.

This list includes World Series 1903-2019, National League Pennants 1876-83 and 1892-1902, postseason playoff series between the NL and American Association Pennant winners 1882-91, the NFL single-division Championship 1920-31, the NFL Championship Game 1932-66, the Super Bowl 1967-present, the NBA Championship 1947-2019, the WNBA Championship 1997-2019, the Stanley Cup 1893-2019 (U.S. cities only), and the championship of the top flight of American soccer: The NASL 1967-84, the WSA 1985-87, the ASL 1988-90, the APSL 1991-95, and the MLS Cup 1996-2019. Teams are listed here under their current names, presuming they still exist.

In alphabetical order:

Atlanta: 1968 Chiefs, 1995 Braves, 2018 United.

Austin: None. (Austin FC debuts in MLS in 2021.)

Boston (includes Providence): 1877 Braves, 1878 Braves, 1879 Grays, 1883 Braves, 1884 Grays, 1891 Braves, 1892 Braves, 1893 Braves, 1897 Braves, 1898 Braves, 1903 Red Sox, 1904 Red Sox, 1912 Red Sox, 1914 Braves, 1915 Red Sox, 1916 Red Sox, 1918 Red Sox, 1928 Steam Roller, 1929 Bruins, 1939 Bruins, 1941 Bruins, 1957 Celtics, 1959 Celtics, 1960 Celtics, 1961 Celtics, 1962 Celtics, 1963 Celtics, 1964 Celtics, 1965 Celtics, 1966 Celtics, 1968 Celtics, 1969 Celtics, 1970 Bruins, 1972 Bruins, 1974 Celtics, 1976 Celtics, 1981 Celtics, 1984 Celtics, 1986 Celtics, 2001 Patriots, 2003 Patriots, 2004 Red Sox, 2004 Patriots, 2007 Red Sox, 2008 Celtics, 2011 Bruins, 2013 Red Sox, 2014 Patriots, 2016 Patriots, 2018 Red Sox, 2018 Patriots.

Baltimore: 1894 Orioles, 1895 Orioles, 1896 Orioles, 1948 Bullets, 1958 Colts, 1959 Colts, 1966 Orioles, 1970 Orioles, 1970 Colts, 1983 Orioles, 1990 Bays, 2000 Ravens, 2012 Ravens.

Buffalo (includes Syracuse and Rochester): 1951 Royals, 1955 Nationals, 1970 Lancers.

Charlotte (includes Raleigh): 2006 Hurricanes.

Chicago: 1876 Cubs, 1880 Cubs, 1881 Cubs, 1882 Cubs, 1906 White Sox, 1907 Cubs, 1908 Cubs, 1917 White Sox, 1921 Bears, 1925 Cardinals, 1932 Bears, 1933 Bears, 1934 Blackhawks, 1938 Blackhawks, 1940 Bears, 1941 Bears, 1943 Bears, 1946 Bears, 1947 Cardinals, 1961 Blackhawks, 1963 Bears, 1981 Sting, 1984 Sting, 1985 Bears, 1991 Bulls, 1992 Bulls, 1993 Bulls, 1996 Bulls, 1997 Bulls, 1998 Bulls, 1998 Fire, 2005 White Sox, 2010 Blackhawks, 2013 Blackhawks, 2015 Blackhawks, 2016 Cubs.

Cincinnati: 1919 Reds, 1940 Reds, 1975 Reds, 1976 Reds, 1990 Reds.

Cleveland: 1920 Indians, 1920 Pros, 1922 Bulldogs, 1923 Bulldogs, 1924 Bulldogs, 1945 Rams, 1948 Indians, 1950 Browns, 1954 Browns, 1955 Browns, 1964 Browns, 2016 Cavaliers.

Columbus: 2008 Crew.

Dallas: 1971 Tornado, 1971 Cowboys, 1977 Cowboys, 1992 Cowboys, 1993 Cowboys, 1995 Cowboys, 1999 Stars, 2011 Mavericks.

Denver: 1992 Foxes, 1993 Foxes, 1996 Avalanche, 1997 Broncos, 1998 Broncos, 2001 Avalanche, 2010 Rapids, 2015 Broncos.

Detroit: 1887 Wolverines, 1935 Tigers, 1935 Lions, 1936 Red Wings, 1937 Red Wings, 1943 Red Wings, 1945 Tigers, 1950 Red Wings, 1952 Red Wings, 1952 Lions, 1953 Lions, 1954 Red Wings, 1955 Red Wings, 1957 Lions, 1968 Tigers, 1984 Tigers, 1989 Pistons, 1990 Pistons, 1997 Red Wings, 1998 Red Wings, 2002 Red Wings, 2003 Shock, 2004 Pistons, 2006 Shock, 2008 Red Wings, 2008 Shock.

Houston: 1994 Rockets, 1995 Rockets, 1997 Comets, 1998 Comets, 1999 Comets, 2000 Comets, 2006 Dynamo, 2007 Dynamo, 2017 Astros.

Indianapolis: 2006 Colts, 2012 Fever.

Jacksonville: None.

Kansas City: 1969 Spurs, 1969 Chiefs, 1985 Royals, 2000 Sporting, 2013 Sporting, 2015 Royals, 2019 Chiefs.

Las Vegas: None.

Los Angeles (includes Anaheim): 1951 Rams, 1959 Dodgers, 1963 Dodgers, 1965 Dodgers, 1967 Wolves, 1972 Lakers, 1974 Aztecs, 1980 Lakers, 1981 Dodgers, 1982 Lakers, 1983 Raiders, 1985 Lakers, 1986 Kickers, 1987 Lakers, 1988 Lakers, 1988 Dodgers, 2000 Lakers, 2001 Lakers, 2001 Sparks, 2002 Lakers, 2002 Sparks, 2002 Angels, 2002 Galaxy, 2005 Galaxy, 2007 Ducks, 2009 Lakers, 2010 Lakers, 2011 Galaxy, 2012 Kings, 2012 Galaxy, 2014 Kings, 2014 Galaxy, 2016 Sparks.

Miami: 1972 Dolphins, 1973 Dolphins, 1997 Marlins, 2003 Marlins, 2006 Heat, 2012 Heat, 2013 Heat.

Milwaukee (includes Green Bay): 1929 Packers, 1930 Packers, 1931 Packers, 1936 Packers, 1939 Packers, 1944 Packers, 1957 Braves, 1961 Packers, 1962 Packers, 1965 Packers, 1966 Packers, 1967 Packers, 1971 Bucks, 1996 Packers, 2010 Packers.

Minneapolis: 1949 Lakers, 1950 Lakers, 1952, Lakers, 1953 Lakers, 1954 Lakers, 1987 Twins, 1991 Twins, 2011 Lynx, 2013 Lynx, 2015 Lynx, 2017 Lynx.

Nashville: None.

New Orleans: 2009 Saints.

New York (includes New Jersey and Long Island): 1888 Giants (B), 1889 Giants (B), 1890 Dodgers, 1899 Dodgers, 1900 Dodgers, 1905 Giants (B), 1921 Giants (B), 1922 Giants (B), 1923 Yankees, 1927 Yankees, 1927 Giants, 1928 Rangers, 1928 Yankees, 1932 Yankees, 1933 Rangers, 1933 Giants (B), 1934 Giants, 1936 Yankees, 1937 Yankees, 1938 Yankees, 1938 Giants, 1939 Yankees, 1940 Rangers, 1941 Yankees, 1943 Yankees, 1947 Yankees, 1949 Yankees, 1950 Yankees, 1951 Yankees, 1952 Yankees, 1953 Yankees, 1954 Giants, 1955 Dodgers, 1956 Yankees, 1956 Giants, 1961 Yankees, 1962 Yankees, 1968 Jets, 1969 Mets, 1970 Knicks, 1972 Cosmos, 1973 Knicks, 1977 Cosmos, 1977 Yankees, 1978 Cosmos, 1978 Yankees, 1980 Islanders, 1980 Cosmos, 1981 Islanders, 1982 Islanders, 1982 Cosmos, 1983 Islanders, 1986 Mets, 1986 Giants, 1990 Giants, 1994 Rangers 1995 Devils, 1996 Yankees, 1998 Yankees, 1999 Yankees, 2000 Devils, 2000 Yankees, 2003 Devils, 2007 Giants, 2009 Yankees, 2012 Giants.

Oklahoma City (includes Tulsa): 1983 Roughnecks.

Orlando: None.

Philadelphia: 1910 Athletics, 1911 Athletics, 1913 Athletics, 1926 Yellow Jackets, 1929 Athletics, 1930 Athletics, 1947 Warriors, 1948 Eagles, 1949 Eagles, 1956 Warriors, 1960 Eagles, 1967 76ers, 1973 Atoms, 1974 Flyers, 1975 Flyers, 1980 Phillies, 1983 76ers, 2008 Phillies, 2017 Eagles.

Phoenix: 2001 Diamondbacks, 2007 Mercury, 2009 Mercury, 2014 Mercury.

Pittsburgh: 1901 Pirates, 1902 Pirates, 1909 Pirates, 1925 Pirates, 1960 Pirates, 1971 Pirates, 1974 Steelers, 1975 Steelers, 1978 Steelers, 1979 Pirates, 1979 Steelers, 1991 Penguins, 1992 Penguins, 2005 Steelers, 2008 Steelers, 2009 Penguins, 2016 Penguins, 2017 Penguins.

Portland: 1977 Trail Blazers, 2015 Timbers.

Sacramento: 2005 Monarchs.

St. Louis: 1885 Cardinals, 1886 Cardinals, 1926 Cardinals, 1931 Cardinals, 1934 Cardinals, 1942 Cardinals, 1944 Cardinals, 1946 Cardinals, 1958 Hawks, 1964 Cardinals, 1967 Cardinals, 1982 Cardinals, 1999 Rams, 2006 Cardinals, 2011 Cardinals, 2019 Blues.

Salt Lake City: 2009 Real.

San Antonio: 1999 Spurs, 2003 Spurs, 2005 Spurs, 2007 Spurs, 2011 Spurs, 2014 Spurs.

San Diego: 1987 Nomads.

San Francisco (includes Oakland and San Jose): 1972 Athletics, 1973 Athletics, 1974 Athletics, 1975 Warriors, 1976 Raiders, 1980 Raiders, 1981 49ers, 1984 49ers, 1985 Earthquakes, 1988 49ers, 1989 49ers, 1989 Athletics, 1991 Blackhawks, 1994 49ers, 2001 Earthquakes, 2003 Earthquakes, 2010 Giants, 2012 Giants, 2014 Giants, 2015 Warriors, 2017 Warriors, 2018 Warriors.

Seattle: 1917 Metropolitans, 1979 SuperSonics, 1995 Sounders, 2004 Storm, 2010 Storm, 2013 Seahawks, 2016 Sounders, 2018 Storm, 2019 Sounders.

Tampa: 1975 Rowdies, 2002 Buccaneers, 2004 Lightning.

Washington: 1924 Senators, 1937 Redskins, 1942 Redskins, 1978 Bullets, 1982 Redskins, 1987 Redskins, 1988 Diplomats, 1991 Redskins, 1996 United, 1997 United, 1999 United, 2004 United, 2018 Capitals, 2019 Mystics, 2019 Nationals.

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Ranked, ties broken by most recent:

1. New York (includes New Jersey and Long Island), 66: 1888 Giants (B), 1889 Giants (B), 1890 Dodgers, 1899 Dodgers, 1900 Dodgers, 1905 Giants (B), 1921 Giants (B), 1922 Giants (B), 1923 Yankees, 1927 Yankees, 1927 Giants, 1928 Rangers, 1928 Yankees, 1932 Yankees, 1933 Rangers, 1933 Giants (B), 1934 Giants, 1936 Yankees, 1937 Yankees, 1938 Yankees, 1938 Giants, 1939 Yankees, 1940 Rangers, 1941 Yankees, 1943 Yankees, 1947 Yankees, 1949 Yankees, 1950 Yankees, 1951 Yankees, 1952 Yankees, 1953 Yankees, 1954 Giants, 1955 Dodgers, 1956 Yankees, 1956 Giants, 1961 Yankees, 1962 Yankees, 1968 Jets, 1969 Mets, 1970 Knicks, 1972 Cosmos, 1973 Knicks, 1977 Cosmos, 1977 Yankees, 1978 Cosmos, 1978 Yankees, 1980 Islanders, 1980 Cosmos, 1981 Islanders, 1982 Islanders, 1982 Cosmos, 1983 Islanders, 1986 Mets, 1986 Giants, 1990 Giants, 1994 Rangers 1995 Devils, 1996 Yankees, 1998 Yankees, 1999 Yankees, 2000 Devils, 2000 Yankees, 2003 Devils, 2007 Giants, 2009 Yankees, 2012 Giants. Also won 1974 and 1976 ABA title with Nets.

2. Boston (includes Providence), 51: 1877 Braves, 1878 Braves, 1879 Grays, 1883 Braves, 1884 Grays, 1891 Braves, 1892 Braves, 1893 Braves, 1897 Braves, 1898 Braves, 1903 Red Sox, 1904 Red Sox, 1912 Red Sox, 1914 Braves, 1915 Red Sox, 1916 Red Sox, 1918 Red Sox, 1928 Steam Roller, 1929 Bruins, 1939 Bruins, 1941 Bruins, 1957 Celtics, 1959 Celtics, 1960 Celtics, 1961 Celtics, 1962 Celtics, 1963 Celtics, 1964 Celtics, 1965 Celtics, 1966 Celtics, 1968 Celtics, 1969 Celtics, 1970 Bruins, 1972 Bruins, 1974 Celtics, 1976 Celtics, 1981 Celtics, 1984 Celtics, 1986 Celtics, 2001 Patriots, 2003 Patriots, 2004 Red Sox, 2004 Patriots, 2007 Red Sox, 2008 Celtics, 2011 Bruins, 2013 Red Sox, 2014 Patriots, 2016 Patriots, 2018 Red Sox, 2018 Patriots. Also won title in 1936 version of AFL with Shamrocks, and 1973 WHA title with Whalers.

3. Chicago, 36: 1876 Cubs, 1880 Cubs, 1881 Cubs, 1882 Cubs, 1906 White Sox, 1907 Cubs, 1908 Cubs, 1917 White Sox, 1921 Bears, 1925 Cardinals, 1932 Bears, 1933 Bears, 1934 Blackhawks, 1938 Blackhawks, 1940 Bears, 1941 Bears, 1943 Bears, 1946 Bears, 1947 Cardinals, 1961 Blackhawks, 1963 Bears, 1981 Sting, 1984 Sting, 1985 Bears, 1991 Bulls, 1992 Bulls, 1993 Bulls, 1996 Bulls, 1997 Bulls, 1998 Bulls, 1998 Fire, 2005 White Sox, 2010 Blackhawks, 2013 Blackhawks, 2015 Blackhawks, 2016 Cubs.

4. Los Angeles (includes Anaheim), 30: 1951 Rams, 1959 Dodgers, 1963 Dodgers, 1965 Dodgers, 1967 Wolves, 1972 Lakers, 1974 Aztecs, 1980 Lakers, 1981 Dodgers, 1982 Lakers, 1983 Raiders, 1985 Lakers, 1986 Kickers, 1987 Lakers, 1988 Lakers, 1988 Dodgers, 2000 Lakers, 2001 Lakers, 2001 Sparks, 2002 Lakers, 2002 Sparks, 2002 Angels, 2002 Galaxy, 2005 Galaxy, 2007 Ducks, 2009 Lakers, 2010 Lakers, 2011 Galaxy, 2012 Kings, 2012 Galaxy, 2014 Kings, 2014 Galaxy, 2016 Sparks. Also won title in 1937 version of AFL with Bulldogs.

5. Detroit, 26: 1887 Wolverines, 1935 Tigers, 1935 Lions, 1936 Red Wings, 1937 Red Wings, 1943 Red Wings, 1945 Tigers, 1950 Red Wings, 1952 Red Wings, 1952 Lions, 1953 Lions, 1954 Red Wings, 1955 Red Wings, 1957 Lions, 1968 Tigers, 1984 Tigers, 1989 Pistons, 1990 Pistons, 1997 Red Wings, 1998 Red Wings, 2002 Red Wings, 2003 Shock, 2004 Pistons, 2006 Shock, 2008 Red Wings, 2008 Shock. Also won 1983 USFL title with Panthers.

6. San Francisco (includes Oakland and San Jose), 22: 1972 Athletics, 1973 Athletics, 1974 Athletics, 1975 Warriors, 1976 Raiders, 1980 Raiders, 1981 49ers, 1984 49ers, 1985 Earthquakes, 1988 49ers, 1989 49ers, 1989 Athletics, 1991 Blackhawks, 1994 49ers, 2001 Earthquakes, 2003 Earthquakes, 2010 Giants, 2012 Giants, 2014 Giants, 2015 Warriors, 2017 Warriors, 2018 Warriors. Also won 1969 ABA title with Oaks.

7. Philadelphia, 19: 1910 Athletics, 1911 Athletics, 1913 Athletics, 1926 Yellow Jackets, 1929 Athletics, 1930 Athletics, 1947 Warriors, 1948 Eagles, 1949 Eagles, 1956 Warriors, 1960 Eagles, 1967 76ers, 1973 Atoms, 1974 Flyers, 1975 Flyers, 1980 Phillies, 1983 76ers, 2008 Phillies, 2017 Eagles. Also won title of 1926 version of USFL with Quakers, and 1984 USFL title with Stars.

8. Pittsburgh, 18: 1901 Pirates, 1902 Pirates, 1909 Pirates, 1925 Pirates, 1960 Pirates, 1971 Pirates, 1974 Steelers, 1975 Steelers, 1978 Steelers, 1979 Pirates, 1979 Steelers, 1991 Penguins, 1992 Penguins, 2005 Steelers, 2008 Steelers, 2009 Penguins, 2016 Penguins, 2017 Penguins. Also won 1968 ABA title with Pipers.

9. St. Louis, 16: 1885 Cardinals, 1886 Cardinals, 1926 Cardinals, 1931 Cardinals, 1934 Cardinals, 1942 Cardinals, 1944 Cardinals, 1946 Cardinals, 1958 Hawks, 1964 Cardinals, 1967 Cardinals, 1982 Cardinals, 1999 Rams, 2006 Cardinals, 2011 Cardinals, 2019 Blues.

10. Washington, 15: 1924 Senators, 1937 Redskins, 1942 Redskins, 1978 Bullets, 1982 Redskins, 1987 Redskins, 1988 Diplomats, 1991 Redskins, 1996 United, 1997 United, 1999 United, 2004 United, 2018 Capitals, 2019 Mystics, 2019 Nationals.

11. Milwaukee (includes Green Bay), 15: 1929 Packers, 1930 Packers, 1931 Packers, 1936 Packers, 1939 Packers, 1944 Packers, 1957 Braves, 1961 Packers, 1962 Packers, 1965 Packers, 1966 Packers, 1967 Packers, 1971 Bucks, 1996 Packers, 2010 Packers.

12. Baltimore, 13: 1894 Orioles, 1895 Orioles, 1896 Orioles, 1948 Bullets, 1958 Colts, 1959 Colts, 1966 Orioles, 1970 Orioles, 1970 Colts, 1983 Orioles, 1990 Bays, 2000 Ravens, 2012 Ravens. Also won 1985 USFL title with Stars.

13. Cleveland, 12: 1920 Indians, 1920 Pros, 1922 Bulldogs, 1923 Bulldogs, 1924 Bulldogs, 1945 Rams, 1948 Indians, 1950 Browns, 1954 Browns, 1955 Browns, 1964 Browns, 2016 Cavaliers. Also won 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1949 AAFC titles with Browns.

14. Minneapolis, 11: 1949 Lakers, 1950 Lakers, 1952, Lakers, 1953 Lakers, 1954 Lakers, 1987 Twins, 1991 Twins, 2011 Lynx, 2013 Lynx, 2015 Lynx, 2017 Lynx.

15. Seattle, 9: 1917 Metropolitans, 1979 SuperSonics, 1995 Sounders, 2004 Storm, 2010 Storm, 2013 Seahawks, 2016 Sounders, 2018 Storm, 2019 Sounders.

16. Houston, 9: 1994 Rockets, 1995 Rockets, 1997 Comets, 1998 Comets, 1999 Comets, 2000 Comets, 2006 Dynamo, 2007 Dynamo, 2017 Astros. Also won 1960 and 1961 AFL titles with Oilers, and 1974 and 1975 WHA titles with Aeros.

17. Denver, 8: 1992 Foxes, 1993 Foxes, 1996 Avalanche, 1997 Broncos, 1998 Broncos, 2001 Avalanche, 2010 Rapids, 2015 Broncos.

18. Dallas, 8: 1971 Tornado, 1971 Cowboys, 1977 Cowboys, 1992 Cowboys, 1993 Cowboys, 1995 Cowboys, 1999 Stars, 2011 Mavericks. Also won 1962 AFL title with Texans.

19. Kansas City, 7: 1969 Spurs, 1969 Chiefs, 1985 Royals, 2000 Sporting, 2013 Sporting, 2015 Royals, 2019 Chiefs.

20. Miami, 7: 1972 Dolphins, 1973 Dolphins, 1997 Marlins, 2003 Marlins, 2006 Heat, 2012 Heat, 2013 Heat.

21. San Antonio, 6: 1999 Spurs, 2003 Spurs, 2005 Spurs, 2007 Spurs, 2011 Spurs, 2014 Spurs.

22. Cincinnati, 5: 1919 Reds, 1940 Reds, 1975 Reds, 1976 Reds, 1990 Reds.
24. Atlanta, 3: 1968 Chiefs, 1995 Braves, 2018 United.

25. Tampa, 3: 1975 Rowdies, 2002 Buccaneers, 2004 Lightning.

26. Buffalo (includes Syracuse and Rochester), 3: 1951 Royals, 1955 Nationals, 1970 Lancers. Also won 1964 and 1965 AFL titles with Bills.

27. Portland, 2: 1977 Trail Blazers, 2015 Timbers.

28. Indianapolis, 2: 2006 Colts, 2012 Fever. Also won ABA titles with 1970, 1972 and 1973 Pacers.

29. New Orleans, 1: 2009 Saints.

30. Salt Lake City, 1: 2009 Real. Also won 1971 ABA title with Stars.

31. Columbus, 1: 2008 Crew. Also won titles in 1940 and 1941 version of AFL with Bullies.

32. Charlotte (includes Raleigh), 1: 2006 Hurricanes.

33. Sacramento, 1: 2005 Monarchs.

34. San Diego, 1: 1987 Nomads. Also won 1963 AFL title with Chargers.

35. Oklahoma City (includes Tulsa), 1: 1983 Roughnecks.

36. Louisville: None. But won 1975 ABA title with Colonels.

37. Birmingham: None. But won 1974 WFL title with Americans.

38. Nashville: None. Closest call has been reaching Super Bowl XXXIV with Titans and 2017 Stanley Cup Finals with Predators.

1. Kansas City: February 2, 2020, Super Bowl LIV, Kansas City Chiefs.

2. Seattle: November 10, 2019, MLS Cup Final, Seattle Sounders.

3. St. Louis: June 12, 2019, Stanley Cup Finals, St. Louis Blues.

4. Boston: February 3, 2019, Super Bowl LIII, New England Patriots. (Tainted.)

5. Atlanta: December 8, 2018, MLS Cup Final, Atlanta United.

6. San Francisco (includes Oakland and San Jose): June 8, 2018, NBA Finals, Golden State Warriors.

7. Washington: June 7, 2018, Stanley Cup Finals, Washington Capitals.

8. Philadelphia: February 4, 2018, Super Bowl LII, Philadelphia Eagles.

9. Houston: November 1, 2017, World Series, Houston Astros. (Tainted.)

10. Minneapolis: October 4, 2017, WNBA Finals, Minnesota Lynx.

11. Pittsburgh: June 11, 2017, Stanley Cup Finals, Pittsburgh Penguins.

12. Chicago: November 2, 2016, World Series, Chicago Cubs.

13. Los Angeles (includes Anaheim): October 20, 2016, WNBA Finals, Los Angeles Sparks.

14. Cleveland: June 19, 2016, NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers.

15. Denver: February 7, 2016, Super Bowl 50, Denver Broncos.

16. Portland: December 6, 2015, MLS Cup Finals, Portland Timbers.

17. Phoenix: September 12, 2014, WNBA Finals, Phoenix Mercury.

18. San Antonio: June 15, 2014, NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs.

19. Miami: June 20, 2013, NBA Finals, Miami Heat.

20. Baltimore: February 3, 2013, Super Bowl XLVII, Baltimore Ravens.

21. Indianapolis: October 21, 2012, WNBA Finals, Indiana Fever.

22. New York (includes New Jersey and Long Island): February 5, 2012, Super Bowl XLVI, New York Giants.

23. Dallas: June 12, 2011, NBA Finals, Dallas Mavericks.

24. Milwaukee (includes Green Bay): February 6, 2011, Super Bowl XLV, Green Bay Packers.

25. New Orleans: February 7, 2010, Super Bowl XLIV, New Orleans Saints.

26. Salt Lake City: November 22, 2009, MLS Cup Final, Real Salt Lake.

27. Columbus: November 23, 2008, MLS Cup Final, Columbus Crew.

28. Detroit: October 5, 2008, WNBA Finals, Detroit Shock. (Team has since moved.)

29. Carolina (includes Charlotte and Raleigh): June 19, 2006, Stanley Cup Finals, Carolina Hurricanes.

30. Sacramento: September 20, 2005, WNBA Finals, Sacramento Monarchs. (Team has since moved.)

31. Tampa: June 7, 2004, Stanley Cup Finals, Tampa Bay Lightning.

32. Cincinnati: October 20, 1990, World Series, Cincinnati Reds.

33. San Diego: March 28, 1987, Western Soccer Alliance Final, San Diego Nomads. (This was the highest-ranking U.S. outdoor soccer league at the time. The Nomads still exist, as an amateur team.)

If baseball were like the Iowa Caucuses...

* Yankee Fans would be Joe Biden supporters, telling everyone that their candidate is the one best able to beat the bad guys.

* Met fans would be Bernie Sanders supporters, telling everyone that their candidate will win and has to, because everybody else is corrupt.

* Despite the fact that Kamala Harris is from Oakland, Los Angeles Dodger fans would be Harris supporters, saying they were cheated before it ever started.

* Houston Astro fans would be Pete Buttigieg supporters, swooping in with cheating, and getting caught.

* Boston Red Sox fans would be Donald Trump supporters: Just when you think they can't win this time, they cheat.

* And the Playoffs and World Series wouldn't be shown on television, and the Commissioner would still not have released the results by Thanksgiving.

*

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: 2, this Thursday night, against the Philadelphia Flyers, a.k.a. The Philth, will be at the Wells Fargo Center. The next game against the New York Rangers, a.k.a. The Scum, will be on Saturday night, March 7, at Madison Square Garden. The next game against the New York Islanders will be on Saturday night, March 21, at the Prudential Center.

Days until the New Hampshire Primary: 7, next Tuesday.

Days until Arsenal play again: 12, on Sunday, February 16, at 11:30 AM New York time, in Premier League action, home to North-East team Newcastle United.

William Vernell Wood was born on December 23, 1936 in Washington, D.C. In a 2017 post, I named him the greatest athlete ever to come from the District of Columbia. In 1956, he graduated from Samuel Chapman Armstrong Technical High School, now Friendship Armstrong Academy. It also produced another Pro Football Hall-of-Famer, Len Ford; and music legends Duke Ellington and Billy Eckstine.

(By a weird turn of events, the building it still uses was designed by architect Waddy Butler Wood -- but, being white, he was almost certainly not related to Willie.)

His prospects limited by segregation, Wood went to Coalinga Junior College outside Fresno, California. Its motto is, "Once you go here, you can go anywhere." He went to the Junior College All-America Team. Then he went to the University of Southern California (USC), becoming the 1st black quarterback in the history of he Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the current Pacific-12 Conference.

In 1959, he and Ron Mix, an offensive tackle who would become a Hall-of-Famer with the San Diego Chargers, were named USC's co-captains -- one black, one Jewish. In a 2007 interview, Mix said that they received hate mail, and that, "99 percent of the fraternities on campus would not allow either of us to become members."

Shoulder injuries limited Wood's playing time. As a result, he was not selected in the 1960 NFL Draft, or the 1960 AFL Draft. So he wrote letters to the teams in each league, asking for a tryout. Only one man answered: Vince Lombardi, head coach and general manager of the Green Bay Packers. Lombardi must have seen something in the letter, or perhaps he got some game film from USC and saw something in that, because he brought Wood to Green Bay, and signed him as a free agent.

If Lombardi was making a guess, it was a great one. Wood may also have made a guess: Seeing Bart Starr as the Packers' quarterback, he requested a switch to defense, and was made a free safety. This was also a great move: Wood ranks with his contemporary Larry Wilson, and later players Ronnie Lott, Steve Atwater and Ed Reed as one of the best free safeties in NFL history.

He was named to 8 Pro Bowls. He helped the Packers reach the NFL Championship Game in his rookie year, but they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. They won the Championship Game against the New York Giants in 1961, and did that again in 1962. In 1962, he led the NFL in interceptions and punt return yards.

Lombardi once said, "Pound-for-pound, Willie was the best tackler in the game." He said this even though he also coached Hall-of-Fame defensive players Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, Ray Nitschke and Herb Adderley.

After missing the Western Division title in 1963 and 1964, they beat the Cleveland Browns in the 1965 NFL Championship Game, then beat the Dallas Cowboys in the 1966 and 1967 editions, the latter remembered as the legendary "Ice Bowl."

These last 2 title games led to the Packers qualifying for the 1st 2 Super Bowls, in which they beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I, and the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl II. In Super Bowl I, he made a key 2nd half interception, returning it for 50 yards, and Elijah Pitts scored a win-securing touchdown on the next play. Chiefs coach Hank Stram said, "That interception by Wood changed the complexion of the game." (It was not a racial comment: The Chiefs had plenty of black players.) In Super Bowl II, Wood returned a punt return for 31 yards, the longest in a Super Bowl for 16 years.

With the Packer dynasty aging, they didn't make the Playoffs again until after he retired, following the 1971 season. He finished with 48 interceptions, which he returned for 699 yards and 2 touchdowns. He had 1,391 yards on punt returns, which also included 2 touchdowns. In spite of the shoulder injuries that curtailed his college career, he made more consecutive starts than any free safety in NFL history: 154. He became a starter in his 2nd season, but played every game the year before, so that he not only never missed a game in his playing career, ready for all 166.

Right after his retirement, he became the defensive backs coach for the San Diego Chargers. In 1975, the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League named him their defensive coordinator. During training camp, before their 1st regular season game, head coach Ron Waller was fired, and Wood became the 1st head coach of a professional football team, with the sole exception of Fritz Pollard of the Akron Pros in 1921, at a time when the NFL could hardly have been called a "major league." The Bell were 4-7 when the WFL folded on October 21, 1975.

In 1979, Forrest Gregg, a former Packer teammate, was coaching the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. He brought Wood onto his staff, and left after the season to take the head job with the Cincinnati Bengals. Wood was then named the CFL's 1st black head coach. They went 6-10 in 1980, but lost their 1st 10 games in 1981, and he was fired. (Tommy Hudspeth, former head coach at Brigham Young and Texas-El Paso, coached them the rest of the way, and they finished 2-14, so whatever was wrong, it wasn't just Wood's coaching.)

Wood was elected to the NFL's 1960s All-Decade Team in 1969, the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1977, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989. The following year, he was selected for the ceremonial coin toss before Super Bowl XXIV. However, Wood was not selected either to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999 or the NFL Network's 100 Greatest Players in 2010.
By 2007, he was already confined to an assisted living facility in Washington. He was one of the many former players whose head trauma led to dementia. In 2012, the District of Columbia named the zero block of N Street NW, between North Capital Street and 1st Street, "Willie Wood Way." He was able to attend the dedication in a wheelchair. By 2016, he said he could no longer recall even having played football.

He died yesterday, February 3, 2020, at the age of 83. He was predeceased by his wife, and survived by his sons Willie Jr. and Andre, and his daughter LaJuane.

Willie Wood Jr. played and coached in the Arena Football League. As his father's decline began, he took a job coaching at D.C.'s Woodrow Wilson High School, in order to stay close to him.

February 7, 1985, 35 years ago:The Breakfast Club premieres in theaters.

According to the film, on March 24, 1984 -- the date on the essay read at the beginning and the end of the film -- there were 5 students in an all-day Saturday detention at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois, a fictional place apparently in the northern suburbs of Chicago:

* Brian Johnson, "a brain," played by Anthony Michael Hall.
* Andrew Clark, "an athlete," played by Emilio Estevez. He was
* Allison Reynolds, "a basket case," played by Ally Sheedy.
* Claire Standish, "a princess," played by Molly Ringwald. And...
* John Bender, "a criminal," played by Judd Nelson.

At the time of filming, Hall and Ringwald were 16, Estevez and Sheedy both 22, and Nelson 24. So only the 1st 2 in this sequence were age-appropriate.

They are watched over, in the school's library, and not especially well despite his boasting, by Richard Vernon, an assistant principal, played by Paul Gleason. I suspect the character was named after John Vernon, who played Dean Wormer in Animal House, as well as the Mayor of San Francisco in the 1st Dirty Harry film.

There are only 8 credited actors in the film. The other 2 are Ron Dean, as Andrew's never-named father; and John Kapelos, as Carl Reed, a janitor. Gleason died in 2006. The rest are still alive, and all 5 "kids" are now older than Gleason was at the time of filming, 45. Sports connection: Gleason played Mr. Cushman, the Yankee executive who interviewed George Costanza (Jason Alexander) for a job with the team in the Seinfeld episode "The Opposite."

Years earlier, Gleason appeared in 4 different episodes of Adam-12, playing a different police officer each time. He also played cops in the films Fort Apache: The Bronx and Die Hard (humiliated by both the terrorists and Detective John McClane), and on TV shows Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Remington Steele and One West Waikiki. He also played James T. Kirk. No, not that one: A U.S. Army Major in the 1979 film Women at West Point. He also played corporate spy Clarence Beeks in Trading Places.

So he was used to playing lawmen, other authority figures, and alleged tough guys. He parodied his Breakfast Club role by playing an older, but no less nasty and ego-driven, Vernon in the 2001 spoof film Not Another Teen Movie.

The kids go through the day, resisting Vernon and each other. John and Andrew verbally abuse each other. Both verbally abuse Claire and Brian. Claire tries to verbally defend herself, with little success. Brian, as the weak, skinny nerd, is in no position to successfully respond. Allison barely makes a sound, let alone interacts with the other 4, for the 1st half of the movie.

Each of them ends up baring his or her soul, showing that their chosen personalities are the result of how their parents have treated them. They begin to see each other not as stereotypes, as Vernon sees them, but as human beings with feelings.

In the end, instead of each of them following directions and writing an essay about "Who you think you are," there is one joint essay:

Dear Mr. Vernon:
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are.

You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...
and an athlete...
and a basket case...
a princess...
and a criminal. Does that answer your question?

Sincerely yours,
The Breakfast Club.

We never find out Vernon's response. This is what it should have been:

Dear Punks:

I've reviewed the security footage. Clearly, you learned nothing from your time in detention. I am shocked and dismayed that "the athlete" and "the brain" decided that violence was a solution. So you got one thing right: You ARE all criminals. Furthermore, Bender, I have you on record making a rape threat to Claire. And since you've been held back so many times that you are now past age 18, you are going to be charged as an adult. And do you know what they do to rapists in prison? Brian, I don't know what they do in prison to boys who bring guns to school, but if I don't do something about this, it could become a problem in our schools later on.

I won't press charges on any of you for the pot smoking, but, Andrew, colleges will care, so you can forget about that wrestling scholarship. As for Claire and Allison, at your detention next week, I'm going to show you "The Blackboard Jungle." It's a movie from 1955, about juvenile delinquents. So you'll see who's really in charge of a school, and why they're worthy of respect. Besides, it's a better movie than any you've seen this year. I'm going to use the "bull" analogy again. They say the strongest bull is always the first to the slaughter, but not if he is smarter than the butcher. You may be criminals, but you're NOT butchers. Sincerely,
Richard Vernon. P.S.: I've shown the footage to our principal, Edward R. Rooney. For some reason, he doesn't seem to care. He sees to be fixated on some other kid here at Shermer High.

*

Top 5 Reasons The Breakfast Club Is a Horrible Movie

5. The Ginker Gets the Girl. I was at East Brunswick High School in Central Jersey from September 1984 to June 1987. "Ginkers" were what we called the barely verbal metalhead thugs who smoked anything that would stay lit long enough, like Bender. Ginkers were scum.

I hated Bender from the beginning of the movie to the end, and I had no sympathy for his home life. If he hated his father that much, the best revenge should have been to be a better man. He chose not to be one. Think about it: The first thing he says to any of the others is a rape threat to Claire.

And instead of ending up expelled, and possibly also in the County Jail (or, at least, in Juvenile Hall), he walks away having kissed Claire and received the gift of a diamond earring from her. What the flying fuck?

4. The Corruption of Allison Reynolds. She was the misfit, the one nobody understood. I have no problem with Claire going out of her way to understand her, and make her glamorous, possibly for the first time in her life. But she ends up with... Andrew? She should have ended up with the guy who needed more understanding, Brian. Giving her to Andrew was a major league copout.

3. The Kids Deserved Detention. In fact, with the hindsight of a third of a century, we can see that a common theme of John Hughes' movies is that the protagonists were rarely heroic, and the antagonists were usually just people doing their jobs.

What did they do to get there? Okay, Allison said she'd done nothing, and that she just wanted something to do on a Saturday. Fine, she gets a pass (not a hall pass). The others? In ascending order of offense:

* Claire cut a day of school.
* Andrew taped a kid's butt-cheeks together.
* Bender pulled a fire alarm when there was no fire. This, all by itself, should have gotten his ginker ass arrested.
* And Brian brought a gun to school. This was before Heathers, let alone the Columbine High School Massacre.

Did the punishment fit the crime? At my alma mater, we didn't have all-Saturday detention. Most likely, here's what would have happened:

* Claire would have gotten 1 day's detention.
* Andrew would have gotten away with it completely, aside from, maybe, a stern talking-to, but he would have deserved at least 3 days' detention.
* Bender would have gotten a week's detention, which still would have been fewer hours than all day Saturday.
* And Brian would have gotten some serious counseling. They would have all deserved that.

And none of the four of them was particularly repentant for what they did.

Sometimes, a Hughes protagonist will learn something, as did Neal Page in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Usually, he won't: Cameron Frye may have learned something in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but Ferris himself is the same jackass he was at the beginning of the film.

Which leads us to...

2. The Kids Learned Nothing. Nothing useful, anyway:

* Bender and Andrew both learned you can treat your peers like shit, and still get the girl.
* Brian learned that bringing a flare gun to school, and wrecking your own science project as a result, was more punishable than all the things the bastard kids at that school had done to drive him to bring a gun.
* Maybe, Claire learned to be a little nicer to people, maybe.
* Allison learned that if you sell out, a BMOC (Big Man On Campus) will notice you, so she sold out.

These kids didn't start out as heroes, and none of them ended up that way. And, as I said, none of them was sorry for what they'd done.

In fact, there is only one way that this becomes a good movie. And I mean "good" in the sense of "moral," not in the sense of "entertaining." And, even then, it's not a completely good thing, because it would still be a ripoff. And that's if you accept that...

1.  The Breakfast Club is a rip-off of The Divine Comedy. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri published The Divine Comedy in 1320. (At the time, and even into William Shakespeare's time 300 years later, a "comedy" was a story with a happy ending, not necessarily a funny story.) He divided it into 3 parts: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paradiso (Heaven).

In The Breakfast Club, Detention starts out as Hell. Vernon is the Devil. The parts of detention when they are having fun are Purgatory. When they're released, that's Heaven.

And the only way it makes sense that the nerd doesn't get one of the girls is if the nerd, the character who appears to be the least powerful, is God. Think about it: Brian was prepared to shoot people with a gun. He was prepared to punish them all for their sins. But he didn't. And he showed the other four the error of their ways, and they walked out as better people. (If, that is, you do believe that they walked out as better people.)

Only it's such a well-disguised message that it took me 34 years to figure it out, and I don't think anybody else has figured it out, either. Certainly, it's no sillier than the long-established idea that the castaways on Gilligan's Island represented the Seven Deadly Sins, and that Gilligan himself is the Devil.

Of course, this theory of mine, that The Breakfast Club is a modern reworking of The Divine Comedy, works out a whole lot better if Claire, an admitted virgin, hadn't kissed Bender, or anyone else, and walked away discovering that she's pregnant.

Why do I love New York? It's not just because of my family origins there. It's that no other place on Earth so intertwines pursuits both intellectual and athletic. You can be the brain and still work your way into the world of the jocks, and they can like it. And, sometimes, you can get them to show that they belong in your world as well, and the ones who will want to will seek you out.

No one did that better than Roger Kahn.

He was born on October 31, 1927 in Brooklyn. He was descended from Jews who escaped the European revolutions of 1848, and his parents -- both teachers, Gordon taught history and Olga taught English -- encouraged him in intellectual pursuits, studying the classics.

Gordon loved baseball and their home-Borough Dodgers. Olga had no use for sports, but, toward the end of her life, Roger introduced her to some of the players he'd covered, and she realized they were well-developed people, not just athletes.

(For those of you who may recognize the name from Kahn's, sellers of hot dogs at Shea Stadium lo those many years: As far as I can tell, Roger's family was not connected to that company.)

Roger graduated from Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, and they were happy that he went to New York University. His parents didn't care that NYU then had a great basketball program. They cared that it was a great school. He then got a copyboy job at the New York Herald Tribune.

The Trib was the classic old-time "liberal Republican" newspaper, taking stands in favor of civil rights at home and abroad, but sticking with the old-money men (as it was run by) to the point of sticking with the GOP all through the Great Depression and beyond: Herbert Hoover even in 1932, Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon in 1960.

But it also had an exceptional sports department, run by an exceptional man, Stanley Woodward. In 1933, he became the 1st writer to call the collection of universities that included Harvard, Yale and Princeton "the Ivy League," and the name stuck until an official league with that name was founded in 1955. Woodward himself went to Amherst College, which could have been admitted to that League, but wasn't.

Being a respectable broadsheet, not a loud tabloid like the Daily News, the Post or the Mirror, the Trib's big competition was The New York Times, which had twice as many people working in its sports department. When Woodward became sports editor in 1938, he said, "They've got a lot of people, so we can't outcrap 'em, but we sure as hell can outwrite 'em."

And they did: It took a long time -- probably until 1966, when the Trib, the Journal-American and the World-Telegram & Sun all folded due to escalating costs -- before the Times had the best sports section in town. Woodward hired Red Smith away from the Philadelphia Record, and he became perhaps the greatest sportswriter who ever lived, moving on to the Times after the Trib folded. Woodward also hired John Lardner, son of the great sportswriter Ring Lardner.

Woodward was fired as editor in 1948, due to internal politics at the paper, but not before he had recognized Roger Kahn's writing ability and promoted him. In 1952, just 24 years old, and Brooklyn-raised yet cultured -- certainly not the image of the crusty, cigar-chomping old sportswriter -- he was named the beat writer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, his boyhood team.

In the 1952 and '53 seasons, he got close to the players, including future Baseball Hall-of-Famers Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Edwin "Duke" Snider, and the team Captain, Harold "Pee Wee" Reese; All-Stars Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, Carl Erskine, Billy Cox and Elwin "Preacher" Roe; and role players George "Shotgun" Shuba, Andy Pafko, Clem Labine and Joe Black.

It's worth noting that the man generally thought of as the Dodgers' ace pitcher, Don Newcombe, was serving in the Korean War, and thus was not with the team in either of those seasons. Therefore, there is no profile on him for The Boys of Summer.

Being Jewish and having faced discrimination, he had sympathy, if not a full understanding, for what black players Robinson, Campanella and Black were going through. They found they could trust him to write about them fairly. Some people didn't like that: Dodger manager Charlie Dressen called him "Robinson's bobo."

Kahn began The Boys of Summer with these words:

At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams. During the early 1950s, the Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers were outspoken, opinionated, bigoted, tolerant, black, white, open, passionate: in short, a fascinating mix of vigorous men. They were not, however, the most successful team in baseball.

The Dodgers won the National League Pennant in 1952 and 1953, but lost the World Series to the Yankees each time. A few days after the '53 Series, Roger's father died, only 52 years old.

Another change came the following season: The Trib transferred Roger away from the team he loved, to cover the team he, like all Dodger fans, hated, the New York Giants. He enjoyed covering their players, especially young superstar Willie Mays. He did not enjoy covering their manager, the corrupt, profane, egomaniacal Leo Durocher.

The Giants won the 1954 World Series, which is not the same thing as "getting Kahn his ring," but at least he got to cover a World Champion. The Dodgers finally won it all the next year. By that point, he was on the staff of a new magazine, Sports Illustrated. He didn't like it, and when Newsweek offered to make him their sports editor in 1956, he jumped at the chance. In 1963, he moved on to The Saturday Evening Post.

By that point, his personal life was in turmoil. In 1950, he married Joan Rappaport. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1954, but she died the day after her birth. In 1957, they had a son, whom they named for his grandfather. Roger would eventually dedicate a book "to a pair of aces," his father and his son, both named Gordon Jacques Kahn.

But in 1963, Roger began an affair with Alice Lippincott Russell, and she became pregnant. His 1st marriage ended in a very nasty divorce, and he married Alice. Their son, Roger Laurence Kahn, was born in 1964. They also had a daughter, Alissa, in 1967.

In this period, Roger stepped away from sports to write on other subjects. He wrote a book about his faith, but was disappointed when his publisher chose the title The Passionate People: What It Means to Be a Jew in America. He also wrote about the 1968 student demonstrations at Columbia University: The Battle for Morningside Heights: Why Students Rebel.

*

The world was changing, and people of Kahn's generation, who grew up in the Great Depression, fought in World War II (although he was too young to do so, turning 18 after V-J Day), and built the great suburban postwar economy, had trouble handling it.

They began to look back, and the 1950s nostaglia wave began. It produced the musical Grease, and the film American Graffiti (which took place in in 1962, but the early '60s were culturally an extension of the '50s). Together, these 2 led to the TV sitcom Happy Days (which, like American Graffiti, starred Ron Howard). It also produced Richard Nader's "Garden Party" shows at Madison Square Garden, as the hits of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years became "oldies," and this led to "oldiest" stations like New York's WCBS-FM, founded in 1972.

It led Paul Simon, one of the era's big singers and songwriters, to look to baseball as an exemplar of a simpler, more innocent time, which it really wasn't: In "Mrs. Robinson," he wrote, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you."

That song was Number 1 in America on June 6, 1968, when Robert Kennedy died, The student unrest at Columbia was still ongoing, as was that in Paris. Martin Luther King had been assassinated 2 months before, and a racist backlash against the Civil Rights Movement was in full gear. No one could think of a way to end the Vietnam War. The present seemed hopeless. (It was a time not unlike the present, although the details are considerably different.)

Roger Kahn, too, began to think of baseball again. Specifically, his team, which had been moved to Los Angeles by its greedy owner, Walter O'Malley, after the 1957 season, 11 years earlier -- just as the Yankees' last title and the hopeful beginning of the Obama Administration now is for us:

The team grew old. The Dodgers deserted Brooklyn. Wreckers swarmed into Ebbets Field and leveled the stand. Soil that had felt the spikes of Robinson & Reese was washed from the faces of mewling children. The New York Herald Tribune writhed, changed its face and collapsed. I covered a team that no longer exists in a demolished ballpark for a newspaper that is dead.

Remembering and appreciating the time which was not so very long ago, I found myself wondering more and more about the ball players. They are retired athletes now, but not old. They are scattered wide, but joined by a common memory. How are the years with them? What past do they remember? Have they come at length to realize what they had?

Unlike most, a ball player must confront two deaths. First, between the ages of thirty and forty he perishes as an athlete. Although he looks trim and feels vigorous and retains unusual coordination, the superlative reflexes, the major league reflexes, pass on. At a point when many of his classmates are newly confident and rising and other fields, he finds he can no longer hit a very good fast ball or reach a grounder four strides to his right. At thirty-five he is experiencing the truth of finality. As his major league career is ending, all things will end. However, he sprang, he was always earthbound. Mortality embraces him. The golden age has passed as in a moment. So, will all things. So will all moments. Memento Mori.

And so, on December 15, 1968, he placed a phone call to Newport, Pennsylvania, outside Harrisburg, to reach a man he hadn't spoken to in 14 years. A bartender. Who happened to be, in Kahn's opinin, the greatest 3rd baseman he ever saw, Billy Cox. Cox was surprised that someone from New York would want to come all the way out there just to talk to him.

Thus began the process of writing The Boys of Summer, Kahn's look back at his childhood as a Dodger fan, his look back at his professional start covering the team, and his quest to see how his old heroes were doing. He took the title from a poem by Dylan Thomas, who died in New York in 1953, a few days after Kahn's father Gordon also did so, in his case even younger, at 39, a result of massive drinking:

I see the boys of summer in their ruin Lay the gold tithings barren, Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils; There in their heat the winter floods Of frozen loves they fetch their girls, And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

The poem continues, 9 stanzas of 6 lines each, pointing out that time takes its toll, until so does death.

In his preface to the book, Kahn said, "I mean to be less concerned with curve balls than with the lure of the team." He spoke of the connection of the people of Brooklyn with the team, with the players, and with the ballpark, Ebbets Field. He cited Brooklyn's multiethnic nature and its distinctive accent.
And he wrote of Jackie Robinson, and how his acceptance -- first by the Dodger organization, eventually by his teammates, and finally by the baseball establishment -- gave the Dodgers a nobility that no other team could reach.

And then, after '57, they were gone. A few of the Dodger stars he wrote about would help the Los Angeles edition of the team win the World Series in 1959. A few of the players who replaced them and helped the Brooklyn edition win in 1955 would still be there on the title teams of 1963 and 1965. (Sandy Koufax debuted in '55, but he did not became an effective, let alone sensational, major league pitcher until '61.)

As with the 1969 Seattle Pilots -- written about in the other "greatest book ever written about baseball," pitcher Jim Bouton's Ball Four -- the Brooklyn Dodgers don't seem possible. They seem like a literary construction -- which, I suppose, Kahn would have appreciated, had he not been there to watch, love, and report on them.

Like Ball Four, The Boys of Summer often seems less like reporting on true events and more like a novel, especially since, in the style of what was becoming known as "the new journalism," Kahn, as with Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, had made himself a character in the book.

It was published in early 1972, to mixed reviews, with those who didn't like it citing it as mawkish and too sentimental (as if that wasn't the damn point); and with those who did like it going overboard, with the reviewer for Sports Illustrated saying calling it "a baseball book the same way Moby-Dick is a fishing book."

That same year, another New Yorker named Roger, Roger Angell, published The Summer Game, the 1st collection of his baseball-themed essays for The New York magazine, which would eventually include the magisterial Five Seasons -- the seasons in question being 1972 to 1976, years of huge changes in the sport.

In spite of their common name and their common profession, there are tremendous differences. Angell is from Manhattan instead of Brooklyn, Protestant instead of Jewish, an Ivy Leaguer (Harvard) instead of an NYU man, and was old enough to have served in World War II.

Most notably, he was a fan of the Dodgers' arch-rivals, the Giants. But while he has written extraordinary pieces on the game, including collaborating with David Cone on the memoir A Pitcher's Story, and spoke of the Giants' move, also to California in 1957, to San Francisco, as "Absolutely heartbreaking" when interviewed for Ken Burns' miniseries Baseball, he's never written a book about the New York edition of the Giants.

Several good books about those Giants have been written. But they have no Boys of Summer. Peter Golenbock, a Yankee Fan, wrote Dynasty about the 1949-64 Yankees, as a response to The Boys of Summer. And Angell and many others had the talent to write about the Giants, but didn't make the corresponding attempt that Kahn did for his Dodgers.

Noel Hynd wrote The Giants of the Polo Grounds, but that was about the team's entire history, 1883 to 1957. Good books have been written about the John McGraw era, 1902 to 1932 (including the tenure of Christy Mathewson, 1900 to 1916). Good books have been written about the 1951 Pennant race between the Giants and the Dodgers, which ended with the Bobby Thomson home run, including Thomson's own memoir. And good books have been written about Willie Mays, particularly about their 1954 World Series triumph, highlighted by his stunned catch in Game 1 of the World Series.

But because the 1950s Giants have no loving nostalgic look on the scale of The Boys of Summer, they have practically been forgotten. Today's young baseball fans know about Thomson's home run and Mays' catch. I've shown my older nieces, now 12, both highlights. They know the Giants and Dodgers were once in New York City, and have been in California since 1958. But they don't know about McGraw, Mathewson, Fred Merkle, Frankie Frisch, Bill Terry, Mel Ott or Carl Hubbell. Some of these guys played 100 years ago, and for kids today, it might as well have been 1,000 years.

Somebody should have written about the 1950s Giants. And I do mean the baseball team. The football version of the New York Giants have had nice looks back written about them. But the baseball team? Never mind McGraw and Mathewson: Today's fans need to know about not just Thomson and Mays, but also about Monte Irvin, Sal Maglie, Alvin Dark, Don Mueller, Dusty Rhodes and Johnny Antonelli.

(Roger Angell is still alive: If he makes it to September 19, he will be 100 years old. Hopefully, I'll get to write a Centennial tribute and post it on that day, instead of having to write an obituary and do it sooner.)

In the 2nd edition of The Boys of Summer, Kahn noted that lots of people were able to identify with the middle-aged Dodger players. Roy Campanella had been paralyzed in a car crash. Jackie Robinson saw his son Jackie Jr. come back from Vietnam with what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder, turn to drugs, get in legal trouble, get clean, and then be killed in an auto accident of his own. Several of them had to turn to manual labor. Clem Labine had to care for a developmentally disabled child.

But Kahn rejected the "ill-fated" label for them:

Any random group of thirteen Americans turning fifty might show equivalent whips and scorns of time. That was a comfortable response and possibly accurate. Besides, one could add, all the old Dodgers were still alive. Then on April 2, 1972, Gil Hodges fell backward onto a sidewalk in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the Mets had gone to play an exhibition game. A second coronary had hit the old first baseman. He was forty-seven.

A few months later, Jackie Robinson, wracked with diabetes, giving him heart trouble, robbing him of most of his sight, and threatening amputation of the most famous legs in baseball history, was the next to go. Kahn quoted him as saying he thought he would be the first, and expressing surprise that it was Hodges.

*

The Boys of Summer made Kahn a legend at age 44. He could have rested on his laurels and never written another book, becoming another J.D. Salinger -- or, since the real Salinger was still alive, and didn't want to be portrayed in Field of Dreams, as he had been in the novel based on it, Shoeless Joe, another Terence Mann.

Instead, he kept writing. He continued to put out collections of essays. He wrote novels. He wrote A Flame of Pure Fire, a biography of 1920s Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey. He wrote Joe & Marilyn: A Memory of Love, taking a big risk writing about the DiMaggio-Monroe relationship while Joe was still alive. He ghost-wrote Pete Rose's post-ban memoir.

And he wrote October Men: Reggie Jackson, George Steinbrenner, Billy Martin, and the Yankees' Miraculous Finish in 1978. It may have seemed sacrilege to his original fans, Dodger fans, to see Kahn write about not just a team from the next generation, but a Yankee team, one that was not particularly lovable (unless you were an 8-year-old kid in Jersey, like I was, or something close to it).

But he continued to focus on the period that began his career. He published The Era: 1947-1957, When the Yankees, the Giants and the Dodgers Ruled the World. This idea would be reinforced when Ken Burns made Baseball, titling his chapter on the 1950s: Seventh Inning: The Capital of Baseball. Unfortunately, Burns did not interview Kahn for it.

In 1987, on the 40th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut, he was invited to speak on the subject on ABC News' Nightline. Another guest on that program was the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Al Campanis,

Host Ted Koppel asked Campanis why there weren't more black men as managers or in front offices, and Campanis gave an answer that showed that he was racist and didn't even realize it. Koppel gave him 2 chances to get out of the hole, and he only dug himself in deeper. Kahn pointed out that Campanis' answers were a succession -- not a "progression," and hardly an "evolution" -- of the things the opponents of integration had said in 1947.

The year 1987 would get harder for Kahn. His song Roger battled depression and drugs, tried rehab, and took his own life. Later that year, his mother Olga reached the close of a long and interesting, but not famous, life.

He would include a tribute to his mother, along with pieces on various baseball figures, in Memories of Summer: When Baseball was an Art and Writing About it a Game in 1993. That book also included profiles of Willie Mays, whom Kahn called the greatest ballplayer he ever saw; and of Mickey Mantle, who was a terrible interview subject back then, never seemed to learn his lessons until it was too late, and led Kahn to say, "No, you couldn't possibly approve of Mickey Mantle. What you could do was love him."

It would take until 2006, and Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events That Shaped a Life, before Roger Kahn the father could publish something about Roger Kahn the son. It also included chapters about Robert Frost, Stanley Woodward, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and 1968 Presidential candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy, who had all been friends. He also wrote of his 2 failed marriages, and having found love one more time, with psychotherapist Katharine Colt Johnson, in 1989, possibly as a result of dealing with his grief over his son.

Together, they lived in Stone Ridge, Ulster County, New York, on the west side of the Hudson River, nearly 100 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, and seemingly a planet away from his Brooklyn youth. He taught journalism at the nearby New Paltz campus of the State University of New York.

Recently, he had to be moved to an assisted-living facility in Mamaroneck, Westchester County, and he died there this past Thursday, February 6, 2020. He was 92 years old.

He outlived all of the subjects of The Boys of Summer, except for one: Carl Erskine, the Indiana-born curveball master who pitched 2 no-hitters from Brooklyn, 1 of them against the hated Giants, thrilled Dodger fans by striking out 14 Yankees in Game 4 of the 1953 World Series (then a Series record), and enjoyed reciting poetry with Kahn on roadtrips. "Oisk," as he was called in the Brooklyn accent, recently turned 93, still lives in Anderson, Indiana, and, last I heard, was in good health.

I close with the words that Washington Post reviewer Andrew Ervin wrote in his review for Into My Own, which, I have no doubt, were very satisfying to Roger Kahn: "It proves that Kahn's not only a great baseball writer but also something rarer: a great writer whose subject happens to be baseball."

Every season since their debut in the 1982-83 season, the New Jersey Devils have visited the defending Stanley Cup Champions -- except for the canceled season of 2004-05, and the subsequent season of 2005-06, since there was officially no defending Champion.

But next Tuesday night, for the 1st time, said visit to the defending Champions will be in St. Louis.

Named for W.C. Handy's song "Saint Louis Blues," the Blues are 1 of 3 teams in major league sports to be named after a song.

One of the others is easy: The New Orleans Saints are named for that familiar New Orleans tune "When the Saints Go Marching In." The other? The constant playing of George M. Cohan's "Yankee Doodle Dandy" during the 1st Pennant race of the New York Highlanders in 1904 led to them being nicknamed the Yankees, and Yankees they have been ever since. (Ironically, Cohan was a New York Giants fan.)

As a result of their name, the Blues' solid-color jerseys have always been blue (with gold trim, and occasionally also some red), and their logo has always been a blue note. Their fans use the slogan, "Long Live the Note."

It has lived long: The Blues have never seriously considered moving out of St. Louis, nor have they ever been seriously targeted for being moved, unlike the NFL's Cardinals and Rams, MLB's Browns, and the NBA's Hawks, all of them now gone. Even the baseball Cardinals were nearly lost in the early 1950s, and were targeted again in the late 1950s by cities hedging their bets against losing out on the expansion sweepstakes.

However, that long history works against the Blues when you realize that it took them 52 seasons (51 if you don't count the canceled 2004-05) to win their 1st Stanley Cup. But they have finally done it.

Before You Go. While the Gateway City can get brutally hot in the summers, this is going to be right in the heart of Winter. The website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is predicting mid-40s for Tuesday afternoon, and mid-20s for the evening, and no snow or rain for the entire week. The arena is a little bit inland from the river, so wind might not be an issue like it would be if you were going to see an event outdoors at Busch Stadium.

St. Louis is in the Central Time Zone, an hour behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. The Cardinals always sell well, even in off years,but the Blues often had trouble drawing fans. Being defending Champions, though, means they are now averaging 18,096 fans per home game this season, a sellout. So getting tickets for a Blues game might be more difficult than ever, although perhaps not against the Devils, who aren't exactly a regional rival like Chicago, Detroit or Minnesota.

Seats in the 100 level are $111 between the goals and $81 behind them. Seats in the 300 level are $49 between and $35 behind. Standing-room tickets are $30.

Getting There. The Enterprise Center is 941 miles from the Prudential Center. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there. If you order tickets from United Airlines now, you can get a round-trip nonstop flight out of Newark Airport to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport for a little over $800. (Albert Bond Lambert was a St. Louis golfer and early aviator.)

MetroLink, St. Louis' light rail system, will get you directly from Lambert to downtown. Of course, unless you manage to get a midnight flight back, or are willing to sit in the airport overnight, you should get a hotel. And whatever you do, if you take a taxi out of the airport instead of MetroLink, do not call the dispatcher "a slab of meat with mittens" like Steve Martin did at that same airport in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Bus? Greyhound runs 8 buses a day between Port Authority and St. Louis, and only 4 of them are without changes. The average time of these trips is around 24 hours, and costs $378 round-trip, although this can drop to as little as $219 with advanced purchase. The Greyhound terminal is at Union Station, downtown at 430 S. 15th Street.

Speaking of Union Station, the train is a very tricky option. You'll have to take Amtrak out of New York's Penn Station, not Newark's. You could board the Lake Shore Limited at Penn Station at 3:40 Eastern on Monday afternoon, arriving at Union Station in Chicago at 9:50 Central on Tuesday morning, transfer to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 in the afternoon, and be at St. Louis' Union Station at 7:21 that night. That will put you at 1820 Market Street, 2 blocks from the arena, about 20 minutes after puck-drop.

So you'd have to leave on Sunday, and spend 2 nights (Monday-into-Tuesday, and Tuesday-into-Wednesday) in a hotel. The trip would take 26 hours and 36 minutes. Longer than the bus, but cheaper, and you get to be in Chicago for 4 hours, which is cool. The fare would be $439, not exactly cheap, even on a per-mile basis.

If you decide to drive, it's far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. You'll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike, and take Interstate 78 West across New Jersey, and at Harrisburg get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which at this point will be both I-70 and I-76. When the two Interstates split outside Pittsburgh, stay on I-70 west.

You'll cross the northern tip of West Virginia, and go all the way across Ohio (through Columbus), Indiana (through Indianapolis) and Illinois. When you cross into Missouri, it will be over the new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge. Exit 9 will be for the Sports Complex.
If you do it right, you should spend about an hour in New Jersey, 5 hours in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Illinois, and 15 minutes in Missouri before you reach the exit for your hotel. That's going to be nearly 17 hours. Counting rest stops, preferably 6 of them, and accounting for traffic in both New York and St. Louis, it should be about 24 hours.

Once In the City. St. Louis, settled by the French in 1764, was named for Louis IX, the Crusader King, the only monarch of France to have been canonized as a Saint by the Catholic Church. Like Boston, Pittsburgh and New Orleans, it has a history out of proportion to its size. There's a mere 320,000 within the city limits, about half of what it was in 1950.

But, like a lot of cities, especially in the Midwest, the "white flight" went to the suburbs, keeping the population of the metropolitan area roughly the same, in this case 2.9 million. Or, roughly, the population of Brooklyn alone. St. Louis City was 87 percent white in the 1940 Census, and still 50 percent white in 1990, but it's now down to 44 percent white, and 46 percent black, 4 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Asian. It's almost a full geographic split: Blacks on the North Side, whites on the South Side.

In comparison, St. Louis County -- which is independent of St. Louis City, a confusion we usually don't have, because nobody outside County courthouses and Manhattan Borough Hall refers to Manhattan Island as "New York County" -- is 66 percent white, 25 percent black, 4 percent Asian and 3 percent Hispanic.

Market Street divides the city's north and south street addresses, and on the east-west streets, the numbers increase westward from the Mississippi River. Interstate 270 serves as a beltway on the Missouri side of the River, while Interstate 255 completes it on the Illinois side.

The sales tax in the State of Missouri is 4.225 percent, but it's over double that in St. Louis City: 8.49 percent. There's no single electric company that has a monopoly in the city.

Metrolink light rail has a $2.25 base fare, and the Metro buses are $2.00. A Day Pass for the entire system is $7.50. A Weekly Pass is $25. Do yourself a favor: Do not, even on Metrolink, go across the river into East St. Louis, Illinois. It's so bleak, it makes Camden, New Jersey look like Upper Montclair. The joke is that the crime rate has dropped because there's nothing left to steal.
The State Capitol is in Jefferson City, 126 miles west of downtown St. Louis, 147 miles east of downtown Kansas City, and 30 miles south of the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

ZIP Codes for the St. Louis area start with the digits 630, 631 and 632. The Area Codes are 314 for the city and 636 for the suburbs.

Going In. The official address of the Enterprise Center is 1401 Clark Avenue, 7 blocks west of Busch Stadium. The stretch of Clark outside the arena is also known as Brett Hull Way. Parking is $27.50. The rink is laid out east-to-west, with the Blues attacking twice toward the west end, a.k.a. the Plaza End. Flags representing the 30 NHL teams crown the center scoreboard. It is served by the Union Station and Civic Center stops on Metrolink.
The arena opened in 1994 as the Kiel Center, in honor of the previous building on the site, and then the Savvis Center, after a company that would go bust in the tech bubble, before Internet stock-trading company Scottrade took over. Scottrade's naming rights expired in 2018, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car got its name on the building. And, yes, the seats are St. Louis blue.

The building also hosts the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, known as "Arch Madness" instead of "March Madness." It hosted the NCAA Frozen Four in 2007.
The previous building was built in 1934, as the Municipal Auditorium, and in 1943 was renamed for the late Mayor Henry Kiel, who got it built. St. Louis University played its home basketball games there for its program's entire existence, 1934 to 1991, before moving temporarily to the Arena and then to the now-Enterprise Center, before opening its new on-campus Chaifetz Arena in 2008.

The NBA's Hawks played there from their 1955 move from Milwaukee until their 1968 move to Atlanta, winning the Western Conference title in 1957, '58, '60 and '61 and the NBA Title in 1958. Elvis Presley sang there on January 1, 1956; March 29, 1957; September 10, 1970; June 28, 1973; and March 22, 1976.

On May 12, 2014, The New York Times printed a story that shows NBA fandom by ZIP Code, according to Facebook likes. Being between several NBA cities but not especially close to any of them (243 miles to Indianapolis, 284 to Memphis, 295 to Chicago, 498 to Oklahoma City), the St. Louis area divides up its fandom among the "cool" teams: The Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. However, not far into St. Louis' Illinois suburbs, you begin to get into solid Bulls territory. (As yet, there is no hockey version of this article.) If St. Louis had an NBA team, the city would rank 22nd among league markets.

Food. According to the arena's website:

Enterprise Center features concession stands and portable carts throughout the plaza and mezzanine levels. In addition to traditional fare such as hot dogs, chicken tenders, pizza, nachos, and pretzels, our concession stands offer specialty foods such as pile up hamburgers, foot long specialty hot dogs, bratwursts, wraps, salads and much more.

Full beverage selection includes soft drinks, lemonade, bottled water, iced tea, beer, a wide variety of specialty beers and microbrews, mixed drinks and wine.

Portable carts throughout both concourses feature such favorites as regular hot dogs, deluxe nachos, specialty beers, cotton candy, funnel cakes and Dippin' Dots ice cream. Enterprise Center also features a gluten-free portable stand, offering hot dogs, nachos, beer and other gluten-free snacks...

The Top Shelf is a unique area located on the mezzanine concourse between Sections 326 and 331. A combination food court and sports bar that opens into the seating area, the Top Shelf offers a wide variety of beverages and food, and allows fans to enjoy the atmosphere of a bar without missing all the live action.

Fans can also watch game broadcasts and NHL action around the league as well as other sporting events of interest on the large plasma screen televisions located throughout the Top Shelf. The Top Shelf is open to all ticket holders.

Team History Displays. The Blues were the last of the NHL's "Second Six," who came in with the 1967 "Great Expansion," to win the Stanley Cup. The Philadelphia Flyers did it in 1974, the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, the Minnesota North Stars as the Dallas Stars in 1999, and the Los Angeles Kings in 2012. Even the California Golden Seals, who became the Cleveland Barons, and were folded into the Minnesota North Stars, have sort-of won one, as the 1999 Dallas Stars. Finally, last season, the Blues won the Stanley Cup.

With the way the divisions were set up after the 1967 expansion, at first guaranteeing one of the "Second Six" a berth in the Finals for the 1st 3 seasons, the Blues reached the Finals in 1968, 1969 and 1970. This was the 1st head coaching job, and the 1st head coaching achievement, for Scotty Bowman, who went on to win more Cups than any other coach, 9 -- but none in St. Louis: 5 in Montreal, 1 in Pittsburgh, and 3 in Detroit.

But they got swept all 3 times, by the Montreal Canadiens the 1st 2 times and the Boston Bruins the last. It took the until last season to make the Finals again, and until then to win so much as a single game in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Indeed, in the 49 years between Finals appearances, they only made it to the NHL's last 4 twice, in 2001 and 2016, and won a grand total of 3 games in the round of 4 (under any name) between 1970 and 2019. So while they've usually been good, they've never really been great.

As a result of this, and of that 1967-74 2-Division setup, they couldn't hang a banner for a Conference Championship, much less a Stanley Cup. They do hang banners for 9 Championships in their Division: 1968 and 1969 in the Western, 1977 and 1981 in the Smythe, 1985 and 1987 in the Norris, and 2000, 2012 and 2015 in the Central. They also hang a banner for winning the President's Trophy, emblematic of the best record in the regular season, in the 1999-2000 season. But, thanks to 2019, that's no longer all.
They hang banners with retired numbers on them, but those don't tell the full story. Their 1st retired number was 3, for defenseman Bob Gassoff, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1977, after just 3 seasons with the team.

Three Plager brothers all played for the Blues in the 1970s, all defensemen: Barclay, Bob and Bill. Bill played 4 seasons with them. Bob played 10 seasons with them before being their coach and working in their front office, and still does so. Barclay also played 10 seasons, and coached them for 1 bad season, before being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately, the Blues retired his Number 8 while he was still alive. They retired Bob's Number 5 in 2017. Bill's Number 23 has not been honored by the club.

Doug Wickenheiser played 4 seasons at center for the Blues, and is best remembered for "the Monday Night Miracle," when his overtime goal against the Calgary Flames forced a Game 7 in the 1986 Campbell Conference Finals, which they then lost anyway. (If you're familiar with the history of the New York Rangers, this makes Wick the "Pete Stemkowski" of St. Louis sports -- or maybe the "Carlton Fisk.")

He died of cancer in 1999. The Blues wore a special helmet decal with the wick of a candle and the Number 14 during parts of the 1997–98 and 1998–99 seasons. In 1999, a banner with that logo, which became the symbol of The Fourteen Fund, the official Blues charity established in his memory, was placed in the rafters. The emblem was worn by all NHL players in the 1999 All-Star Game. But the number has not been officially retired.

Their other honorees have been more fortunate. From the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, they honored Number 11, left wing Brian Sutter (1 of the 6 NHL-playing Sutter Brothers); and Number 24, center Bernie Federko. From the 1990s, they honored Number 16, right wing Brett Hull; and Number 2, defenseman Al MacInnis.

Although Wayne Gretzky only played for the Blues for a few weeks in 1996, they hang a banner with his Number 99 on it, to acknowledge that it's been retired for the entire league. And broadcaster Dan Kelly is honored with a banner, with a shamrock (he was Irish) in place of a number.

The Number 7 hasn't been retired, but, like Syracuse University football with the Number 44, it has been honored for the contributions of more than 1 player who wore it. Shortly into their 1st season, 1967-68, the Blues traded for Ranger center Gordon "Red" Berenson, who'd won the 1965 Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens (but did not, obviously, win a Cup with the Rangers). He became their 1st big star, including scoring 6 goals in a 1968 game against the Flyers.

In 1970, his skills declining, they traded him to the Detroit Red Wings, and handed Number 7 to the player they got for him, center Garry Unger. He played 9 seasons for the Blues, including the bulk of his playing streak of 914 consecutive games, a record that has since been surpassed only by Doug Jarvis. He scored 413 NHL goals, and was the MVP of the 1974 All-Star Game. (He also shares an exact birthday with baseball legend Johnny Bench: December 7, 1947.)

New York native Joe Mullen won the 1989 Cup with the Flames and the 1991 and 1992 Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins, after 5 productive seasons at right wing for the Blues. And Keith Tkachuk played 9 seasons in St. Louis, at all 3 forward positions, and was the last player to wear Number 7 for the Blues. Mullen and Tkachuk are 2 of the only 4 American-born players ever to score at least 500 NHL regular-season goals.

The Number 7 is not given out anymore, but is not officially retired, nor does it hang in the rafters along with the unretired 5 and 14. Instead, a mural honoring Berenson, Unger, Mullen and Tkachuk is in the lower seating bowl.
Gretzky, Federko, Hull, MacInnis, Mullen, Bowman and Kelly have been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Berenson has not, although I suspect the voters were waiting for him to retire as head coach at the University of Michigan, a post he held from 1984 to 2017. He will thus be eligible in the next election, to be held this year. He is still alive to accept it at age 80.

Also elected to the Hall are some of the veterans that the Blues got in the 1967 expansion draft, helping them get into those 3 Finals: Goalies Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante, defensemen Doug Harvey and Al Arbour (who, of course, was elected for what he did as a coach); and left wing Dickie Moore.

Others who played for the Blues and are in the Hall, but are better known for having played for other teams, are goalie Grant Fuhr, defensemen Guy Lapointe and Chris Pronger, centers Adam Oates and Dale Hawerchuk, left wing Paul Kariya, right wing Glenn Anderson, and 6 who played for the Devils: Centers Vaclav Nedomansky, Peter Stastny, Guy Carbonneau and Doug Gilmour, defenseman Phil Housley, left wing Brendan Shanahan, Martin Brodeur at the very end of his career, and the man the Devils got as compensation when the Blues signed Shanny away from us in 1991: Scott Stevens.

Emile Francis, the longtime Ranger coach and GM, later held those positions with the Blues, and is in the Hall.

No members of the Blues played on the Team Canada that beat the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series, although former Blue Red Berenson did. As a result, he was named to Canada's Walk of Fame. So was Bowman, for his overall contributions to the game. Mark Johnson, Bill Baker and Dave Christian of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team went on to play for the Blues.

Glenn Hall and Brett Hull were named to The Hockey News' 100 Greatest Players in 1998. They, MacInnis and Pronger were named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players in 2017.

The Lester Patrick Trophy, for contributions to hockey in America, has been awarded to Bowman, Berenson, Mullen, Kelly, original GM and head coach Lynn Patrick (Lester's son), and former GM Larry Pleau.

The St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame is located at Busch Stadium, 7 blocks away at 700 Clark Avenue. It honors 13 Blues figures: Bowman, Arbour, Hall, Berenson, Bob Plager (but not either of his brothers), Unger, Federko, Sutter, Hull, MacInnis, goalies Mike Liut and Curtis Joseph, and Kelly. It also includes baseball Cardinals, football Cardinals, Rams, Hawks, University of Missouri sports legends, and local high school stars who made it big elsewhere.

There is a Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, but it's all the way across the State in Springfield. Federko is the only Blues player yet inducted, while Mike Shanahan, owner of the Blues from 1986 to 1995, was elected after he died last year. (He is no relation to the football coach of the same name.)

There are other banners hanging from the rafters of the Enterprise Center. They honor basketball players from Saint Louis University (the school's name is always spelled out, "Saint," never abbreviated to "St."): Number 24, Richard Boushka; Number 34, Anthony Bonner; Number 43, Bob Ferry (longtime NBA player and executive, and father of Danny Ferry); and Number 50, Ed Macauley (who later played for the Celtics and back in St. Louis with the Hawks). They also honor SLU's 1948 NIT title. The arena also has a statue of Brett Hull.

Unlike the Cardinals, who have had entire forests chopped down to make the paper for the books that have been written about them, books about the Blues are few and far between. In 2014, Darin Wernig's book Gateway City Puckchasers: The History of Hockey in St. Louis was published, detailing not just the Blues but their predecessors: The 1-season experiment of the NHL's St. Louis Eagles (formerly the original Ottawa Senators), but minor-league teams such as the American Hockey League's St. Louis Flyers (1929-53) and the Central Hockey League's St. Louis Braves (1963-67). Until the book comes out, though, you may be out of luck.

Don't expect to find any DVDs about the team, either. Amazon.com still sells an old VHS tape: True Blues: A Video Movie Commemorating Twenty Years of St. Louis Blues Hockey. They've got a lot of guts selling a 1986 VHS tape for $75. This is what happens when a team plays for nearly half a century and never wins a World Championship.

During the Game. A November 19, 2014 article on The Hockey News' website ranked the NHL teams' fan bases, and listed the Blues' fans 19th, saying, "The Blues keep winning, yet struggle to sell out their home rink. What gives?" This is misleading: They get over 17,000 fans a game, so, while not filling the arena, they do fairly well.

Because of their Great Plains/Heartland image, Blues fans like a "family atmosphere." They don't much like New York, but they won't bother Devils, Rangers or Islanders fans just for being Devils, Rangers or Islanders fans. But I wouldn't go onto the streets of St. Louis or into the Enterprise Center wearing Chicago Blackhawks gear. Barring that, they will not directly antagonize you. At least, they won't initiate it. But don't call them rednecks, hicks, hillbillies or (to borrow a term from British soccer) sheep-shaggers.

This game will not feature a promotion. Charles Glenn is the regular National Anthem singer for the Blues, concluding with, "...and the home... of the... Bluuuues!" There is a "Let's Go Blues" theme song. Their goal song is "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited, and they have a "Power Play Dance." There's an old guy in Section 314 who waves a towel around, and is known only as the Towel Guy.

Louie -- obviously, named for the city of St. Louis -- is the team's current mascot. He was introduced on October 10, 2007, and on November 3, 2007, the fans voted on his name on the Blues website. Louie is a Blue Polar Bear (fitting in with the whole hockey-as-winter-sport idea), and wears a Blues jersey with his name on the back and the Number 00.
For years, the Blues played "When the Saints Go Marching In" as their goal song, played live on the organ, not a recorded version. They got rid of it at the start of the 2014-15 season, and the fans were not happy. So it was restored for the 2018-19 season. And it worked! Although, for reasons I've never understood, they also embraced Laura Branigan's song "Gloria." She wasn't from St. Louis. Nor was its originator: The original lyrics, which tell a different story, were in Italian, written and sung by Umberto Tozzi of Turin.

After the Game. St. Louis has a bit of a crime problem, but since the arena is right downtown, this will probably not affect you. As I said, leave the home fans alone, and they'll probably leave you alone.

Mike Shannon's Steaks and Seafood, owned by the 1960s Cardinal right fielder and longtime broadcaster, is at 620 Market Street at 7th Street, 2 blocks north of Busch Stadium. Joe Buck's, a restaurant owned by the Cardinals and Fox broadcaster, is at 1000 Clark Avenue, halfway between the arena and the ballpark -- but why would you want to go to a restaurant associated with him?

If you want to be around other New Yorkers/New Jerseyans, Bar Louie is the home of the local Giant fans. 14 Maryland Plaza at Euclid Avenue, on the West Side. MetroLink to Central West End, then a short walk. The local Jet fans' hangout is BoBecks, but it's 20 miles south of downtown St. Louis, across the River in Waterloo, Illinois. 1234 Jamie Lane. MetroLink to 5th & Missouri, then switch to 2X bus, then walk a mile south.

If your visit to St. Louis is during the European soccer season, which we are now in, the best place to watch your club is at the Amsterdam Tavern, 3175 Morganford Road, in the Tower Grove South area, about 6 miles southwest of downtown. Bus 30 to Arsenal Street and Morganford Road. (However, don't be fooled by that street name: Fans of London club Arsenal meet at Barrister's, 7923 Forsyth Blvd., about 9 miles west of downtown. MetroLink to Clayton.
Sidelights. St. Louis likes to think of itself as a great sports city, and as "the best baseball town in America." Yeah, right. But check these sites out:

* Site of 1904 World's Fair and St. Louis Arena. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was held at Forest Park in honor of the centennial of the start of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark heading out from St. Louis to explore the Louisiana Purchase.

It is remembered as the birthplace of the hamburger, the hot dog, iced tea, peanut butter, cotton candy and Cracker Jacks. While they may have all been nationally popularized at that place and at that time, all of these claims of origin are dubious at best, except for Cracker Jacks, which are definitely a St. Louis creation. Equally dubious was the 1904 Olympics, which were essentially a sideshow of the World's Fair; it wasn't until London in 1908 that they became an institution in and of themselves.

Very little of the Fair remains. The Administration Building is now Brookings Hall, a major building of Washington University. The Palace of Fine Art is now the St. Louis Art Museum.

The Arena opened in 1929 across Oakland Avenue from Forest Park. At 14,200 seats, it was then one of the largest arenas outside the Northeast Corridor, and in terms of floor space only the recently-built "old" Madison Square Garden was larger. It hosted a Heavyweight Championship fight on August 4, 1941, with Joe Louis beating Tony "Baby Tank" Musto with an 8th round TKO.

It was the home of several minor league hockey teams until the NHL expansion of 1967 brought in the Blues. In 1977, the Arena had been expanded to 17,188 seats, and with Ralston Purina then being majority owners of the Blues, their "Checkerboard Square" logo was plastered everywhere, and the building was renamed the Checkerdome until 1983. The city's 1st NBA team, the St. Louis Bombers, played there from 1946 to 1950.

It hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1973 (Bill Walton hitting 21 of 22 shots for UCLA over Memphis State) and 1978 (Jack Givens' Kentucky defeating Mike Gminski's Duke); and the hockey version, the "Frozen Four," in 1975.

It was the home of the Spirits of St. Louis in the American Basketball Association's last 2 seasons, 1974-75 and 1975-76, before folding with the league, and were not absorbed into the NBA. That team featured Marvin Barnes and future Basketball Hall-of-Famers Maurice Lucas and Moses Malone, all 3 of whom were later named to the ABA All-Time Team. The Spirits were also the 1st major league sports team for whom Bob Costas broadcast.
The Arena was seen as being inadequate for a modern sports team, and the Blues moved out in 1994. It was demolished in 1999, and apartments and a Hampton Inn are on the site today. 5700 Oakland Avenue at Parkview Place. Metrolink to Central West End, then Number 59 bus.

* Busch Stadium. Busch Stadium I (named Sportsman's Park from 1909 to 1952) was well north of downtown. Busch Stadium II (officially named Busch Memorial Stadium) was right downtown, and St. Louis' greatest icon, the Gateway Arch, built right before the stadium was, could be seen over its left-field fence, and the idea was incorporated into the park's design, with an arched roof that gave the stadium a very distinctive look that separated it from the other multipurpose concrete circle/oval stadiums of the 1960s and '70s.

Busch Stadium III has a brick look on the outside that suggests an old factory -- or perhaps a brewery. And the Arch is visible beyond straightaway center field, much more so than it was in the preceding stadium, due to the new one's open outfield.

But there is one other notable structure that can be seen from the park: The Old Courthouse can be seen beyond the left field fence. This was where two of the most infamous court cases in American history began, both later settled unfairly by the U.S. Supreme Court in decisions that were overturned by Constitutional Amendments: Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which a slave sued in 1846 to be declared free after his master took him into a State where slavery had already been abolished; and Minor v. Happersett, in which a woman sued in 1872 to be allowed to vote.

The new Busch Stadium hasn't yet hosted football, but it hosted a soccer game between English clubs Chelsea and Manchester City in the Summer of 2013 (Man City won 4-3), and one between England's Liverpool and Italy's AS Roma in 2016 (Roma won 2-1). In international competition there, Argentina beat Bosnia there 2-0 in 2013, the U.S. women beat New Zealand 4-0 in 2015 and 5-0 in 2019, and the U.S. men beat St. Vincent & the Grenadines 6-1 in 2015 and drew with Uruguay 1-1 in 2019.

It hosted the NHL Winter Classic on January 2, 2017, with the Blues celebrating their 50th Anniversary by beating their arch-rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1. 700 Clark Avenue at 8th Street.

Busch Memorial Stadium was the home of the Cardinals from 1966 to 2005, the NFL Cardinals from 1966 until 1987 when they moved to Arizona, and the Rams for 3 games in 1995 because the new dome wasn't ready, was across Clark Avenue from the new stadium.

While it was never a major venue for football -- unless you count those "Bud Bowl" commercials during Super Bowls, where the arched roof of old Busch was easily recognizable -- there were 6 World Series played there, with the Cardinals winning in 1967 and 1982. But only in 1982 did they clinch there; the Detroit Tigers clinched there in 1968, and the Boston Red Sox did so in 2004, with Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon filmed by the Farrelly Brothers in their improvised rewritten ending to the U.S. version of Fever Pitch, with Major League Baseball giving them permission to film on the field after the game.

Busch Memorial Stadium hosted 7 games by the U.S. national soccer team, and the Stars & Stripes were undefeated, winning 5 and tying 2.

* The Dome at America's Center. Formerly named the Edward Jones Dome, this was home to the NFL's Rams from 1995 to 2015. It had a St. Louis Football Ring of Fame, but most of the honorees are ex-football Cardinals. The only St. Louis Rams honored on it are Marshall Faulk, coach Dick Vermeil, and team owner Georgia Frontiere, who moved the team out of Los Angeles because she hated the black neighborhood around the L.A. Coliseum, Anaheim was a lousy stadium for football, and St. Louis was her hometown.

It also hosted the 2005 NCAA Final Four, with North Carolina beating Illinois in the Final, and has hosted the Big 12 Conference Football Championship Game. The Dome is at 6th Street & Broadway, 9 blocks north of Busch Stadium. Metrolink to Convention Center.

Now, the Rams have moved back to Los Angeles. It appears that State lines (and possibly also holding one's nose) have come back into play: Cardinals and Blues fans living in Eastern Missouri have gone back to the Kansas City Chiefs, and those living in Southern Illinois have gone back to the Chicago Bears. Don't expect the city ever to get another NFL team. I don't think the sport will be missed much, and most of the people who do miss it aren't willing to have their taxes jacked up to pay for a new domed stadium, when the current one isn't even a quarter of a century old yet.

* Site of Sportsman's Park. From 1866 onward, several ballparks stood on this site, including the one used by the Cardinals, then known as the St. Louis Browns, when they won 4 straight Pennants in the old American Association from 1885 to 1888.

Those Browns were owned by Chris von der Ahe, a German immigrant (as were thousands of people in St. Louis at the time), and he was an outsized personality owning a baseball team decades before George Steinbrenner or Gussie Busch were born. "Der boss president of der Browns," as he called himself in his accent, built one of the first amusement parks, adjacent to the ground, and a beer garden which could be called the first sports bar -- though this is disputed by Bostonians stumping for Michael "Nuf Ced" McGreevy's Third Base Saloon, which also opened in the 1880s. But the ballpark burned down in 1898, and von der Ahe was ruined. The new owners moved the team to Robison Field.

The team's name became the Cardinals with a change in uniform color in 1900, and the American League's Browns arrived in 1902, after spending the AL's first season in Milwaukee. The AL Browns set up shop at the existing Sportsman's Park, and built a new one on the site, the last one, in 1909.

The ballpark was home to St. Louis' 1st 2 NFL teams, the All-Stars, who played only the 1923 season; and the Gunners, who played from 1931 to 1940.

Those Browns remained until 1953, when Bill Veeck realized that Gussie Busch's purchase of the Cards meant the Browns simply couldn't compete. The Cards had moved back to the site in 1920 and by 1926 had set the tone: The Browns were the landlords but legendary losers, while the Cardinals were the tenants but wildly successful. Ten World Series were played in that ballpark, from 1926 to 1964, including the all-St. Louis "Trolley Series" of 1944, when the Browns led the Cards 2 games to 1 but the Cards won the next 3 straight to take it, ruining the Browns' best (and perhaps last) chance to take the city away.

Gussie knew that his Cards -- and the NFL's Cardinals, who played there after moving from Chicago in 1960 -- couldn't stay in a 30,804-seat bandbox tucked away on the North Side with no parking and no freeway access, so he got the city to build him the downtown stadium. Sportsman's Park, the first Busch Stadium, the home of George Sisler, the Gashouse Gang and Stan the Man, was demolished shortly after the Cards left in 1966. The Herbert Hoover Boys Club is now on the site, and, unlike most long-gone ballpark sites, there is a baseball field there.

Oddly, the two teams had different addresses for their offices: The Cards at 3623 Dodier Street, the Browns at 2911 North Grand Blvd. Metrolink to Grand station, transfer to Number 70 bus. Definitely to be visited only in daylight.

* Site of Robison Field. Home of the Cardinals from 1898 to 1920, it was the last mostly-wooden ballpark in the major leagues. Moving out was the best thing the Cards could have done, as -- hard to believe, considering what happened to them over the next quarter-century -- they were the town's joke club, while the Browns were the more-regarded team. It was torn down in 1926 to make way for Beaumont High School, which still stands on the site.

3836 Natural Bridge Avenue, at Vandeventer Avenue. Six blocks north and two blocks west of the site of Sportsman's Park. Again: Do not visit at night.

* Chaifetz Arena. The aforementioned home of Saint Louis University basketball is at 1 S. Compton Avenue, at the southwest corner of Laclede Avenue. Across from it, at the southeast corner, was Stars Park, home of the Negro Leagues' St. Louis Stars, Pennant winners in 1928, 1930 and 1931 -- just like their white counterparts.

SLU's teams are called the Billikens. Along with another Catholic school known for basketball but not football, Washington, D.C.'s, Georgetown Hoyas, this is one of the odder nicknames in college sports. In 1911, a local sportswriter said that the school's football coach at the time, John R. Bender, resembled a "Billiken," a charm doll popular at the time, resembling a Buddha with pointed ears. His team became known as Bender's Billikens, and the name stuck. Bender's predecessor as SLU football coach, Eddie Cochems, was the 1st coach to legally utilize the forward pass, in 1906. MetroLink to Grand.

* World Wide Technology Soccer Park. This 5,500-seat facility opened in 1982 as St. Louis Soccer Park, and hosted 2 games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 1989. Since 2015, it has been home to Saint Louis FC of the United Soccer League Championship.

1 Soccer Park Road, on the bank of the Meramec River in Fenton, Missouri, 16 miles southwest of downtown St. Louis. Not reachable by public transit.

St. Louis once had a very distinguished soccer history, but it has pretty much been forgotten. Of the 11 players on the U.S. team that shocked England at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, 5 were from St. Louis.

Goalkeeper Frank Borghi, centre-half Charlie Colombo, inside right Gino Pariani and outside right Frank Wallace played for St. Louis Simpkins-Ford. Reserve defender Bob Annis also played for that team and was selected for the World Cup, but did not play in the tournament.

Right back Harry Keough played for St. Louis McMahon. Unlike Simpkins-Ford, this team still exists, but only as a youth program called St. Louis Kutis Soccer Club, proudly calling itself "the oldest soccer club in the United States" and the "proud holder of 13 National Championships." Their home is at Rockwood Summit High School, also in Fenton, at 1780 Hawkins Road, 21 miles south of downtown St. Louis.

St. Louis has been granted a Major League Soccer expansion franchise that will begin play in the 2022 season, and will be the league's 1st team with female majority ownership (several women, not just one). The 22,500-seat stadium will be adjacent to the Union Station complex, at the southwest corner of 20th and Pine Streets. No name has yet been selected for either the team or the stadium, nor has a playing site in the event that the stadium is not ready. (It's a little over 2 years from now.)

Until this team begins play, the nearest MLS teams will be Sporting Kansas City, 263 miles to the west; and the Chicago Fire, 296 miles to the northeast. Chicago and Kansas City, along with Indianapolis, 242 miles to the northeast, are also home to the nearest NFL teams since the move of the Rams back to Los Angeles. Chicago, Indianapolis, and Memphis, 284 miles to the south, are home to the nearest NBA teams.

In spite of the St. Louis-Chicago rivalry, the Bulls' 1990s success makes them the most popular NBA team in St. Louis. In spite of the St. Louis-Kansas City rivalry, the Chiefs' success, including their new Super Bowl win (some Missourians are printing up "State of Champions" paraphernalia with the Chiefs' and Blues' logos), makes them the most popular NFL team in St. Louis.    

* St. Louis Walk of Fame. Honoring famous people from the St. Louis area, including from across the river in southern Illinois, these plaques run from 6150 to 6699 Delmar Blvd. Metrolink to Delmar station.

Of the 155 current honorees, 30 are connected to sports: Cardinals figures Branch Rickey, Rogers Hornsby, Dizzy Dean, Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, Bob Gibson, Tim McCarver, Curt Flood, Lou Brock, Whitey Herzog, Ozzie Smith, Haray Caray, Joe Garagiola and Jack Buck; the Browns' George Sisler; the Negro Leagues' James "Cool Papa" Bell; St. Louis native and New York baseball legend Yogi Berra; football Cardinals Dan Dierdorf and Jackie Smith (as yet, no Rams); Hawks Bob Pettit and Ed Macauley (as yet, no Blues); boxers Henry Armstrong and Archie Moore; tennis stars Dwight Davis and Jimmy Connors; track legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee; bowler Dick Weber; multi-sport broadcaster Bob Costas; and, if you count golf, Hale Irwin and Judy Rankin.

Gerald Early, a Philadelphia native who has been inducted into the walk for his writing and his teaching at St. Louis' Washington University, has written about baseball, and was interviewed in Ken Burns' 1994 Baseball miniseries.

At 6504 Delmar is Blueberry Hill, the rock-and-roll-themed restaurant where St. Louis' own Chuck Berry, 89 years young, still plays about once a month. He, of course, has a plaque on the Walk of Fame, as does his pianist Johnnie Johnson.

They are 2 of the 15 musical personalities on the Walk, including both Ike and Tina Turner, ragtime inventor Scott Joplin, jazz superstars Josephine Baker and Miles Davis, and opera singer Robert McFerrin, father of "Don't Worry Be Happy" singer Bobby McFerrin.

Elvis also sang at the Missouri Theater on October 21, 22 and 23, 1955, at the intersection of N. Grand Blvd. and Lucas Avenue, a block away from he Fox Theatre. Parking is on the site now.


* Gateway Arch.  Built on the traditional founding site of the city, on the Mississippi River, on February 14, 1764, the Arch, 630 feet high with its legs 630 feet apart at ground level, represents an old city. But it is, surprisingly, not an especially old landmark, opening to the public in 1967.

An underground visitors' center leads to a tram that takes you to the top, which is higher than any actual building in town, and serves as St. Louis'"observation deck." Like the Empire State Building, it has lights cast on it at night in honor of various occasions. Admission is $10. 200 Washington Avenue at Market Street, access via Walnut Street.

The Arch is treated as the tallest "building" in the State of Missouri, but the tallest real building in town is One Metropolitan Square, built at Broadway & Olive Street in 1989: 593 feet tall. Ordinary, by New York's standards.

* Brewery. The world's second-largest brewery is the Anheuser-Busch plant on U.S. Routes 1 & 9, across from Newark Liberty International Airport. The largest is A-B's corporate headquarters, south of downtown. Public tours of the brewery are available. 1 Busch Place, Broadway and Arsenal Street. Number 30 or 73 bus.

* Museum of Transportation. A rail spur of the old Missouri Pacific Railroad (or "Mopac," later absorbed by the Union Pacific) enabled this museum to open in 1944. It houses trains, cars, boats, and even planes. From a New York Tri-State Area perspective it has one of the last 2 surviving New York Central steam locomotives, one of the last 2 surviving Delaware, Lackawanna & Western steam locomotives, an Erie Lackawanna diesel locomotive, and the 1960 DiDia 150, a.k.a. the "Dream Car" made famous by New York singing legend Bobby Darin.

3015 Barrett Station Road in Keyes Summit (though St. Louis is still the mailing address), west of downtown. Bus 58X to Big Bend & Barrett Station Roads, then a 15-minute walk north on Barrett Station.

* Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. The closest the St. Louis area comes to having a Presidential Library, this park was built on land owned by the family of Julia Dent, the wife of the Union General and 18th President who is on the $50 bill.

7400 Grant Road, Grantwood Village, St. Louis County, southwest of downtown. It's tough to reach by public transportation: You'd have to take Metrolink to Shrewsbury station, transfer to the Number 21 bus, ride it to Walton and Grant Roads, and walk a little over a mile down Grant Road.


Not many TV shows have been set in St. Louis. The current NBC sitcom Superstore is set there. Also set in St. Louis have been Grace Under Fire, The John Larroquette Show, Making the Grade and On Our Own. Lucas Tanner was set in the suburb of Webster Groves.

Defiance, a postapocalyptic show that ran on Syfy from 2013 to 2015, used a damaged Arch as a landmark, but was filmed in Toronto. So if you're looking for locations in the city that have been on TV, guess what, the Arch itself and Busch Stadium are your best bets.

Since M*A*S*H commanding officer Colonel Sherman Potter, played by Harry Morgan, was from Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, 117 miles upriver from St. Louis, the failed spinoff AfterMASH was set at a veterans' hospital in St. Louis, but that was set in the mid-1950s, before the Arch went up.

The best-known movie set in the city is Meet Me In St. Louis, based around the 1904 Exposition, starring Judy Garland and directed by Vincente Minnelli, who married each other shortly thereafter. Tennessee Williams was from St. Louis, so he set his play The Glass Menagerie there, and it's been filmed twice, in 1950 and 1966.

The baseball-themed 1949 film It Happens Every Spring takes place in St. Louis, but was filmed at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, and uses footage from the 1945 World Series, which was played at Wrigley Field in Chicago (the Los Angeles Angels were then a Cubs farm team) and Briggs Stadium in Detroit (later renamed Tiger Stadium).

The year 1952 saw 2 films about Cardinal pitchers: The Pride of St. Louis, with Dan Dailey as a then-still-living-and-broadcasting Dizzy Dean; and The Winning Team, with Ronald Reagan as the recently-deceased Grover Cleveland Alexander. Both were shot in Los Angeles, and the Alexander film ends with him striking Tony Lazzeri out to win the 1926 World Series over the Yankees, when there were actually 2 more innings to go.

And, just as, in the days before The Natural, sports-themed movies rarely got actors who looked like they could play their sports, athletes have always been turned into actors, even when they shouldn't have been. In 1997, Shaquille O'Neal starred in Steel, another one set in St. Louis but filmed in L.A. He plays a scientific genius who makes his own armor and weapons and becomes a superhero. It was based on a DC Comics hero created in the wake of the temporary "Death of Superman" in 1992-93, but that hero's adventures were set in fictional Metropolis. As with the Halle Berry version of Catwoman, when you take a comic book character away from the source material, it doesn't work. It was still better than Shaq's turn as a genie in Kazaam.

*

St. Louis has a history out of proportion to its size, and Cardinal fans like to think of their town as the best baseball town in America. You are under no obligation to agree, but it is one of the best baseball cities, and every fan who can get out there should.

The world of sports has lost a hero. And if you're from the American side of the Atlantic Ocean, you might have never heard of him.

Harry Gregg (no middle name) was born on October 27, 1932 in Magherafelt, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The author Sylvia Plath was born on the same day, but took her own life in 1963, before becoming world-famous.

Gregg signed with Belfast-based Linfield, Northern Ireland's most successful soccer team, as a junior goalkeeper, before being sent to Coleraine, in County Londonderry. In 1951, he went to England when Yorkshire team Doncaster Rovers purchased his contract. He remained with them until December 1957, when Manchester United spent what was then a record fee for a goalkeeper, £23,500.

Managed by Matt Busby, United were the top team in Britain at the time, having won the Football League in 1956 and 1957, and reached the 1957 FA Cup Final. Because of their youth, they were known as the Busby Babes. In the 1957-58 season, they reached the Quarterfinal of the European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League. The tournament had started in 1955-56, and United were the 1st team in Britain to have gotten that far.

On February 6, 1958, returning from their Quarterfinal advancement over Yugoslavia (now Serbia) club Red Star Belgrade, they refueled in Munich, West Germany, and tried to take off in the snowfall, and failed.

The plane crashed, and although 21 people survived, 23 others were killed, including United players Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan, and perhaps the brightest light of them all, 21-year-old midfielder Duncan Edwards, who survived 15 days before succumbing to his injuries.

Two others, Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower (brother of Tottenham Hotspur captain Danny) were injured so badly that they never played again. Busby was also badly hurt, and did not return to manage the team until the start of the next season. (His assistant manager, Jimmy Murphy, took over. He wasn't on the trip because he was away, managing the national team of Wales.)

Gregg and United right back Bill Foulkes were among those who escaped unharmed, but once they saw that the plane was not going to explode, they ran back to see if they could get anybody still alive out. They both managed to save some people. Gregg pulled teammates Busby, and teammates Blanchflower, Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet, from the wreckage, probably saving their lives.

Also among those saved by Gregg was Vera Lukić, the wife of a Yugoslav diplomat, and her young daughter. Years later, meeting her again, she told him that she had been pregnant at the time, and thus Gregg had also saved her son. (An urban legend said that this boy grew up to be John Lukic, goalkeeper of Arsenal's 1989 League Champions, but it wasn't: He wasn't born until 1960, and had no connection to that family.)

The team resumed their season, but the replacement players they found were not ready for top-flight football. United fell from 1st place, finishing 9th, and lost to AC Milan in the Semifinal of the European Cup, although they did win their home leg at Old Trafford. They also reached the Final of the FA Cup again, losing to Bolton Wanderers, another club from Greater Manchester. (This Final resulted in the great Bolton striker Nat Lofthouse winning his only major trophy.)

Gregg recovered in time to play for Northern Ireland in what remains their only World Cup, the 1958 edition in Sweden. Their qualification campaign included a 3-2 in over England at Wembley Stadium in London the previous November.

In the Group Stage, despite the unavailability of Jackie Blanchflower, they beat Czechoslovakia (no mean feat, because they reached the Final 4 years later), lost to Argentina, and took 1-0 and 2-1 leads over defending Champions West Germany before finishing with a 2-2 draw.

They played a Playoff against Czechoslovakia, and won 2-1 in extra time, with Peter McParland, who scored the winner of the 1957 FA Cup Final for Aston Villa, scoring both goals. This qualified them for the Quarterfinals, but 2 goals by Just Fontaine helped France win 4-0, ending the dream. Still, Gregg was voted the best goalkeeper of the tournament.

This was the only time that all 4 of Britain's "Home Nations" made the World Cup. Wales reached the Quarterfinals, but lost 1-0 to eventual winners Brazil. England, with the Busby Babes unavailable, drew all 3 Group Stage games, and were out. Scotland drew 1 and lost 2, and were out.

United made more changes in the aftermath of Munich, including moving Foulkes from right back to centreback -- under the system in place at the time, with uniform numbers given to specific positions rather than to individual players, moving from Number 2 to Number 5. Busby rebuilt the team.

In 1963, they nearly got relegated, but managed to win the FA Cup, beating Leicester City with a team that now included Munich survivor Bobby Charlton and Scottish star Denis Law as forwards, and future Leeds United star Johnny Giles on the right wing. However, Gregg had a shoulder injury, and so David Gaskell was United's Number 1 on the day.

With the addition of George Best, the hard-charging, hard-living winger from Northern Ireland, United won the League in 1965 and 1967, and in 1968 became the 1st English team to win the European Cup, beating the great Eusebio-led Lisbon, Portugal club Benfica at the original Wembley Stadium in London.

But Gregg continued to deal with injuries, and did not make enough appearances in the 1964-65 season to earn a League winner's medal. In 1966, he was sold to Staffordshire team Stoke City, made 2 appearances in the 1966-67 season, 1 of them a clean sheet (we would call it a "shutout") against Lancashire team Blackpool, and retired.

In 1968, he was appointed the manager of Shropshire team Shrewsbury town. In 1972, he moved on to Swansea City in Wales. In 1975, he became manager of Crewe Alexandra in Cheshire, lasting until 1978. Dave Sexton, then managing Manchester United, brought him back to Old Trafford as goalkeeping coach, and they reached the 1979 FA Cup Final, but he still couldn't win a trophy with them, as they lost a thriller to Norton London team Arsenal.

He and Sexton both left United in 1981. Another former United player, Lou Macari, took him on as an assistant at Wiltshire team Swindon Town. However, he and Macari did not get along, and both were fired in 1985. In 1986, Gregg became manager of Carlisle United in Cumbria, but they were relegated from the 3rd to the 4th division in 1987, and he never managed again.

Hhe married Mavis Markham in 1957, and they had 2 daughters, Linda and Karen before Mavis died of cancer in 1961. In 1965, he married Carolyn Maunders, and they had 4 children: Daughters Julie, Jane and Suzanne, and son John-Henry. Unfortunately, cancer can be hereditary, and Karen would died from it in 2009.

After the end of his managing career, he returned to Coleraine, and for a time owned the Windsor Hotel in nearby coastal Portstewart. In 1995, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

He was played by Ben Peel in United, a 2011 feature film about the team and the Munich Air Disaster. In 2012, a testimonial was held for him at Old Trafford, with the current United team playing an Irish League Select XI (representing Northern Ireland's league). United won, 4-1.

Next Tuesday night, the New Jersey Devils will play the Detroit Red Wings. Since 1995, the Wings have won 4 Stanley Cups, the Devils 3. The Chicago Blackhawks also have 4. The Pittsburgh Penguins have 3. The Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings each have 2. All the other teams have 1 or none -- including the big squadoosh carried since 1994 by the New York Rangers.

Detroit calls itself "Hockeytown." Maybe in America -- and, being right across the river from Canada, they do get a lot of Canadians coming through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and over the Ambassador Bridge -- but Montreal and Toronto probably think of the term as a joke.

By American standards, no other city comes close. Not New York. Not Boston. Not Chicago. Not the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Before You Go. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press (or "Freep") websites should be consulted before you decide whether to go. While the game will be indoors, you will be spending some time outdoors.

A January 30, 2019 article in Thrillist said that Michigan was 2nd only to Minnesota in how bad Winter was -- noting that people in Alaska, which came in 3rd, were "different" and could handle what is obviously worse in terms of statistics: "Winter in Michigan begins well before Thanksgiving and stretches far past Easter, which makes for four-to-six wearisome months of always-gray, always-cold, always-drizzly, but-rarely-snowy-in-a-good-way misery.

On Tuesday afternoon, it's forecast to be in the low 40s, while at night, it should be in the low 20s. They're not predicting rain or snow, but you should still bundle up. They're also predicting rain all day. Most likely, you'll be staying overnight if you go, so let me add that Wednesday is predicted to be even colder.

I should also note that Detroit is a border city. The Detroit River, connecting Lakes Huron and Erie, is one of the few places where you can cross from north to south and go from America to Canada. Windsor, Ontario -- the closest thing to a "South Detroit," making that line in the Journey song "Don't Stop Believin'" problematic -- is considerably safer, and, like Detroit itself, has a gambling casino.

If you want to visit, you'll need to bring your passport. You can use either the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel or the Ambassador Bridge. And the exchange rate, for the moment, is as follows: US$1.00 = C$1.32 and C$1.00 = US 76 cents.

Tickets. In spite of Detroit's reputation for crime and poverty, and the team's current reputation for ineptitude, the Red Wings routinely sold the Joe Louis Arena out. The novelty of the new arena has maintained that: They're averaging 18,854 fans per game this season, about 97 percent of capacity. Getting tickets will be difficult, and you may have to go to a ticket exchange.

The Wings can afford to have tickets that are not nearly as expensive as some other big clubs charge. Seats in the lower level, the 100 sections, are $155 between the goals and $129 behind them. In the upper level, the 200 sections, seats go for $89 between the goals and $69 behind them.

Getting There. Detroit is 616 land miles from New York, and it's 604 miles from the Prudential Center in Newark to the Little Caesars Arena. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.

Except... Wayne County Metropolitan Airport is 22 miles southwest of downtown. A taxi to downtown will set you back a bundle. There is a bus, SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) bus Number 125, that goes directly from the airport to downtown, but it will take an hour and 20 minutes.

Also, do you remember the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza had a girlfriend, played by a pre-Will & Grace Megan Mullaly (using her real voice, you'd never recognize her as W&G's Karen), and he had to accompany her to a funeral in her hometown of Detroit? "It's kind of an expensive flight," George said.

This was not just George being his usual cheap self: At the time, almost 30 years ago (wow, it's been that long), it was expensive, more expensive from New York to Detroit than it was to the further-away Chicago. Well, this weekend, it's very expensive. You'll be lucky to get a round-trip nonstop flight for under $1,000.

But if you're afraid to fly, then the news gets bad: There is no good way to get to Detroit, and that's got nothing to do with the city's reputation. Forget the train. The only Amtrak route in and out of Detroit is to and from Chicago, which in the opposite direction.

To make matters worse, you'll have to go to New York's Penn Station instead of Newark's. The most direct route is the Lake Shore Limited, formerly known as the Twentieth Century Limited when the old New York Central Railroad ran it from Grand Central Terminal to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station. It leaves New York's Penn Station at 3:40 every afternoon, and arrives at Union Terminal in Toledo at 5:55 every morning. From there, you have to wait until 6:30 to get on a bus to Detroit's Amtrak station, arriving at 7:35.

The station is at 11 W. Baltimore Avenue, at Woodward Avenue, 2 1/2 miles north of Comerica, so walking there is not a good option; the number 16 or 53 bus would take you down Woodward.

In reverse, the bus leaves Detroit at 9:30 PM, arrives in Toledo at 10:35, and then you have to hang around there until the Lake Shore Limited comes back at 3:15 AM, arriving back in New York at 6:23 PM. Total cost: $206. A lot cheaper than flying, but a tremendous inflammation in the posterior.

How about Greyhound? Yeah, ride a bus for 14 hours to Detroit, there's a great idea. (Rolleyes.) Actually, having done it, I can tell you that it's not that bad. Two Greyhound buses leave Port Authority every day with connections to Detroit. One is at 5:15 PM, and arrives at 7:20 AM, with a 1 hour and 35 minute stopover in Cleveland in the middle of the night (but you won't have to change buses, in case you want to stay on the bus and sleep). The other leaves Port Authority at 10:15 PM, and you will have to change buses in Cleveland, arriving 6:50 AM and leaving 7:50, arriving at 11:25 AM. Despite having to change buses, this one is actually faster, taking 13 hours and 10 minutes, as opposed to the single through bus ride, taking 14 hours and 5 minutes.

Compared to most of Detroit, the bus terminal, at 1001 Howard Street, is relatively new and quite clean. It was just about within walking distance of Tiger Stadium, which really helped me in 1999. It's also not a long walk to Ford Field, but I wouldn't recommend this. Better to take a cab, especially if you're getting a hotel. Round-trip fare: $127 if you make an advanced purchase, $206 if you're buying at Port Authority. So Greyhound is also far cheaper than flying, possibly cheaper (and definitely not much more expensive) than Amtrak, and less of a pain than Amtrak.

If you decide to drive, the directions are rather simple, down to (literally) the last mile. You'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. I point this out merely to help you avoid confusion, not because I-90 will become important -- though it is for "How to Be a Yankee Fan in Chicago" and some other cities.

In Ohio, you'll take I-80's Exit 64, and get onto Interstate 75 North, known as the Fisher Freeway in Detroit. This will take you into Michigan. Take Exit 50 onto Fisher Service Drive, turn left on Cass Avenue, and then turn right on Sproat Street. The Arena will be on your right.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 3 hours in Ohio and an hour in Michigan. That's 10 hours and 15 minutes. Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and in the Cleveland suburbs, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Detroit, it should be about 12 hours.

I strongly recommend finding a hotel with a good, secure parking garage, even if you're only staying for 1 game.

Once In the City. The city, and its river, were founded in 1701 as Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit du Lac Erie (Day-TWAH, strait of Lake Erie), by Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, for whom the downtown Cadillac Square and the brand of car was named.

Detroit's centerpoint, in culture and in terms of address numbers, is the Woodward Fountain, where Woodward, Michigan and Gratiot Avenues come together, with Cadillac Square just off to the east. Woodward is the East-West divider.

Since the July 1967 race riot, Detroit has become known as a city of poverty, crime, decay, and poor city services, the kind of place where even Batman would fear to tread. The legendary comedian Red Skelton once said, "In Detroit, you can go 10 miles and never leave the scene of the crime." It's no wonder the RoboCop film series was set there.

There was a Nike commercial a few years back, in which young basketball players were seated, yoga-style, in front of a TV screen, on which their "master," a fat black man with a turban and sunglasses who looked nothing like an athlete, was dispensing wisdom. At the end, after the Swoosh logo was shown, the camera went back to one of the students, who asked, "But, Master, what if we behave badly?" And the Master lowered his shades, looked over them, and said, "You go to Detroit."

This was in the early 1990s, when the Pistons had begun to fall from their 1989-90 "Bad Boys" championship teams, and going to Detroit was not a good option in any sport -- indeed, the only Detroit team doing well at the time was, strangely, the Lions, who were then a perennial Playoff team thanks largely to Barry Sanders.

I once saw a T-shirt that read, "I'm so bad, I vacation in Detroit." I have. I'm not saying I'm "bad," or a "hard man," just that I went. I wanted to see a game at Tiger Stadium before it closed, and I did. Newark had a race riot 2 weeks before Detroit's. In May 1999, I saw Detroit, and I realized just how far back Newark had come, by seeing how far Detroit had not.

In the 1950 Census, Detroit was the 4th-largest city in America, after New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, with over 2 million people just within the city limits. "White flight" after the '67 riot has led to the Detroit metropolitan area having roughly the same number of people it had then, about 5.6 million, but within the city limits the number has dropped from over 2 million to just 672,000. The suburbs are beautiful, but the city itself is a hole, and good men (and a few bad ones) have busted their humps trying to get it back on its feet.

One of the good men who tried was Mike Ilitch, probably the most famous American of Macedonian descent, who ran Little Caesar's Pizza, and ownedthe Tigers and Red Wings. He rebuilt the city's historic Fox Theater, put Little Caesar's headquarters in the building above it, and had Comerica Park built across the street. He died earlier this year, before the new arena could be completed.

Many others, including Pistons Hall-of-Famer turned major area businessman Dave Bing, who served a term as Mayor, are trying, they really are. But Governor Rick Snyder, a Tea Party Republican, has ordered a State takeover of Detroit's finances. Apparently, he didn't learn the lesson of Hugh Carey, New York's Governor in 1975, who found another way to get New York City's finances back on their feet. In Detroit's case, as in every other place in which it's tried, austerity hasn't worked.

As for you, the potential visitor, the fear of crime should not keep you away. As with Yankee Stadium during the depth of New York's crime wave from the late 1970s to the early '90s, the arena is probably the safest, best-protected place in town.

As recently as 1950, the city was 83 percent white, 16 percent black. By the time of the 1967 riot, it was about half and half. Now, it's 82 percent black, 8 percent white, 7 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Asian.

Wayne County, which includes, but is not limited to, the City of Detroit? 52 percent white, 40 percent black, 5 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian. Oakland County? 77 percent white, 13 percent black, 6 percent Asian, 4 percent Hispanic. If there's another city in America that's that segregated, I'm not aware of it.

Detroit is a weird city in some ways. It often seems like a cross between a past that was once glorious but now impossible to reach, and a future that never quite happened. (That observation was once made about the remaining structures from New York's 1964-65 World's Fair and the Astrodome in Houston.) Art Deco structures of the 1920s and '30s, such as the Penobscot Building (the tallest building outside New York and Chicago when it opened in 1928, the tallest in Michigan until 1977) stand alongside abandoned, boarded-up or chained-up stores.

But alongside or across from them, there are glassy, modern structures such as the Renaissance Center, shown in the photo above: A 5-tower complex that includes, at its center, the 750-foot tallest building in Michigan (the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere), and, in one of its 4 outer towers, the headquarters of General Motors (although the RenCen was originally financed by Ford).

Downtown also has the Detroit People Mover, a monorail system that is part of the suggestion of Detroit trying to get from 1928 to 2028 while jumping over the difficult years in between. Like the Washington and Montreal Metro (subway) systems, the company running it prides itself on the artwork in its stations. It has a stop called Times Square, but it won't look anything like the one in New York. It has a stop called Bricktown, but it won't look anything like Brick Township, the sprawling Jersey Shore suburb off Exits 88 to 91 on the Garden State Parkway. The Grand Circus Park and Broadway Street stations are both 3 blocks from Comerica Park.
It's cheap, only 75 cents, and it still uses tokens, although it also accepts cash. Be advised, though, that it stops running at midnight, except on Fridays and Saturdays, when it runs until 2:00 AM. Bus fare is $1.50.

ZIP Codes in the Detroit area start with the digits 480, 481, 482 and 483, and the Area Code is 313, with 248 (overlaid by 947), 586 and 734 serving the suburbs. Detroit has no "beltway." The sales tax in the State of Michigan is 6 percent, and does not go up in either the County of Wayne or the City of Detroit. As with New York, Chicago and a few other cities, the electricity in Detroit is run by a company with the name of the inventor of the electricity industry (if not the light bulb): Detroit Edison Company.

Going In. The official address of the new Little Caesars Arena is 2645 Woodward Avenue, at Henry Street, across Interstate 75 from Comerica Park and Ford Field, and about a mile north of downtown. The arena, originally known as the Detroit Events Center, was, surprising no one, renamed for Mike Ilitch's pizza company.

Take Bus 053. If you drive in, parking is $24. This is more than for a Devils home game, but it's a lot better than parking at Tiger Stadium, which usually had people boxed in, resulting in tremendous traffic jams both before and after the game (and, every bit as much as the crime and the condition of the stadium, was why the Lions wanted to get out and built the Silverdome). It also involved local kids being willing to "Watch your car, Mister?" for a small fee. Translation: "If you pay me $5.00, I'll make sure nobody damages your car. If you don't pay me, I'll make sure somebody, namely myself, does."
Seating 19,515 for hockey and 20,491 for basketball -- slightly less than Joe Louis Arena -- it is 1 of 11 arenas currently hosting an NHL team and an NBA team. The Pistons' arrival means that not only are all 4 Detroit-area teams be playing in the city for the 1st time since 1974, but that both of the teams that moved out to the suburbs have moved back: The Lions after 27 seasons, 1975 to 2001; and the Pistons after 39 seasons, 1978 to 2017. So "Dee-troit bas-ket-ball" is again being played in
Detroit, not just sort-of near it.
The rink is laid out east-to-west. The Wings attack twice toward the east goal. "The Baddest Bowl" is also, even more so that Boston's TD Garden with its Beanpot Tournament, the capital of American college hockey. Like its predecessors the Olympia from 1965 to 1978, and the Joe Louis Arena from 1979 to 2016, in the week between Christmas and New Year's, it hosts the Great Lakes Invitational, with the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Upper Peninsula-based Michigan Tech participating every season.

The 4-team selection has been rounded out by nearby schools such as Western Michigan, Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State; Midwestern powers like Wisconsin and North Dakota (but never, as yet, Minnesota); and even New Jersey's Princeton. Michigan, the defending champion, has won it 17 times, Michigan State 12, and Michigan Tech 10. Last year's was won by 4th invitee Bowling Green State of Ohio.

Little Caesars Arena also alternates hosting the Big Ten hockey tournament with the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, home of the Minnesota Wild, and hosted 2018 NCAA Tournament basketball games.

The 1st event was on September 12, 2017, a concert, by a Detroit area native. Unfortunately, it was by millionaire kid turned Trumpian U.S. Senate candidate Robert Ritchie, a.k.a. slob rocker Kid Rock. Paul McCartney, The Eagles (without the late Michigan native Glenn Frey), Janet Jackson, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, New Jersey native Halsey, Katy Perry, Shakira, Pink, Demi Lovato, Shania Twain, former One Direction singer Harry Styles, Radiohead, Drake, Bruno Mars and Elton John have given concerts there.

Food. When I visited Tiger Stadium in its final season, 1999, it had great food, including the very best ballpark hot dog I've ever had. Since they were owned by Little Caesars mogul Ilitch, and before that were owned by Domino's Pizza boss Tom Monaghan, food was, and remains, taken very seriously by the club. This is, after all, Big Ten Country, where college football tailgate parties are practically a sacrament. One would hope that the same would be true of the Red Wings.

They are. As you would expect, there are Little Caesars stands, but there's also Mike's Pizza Bar, named for Ilitch. There's also Bell's Brewery, the Dearborn Sasuage Haus, the Via Sports Bar, and the 313 Grill Co. (named for Detroit's Area Code).

What is "Detroit style pizza"? It's rectangular, with toppings such as pepperoni and mushrooms, and is differentiated from the styles of New York and Chicago with a thick, crispy bottom crust. There's also "Coneys," Detroit's variation on hot dogs, topped with chili, cheese and onions. These are also popular in Cincinnati, but not at Coney Island.

Team History Displays. The Red Wings display more banners than any other NHL team. Their Stanley Cup banners are at the Arena's east end, the other championship banners in the middle, and the retired number banners at the west end.

While the Montreal Canadiens (24) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (13) only display their Stanley Cup banners, the Wings also display Conference and Divisional Championships and President's Trophy wins:

Stanley Cup, 11: 1936, 1937, 1943, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008.

Campbell/Western Conference, 6: 1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008 and 2009. (Their Finals appearances prior to the Cup's semifinal round being renamed the Conference Finals in 1982 aren't counted as such, and they have not yet won their Conference since being moved to the Eastern.)

Division, 19 (either finishing 1st overall in the NHL regular season or 1st in the Divisional Play era), 19: 1934, 1936, 1937, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011.

President's Trophy (for best record in the NHL regular season), 6: 1995, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.

Officially, the Wings have retired 7 uniform numbers. From their 1950s Cups, they retired the Number 1 of goaltender Terry Sawchuk, the Number 4 of defenseman Red Kelly, and the numbers of all 3 members of "The Production Line": Right wing Gordie Howe, 9 (who, as I said, has a statue outside the west entrance); left wing Ted Lindsay, 7; and center Sid Abel, 12. When Abel retired in 1952, their main center became Alex Delvecchio, and this new member of the Production Line eventually had his Number 10 retired.

From their 1990s-2000s Cups, they've retired the Number 19 of center Steve Yzerman and the Number 5 of defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom. These banners are red with white lettering. Yzerman's Number 19 banner has a Captain's C on it.
Not officially retired is the Number 6 of 1930s right wing Larry Aurie, which was said to have been retired when he hung up his skates in 1939. The current argument is that it's because he's not in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Well, then explain why Number 2, worn by 1940s defenseman Jack Stewart and 1990s defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov, hasn't been retired. Or Number 3, worn by 1950s defenseman Marcel Pronovost (a former Devils scout). Or Number 8, worn by 1930s center Syd Howe (no relation to Gordie). Or Number 14, for our old pal Brendan Shanahan.

Also not officially retired is the Number 16 of Vladimir Konstantinov, who was paralyzed in a car crash in the aftermath of the 1997 Stanley Cup win. Neither 6 (with 1 exception, for Aurie's cousin Cumming "Cummy" Burton) or 16 has ever been given out to another Wings player.

As I said, the west entrance is named for Gordie Howe, and has a statue of him inside. A new cable-stay bridge over the Detroit River, connecting Detroit and Windsor, is under construction, probably opening in 2024. It has been named the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Red Wings in the Hockey Hall of Fame include:

* From the team's early days: George Hay and Reg Noble. Frank Foyston, Frank Frederickson, Hap Holmes, Duke Keats and Jack Walker, stars in the defunct Pacific Coast Hockey Association, were original Detroit Cougars from 1926 to 1928. Early goaltending star Alex Connell played 1 season in Detroit.

* From the 1936 and 1937 Stanley Cup winners: Owners James E. and James D. Norris, head coach and general manager Jack Adams, Herbie Lewis, Ebbie Goodfellow, Syd Howe and Marty Barry. Sort-of retired number honoree Larry Aurie has not been elected. Future Boston Bruin star Cooney Weiland was with the Wings for the 2 seasons right before this. Carl Voss, also a star in Canadian football, played for the Wings at that time. Former Maple Leaf Charlie Conacher was on the Wings in 1938-39. So was former Bruin goalie Clarence "Tiny" Thompson.

* From the 1943 Stanley Cup winners: Both James Norrises, Adams, Goodfellow, Syd Howe, Jack Stewart, Sid Abel, Harry Watson and Bill Quackenbush. Former Ranger and Blackhawk star Earl Seibert was with the Wings in 1945 and 1946. Charlie's brother Roy Conacher, also a Hall-of-Famer, was on the 1946-47 Wings. Bud Poile, later elected to the Hall as a Builder, was on the Wings' 1949 Cup Finalists.

* From the 1950 Stanley Cup winners: Both James Norrises, Adams (now just GM), head coach Tommy Ivan, Stewart, Abel, Harry Lumley, Ted Lindsay, Gordie Howe, Red Kelly and Terry Sawchuk.

* From the 1952, 1954 and 1955 Stanley Cup winners: Both James Norrises, Adams, Ivan, Abel, Lindsay, Howe, Kelly, Sawchuk, Delvecchio, Glenn Hall and Marcel Pronovost. Jimmy Skinner, who coached the '55 win, is not in the Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame Islanders coach Al Arbour played on the '54 win, but not '55, then returned for another couple of years. Future Bruin Cup-winning Captain was with the Wings on their '56 Finalists, but not earlier. Brian Kilrea, in the Hall for his work at the junior hockey level, played 1 game for the Wings in 1958.

* From the 1961, 1963, 1964 and 1966 Stanley Cup Finalists: James D. and Bruce Norris, Adams, Abel as head coach and as GM after Adams retired in '62, Howe, Sawchuk (through '64), Delvecchio, Pronovost, Norm Ullman and Bill Gadsby. Former Ranger star Andy Bathgate and former Bruin star Leo Boivin were on the '66 Finalists. The great Canadiens defenseman Doug Harvey played 2 games for the Wings in 1967. Team executive John Ziegler was elected, but mainly due to his subsequent tenure as NHL President. Maple Leafs legend Frank Mahovlich was a Wing from 1968 to 1971.

* Marcel Dionne played for the Wings from 1971 to 1975, and is in the Hall of Fame, but didn't win anything there. Eddie Giacomin, the beloved Ranger goalie, was infamously traded to the Wings in 1975. Vaclav Nedomansky, the 1st hockey player from Eastern Europe to defect to North America, played for the Wings from 1977 to 1982, and was elected to the Hall in 2019. Also elected in 2019 was Jim Rutherford, a goalie for the Wings from 1974 to 1980, but was elected for his role as a Pittsburgh executive.

Los Angeles Kings goalie Rogie Vachon played with the Wings toward the end of his career, from 1978 to 1980. Former Ranger and Bruin defenseman Brad Park and former Maple Leaf star Darryl Sittler both closed their careers with the Wings in 1985. Future Boston and Washington star Adam Oates played his 1st 4 seasons with the Wings. St. Louis Blues Hall-of-Famer Bernie Federko and Maple Leafs Hall-of-Famer Borje Salming both closed their careers with the Wings in 1990.

* From the 1995 Stanley Cup Finalists, but not the later Cup wins: Mark Howe, Dino Ciccarelli and Paul Coffey.

* From the 1997 and 1998 Stanley Cups: Owner Mike Ilitch, GM Jim Devellano, head coach Scotty Bowman, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Igor Larionov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Brendan Shanahan and (on the '98 win only) Larry Murphy.

* From the 2002 Stanley Cup: Ilitch, Devellano, Bowman, Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Larionov, Shanahan, Chris Chelios, Dominik Hasek, Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. Ilitch, Devellano, Lidstrom, Chelios and Hasek were also on the 2008 Stanley Cup winners. GM Ken Holland and 2008 head coach Mike Babcock have not yet been elected to the Hall. Dallas Stars legend Mike Modano closed his career with the Wings in 2011.

In 1998, The Hockey News' 100 Greatest Players included Howe, Abel, Lindsay, Sawchuk, Kelly, Delvecchio, Stewart, Yzerman, Bill Gadsby, Ullman, and 3 players running out the string by helping the Wings win the 2002 Cup: Brett Hull, Hasek and Chelios, a Detroit native and, aside from Howe, the oldest player in NHL history.

Abel, Lindsay, Gordie Howe (but not Syd Howe), Kelly, Sawchuk, Delvecchio, Dionne, Coffey, Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Shanahan, Chelios, Hull and Hasek were named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players in 2017.

Aurie and left wing Lewis were chosen for an All-Star Team to oppose the host Toronto Maple Leafs in the Ace Bailey Benefit Game in 1934. Goalie Normie Smith, defenseman Goodfellow, and center Barry were chosen for the team that opposed a combined Canadiens-Maroons team at the Montreal Forum in the Howie Morenz Memorial Game in 1937.

Goodfellow and Syd Howe were chosen for the team that opposed the Canadiens at the Forum in the Babe Siebert Memorial Game in 1939. Lindsay, and defensemen Stewart and Quackenbush were chosen for the 1st official NHL All-Star Game in 1947, as the rest of the NHL took on the defending Champion Leafs in Toronto.

Defenseman Gary Bergman, left wing Red Berenson and right wing Mickey Redmond were chosen for Team Canada against the Soviet Union in the 1972 "Summit Series." So was former Red Wing Paul Henderson, by then with the Toronto Maple Leafs. As such, they were named to Canada's Walk of Fame. For their overall contributions to the sport, so were Gordie Howe and Bowman.

From the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, Mike Ramsey and Dave Silk went on to play for the Wings. Henderson, Yzerman, Fetisov, Fedorov, Larionov, Lidstrom and Hasek have been elected to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame.

The Lester Patrick Trophy, for contributions to hockey in America, has been awarded to many figures in Wings history: Players Gordie Howe, Lindsay, Sawchuk, Delvecchio, Yzerman, Dionne, Mark Howe, Red Berenson and Reed Larson; head coaches Adams, Ivan and Bowman; general managers Adams and Devellano; and owners James E. Norris, Bruce Norris and Mike Ilitch. (It should be noted that Berenson, Dionne, Larson were honored for contributions elsewhere.)

The following Wings are members of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, located at Cobo Hall next to The Joe: James E. Norris (but not James D. or Bruce), Adams, Goodfellow, Stewart, Abel, Gordie and Mark Howe (but not Syd), Kelly, Lindsay, Sawchuck, Delvecchio, Pronovost, Gadsby, Ullman, Mike and Marian Ilitch, Bowman, Devellano, Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom, Shanahan, Lynch, Martyn, and 1990s goaltender Chris Osgood. Detroit area native Mike Modano has also been elected, but only played his last season, 2010-11, with the Wings.

The statues of Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio and Joe Louis that had been dedicated at the Joe Louis Arena were moved to the Little Caesars Arena. As yet, the Arena has no statues honoring Pistons greats.

The Red Wings and their geographic rivals, the Chicago Blackhawks, both entered the NHL in 1926, and they've beaten trying to beat each other's brains out for 94 years. Counting the Playoffs, the Wings have won 406 games, the Hawks 329, and there were 84 ties.

The Wings have beaten the Hawks in the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1941, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1995 and 2009; and in the round of 16 in 1987 -- but never in the Stanley Cup Finals, which, with realignment, is now the only way they can face each other in the Playoffs. The Hawks have won in the Finals in 1934 and 1961; the Semifinals in 1944 and 1965; the Quarterfinals in 1970, 1992 and 2013; and the round of 16 in 1985 and 1989.

The series between the Wings and the Colorado Avalanche, inflamed by a Claude Lemieux hit on Kris Draper in the 1996 Western Conference Finals, was, however nasty, only briefly a rivalry. It was the hockey equivalent of Steelers-Raiders in the 1970s, or Mets-Braves in the 1990s, and should now be treated as just another matchup.

Stuff. The Little Caesars Arena has a Team Store is on the south side, with an address of 76 Henry Street. There's also a store named Hockeytown Authentics, owned by Olympia Entertainment. 1845 E. Big Beaver Road in Troy, next to the Troy Sports Center, 19 miles north of downtown. Car only.

One item sold at the arena that may be of interest is a funny hat: The Wingnut, a foam red wingnut, with its "tails" marked "left wing" and "right wing." Not as cute as the Green Bay Packers' Cheeseheads, but every bit as manly as those Giants and Jets hard hats.

DVD collections for the 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008 Cup wins are available, as is Detroit Red Wings: A Celebration of Champions -- NHL Original Six Series. As yet, though, no "Greatest Games" series for them.

Dr. John Finley and Wings legend Gordie Howe wrote Hockeytown Doc: A Half-Century of Red Wings Stories from Howe to Yzerman. Specifically about their 1950s team that won 4 Cups in 6 seasons, New York's own "Hockey Maven," Stan Fischler, wrote Motor City Muscle: Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk and the Championship Detroit Red Wings -- published in 1995, after the Devils beat the Wings in the Finals, leaving Wings fans with what one of them called "The 40-Year Itch." About the 1995-2009 Wings Dynasty, Darren McCarty published My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star.

Charles C. Avison wrote Detroit: City of Champions, telling of how the city produced champion after champion in the Great Depression and World War II: The Tigers winning Pennants in 1934, '35, '40 and '45; the Lions debuting in 1934 and winning the NFL Championship in 1935; the Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup in 1936, '37 and '43; and Joe Louis winning the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1937 and keeping it until his first retirement in 1948. Back then, Detroit was a city where anything was possible.

The 1930s was also the era when Detroit radio station WXYZ debuted 3 legendary fictional characters: The Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet (said to be related), and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Now WXYT, SportsRadio 1270, it celebrated its 90th Anniversary this past October.

During the Game. The Red Wings have nasty rivalries with the Blackhawks and the Avalanche, but you do not have to worry about wearing Devils gear in Little Caesars Arena. Wings fans may have long memories, but they're over 1995, having won 4 Cups since.

Tuesday's game will not feature a promotion. Karen Newman sings the National Anthem, and has since at least the 1995 Finals matchup between the teams. The Wings' goal song is "Hey Hey Hockey Town" by Kid Rock. Yeah, him.

When the visiting team's players are announced, Wings fans will shout, "Who cares?" When I first heard this on TV before Game 1 of the 1995 Finals, I thought they were, instead of booing and/or hissing, shouting, "Boo, hiss!" I chuckled. My respect for them went way down when I found out it was the far less witty, "Who cares?" Still, though, it beats following a player's name with, " ...sucks!"

During Playoff games only, hanging from the roof is a big purple balloon shaped like an octopus, named Al the Octopus, after Al Sobotka, the arena's building operations manager, who drives the Zamboni, and whose job it is to pick up any octopi that fans throw onto the ice, a reflection of a tradition that began in 1952, since there were then only 2 Playoff rounds, 8 wins to win the Cup, 8 legs on an octopus. Since it now takes 16 wins, there are 2 Als hanging from the rafters.

Although, officially, you can be thrown out of the arena for doing it, if the Wings are winning late, Sobotka will pick the octopus up off the ice by hand, and swing it around by the legs over his head, driving the crowd wild. In other words, if the Wings beat the Devils, you'll still walk away having seen a piece of tradition.
After the Game. With Detroit's rough reputation, I would recommend not hanging around downtown after a night game. If you want a postgame drink or meal, you're better off sticking to your hotel.

But when you come out of the arena, at the northeast corner, at Woodward and Sproat, there's District Market, which calls itself "restaurants within a restaurant." There's Sugar and Brew (a Midwestern mini-Starbucks), Mex n Co, and Moroccan Lamb & Fig.

Left over from Joe Louis Arena are some recommendations from local fan websites. The Anchor Bar at 450 W. Fort Street (not to be confused with the Buffalo bar of the same name, which invented Buffalo wings 50 years ago this week), Cobo Joe's at 422 W. Congress Street, and Post Bar at 408 W. Congress Street. Post Bar is described as the best post-game Red Wings bar, and a place where the players sometimes drink. Cobo Joe's is said to be the local home of expatriate Jet fans.

The Joe also hosted the 1980 Republican Convention, which nominated Ronald Reagan for President. Think about it: An arena named for a black heavyweight champion who knocked out a symbol (however unwillingly) of fascism, in a mostly-black city, with heavy union presence in the metropolitan area (it was, after all the hometown of the United Auto Workers and Jimmy Hoffa), hosting the Republican Convention.

The area around Comerica Park (named for a Midwest-based bank) and Ford Field (named for the automaker), at the northern edge of downtown Detroit, is called Foxtown, after the Fox Theater, which, as I said, Tigers/Wings/Little Caesars owner Mike Ilitch had restored.

Ford Field hosted Super Bowl XL in 2006, won by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the final game of Detroit native Jerome Bettis; the 2010 NCAA Frozen Four; and the 2009 NCAA Final Four, the only one ever held in the State of Michigan, won by North Carolina, overcoming a "home-court advantage" for Michigan State in the Final. Appropriately, for a city on the U.S.-Canadian border, it hosted a match between the U.S. and Canada soccer teams on June 7, 2011. The U.S. won.

* Site of Tiger Stadium. The first ballpark on the site was called Bennett Park, after Charlie Bennett, a catcher for the NL's Detroit Wolverines, who didn't play there. Bennett Park opened in 1896, for the Detroit team in the Western League, which became the American League in 1901. However, the team we know as the Tigers (so named because the orange stripes on their socks evoked not just tigers but the teams at New Jersey's Princeton University, also called the Tigers) are officially dated from 1901.

After the 1911 season, the wooden Bennett Park was demolished, and replaced with a concrete and steel structure, opening on April 20, 1912 (the same day as Fenway Park in Boston) and named Navin Field, after Tiger owner Frank Navin. He died in 1935, and his co-owner, Walter Briggs, expanded the place to its more familiar configuration in 1938, renaming it Briggs Stadium. In 1961, new owner John Fetzer renamed it Tiger Stadium.

The Tigers played there from 1912 to 1999, and the NFL's Lions did so from 1938 to 1974. The Tigers won the World Series while playing there in 1935, 1945, 1968 and 1984; the Lions won the NFL Championship while playing there in 1952, 1953 and 1957. (The '52 Championship Game was played in Cleveland against the Browns; the '53 and '57 editions, also against the Browns, at Tiger Stadum.)

In addition, early NFL teams the Detroit Heralds played there in 1920 and '21, and the Detroit Panthers in 1926. Detroit's own Joe Louis defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World at Tiger (then Briggs) Stadium on September 20, 1939, knocking Bob Pastor out.

A youth baseball field is on the site now. Northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull Street, 1 mile west of Cadillac Square down Michigan Avenue (U.S. Route 12). Number 29 bus from downtown.

* Site of Olympia Stadium. From the outside, it looked more like a big brick movie theater, complete with the Art Deco marquee out front. But "The Old Red Barn" was home to the Red Wings from 1927 to 1979, during which time they won the Stanley Cup in 1936, '37, '43, '50, '52, '54 and '55.
In 1950, they hosted Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and Pete Babando's overtime winner defeated the Rangers. In '54, they had another overtime Game 7 winner, as "Tough Tony" Leswick hit a shot that deflected off Doug Harvey, the great defenseman of the Montreal Canadiens. (In hockey, the shooter is still credited; in soccer, this would have been officially listed as an "own goal" on Harvey.)

The Olympia was also home to the Pistons from 1957 to 1961; the Falcons in the NBA's inaugural season of 1946-47; the NCAA Frozen Four in 1977 and 1979; and the site of some great prizefights, including Jake LaMotta's 1942 win over Sugar Ray Robinson – the only fight Robinson would lose in his career until 1952, and the only one of the 6 fights he had with LaMotta that LaMotta won.

Despite Detroit being his adopted hometown, Joe Louis only had 1 fight at the Olympia. On March 21, 1941, he knocked Abe Simon out. It had just 1 other fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, on March 7, 1951, the 2nd of 4 fights between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott, with Charles retaining the title by a unanimous decision.

Elvis Presley did 2 shows there early in his career, an afternoon and an evening show on March 31, 1957. (If you think that's a lot for one day, he did 3 shows at the Fox Theater on May 25, 1956.) He returned to the Olympia on September 11, 1970; April 6, 1972; September 29 and October 4, 1974; and April 22, 1977.

The Beatles played there on September 6, 1964 and August 13, 1966. (However, it was in the Detroit area -- specifically, on the University of Michigan's radio station in Ann Arbor -- that a disc jockey started the 1969 rumor that Paul McCartney was dead. In a 1989 interview, Paul said, "'Paul is dead'? I didn't believe that one for a minute.")

It was the neighborhood, not the building, that was falling apart: Lincoln Cavalieri, its general manager in its last years, once said, "If an atom bomb landed, I'd want to be in Olympia." It was not a nuclear attack, but an ordinary demolition crew, that took it down in 1987. The Olympia Armory, home of the Michigan National Guard, is now on the site. 5920 Grand River Avenue, corner of McGraw Street, on the Northwest Side. Number 21 bus. If you're a hockey fan, by all means, visit – but do it in daylight.

* University of Detroit Stadium. Also known as Titan Stadium, this was the Lions' first home, from 1934 to 1937, until what became Tiger Stadium was double-decked. The Lions played and won the 1935 NFL Championship Game there, beating the Giants.

The previous NFL team in the city, the Detroit Wolverines, play there in their lone season, 1928. Built in 1922 and seating 25,000, the University's suspension of its football program in 1964 doomed it, and it was demolished in 1971. The school, now known as the University of Detroit Mercy (it's a Catholic school), has since put a new, multipurpose, artificial turf field on the site. 3801 McNichols Road at Birchcrest Drive. 016 Bus.

* Silverdome. Originally Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium, this stadium was home to the Lions from 1975 to 2001 (after which they moved back downtown to Ford Field), and very nearly became home to the Tigers as well, before owner John Fetzer decided to commit himself to Tiger Stadium. Heisman-winning running backs Billy Sims and Barry Sanders ran wild for the Lions here, but the closest they got to a Super Bowl was reaching the NFC Championship Game in January 1992 – unless you count hosting Super Bowl XVI, 10 years earlier, the beginning of the San Francisco 49er dynasty led by Bill Walsh and Joe Montana.

The Pistons, playing here from 1978 to 1988, had a little more luck, reaching the NBA Finals in their last year there. It seated 80,000 for football, set an NBA attendance record (since broken) of 61,983 between the Pistons and Boston Celtics in 1988, and 93,682 for a Mass by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

In 1994, it hosted 4 World Cup matches, including 1 by the U.S. and 1 by eventual winner Brazil. It hosted 2 games by the U.S. national soccer team, in 1992 win over Russia and the 1994 World Cup draw against Switzerland. Elvis had his biggest crowd ever at the Silverdome, 60,500, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1975.

It hosted a Don King-promoted boxing card in January 2011, and in August 2010 hosted a friendly between Italian soccer giant A.C. Milan and leading Greek club Panathinaikos – appropriate, considering the area's ethnic makeup.

In 2013, the roof was deflated as an energy-saving measure, with the idea that, if a new tenant was found, a new roof would be put in as part of renovations. But in October 2015, it was announced that the Silverdome would be demolished, and the area would be part of a Oakland County, Michigan
mixed-use development. after the explosives failed the previous day, the Silverdome was imploded on December 4, 2017.

1200 Featherstone Road, Pontiac. Getting there by public transportation is a pain: The Number 465 bus takes an hour and 25 minutes, and then you gotta walk a mile down Featherstone from Oakland Community College. So if you didn't drive in (or rent a car at the airport), unless you have to see everything on this list, or if you're a Lions fan living in New York who has to see it one more time, or if you're a soccer nut on a pilgrimage to all World Cup sites, I'd suggest skipping it.

* The Palace. Home to the Pistons from 1988 to 2017, they won the 1989, 1990 and 2004 NBA Championships here, and almost won another in 2005. The Detroit Shock won 3 WNBA Championships here, and, as a result, every time a title was won, the address changed: Currently, it's "Six Championship Drive, Auburn Hills, MI 48326." However, the Shock moved to Tulsa in 2010, so unless the arena stays open and becomes the home of a new WNBA team, the address will never change to "Seven Championship Drive."

Unfortunately, the 22,000-seat building's best-known event isn't a Pistons title, a Shock title or a rock concert, but the November 19, 2004 fight between the Pistons and the Indiana Pacers that spilled into the stands, becoming known as "the Malice at the Palace." Even the WNBA had a rare brawl there, between the Shock and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2008.

The Shock moved to Tulsa in 2010, and the Pistons moved to Little Caesars Arena in 2017, so the address never became "Seven Championship Drive." The Palace outlived Tiger Stadium, the Silverdome, the Olympia and Joe Louis Arena. But it has been purchased and scheduled for demolition in the coming weeks, and an office park will be built on the site.

Lapeer Road and Harmon Road, Auburn Hills, off I-75. Don't even think about trying to reach it by public transportation: You'd need 2 buses and then a half-hour walk. So unless you've got a car, or you're a big sucker for NBA history, I'd suggest skipping it.

* Mack Park. The Negro Leagues' Detroit Stars played here from 1920 to 1929, featuring center fielder Norman "Turkey" Stearnes and pitcher Andy Cooper, who would both be posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. A senior citizens' complex, the Fairview Apartments, is on the site now. 3568 Fairview Street at Mack Avenue, about 5 miles east of downtown. Bus 7 will get you within a 15-minute walk.

* Hamtramck Stadium. After Mack Park burned down in 1929, they moved into this nearby facility for the 1930 season. Pronounced "Ham-TRAM-ick," this city is actually completely surrounded by Detroit. But between the Mack Park fire and the start of the Great Depression at the end of the year, the Stars' fate was sealed.

New teams with the name would occasionally be revived. At its peak, Hamtramck Stadium seated over 8,000 people. However, the decline of the Negro Leagues and the "industrial leagues" in the 1950s doomed it to high school use, it hasn't been used at all since 2012, and its sideline wings have been removed, reducing its capacity to 1,500. Nevertheless, it is 1 of 12 Negro League ballparks still standing. 3201 Dan Street.

When the Dodge Brothers (who later sold the car company bearing their name to Chrysler) opened an auto plant in Hamtramck in 1914, it became a hub for Polish immigration. However, the Polish population of the city has dropped from 90 percent in 1970 to 22 percent today. And Arabs and South Asians have moved in, making it Michigan's most internationally diverse city.

Nevertheless, if you want the best kielbasa, kapusta, golumpkis and paczkis this side of the Oder, this is the place to go. Hamtramck Town Shopping Center, Joseph Campau Street and Hewitt Street.

Detroit City FC plays in the 3rd tier of American soccer, the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck, a 7,000-seat high school football stadium that opened in 1936, 5 1/2 miles north of downtown. All of these Hamtramck locations can be reached via the Number 10 bus.

Detroit is the largest metropolitan area in North America without a Major League Soccer team, although there is a drive to get an expansion team. The closest MLS team to Detroit is the Columbus Crew, 204 miles away. However, the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry may complicate that.

* Holy Redeemer High School. In the 1946-47 basketball season, the Detroit Gems played in the National Basketball League at this school. They may not have been redeemable, going 4-40. The next season, they moved, and became the Minneapolis Lakers. And so, this is where the Los Angeles Lakers franchise began. 5679 Vernor Highway, about 3 miles west of downtown. Bus 1.

* Site of Cadillac Athletic Club. Housed in the Masonic Temple from 1895 to 1935, this auditorium hosted a fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World on April 6, 1900. Jim Jeffries retained the title by decision over John Finnegan. A bank building is now on the site. 411 W. Lafayette Blvd. Fort/Cass station on the People Mover.

Only one site in Michigan, outside Detroit and its immediate suburbs, has ever hosted a Heavyweight title fight: The Floyd Fitzsimmons Arena hosted Jack Dempsey's defense against Billy Miske on September 6, 1920. Southeast corner of Fair Avenue & Britain Avenue, about 3 miles east of downtown in Benton Harbor. The resort town is all the way across the State, on the shore of Lake Michigan, 186 miles west of Detroit, and 99 miles by road "east" of Chicago (but considerably closer as the crow flies). Amtrak goes to Benton Harbor.

* Motown Historical Museum. As always, I'm going to include some non-sports items. Detroit is generally known for 3 good things: Sports, music and cars. The Motown Historical Museum is the former Motown Records studio, which company founder Berry Gordy Jr. labeled "Hitsville, U.S.A." His sister, Esther Gordy Edwards, now runs it, and it features records and costumes of performers such as the Supremes, the Temptations and the Four Tops. 2648 W. Grand Blvd., on the North Side. Number 16 bus.

* Henry Ford Museum. The centerpiece of the nation's foremost automotive-themed museum is a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Henry Ford himself established the museum: "I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used... When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition."

It contains the fascinating, including early cars and bicycles, Henry Ford's 1st car (his 1896 "Quadricycle"), Igor Sikorsky's prototype for the helicopter, the bus Rosa Parks was riding in when she refused to give up her seat to start the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott (she later moved to Detroit, and its bus terminal is named for her), and a Buckminster Fuller "Dymaxion house."

It also contains the macabre, with the chair Abraham Lincoln was supposedly sitting in when he was assassinated at Ford's Theater in Washington (the theater owner was no relation to Henry); and the chair, and the rest of the car as well, that John F. Kennedy was definitely sitting in when he was assassinated, the back seat of in the 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limousine he was riding in through downtown Dallas.

Next door to the museum is Greenfield Village, which Ford imagined as a kind of historical park, a more modern version of Colonial Williamsburg – that is, celebrating what was, in 1929 when it opened, considered modern American life, including a reconstruction of the Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory of his good friend Thomas Edison. Ford and Edison were both friends of rubber magnate Henry Firestone (whose tires certainly made Ford's cars easier to make), and Firestone's family farm is reconstructed on the site.

Please note that I am not excusing Henry Ford's control-freak attitude toward his employees' private lives, nor his despicable anti-Semitism, nor his failed union-busting in the 1930s. To be fair, he did give his black auto workers the same pay and benefits as his white ones. But I am recommending the museum. It's a tribute to the role of technology, including the automobile, in American life, not to the man himself. Oakwood Blvd. and Village Road. Number 200 bus to Michigan Avenue and Oakwood Blvd., then a short walk down Oakwood.

* Greektown Historic District. Although Detroit is famed for its Irish (Corktown, including the site of Tiger Stadium) and Italian communities, and has the largest Arab-American community of any major city, its best-known ethnic neighborhoods are Greektown and the Polish community of Hamtramck. New York's Astoria, Queens has nothing on Detroit's Greektown, which not only has some of the country's finest Greek restaurants, but also the Greektown Casino, which is at 555 E. Lafayette Street, at Beaubien Street. Greektown Station on the People Mover.

* Mariners' Church. On my 1999 visit to Detroit, I discovered this church by accident, walking past it without realizing it was there until I saw the historical marker. Every March, it holds a Blessing of the Fleet for every person and ship going to sea. Every November, it holds a Great Lakes Memorial Service for those who have lost their lives at sea within the past year.

The most famous of these ceremonies was for the 29 men lost on the iron ore freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Built and homeported in Detroit, the Big Fitz was commemorated by Gordon Lightfoot, whose 1976 song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
mistakenly, but poetically, called the church "The Maritime Sailors' Cathedral." (Edmund Fitzgerald himself was the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, which invested in the ship's construction, because it was heavily invested in the ore industry.)

170 E. Jefferson Avenue, at Randolph Street, across from the Renaissance Center. If you're going to visit the church, be careful, because Randolph Street empties into the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

* Spirit of Detroit. In front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, the city hall named for the 1974-93 Mayor, stands a marble monument with a bronze statue of a kneeling man, the seals of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, and a Biblical inscription, from 2nd Corinthians 3:17: "Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

In his left hand, the 26-foot-high kneeling figure holds a gilt bronze sphere emanating rays, to symbolize God. The people in the figure's right hand are a family group.

The statue was dedicated in 1958, 4 years after the Municipal Center opened. In recent years, a large jersey has been placed over it when the Tigers, Pistons or Wings have been in their sport's finals. (As yet, this has never been done for the Lions, who haven't been to an NFL Championship Game since 1957, 9 seasons before they started calling it the Super Bowl.) 2 Woodward Avenue at Jefferson Avenue.

* Monument to Joe Louis. Erected in 1986, on a traffic island at the intersection of Woodward & Jefferson, it is a 24-foot-long arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot-high pyramidal framework. Since it is a monument to Louis, the great black heavyweight champion, the arm and fist are black bronze.

* Colleges. The University of Michigan is 44 miles west of downtown Detroit, in Ann Arbor.  It is possible to reach it from Detroit by bus, but it will take 2 hours: You can take the 851 bus to the airport, and transfer there to the 787.


Michigan Stadium is at 1201 S. Main Street at Stadium Blvd. "The Big House" has hosted UM football since 1927. Its peak attendance is 115,109 for Michigan's 2013 win over Notre Dame. This past year, it set new records for highest U.S. attendance for soccer (109,318 for Manchester United beating Real Madrid in the International Champions Cup), and for highest attendance anywhere on the planet for hockey (105,491 for the NHL Winter Classic, the Toronto Maple Leafs beating the Detroit Red Wings).

Adjacent is Crisler Arena, named for Herbert "Fritz" Crisler, the UM football coach from 1938 to 1947, who, in another connection between Princeton University sports and the State of Michigan, had previously coached Princeton's Tigers, and brought his "winged" helmet design with him, making Michigan's "maize and blue" helmets among the most famous in college football. Elvis sang at Crisler Arena on April 24, 1977. The other sports facilities, including Yost Arena (hockey) and Fisher Stadium (named for Ray Fisher, who pitched for the Yankees in the 1910s before they got good and then coached at Michigan, including Charlie Gehringer), are adjacent.

Michigan State University is 88 miles northwest of Detroit, in East Lansing, adjacent to Lansing, the State capital.  Greyhound runs 4 buses a day from Detroit to East Lansing, at 8:00 AM, 12:10 PM, 2:20 PM and 7:40 PM, and it takes about 2 hours. Two buses go back to Detroit, at 3:40 and 5:55 PM. $38 round-trip.

Spartan Stadium, formerly Macklin Field, is at 325 W. Shaw Lane at Red Cedar Road, which is named for the river that bisects the MSU campus. Jenison Field House (the old basketball arena, where Magic Johnson starred on their 1979 National Champions), Breslin Events Center (their new arena), and Munn Arena (hockey) are a short walk away, at Kalamazoo Street & Birch Road.

According to an October 3, 2014 article in The New York Times, UM has a decided, though not overwhelming, advantage in fans in the Detroit area. Only around the State capital of Lansing do you get an edge for MSU.

In addition to the preceding, Elvis sang in Michigan at Wings Stadium (a minor-league hockey arena, now named Wings Event Center) in Kalamazoo on October 21, 1976 and April 26, 1977; and the Saginaw County Event Center (now the Dow Event Center) in Saginaw on April 25 and May 3, 1977.

* Jimmy Hoffa. No, I don't know where Hoffa is buried. All I know for sure is that, when they demolished Giants Stadium in 2010, they found no human remains. Hoffa, who was born in Indiana but lived most of his life in and around Detroit, was last seen alive on July 30, 1975, sitting in his car in the parking lot of Machus' Red Fox.

A fine-dining establishment open from 1965 to 1996, the building is still there, occupied by an Italian restaurant named Andiamo's. 6676 Telegraph Road (U.S. Route 24) at Country Club Drive, Bloomfield, 22 miles northwest of Cadillac Square. As with most sites in Detroit's outer suburbs, getting there by public transportation is a hassle: In this case, you'd need 3 buses.

* Beaches. Michigan's State motto is, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you." It is surrounded on 3 sides by Great Lakes: Michigan to the west, Huron to the north and northeast, and Erie to the southeast. It has various protrusions into the water, and many islands, leading singer Gordon Lightfoot to say, "The islands and bays are for sportsmen."

Two areas of the State are renowned by beachgoers. South Haven, "the Catskills of the Midwest," is on the shore of Lake Michigan, 181 miles west of Cadillac Square. Mackinac Island (pronounced MACK-in-aw, not MACK-in-ack), over the Mackinac Bridge (the Mighty Mac), is closed to car traffic, and must be reached by ferry from Mackinac City. It is Michigan's Hamptons, its Cape May, its Martha's Vineyard. 289 miles northwest of Cadillac Square.
* Windsor. Across the Detroit River is Windsor, Ontario. Most Americans know it for Caesar's Windsor, one of 4 casinos in the area.  Like its namesakes in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, it has a Roman theme. It may be only 2 miles from downtown Detroit, but because it's in Canada, where they have things like sensible gun laws and national health care, it may feel like the other side of the world (if not Rome itself). And, because it's in Canada, you'll need a passport.

377 Riverside Drive East. There is bus service available -- less for Michiganders wanting to gamble, more for Windsorites wanting to go to Red Wings games and concerts -- and you can contact Transit Windsor at tw@city.windsor.on.ca.

The Wings' first home was actually in Windsor: They played their first season, 1926-27, at the Border Cities Arena, which still stands, and is now named Windsor Arena. Like a lot of old arenas (this one was built in 1924), it looks like a barn, and so is nicknamed The Barn. It seats only 4,400 people in its current configuration.

Its long-term tenants, the University of Windsor hockey team and the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League, now play elsewhere. The City of Windsor has approved a plan to tear it down and build the new building for Catholic Central High School on the site. 334 Wyandotte Street East, at McDougall Street.
The University of Windsor Lancers haven't been very successful in sports. Their greatest achievement is their football team winning the Yates Cup, for the championship of Ontario University Athletics, in 1975. The Yates Cup was founded in 1898, and is the oldest football trophy in North America.

Since 2008, the Spitfires have played at the WFCU Centre. No, that's not named for a radio station: Canadian radio stations' call letters always been with a C. The naming rights are held by the Windsor Family Credit Union. The Spitfires won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, while playing there, in 2009, '10 and '17, and one of the streets bordering is named Memorial Cup Way.
The Lancers also play hockey and basketball there. The Windsor Express play in the National Basketball League of Canada there. 8787 McHugh Street, 8 miles from downtown Detroit and 7 miles east of downtown Windsor. Bus 2 from there.
* Home Improvement.  The 1991-99 ABC sitcom is easily the best-known TV show to have been set in Detroit, with Tool Time's studio being in the city and the Taylors' house in the suburbs, possibly in Bloomfield Hills. But, as far as I know, there were no location shots, not even in the episode in which the Taylors got to see the Lions' annual Thanksgiving game from a Silverdome skybox. So if you're looking for the Taylors' house, you're not going to find it -- if there was ever a house, not just a studio set, it was likely in or around Los Angeles.

Other shows set in or around Detroit have included Martin, Freaks and Geeks, Sister, Sister, and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.

Several films have been set, but not necessarily filmed, in Detroit. Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy's character in the Beverly Hills Cop films, was a Detroit police detective, but most of the film, including the Detroit scenes, was shot in Los Angeles. While RoboCop was set in Detroit, it was filmed in Dallas. (And you thought "Dallas sucks" was just a sports chant.)

Billy Crystal's movie about the 1961 home run record chase, 61*, used Tiger Stadium as a stand-in (with computer-generated help) for the original Yankee Stadium (since the 1973-76 renovation left it looking very little like it did in 1961). Other recent movies set in Detroit include Eminem's Roman à clef, 8 Mile; and Clint Eastwood's retired autoworker vs. gangs film Gran Torino.

*

A visit to Detroit does not have to be a scary experience. These people love hockey. And, while they don't necessarily like the Yankees, they don't have a problem with Devils fans. They love hockey more than most Americans do, and their city should be able to show you a good time.

Today, barring a massive bureaucratic screwup -- or, God forbid, a "mass casualty event" in or near New Brunswick, New Jersey that requires all available doctors to abandon their current schedules -- I will undergo hip replacement surgery, correcting a birth defect that has caused me more pain than I would wish on anybody, with the possible exception of dictators, like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.

Within a few weeks, I should be able to walk unaided, and with far less pain than I have now.

There is, of course, the possibility that something could go horribly wrong. But I'm told that this is one of the safest surgeries there is.

I'm reminded of the words of basketball legend Bill Walton, who knows all too well: "Minor surgery is what they do to somebody else."

Naturally, the reaction is to say, "Relax, Mike."

Saying that is the easiest way to make me unrelaxed. Because I've heard it so many times before:

* Relax, Mike, this won't hurt a bit.

* Relax, Mike, I know what I'm doing.

* Relax, Mike, I've done this a million times.

* Relax, Mike, I know this guy, we can trust him.

* Relax, Mike, it's a sure thing.

* Relax, Mike, this won't cost you a dime.

* Relax, Mike, it's perfectly legal.

* Relax, Mike, I know a shortcut.

* Relax, Mike, nobody else knows about this.

* Relax, Mike, they're not gonna run out before we get there.

* Relax, Mike, (some celebrity) uses it, so it's gotta be a good (product).

* Relax, Mike, all the reviews say this movie is great.

* Relax, Mike, it's not that spicy.

* Relax, Mike, the Yankees have this game in the bag.

* Relax, Mike, she's got a great personality.

* Relax, Mike, Bush (later Trump) can't possibly be that bad.

How relaxed are you?

So, I should be okay. Based on what I've been told, I might actually be more okay than I've ever been. But if this turns out to be my last post ever, you'll know why.

I'm 99 percent sure I'll be back. Probably not tomorrow, maybe not the next day. But if I go, say, a week without posting anything, that's when you should stop relaxing.

*

Days until Arsenal play again: 1, tomorrow, at 3:00 PM New York time, in UEFA Europa League action, away to Olympiacos in Athens, Greece.

Days until the next Primary or Caucus: 3, the Saturday, the Nevada Caucus. Next up, the following Saturday, the South Carolina Primary.

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 11, on Sunday, March 1, at 1:00 PM, home to FC Cincinnati. Under 4 weeks.

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: 17, on Saturday night, March 7, against the New York Rangers, a.k.a. The Scum, at Madison Square Garden. The next game against the New York Islanders will be on Saturday night, March 21, at the Prudential Center. The next game against the Philadelphia Flyers will be on Saturday afternoon, March 28, at the Prudential Center.

Days until the Yankees' 2020 Opening Day: 36, at 1:00 on Thursday, March 26, away to the Baltimore Orioles. A little over 5 weeks. And now, it feels as though we can look forward to it.

My hip replacement surgery, this past Wednesday afternoon, went very well. My recovery, however, has been another story. Everybody tells me I'm doing great, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

I have never read the novel The Fault In Our Stars, written by John Green and published in 2012, or seen the movie made of it in 2014, starring Shailene Woodley. I am familiar with the story.

A teenage girl, stricken with cancer, is told to reach your pain on a scale of 0 to 10. She is told to save her 10, or the most painful thing she ever feels. She meets boy her own age, who is also enduring cancer, and falls in love with him. When he dies, at his funeral, she says, "This is my 10."

I don't want to minimize anyone else's suffering. I know there are people who have it far worse than I do, physically and psychologically. But knowing that hasn't made the pain I have felt any easier.

At the hospital, they asked me to ask me to rate the pain on a scale of 0 to 10. I figured, any pain that makes you at least moan got to be at least an 8. It took 7 separate painkilling drugs to get it down to a 4.

Since I got home from the hospital on Thursday night, it has varied from an 8 down to a 2. Right is, on this Saturday morning, between Oxycodone, Tylenol and ice, it's a 4.

The whole point of getting this surgery was to make the pain stop. On occasion, the pain would be so bad that it woke me up at nice. Since the surgery, including since I came home, the pain has woken me up at night. However, given my drug schedule, that's actually not that bad a thing.

My mobility has improved. I can get around the house, or at least around the ground floor on the house, with a walker. I haven't tried the stairs yet, but I can get to and from the kitchen and the bathroom with no problem.

My appetite is fine -- no surprise there -- and I don't have a problem standing up and using the bathroom. But I have not yet, how shall I put this, had to sit down. People are concerned about that, but I just haven't felt the need.

Physical therapy and occupational therapy have already been scheduled. Personally, I think it would be better to call the latter "operational therapy." Calling it "occupational" makes it sound like assistance at work.

Eventually, the pain will stop. By that point, my mobility should improve to the point where I can start looking for work again. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to return and get paid, and have a nice Summer. I haven't had a nice Summer in a long time.

And maybe I can go out with my family, enjoy nice things again. One of the last things we did together as a family before my father died was a trip to the Bronx Zoo. It was terrific, but the place is just too big, and my legs were really feeling it at the end.

My nieces love Six Flags Great Adventure. I haven't been there in 35 years, and I know the place is huge. It would have been a mistake for me to go there last year, but, this year, maybe I can do it.

And as for going into New York, that's City involve so much walking around, that it made it a problem for me. And you never realize just how big the Port Authority bus terminal is, until you come out of the subway at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue, and have to get to your bus' gate at 40th Street and 9th Avenue. It doesn't sound like much, but for someone with bad legs and a bad back, it is.

Every so often, we hear the expression "the miracle of modern medicine." This kind of surgery used to lay people up for months on end. Now, it should only be a few weeks for me. I just hope it's only the first couple if weeks that will be the truly painful part.

On the 30th Anniversary of the event, I wrote a piece about how it wasn't actually a miracle, and that could be explained by force is less than supernatural or divine. Then again, I did cite the Biblical story of David vs. Goliath as my Number 1 reason, and pointed out that David's victory wasn't really a miracle, either.

David's victory, circa 1000 BC, was the 1st step in uniting the 12 Tribes of Israel into a single nation. My surgery has united some far-flung tribes as well.

Among my family's friends, there is a tremendous range of people, including friends of my mother and my sister that I've never met, who have stood up and expressed their warmest wishes, and shown themselves, in the words of Thomas Paine, to be "winter soldiers," and not just "sunshine patriots."

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone -- at the hospital, and online. (I haven't had the chance to go out into the world yet. Then again, I haven't needed to.)

Sometimes, social media can seem like a cauldron of uncontrolled emotion, with people casting all filters aside just to make a point that might make sense only to them, on politics, sports, music, fashion, whatever.

But what I've seen has brought people together. The ability of these formats to act as a worldwide support group for anyone who might need it is staggering.

There was a story about a 9-year-old boy in Australia this week. He is an Aboriginal, and he is also a dwarf. He said that the bullying he receives for his race and his disability is so bad, it makes him want to take his own life. People all over the world have taken up his cause, to let him know that he's not alone, and that going on is worth it.

When I was 9 years old, my problems weren't as bad as his, but there were so many times when I felt totally alone, and it felt like nobody cared.

Today, the whole world can show someone that they care. The means to show that simply wasn't available when I was 5 years old, the last time that hip was operated on, lying in a dark hospital room in New York, with metal stitches causing me "10 pain." That means is available now, for terrified 9-year-olds and for hopeful if aching 50-year-olds, wherever they may be.

As they used to say on Sesame Street, "And if that isn't a true blue miracle, I don't know what one is."

This coming Thursday night, the Devils will be in the San Francisco Bay Area, to play the San Jose Sharks.

Before You Go. The San Francisco Bay Area has inconsistent weather. San Francisco, in particular, partly because it's bounded by water on three sides, is the one city I know of that has baseball weather in football season and football weather in baseball season. Or, as Mark Twain, who worked for a San Francisco newspaper during the Civil War, put it, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

The websites of the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune,
and SFgate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, should be checked before you leave. For most of next week, they're predicting the low 70s during the day and the low 50s at night, with no rain.

San Jose, the Bay Area as a whole, and the entire State of California are in the Pacific Time Zone, 3 hours behind New York and New Jersey. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. The Sharks are averaging 16,518 fans per game this season, about 94 percent of capacity. It may be easier to get their tickets than at any time in their history.

Seats in the lower level, the 100 sections, are $113 between the goals and $68 behind them. In the upper level, the 200 sections, they're $66 between the goals and $29 behind them.

Getting There. It's 2,906 miles from Times Square in Midtown Manhattan to Union Square in downtown San Francisco, and 2,928 miles from the Prudential Center in Newark to the SAP Center at San Jose. This is the 2nd-longest Devils roadtrip, behind only Vancouver. In other words, if you're going, you're flying.

You think I'm kidding? Even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days' worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don't get pulled over for speeding, you'll still need over 2 full days. Each way.

But, if you really, really want to drive... Get onto Interstate 80 West in New Jersey, and – though incredibly long, it's also incredibly simple – you'll stay on I-80 for almost its entire length, which is 2,900 miles from Ridgefield Park, just beyond the New Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge, to the San Francisco end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

If you're driving directly to San Jose (i.e., if your hotel is there), then, getting off I-80, you'll need Exit 8A for I-880, the Nimitz Freeway – the 1997-rebuilt version of the double-decked expressway that collapsed, killing 42 people, during the Loma Prieta Earthquake that struck during the 1989 World Series between the 2 Bay Area teams. From I-880, you'll take Exit 3A, for Santa Clara Street.

Not counting rest stops, you should be in New Jersey for an hour and a half, Pennsylvania for 5:15, Ohio for 4 hours, Indiana for 2:30, Illinois for 2:45, Iowa for 5 hours, Nebraska for 7:45, Wyoming for 6:45, Utah for 3:15, Nevada for 6:45, and California for 3:15. That's almost 49 hours, and with rest stops, and city traffic at each end, we're talking 3 full days.

That's still faster than Greyhound and Amtrak. Greyhound does stop in San Jose, at 70 S. Almaden Avenue at Post Street, within walking distance of the arena. But the trip averages about 80 hours, depending on the run, and will require you to change buses 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times. And you'd have to leave no later than Friday morning to get there by Monday gametime. Round-trip fare is $632, but it can drop to as little as $385 with advanced purchase.

On Amtrak, to make it in time for a Thursday night puck-drop, you would leave Penn Station on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40 PM on Monday, arrive at Union Station in Chicago at 9:50 AM Central Time on Tuesday, and switch to the California Zephyr at 2:00 PM, arriving at Emeryville, California at 4:10 PM Pacific Time on Thursday. Round-trip fare: $728, which could end up being more than the plane. Then you'd have to get to downtown San Jose.

Amtrak service has been restored to downtown Oakland, at 245 2nd Street, in Jack London Square. Unfortunately, it's a half-mile walk to the nearest BART station, at Lake Merritt (8th & Oak). For A's games, the station at the Coliseum site, which is part of the BART station there, might be better. 700 73rd Street. And yet, for either of these stations, you'd still have to transfer at Emeryville to an Amtrak Coast Starlight train.

Getting back, the California Zephyr leaves Emeryville at 9:10 AM, arrives in Chicago at 2:50 PM 2 days later, and the Lake Shore Limited leaves at 9:30 PM and arrives in New York at 6:23 PM the next day. So we're talking a Saturday to the next week's Saturday operation by train.

Newark to San Francisco is sometimes a relatively cheap flight, considering the distance. This week, you can get a round-trip nonstop flight on United Airlines for a little under $700. BART from SFO to downtown San Francisco takes 30 minutes, and it's $8.65. San Jose does have its own airport, named for the still-living former Congressman Norman Y. Mineta, but it's a little more expensive, and it won't be nonstop.

If you're trying to get from downtown San Francisco to San Jose, a 48-mile trip, CalTrain takes an hour and a half, and it's $19.50 round-trip to Diridon Station, 65 Cahill Street, 2 blocks south of the arena.

Once In the City. San Francisco was settled in 1776, and named for St. Francis of Assisi. San Jose was settled the next year, and named for Joseph, Jesus' earthly father. Both were incorporated in 1850. Oakland was founded in 1852, and named for oak trees in the area.

With the growth of the computer industry, San Jose has become the largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a little over 1 million people. San Francisco has about 870,000, and Oakland 420,000. Overall, the Bay Area is home to 8.7 million people and rising, making it the 4th largest metropolitan area in North America, behind New York with 23 million, Los Angeles with 18 million, and Chicago with just under 10 million.


Going In. Named the San Jose Arena from its 1993 opening until 2001, the Compaq Center at San Jose until 2002, and the HP Pavilion at San Jose until 2013, the SAP Center at San Jose, a.k.a. the Shark Tank, is easily identifiable by its triangular, "shark-toothed" roof.
In spite of being in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley, with all those American tech companies, the arena's naming rights are owned by SAP SE, a German software company.

The official address is 525 W. Santa Clara Street, across Los Gatos Creek, just to the west of downtown San Jose. It's 48 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco, and 42 miles southeast of downtown Oakland.

If you're driving in, there's plenty of parking, as it's a mile west of downtown, and it's cheap at $9.50. Most likely, someone who drove in would enter from the north or the west gate. The rink runs northeast-to-southwest. The Sharks attack twice at the northeast end.
The arena also hosts the San Jose Barracudas of the American Hockey League. The Golden State Warriors played the 1996-97 season there, while their arena at the Oakland Coliseum complex, now named the Oracle Arena, was being renovated. The San Jose SaberCats of the Arena Football League played there, making the Playoffs 16 times, winning 10 Division titles and 4 ArenaBowls: 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2015. And yet, despite being the current holders of the league title, the SaberCats have suspended operations.

In the entire world, only Madison Square Garden, the Manchester Evening News Arena in England, and the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto are stadiums or arenas that sell more tickets to non-sporting events, including concerts and wrestling.

If you're a fan of the TV show The West Wing, this was the convention center where the ticket of Matt Santos and Leo McGarry was nominated.

Food. San Francisco, due to being a waterfront city and a transportation and freight hub, has a reputation as one of America's best food cities. San Jose's arena benefits from this.

Classix stands are at Sections 103, 113, 116 and 128. These have Nachos, Polish sausage, salad, fruit and snacks. Show Dogs has a specialty hot dog and baked potato stand at 104. Gordon Biersch, at 106, has the classic made famous at Giants games, Garlic Fries.

At 109 and 123, GrillWorks has Philly-style cheesesteaks, burgers, fries, onion rings and sausage. At 110, Sweet Spot has ice cream, cupcakes and cotton candy. At 117 and 127, Rio Adobe has Mexican food. At 118, Le Boulanger has sandwiches, salads and chowder bread bowls. At 120, Panda Express has Chinese food. At 121, Amici's has pizza. At 126, Togo's has deli sandwiches.

In the upper level, at 206, Armadillo Willy's has barbecue. At 210, The Carvery has deli sandwiches. At 220, Sonoma Chicken Coop has chicken dishes. And at 223, Pasta Pomodora has Italian food.

Team History Displays. The Sharks haven't yet won a Stanley Cup. The 2015-16 season was the 1st in which they won a Western Conference Championship. In only 4 seasons have they even reached the Conference Finals: In 2004, 2010, 2011 and 2016.

They did win the President's Trophy, for best overall record in the League, in the 2009 season, for which they also hang a banner for being "Western Conference Regular Season Champions." And they've won 7 Division Championships: 2002, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2016. They have banners reflecting these titles, hanging from the rafters at the northeast end.

The Sharks did, however, have fan voting for their 25th Anniversary Team, as follows: Forwards Patrick Marleau, Owen Nolan, Joe Thornton, Jonathan Cheechoo, Joe Pavleski and Mike Ricci; defensemen Brent Burns, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Dan Boyle and Douglas Murray; and goaltenders Evgeni Nabokov and Arturs Irbe. Thornton, Burns, Vlasic and team Captain Pavleski are still with the Sharks.

Mark Pavelich, a member of the Gold Medal-winning 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, lasted long enough in the NHL to become an original Shark in 1991-92, even assisting Craig Coxe on the team's 1st-ever regular-season goal.

No players who had yet played for the Sharks, and no players from the Seals franchise, where named to The Hockey News' 100 Greatest Players in 1998. Nor were any selected last year for the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.

George Gund III was given the Lester Patrick Trophy, for contributions to hockey in America. Irbe was elected to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame.

The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (BASHOF) is unusual in that its exhibits are spread over several locations. No induction plaques are on display at the SAP Center. Owen Nolan recently became the 1st Shark inducted. None have yet followed him. Nor have any Seals.

The Northern California vs. Southern California rivalry, San Francisco vs. Los Angeles, epitomized by Giants vs. Dodgers, 49ers vs. Rams, Earthquakes vs. Galaxy, and to a lesser extent Warriors vs. Lakers, has definitely carried over into Sharks vs. Kings. In spite of the Kings having more tangible success, the Sharks actually lead the all-time rivalry, 96-79-7. They've met in the Playoffs 4 times, with the Sharks winning in 2011 and 2016, and the Kings winning in 2013 and 2014.

Stuff. The Sharks Store is on the south side of the arena, on the ground floor. They also have team stores throughout the Bay Area. These stores include hats with shark fins on them.

The Giants, the A's, the 49ers, the Raiders, and even the Warriors are historic Bay Area sports teams, with 17 World Championships and 25 finals appearances between them. But in a quarter of a century, the Sharks have never been to a Stanley Cup Finals. So there is no video retrospective, and even books about them are few and far between. You would think that the 25th Anniversary would have changed this, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

In 1994, entering their 4th season and coming off 2 awful expansion seasons and a 3rd with an epic 8th seed vs. 1st seed Playoff upset of the Detroit Red Wings, Steve Cameron wrote Feeding Frenzy! The Wild New World of the San Jose Sharks. In 2001, Ken Arnold wrote Decade of Teal: 10 Years With the San Jose Sharks. And, in 2015, Michaela James wrote the Sharks' entry in the Inside the NHL series.

During the Game. A November 19, 2014 article on The Hockey News' website ranked the NHL teams' fan bases, and listed the Sharks' fans 15th, right in the middle: "Fans come out in droves, but middling ratings otherwise push them down."

This is not a Raider game, where people came dressed as pirates, biker gangsters, Darth Vader, the Grim Reaper, and so on. Nor is this a Giant game, where you might have to worry about wearing Dodger gear. This is a Sharks game. While they're not particularly fond of their fellow West Coasters -- the Los Angeles Kings, the Anaheim Ducks or the Vancouver Canucks -- you will be safe wearing your Devils colors.

The Sharks skate onto the ice through a large shark mouth around the tunnel entrance, to the tune of Metallica's "Seek and Destroy." They have a variation on the "Hey, you suck!" chant by yelling it at the entire opposing team after they're introduced.

This game will not feature a promotion. They hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. After years of having "Rock and Roll Part II" by Gary Glitter as their goal song, they wisely dropped the convicted sex offender's song and had new a "Hey Song" written and recorded for them by a local group called SixxAM.
The mascot is S.J. Sharkie (S.J. for San Jose), although he looks more like a weird dog than a man-eating fish.

As a Sharks power play begins, the theme from Jaws plays, and the fans move their arms like shark jaws, similar to the University of Florida "Gator Grab." When the familiar "Da da da DAT da DAAAA!" is played, instead of "Charge!" the response is "Sharks!"

And, trying to copy the tradition from Detroit of throwing an octopus onto the ice, Sharks fans have taken to throwing leopard sharks, a small variety of the fish, onto the ice.

After the Game. Again, Shark fans are not Raider fans. And the San Jose arena is far from any crime issues. Don't antagonize anyone, and you'll be fine.

If you want to go out for a postgame meal or drinks, across the railroad tracks, Santa Clara Street becomes The Alameda, and at 754 The Alameda is a place with a name that sort of ties into the Sharks' theme: Bluefin Sushi & Japanese Restaurant.

If you want something on the go, a Whole Foods is at 777 The Alameda. The Poor House Bistro is just down the block at 91 S. Autumn Street. Henry's World Famous Hi-Life, a renowned Bay Area barbecue joint, is just across the Guadelupe River at 301 W. St. John Street.

There are three bars in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco that are worth mentioning. Aces, at 998 Sutter Street & Hyde Street in San Francisco's Lower Nob Hill neighborhood, is said to have a Yankee sign out front and a Yankee Fan as the main bartender. It's also the home port of Mets, NFL Giants, Knicks and Rangers fans in the Bay Area.

R Bar, at 1176 Sutter & Polk Street, is the local Jets fan hangout. And Greens Sports Bar, at 2239 Polk at Green Street, is also said to be a Yankee-friendly bar. A recent Thrillist article on the best sports bars in every State named as California's the Kezar Pub, at 770 Stanyan Street, opposite the new Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park. Number 7 bus. Of course, you'll have to cross the Bay by car or by BART to get to these bars.

The Kezar Pub is also rated as one of the best bars to watch European soccer games. If you visit the Bay Area during that sport's season (which is in progress), these San Francisco bars are also recommended, due to their early openings: Maggie McGarry's, 1353 Grant Avenue, Bus 30; The Mad Dog in the Fog, 530 Haight Street, MUNI N Line or Bus 6; and Danny Coyle's, 668 Haight Street, MUNI N Line or Bus 6.

One place you can once again go is Lefty O'Doul's, named for the legendary ballplayer who was the longtime manager of the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals. The original site was at 333 Geary Street, corner of Powell Street, just 3 blocks from the Powell Street BART station and right on a cable car line.

A a dispute between the operators of the restaurant and the owners of the building meant its closing in early 2017. The last operator, Nick Bovis, has now opened a new Lefty O'Doul's, at Fisherman's Wharf, at 145 Jefferson Street. Light Rail E or F to Jefferson & Powell.

Sidelights. The San Francisco Bay Area, including the East Bay (which includes Oakland), has a very rich sports history. On November 30, 2018, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and, as you might expect from the nation's 4th largest metropolitan area, the San Francisco Bay Area came in 4th. Here are some of the highlights:

* Oracle Park. Home of the Giants, under various names, since 2000, it has been better for them than Candlestick -- aesthetically, competitively, financially, you name it. Winning 3 World Series since it opened, it's been home to The Freak (Tim Lincecum) and The Steroid Freak (Barry Bonds).

It's hosted some college football games, and a February 10, 2006 win by the U.S. soccer team over Japan. 24 Willie Mays Plaza, at 3rd & King Streets.

Bryant Street, 16th Street, Potrero Avenue and Alameda Street, in the Mission District. Hard to reach by public transport: The Number 10 bus goes down Townsend Street and Rhode Island Avenue until reaching 16th, but then it's an 8-block walk. The Number 27 can be picked up at 5th & Harrison Streets, and will go right there.

* Candlestick Park. Home of the Giants from 1960 to 1999, the NFL 49ers since 1970, and the Raiders in the 1961 season, this may be the most-maligned sports facility in North American history. Its seaside location (Candlestick Point) has led to spectators being stricken by wind (a.k.a. The Hawk), cold, and even fog.
It was open to the Bay until 1971, including the 1962 World Series between the Yankees and the Giants, and was then enclosed to expand it from 42,000 to 69,000 seats for the Niners. It also got artificial turf for the 1970 season, one of the 1st stadiums to have it – though, to the city's credit, it was also the 1st NFL stadium and the 2nd MLB stadium (after Comiskey Park in Chicago) to switch back to real grass.

It is easily the most-hated venue in the history of North American sports. But its finest hour came on October 17, 1989, just before Game 3 of the World Series, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck. Over 60,000 people were inside the stadium, and they all got out okay, because the stadium's reinforced concrete held, with only minor damage.

The Giants only won 2 Pennants there, and never a World Series. But the 49ers won 5 Super Bowls while playing there, with 3 of their 6 NFC Championship Games won as the home team. The NFL Giants did beat the 49ers there in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, scoring no touchdowns but winning 15-13 thanks to 5 Matt Bahr field goals. ABC and ESPN hosted Monday Night Football at Candlestick 36 times, the most of any stadium.
The Beatles played their last "real concert" ever at the 'Stick on August 29, 1966 – only 25,000 people came out, a total probably driven down by the stadium's reputation and John Lennon's comments about religion on that tour. The Giants got out, and the 49ers have now done the same, with Levi's Stadium ready for the 2014 season.

The U.S. national soccer team played their 4th and final match there in 2014, a win over Azerbaijan. MLS' San Jose Earthquakes played there on July 27, which ended up being the last competitive sporting event held there. On July 12, nearly 30 years after their Super Bowl XIX matchup, legendary quarterbacks Joe Montana of the 49ers and Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins led teams in a flag football game there, with the proceeds going to charity. And Paul McCartney, having played its 1st concert with the Beatles 48 years earlier, played its last concert on August 14, the last scheduled show before the place was demolished.

A plan to build retail and housing units on the site has stalled, and it remains vacant. Ironically, since it replaced the original Kezar Stadium, 5,000 of Candlestick's seats went to the new Kezar.

The best way by public transport isn't a good one: The KT light rail at 4th & King Streets, at the CalTrain terminal, to 3rd & Gilman Streets, and then it's almost a mile's walk down Jagerson Avenue. So unless you're driving/renting a car, or you're a sports history buff who has to see the place, I wouldn't blame you if you crossed it off the list.
In spite of the Raiders' now-ended return, the 49ers are more popular -- according to a 2014 Atlantic Monthly article, even in Alameda County. This is also true for the Giants, more popular in Alameda County than the A's. The Raiders remain more popular in the Los Angeles area, a holdover from their 1982-94 layover, and also a consequence of L.A. not having had a team from then until the Rams' 2016 return.
* Kezar Stadium. The 49ers played here from their 1946 founding until 1970, the Raiders spent their inaugural 1960 season here, and previous pro teams in the city also played at this facility at the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, a mere 10-minute walk from the fabled corner of Haight & Ashbury Streets.

High school football, including the annual City Championship played on Thanksgiving Day, used to be held here as well. Bob St. Clair, who played there in high school, college (University of San Francisco) and the NFL in a Hall of Fame career with the 49ers, has compared it to Chicago's Wrigley Field as a "neighborhood stadium."

After the 49ers left, it became a major concert venue. Rocky Marciano defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World there on May 16, 1955, knocking British fighter Don Cockell out in the 9th round.

The original 60,000-seat structure was built in 1925, and was torn down in 1989 (a few months before the earthquake, so there's no way to know what the quake would have done to it), and was replaced in 1990 with a 9,000-seat stadium, much more suitable for high school sports. The original Kezar, named for one of the city's pioneering families, had a cameo in the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry. Frederick & Stanyan Streets, Kezar Drive and Arguello Blvd. MUNI light rail N train.

* Emeryville Park. Also known as Oaks Park, this was the home of the Pacific Coast League's Oakland Oaks from 1913 until 1955. The Oaks won Pennants there in 1927, '48, '50 and '54.

Most notable of these was the 1948 Pennant, won by a group of players who had nearly all played in the majors and were considered old, and were known as the Nine Old Men (a name often given to the U.S. Supreme Court). These old men included former Yankee 1st baseman Nick Etten, the previous year's World Series hero Cookie Lavagetto of the Brooklyn Dodgers (an Oakland native), Hall of Fame catcher Ernie Lombardi (another Oakland native), and one very young player, a 20-year-old 2nd baseman from Berkeley named Billy Martin.

Their manager? Casey Stengel. Impressed by Casey's feat of managing the Nine Old Men to a Pennant in a league that was pretty much major league quality, and by his previously having managed the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers to an American Association Pennant, Yankee owners Dan Topping and Del Webb hired Casey to manage in 1949. Casey told Billy that if he ever got the chance to bring him east, he would, and he was as good as his word.

Pixar Studios has built property on the site. 45th Street, San Pablo Avenue, Park Avenue and Watts Street, Emeryville, near the Amtrak station. Number 72 bus from Jack London Square.
* Frank Youell Field. This was another stopgap facility, used by the Raiders from 1962 to 1965, a 22,000-seat stadium that was named after an Oakland undertaker – perhaps fitting, although the Raiders didn't yet have that image. Interestingly from a New York perspective, the first game here was between the Raiders and the forerunners of the Jets, the New York Titans.

It was demolished in 1969. A new field of the same name was built on the site for Laney College. East 8th Street, 5th Avenue, East 10th Street and the Oakland Estuary. Lake Merritt BART station.

* Cow Palace. The more familiar name of the Grand National Livestock Pavilion, this big barn just south of the City Line in Daly City has hosted just about everything, from livestock shows and rodeos to the 1956 and 1964 Republican National Conventions. (Yes, the Republicans came here, not the "hippie" Democrats.)
The '64 Convention is where New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller refused to be booed off the podium when he dared to speak out against the John Birch Society – the Tea Party idiots of their time – and when Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona was nominated, telling them, "I would remind you, my fellow Republicans, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And I would remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." (Personally, I think that extremism in the defense of liberty is no defense of liberty.)

Built in 1941, it is one of the oldest remaining former NBA and NHL sites, having hosted the NBA's Warriors (then calling themselves the San Francisco Warriors) from 1962 to 1971, the NHL's San Jose Sharks from their 1991 debut until their current arena could open in 1993, and several minor-league hockey teams. It hosted 1 fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, with Ezzard Charles defending the title by beating Pat Valentino on October 14, 1949.

The 1960 NCAA Final Four was held here, culminating in Ohio State, led by Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek (with future coaching legend Bobby Knight as the 6th man) beating local heroes and defending National Champions California, led by Darrall Imhoff.

The Beatles played here on August 19, 1964 and August 31, 1965, and Elvis Presley sang here on November 13, 1970 and November 28 & 29, 1976. It was the site of Neil Young's 1978 concert that produced the live album Live Rust and the concert film Rust Never Sleeps, and the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope benefit with Joan Baez, Lou Reed, Sting and U2. The acoustics of the place, and the loss of such legendary venues as the Fillmore West and the Winterland Ballroom, make it the Bay Area's holiest active rock and roll site. 2600 Geneva Avenue at Santos Street, in Daly City. 8X bus.

In addition to the preceding, Elvis sang at the Auditorium Arena (now the Kaiser Convention Center, near the Laney College campus in Oakland) early in his career, on June 3, 1956 and again on October 27, 1957; and the San Francisco Civic Auditorium (now the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove Street at Polk Street) on October 26, 1957.

While Fresno is nearly 200 miles southeast, it's closer to San Jose than it is to Los Angeles. Elvis sang at Fresno's Selland Arena on April 25, 1973 and May 12, 1974. 700 M Street at Ventura Street.

* Levi's Stadium. The new home of the 49ers, whose naming rights were bought by the San Francisco-based clothing company that popularized blue jeans all over the world, opened in 2014. It is known as "The Field of Jeans."

In 2016, it hosted Super Bowl 50 on February 7, with the Denver Broncos beating the Carolina Panthers; an NHL Stadium Series outdoor hockey game there on February 21, with the Sharks losing to their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Kings; and, on June 3, a game of the 2016 Copa America, its 1st match by the U.S. national soccer team, but we lost 2-0 to Colombia.

It annually hosts the Pacific-12 Conference Championship Game, and in 2019 (for the 2018 season) it will host the College Football Playoff National Championship. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup.

Before construction, the address of the site was 4701 Great America Parkway at Old Glory Lane in Santa Clara, next to California's Great America park, outside San Jose. Now, the official address of Levi's Stadium is 4900 Marie P. DeBartolo Way, after the mother of former 49ers owner and newly-elected Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Eddie DeBartolo.

If you're going to apply to the U.S. Postal Service to make it 4900, why not 4949? The intersection is Marie P. DeBartolo Way and Tasman Drive. It's 46 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco, 39 miles southeast of downtown Oakland, and 9 miles northwest of downtown San Jose.

CalTrain from downtown San Francisco to Santa Clara station. California's Great America theme part is next-door. From downtown San Jose, take the 916 trolley.

* Earthquakes Stadium. The new stadium for the San Jose Earthquakes opened in 2015, and nearby tech company Avaya had its naming rights until late last year. It is soccer-specific and seats 18,000 people. On July 28, 2016, it hosted the MLS All-Star Game, with North London giants Arsenal defeating the MLS All-Stars 2-1. It hosted its 1st U.S. national team game on March 24, 2017, a 6-0 win over Honduras. On February 2, 2019, it hosted a 2-0 USMNT win over Costa Rica.

1123 Coleman Avenue & Newhall Drive. It is 3 1/2 miles from downtown San Jose, 41 miles from downtown Oakland, and 46 from downtown San Francisco. ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) to Great America-Santa Clara.

This is actually the 3rd version of the San Jose Earthquakes. The 1st one played in the original North American Soccer League from 1974 to 1984, at Spartan Stadium. This has been home to San Jose State University sports since 1933, it hosted both the old Earthquakes, of the original North American Soccer League, from 1974 to 1984. It was a neutral site hosting Soccer Bowl '75, in which the Tampa Bay Rowdies beat the Portland Timbers 2-0. It's hosted 3 games of the U.S. national team, most recently a 2007 loss to China, and games of the 1999 Women's World Cup.

1251 S. 10th Street, San Jose. San Jose Municipal Stadium, home of the Triple-A San Jose Giants, is a block away at 588 E. Alma Avenue. From either downtown San Francisco or downtown Oakland, take BART to Fremont terminal, then 181 bus to 2nd & Santa Clara, then 68 bus to Monterey & Alma.

On November 19, 2018, Moneywise compiled a list of their Worst College Football Stadiums, the bottom 19 percent of college football, 25 out of 129. Spartan Stadium, now named CEFCU Stadium, came in 5th: The article called the New Deal era stadium "tired," and cited bad concessions and the fact that the field was Astroturf, the original artificial turf that has proven so dangerous, and not a more modern, safer synthetic grass like FieldTurf.

San Jose State was also the alma mater of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the Gold and Bronze Medalists in the 200 meters at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, who then gave their glove-fisted salute for civil rights (most people still don't understand that it wasn't a "Black Power" salute) on the medal platform, to short-term anger and long-term praise.

In 2005, SJSU dedicated a statue commemorating the occasion, with the Silver Medal part of the platform, where Australian runner Peter Norman would have stood, empty so people can pose with the Smith and Carlos figures. Outside Clark Hall, where 6th and San Antonio Streets would have met.

The 2nd version of the Quakes played at Spartan Stadium from 1996 to 2005, but ran into financial trouble, and got moved to become the Houston Dynamo. The 3rd version was started in 2008, and until 2014 played at Buck Shaw Stadium, now called Stevens Stadium, in Santa Clara, on the campus of Santa Clara University. Also accessible by the Santa Clara ACE station.

Despite all its contributions to women's soccer, the Bay Area no longer has a professional women's team. The San Jose CyberRays of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), captained by 1999 penalty hero Brandi Chastain, played at Spartan Stadium from 2001 to 2003, winning the 2001 league title.

FC Gold Pride won the 2010 title in the league named Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), but couldn't sustain itself financially, and folded immediately thereafter. Pioneer Stadium, Hayward. 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., on the campus of California State University-East Bay, in Hayward. About 28 miles from San Francisco, 19 from Oakland, 28 from San Jose. BART to Hayward, then Bus 60.

* Stanford Stadium. This is the home field of Stanford University in Palo Alto, down the Peninsula from San Francisco. Originally built in 1921, it was home to many great quarterbacks, from early 49ers signal-caller Frankie Albert to 1971 Heisman winner Jim Plunkett to John Elway. It hosted Super Bowl XIX in 1985, won by the 49ers over the Miami Dolphins – 1 of only 2 Super Bowls that ended up having had a team that could have been called a home team. (The other was XIV, the Los Angeles Rams losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Rose Bowl.)

It also hosted San Francisco's games of the 1994 World Cup, a game of the 1999 Women's World Cup, and the soccer games of the 1984 Olympics, even though most of the events of those Olympics were down the coast in Los Angeles. It hosted 10 games by the U.S. national team, totaling 4 wins, 2 losses, 2 draws.

The original 85,000-seat structure was demolished and replaced with a new 50,000-seat stadium in 2006. Arboretum Road & Galvez Street. Caltrain to Palo Alto, 36 miles from downtown Oakland, 35 from downtown San Francisco, 19 from downtown San Jose.

No President has ever been born, or has ever grown up, in the San Francisco Bay Area. But Herbert Hoover, 1929-33, was part of the 1st class at Stanford, from 1891 to 1895, and he and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, maintained a home there from 1920 until her death in 1944, at which point he moved to the Waldorf Towers in New York. The house is now the official residence of the president -- of Stanford. It is not open to the public. 623 Mirada Avenue, across the campus from the stadium.

Stanford runs a think tank named for the 31st President, the Hoover Insitution, and exhibits inside the Hoover Tower on campus. 550 Serra Mall.
* California Memorial Stadium. Home of Stanford's arch-rivals, the University of California, at its main campus in Berkeley in the East Bay. (The school is generally known as "Cal" for sports, and "Berkeley" for most other purposes.) Its location in the Berkeley Hills makes it one of the nicest settings in college football.

But it's also, quite literally, on the Hayward Fault, a branch of the San Andreas Fault, so if "The Big One" had hit during a Cal home game, 72,000 people would have been screwed. With this in mind, the University renovated the stadium, making it safer and ready for 63,000 fans in 2012. So, like their arch-rivals Stanford, they now have a new stadium on the site of the old one.

The old stadium hosted 1 NFL game, and it was a very notable one: Due to a scheduling conflict with the A's, the Raiders played a 1973 game there with the Miami Dolphins, and ended the Dolphins' winning streak that included the entire 1972 season and Super Bowl VII. 76 Canyon Road, Berkeley. Downtown Berkeley stop on BART; 5 1/2 miles from downtown Oakland, 14 from downtown San Francisco, 48 from downtown San Jose.

* Mechanic's Pavilion. Knowing that the drying up of the Gold Rush had put many of the original "Forty-Niners" out of work, with no educational background to support them, a group of charitable San Franciscans opened the Mechanics' Institute in 1854. It offered classes in woodworking, mechanical drawing, industrial design, electrical science, applied mathematics and ironwork. It is often said to be the predecessor of the University of California system.

In 1865, the adjoining Mechanic's Pavilion was built, hosting several major events, including a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt on his 1902 tour of the country.

This also included 4 fights for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, each time with a Californian defending the title: "Gentleman Jim" Corbett against Tom Sharkey on June 24, 1896 (a draw, thus allowing Corbett to retain the title); Jim Jeffries against Gus Ruhlin on November 15, 1901; Jeffries against Corbett on August 14, 1903 (the 10th-round knockout turning out to be Corbett's last fight); and Jeffries against Jack Munroe on August 26, 1904 (after which Jeffries retired, only to return and get clobbered by Jack Johnson in Reno in 1910).

The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed Mechanic's Pavilion, but the men running the Mechanics' Institute kept it going and helped with the rebuilding of the city. Today, membership in the Institute is still open to the pubic, offering the full services of the library, and to the chess room, home of the oldest continuously operating chess club in the Western Hemisphere. 57 Post Street, off Kearny Street, downtown.

Yankee Legend Joe DiMaggio, who grew up in San Francisco and later divided his time between there and South Florida, is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, on the Peninsula. 1500 Mission Road & Lawndale Blvd. BART to South San Francisco, then about a 1-mile walk.

The Fillmore Auditorium was at Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard, and it still stands and hosts live music. Bus 38L. Winterland Ballroom, home of the final concerts of The Band (filmed as The Last Waltz) and the Sex Pistols, was around the corner from the Fillmore at Post & Steiner Streets. And the legendary corner of Haight & Ashbury Streets can be reached via the 30 Bus, taking it to Haight and Masonic Avenue and walking 1 block west.

San Francisco, like New York, has a Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), at 151 3rd Street, downtown. The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is probably the city's most famous museum, in Lincoln Park at the northwestern corner of the city, near the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge. (Any of you who are Trekkies, the Presidio is a now-closed military base that, in the Star Trek Universe, is the seat of Starfleet Command and Starfleet Academy.) And don't forget to take a ride on one of them cable cars I've been hearing so dang much about.

Oakland isn't much of a museum city, especially compared with San Francisco across the Bay. But the Oakland Museum of California (10th & Oak, Lake Merritt BART) and the Chabot Space & Science Center (10000 Skyline Blvd., not accessible by BART) may be worth a look.
While San Francisco has been the setting for lots of TV shows (from Ironside and The Streets of San Francisco in the 1970s, to Full House and Dharma & Greg in the 1990s), Oakland, being much less glamorous, has had only one that I know of: Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, comedian Mark Curry's show about a former basketball player who returns to his old high school to teach. The 2010-15 NBC series Parenthood, loosely based on the 1989 film of the same name, was set in Berkeley. And San Jose hasn't had even that much.

In contrast, lots of movies have been shot in Oakland, including a pair of baseball-themed movies shot at the Coliseum: Moneyball, based on Michael Lewis' book about the early 2000s A's, with Brad Pitt as general manager Billy Beane; and the 1994 remake of Angels In the Outfield, filmed there because a recent earthquake had damaged the real-life Angels' Anaheim Stadium, and it couldn't be repaired in time for filming.

Movies set in San Francisco often take advantage of the city's topography, and include the Dirty Harry series, Bullitt (based on the same real-life cop, Dave Toschi); The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart; Woody Allen's Bogart tribute, Play It Again, Sam; The Lady from Shanghai, the original version of D.O.A., 48 Hrs., and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home -- with the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, at the Alameda naval base, standing in for the carrier USS Enterprise, which was then away at sea and unavailable.

The Fan, about a fan's obsession with a Giants player, filmed at Candlestick Park. So did Experiment In Terror, Freebie and the Bean, and Contagion.

The 1936 film San Francisco takes place around the earthquake and fire that devastated the city in 1906. And Milk starred Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, America's 1st openly gay successful politician, elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977 before being assassinated with Mayor George Moscone the next year.

Movies set in San Francisco often have scenes filmed there and in Oakland, including Pal Joey, Mahogany, Basic Instinct, the James Bond film A View to a Kill, and Mrs. Doubtfire, starring San Francisco native Robin Williams.

San Jose hasn't yet been as lucky. No notable TV show has been set or filmed there. Alfred Hitchcock filmed Vertigo and The Birds in and around San Francisco, but used San Jose's Diridon Station as a stand-in for a Connecticut station for his 1964 film Marnie.

For legal reasons, the CBS medical drama Trapper John, M.D., starring former Bonanza star Pernell Roberts as Dr. John McIntyre, was said to be a sequel to the film version of M*A*S*H, where Trapper was played by Elliott Gould, not the TV show, where he was played by Wayne Rogers. Thus we have the oddity of Trapper working in a hospital in San Francisco, the hometown (well, the neighboring suburb of Mill Valley, in Marin County, was) of the man who replaced him at the 4077th MASH, B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell).

Wayne Rogers did play a doctor in a series set in San Francisco, after leaving M*A*S*H, starring with Lynn Redgrave in the 1979-82 sitcom House Calls, set it what was then the present day. Other series set in San Francisco include (separated by category, then by chronological order) the police dramas Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco, McMillan and Wife, Hooperman, Nash Bridges and Monk; the sci-fi/fantasy shows Sliders and Charmed; the family drama Party of Five; and the sitcoms Phyllis, Too Close for Comfort, My Sister Sam, Suddenly Susan, Dhrama & Greg, and Disney's That's So Raven.
The 1957-63 CBS Western Have Gun - Will Travel established the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco as the base of operations for the man known only as Paladin (Richard Boone). Today, there is a hotel by that name in the city, at 1075 Sutter Street in the Nob Hill section.

*

So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Devils fans in going coast-to-coast, and take on the San Jose Sharks. Just be nice to your hosts, and you should be all right.

Next Saturday -- February 29, Leap Year Day, and an afternoon matinee, local time, a late-afternoon game for us -- the New Jersey Devils visit the Staples Center to take on the Los Angeles Kings.

North Jersey and Central Jersey are part of the New York Tri-State Area, so we don't like Los Angeles, for several reasons. The 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, in which the Kings got away with cheating us for the Cup, is the most recent of them -- even if we did support them in the 2014 Finals, because they were playing The Scum.

Before You Go. Unlike the Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas, the Los Angeles area has very consistent weather. It's a nice place to visit. If you don't mind earthquakes. And mudslides. And wildfires. And smog. And traffic worse than New York's.

Check the weather forecast on the Los Angeles Times' website before you, so you'll know what to bring. For next Saturday, daytime temperatures are projected to be in the mid-70s, and the nights in the mid-50s. In other words, a very warm for us, but normal for them. So you might want to not bring a Winter coat to Newark/JFK/LaGuardia Airport/Penn Station/Port Authority. If you're driving in, leave the Winter coat in the back seat once you get past the Rocky Mountains, and just wear a light jacket.

Los Angeles is in the Pacific Time Zone, which is 3 hours behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

If you want to take a side trip into Mexico, it's about 140 miles from downtown L.A. to the Tijuana border station. You will need a passport. GoToBus runs buses from Los Angeles to Tijuana, $30 and 4 hours, 45 minutes each way. If you drive in, you will need Mexican driving insurance, which you can probably buy at the Mexican consulate, either in New York or Los Angeles. For the moment, $1.00 = 18.91 pesos, while 1 peso = a shade over a nickel.

Tickets. Capacity for Kings games is listed as 18,230, and they're averaging 17,075 per game, under 94 percent of capacity. Their 2 recent Stanley Cup wins have put them heavily in demand, as L.A. loves a winner and hates a loser (as evidenced by the Clippers drawing badly until 2013 and fans forgetting the Kings existed between Wayne Gretzky getting traded away in February 1996 and the Playoffs starting in April 2012).

Seats in the 100 level are $148 between the goals and $65 behind them. In the 200 level, They're $81 between the goals and $60 behind them. In the 300 level, they're $75 between the goals and $42
behind them.

Getting There. It's 2,791 miles from Times Square in New York to City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. In other words, if you're going, you're flying.

After all, even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days' worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don't get pulled over for speeding, you'll still need over 2 full days. Each way.

But, if you really, really want to drive... Take Interstate 80 West across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. Just before leaving Nebraska for Colorado you'll get on Interstate 76, and shortly before reaching Denver you'll get on Interstate 70 West. You'll take that all the way to its end in Utah, where you'll take Interstate 15 South. You'll go through a short strip of Arizona before getting into Nevada (where you'll see the Strip, Las Vegas), before getting into California.

Assuming you're not going to a hotel first (and you really should), you'll get off I-15 at Exit 109A, and get on Interstate 10 West, and almost immediately onto U.S. Route 101 North, the San Bernardino Freeway.  Take that road's Exit 3 to State Route 110, the Pasadena Freeway, and that will get you into downtown L.A.

Given an average speed of 60 miles an hour, you'll be in New Jersey for an hour and a half, Pennsylvania for 5:15, Ohio for 4 hours, Indiana for 2:30, Illinois for 2:45, Iowa for 5:15, Nebraska for 6 hours, Colorado for 7:15, Utah for 6 hours, Arizona for half an hour, Nevada for 2 hours, and California for 3 and a half hours hours; for a total of 46 hours and 30 minutes. Factor in rest stops, you'll need more like 3 full days. And, remember, that's just one way. And if you end up using Las Vegas as a rest stop, well, you might end up missing the game and end up, yourself, as as one of those things that "stays in Vegas."

If you take Amtrak, in order to make the Saturday afternoon game, you'll have to leave New York's Penn Station (not Newark's) on Wednesday afternoon, on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40. You'd reach Union Station in Chicago at 9:50 AM Central Time on Thursday, then leave at 2:50 PM on the Southwest Chief, reaching Union Station in Los Angeles at 8:00 AM Pacific Time on Saturday.

The Southwest Chief leaves L.A. at 6:00 PM Pacific Time every day, and reaches Chicago at 2:50 PM Central Time 2 days later. The Lake Shore Limited leaves Chicago at 9:30 PM, and arrives back in New York at 6:23 PM the next day. Round-trip fare is $492, and the trip is 64 1/2 hours, as opposed to a plane for 7. Union Station is at 800 N. Alameda Street, at Arcadia Street. Union Station on Metro.

Greyhound takes even longer, about 68 hours, changing buses twice, $662 round-trip, but it could drop to as little as $397 with advanced purchase. The station is at 1716 E. 7th Street, at Lawrence Street. Metro doesn't go anywhere near it, but the Number 60 bus will get you downtown. 

Flights to L.A. will be relatively cheap this time of year, and you might even get a round-trip nonstop flight for under $700. The LAX2US bus will take you, as its name suggests, from Los Angeles International Airport to Union Station, taking 45 minutes and costing $8.00; from there, bus and subway connections can be made to downtown. 

Once In the City. Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spain as a Catholic mission, and means "The Angels" -- hence that was the name of the Pacific Coast League team, and the subsequent American League team: The Los Angeles Angels. The city continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and is now just under 4 million people, making it the 2nd-largest city in North America, behind New York. (Unless you count Mexico, and thus Mexico City, as "North America" instead of "Central America.")
The metro area has about 18.6 million people, and may soon end up passing New York and all others in that regard. The streets aren't quite north-south and east-west, as, like on the islands of Manhattan and Montreal, they're kind of on a diagonal. The "centerpoint" of the city, where east-west and north-south addresses begin, is 1st Street and Main Street, at the northwestern corner of which is the iconic City Hall. Numbered streets have east-west addresses.

I call the Art Deco, marble-fronted City Hall, at 200 N. Spring Street, and at 453 feet the city's tallest building between 1928 and 1964, "iconic" because it's been used in popular culture many times: You've seen it, even if you couldn't identify it before now.

Its image is embossed on Los Angeles Police Department badges, as seen on the 1951-59 TV series (and its 1967-70 revival) Dragnet. (I can't prove it, but I suspect that show star-creator Jack Webb chose 714 as the badge number for Detective Sergeant Joe Friday in honor of Babe Ruth and his career home run total.) It stood in for the Metropolis Daily Planet building on the 1952-59 TV series The Adventures of Superman. Many other L.A.-set TV series and movies have included shots of it.
The Los Angeles Times is the leading (most-circulated) newspaper in the Western United States, and has long been known for a great sports section. The legendary columnist Jim Murray has been dead for some time now, but if you watch ESPN's Around the Horn, you'll recognize the names of Bill Plaschke and J.A. Adande.

The sales tax in the State of California is 7.5 percent, in the City of Los Angeles 9 percent. ZIP Codes in Los Angeles start with the digits 900 and 901, and the suburbs 902 through 918. The original Area Code was 213, but it is now used only for Downtown, and 323 now overlays it. 310 and 818 are used for the Western suburbs, 562 for the Southern suburbs, and 661 and 747 for the Northern suburbs. Despite its extensive freeway network, Los Angeles does not have a "beltway." The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water (LADPW) runs the electricity and the water.

The population of the City of Los Angeles is about 47 percent Hispanic, 32 percent white, 11 percent Asian, and 10 percent black. For the County of Los Angeles, it's roughly the same: 47 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 9 percent black.

A single ride on a bus or subway is $1.75. A bag of 10 tokens (yes, like Philly and Toronto, L.A. uses tokens, although they also use TAP farecards) is $17.50 (no savings). A 1-day pass is $7.00, and if you're going for more than 1 game, a 7-day pass might help, at $25.

Yes, since 1990, L.A., that most car-designed of American cities, has had a subway. They call it Metro Rail, and it has Red, Blue, Green, Gold, Purple and Expo lines. (Expo? It goes from Los Angeles all the way to Montreal? No.)
Going In. The Staples Center is part of the L.A. Live complex, 2 miles south (well, southwest) of downtown, which also includes, among other buildings, the Los Angeles Convention Center, the Microsoft Theater, and a movie theater.

The arena, named for the office supply company has a mailing address of 1111 S. Figueroa Street. (If that address sounds familiar, it's because the L.A. Coliseum is at 3911 S. Figueroa, about 2 1/2 miles south.) It is accessible by Pico Station on Metro Rail's Blue and Expo Lines.

If you drive in, parking is $10 for most events. You're most likely to enter the arena via Figueroa Street, on the arena's east side. The court and rink are laid out east-to-west -- or, more precisely, southwest-to-northeast. The Kings shoot twice toward the (north)east goal.
On 3 occasions, Vitali Klitschko fought for the WBC edition of the Heavyweight Championship of the World at the Staples Center. On June 21, 2003, he was knocked out by Lennox Lewis. But after Lewis vacated the title by retiring (there hasn't been an undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World since), Klitschko was awarded the title by knocking Corrie Sanders out there on April 24, 2004. On September 26, 2009, he won a decision over Chris Arreola.
Food.  Los Angeles is an international city, and the concession stands at the Staples Center reflect this. But L.A. is also a city where individuality clashes with conformity, and this can be seen in the chain restaurants serving the place:

* California Pizza Kitchen, outside Section 109.

* Camacho's Cantina (Mexican), 117.

* Dave's Dog House (as if there really was such a thing as a "gourmet hot dog"), 102.

* Deli & Dash, 115.

* Goose Island (Chicago-style hot dogs by Hebrew National, and Fritos chips), 108.

* Ludo Bird (a French theme), 119.

* McDonald's (you know what they serve), 114.

* Outtakes (sandwiches), 104.

* Tap Haus (German-style beer & bratwurst), 113 and 118.

* Wetzel's Pretzels (including hot dogs with pretzel buns), 103.

Team History Displays. Despite the Kings' 2 recent Cups, the Lakers are still way ahead here, even if you don't count the 5 NBA Championships they won in Minneapolis. (And you shouldn't, since they had nothing to do with Los Angeles -- but since Minnesota is "The Land of 10,000 Lakes," now you know why a team in L.A. is called the Lakers.) Nevertheless, only the banners for the host team on a given night are shown on that night.

It's hard to believe, but in 52 completed seasons (not counting the current one and the canceled 2004-05), they've only finished 1st in their Division once, in the Smythe Division in 1991. And they've never won the President's Trophy for best overall record in the NHL.

But they won the Western Conference Championship in 1993 (its last year under the name of the Clarence Campbell Conference), and won the Stanley Cup in 2012 (beating the Devils) and 2014 (beating the Rangers -- making the Kings the only team to beat 2 different New York Tri-State Area teams in a Final, in any sport, except for the Red Sox, who beat the Giants in the 1912 World Series and the Dodgers in 1916).

The Kings have 6 retired numbers, including 2/3rds of their 1970s and '80s "Triple Crown Line": 16, for center Marcel Dionne; and 18, for right wing Dave Taylor. Left wing Charlie Simmer has not yet had his Number 11 retired.

Also retired from the 1970s is the 30 of goaltender Rogatien "Rogie" Vachon. But such was the Kings' luck that the only Stanley Cup won by any of those guys were the Cups won by Vachon in 1968, '69 and '71 -- as the backup goalie on the Montreal Canadiens. Perhaps Simmer has not had his number retired because he's not in the Hockey Hall of Fame, as Dionne, Taylor and Vachon are.

From their 1993 Conference Champions, they retired the 4 of defenseman Rob Blake, the 20 of left wing Luc Robitaille, and the 99 of center Wayne Gretzky. That team had some of Gretzky's 1980s Edmonton Oiler teammates, including a pair Hall-of-Famers, right wing Jari Kurri, Number 17; and defenseman Paul Coffey, Number 77; however, those numbers have not been retired.

Also honored by the Hall of Fame, with their Foster Hewitt Memorial Award, are broadcasters John "Jiggs" McDonald (better known around here as an Islander announcer), Bob Miller and Nick Nickson.

The Kings also have a team Hall of Fame, with 9 members: Dionne, Taylor, Vachon, Robitaille, Gretzky, Blake, Miller, 1970s center Butch Goring (better known in our area as an Islander), and longtime trainer Peter Demers.

Gretzky was named to Canada's Walk of Fame. He, Dionne, Kurri and defenseman Larry Robinson (who played on their 1991 Division Champions, won the 1995 Cup with us as an assistant coach, left to be their head coach, and came back to coach us to the 2000 Cup) were named to The Hockey News' 100 Greatest Players in 1998. Dionne, Gretzky, Kurri and Robinson were named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players in 2017.

Gretzky and Kurri have been elected to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame. Gretzky, Dionne, former coach Bob Pulford, former scout Bob Crocker, and former owner Bruce McNall have received the Lester Patrick Trophy for contributions to hockey in America.

Neal Broten and Steve Christoff of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team played for the Kings. However, no members of the Kings were selected for the Team Canada that beat the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summit Series.

Since 1991, the Kings have had a rivalry with the San Jose Sharks, part of the Southern California vs. Northern California rivalry that has also included Dodgers vs. Giants, Rams vs. 49ers, Galaxy vs. Earthquakes and, to a much lesser extent, Lakers vs. Warriors. The Sharks lead it, 96-79 with 7 ties. They've met in the Playoffs 4 times, with the Kings winning in 2013 and 2014, and the Sharks winning in 2011 and 2016.

Since 1993, the Kings have also had an intra-area rivalry with the Anaheim Ducks (known until 2006 as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim), known as the Freeway Face-Off. It's a much bigger rivalry than Dodgers vs. Angels, Lakers vs. Clippers, or (so far) Rams vs. Chargers and Galaxy vs. LAFC. The Ducks actually lead the all-time series, 72-68 with 11 ties. They've only faced each other in the Playoffs once, in the 2014 Western Conference Semifinals, and it went to 7 games before the Kings won it.

Outside the arena, at the Star Plaza, are statues of Gretzky, Robitaille and Miller; Lakers figures Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Chick Hearn; and Oscar De La Hoya, an East Los Angeles native who boxed in L.A. many times. Presumably, in the wake of his recent death, a statue will be added for Kobe Bryant.

The Staples Center has a banner for a musical performer. It's not Michael Jackson, who lived in Los Angeles for most of his adult life, and whose 2009 public memorial service was held there. It's Taylor Swift, who was famously born in 1989, after Jackson first began to be thought of as weird. But there is a reason for the banner: Like Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden and Bruce Springsteen at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia, she has sold the arena out more than any other singer.


Contrary to its image as a city whose "idea of culture is yogurt," there is a Los Angeles literary tradition. Much of it is in the "hard-boiled detective story," as pioneered by Raymond Chandler through his creation of the private eye Philip Marlowe. Writers influenced by the city include Nathanael West, Charles Bukowski, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, Bret Easton Ellis and (he counts, especially with the "hard-boiled" part) Quentin Tarantino. And the Los Angeles Times has produced many fine sportswriters. But as for books about the Staples Center's teams? Uh...

And the Times' sports department produced the retrospective Crowning Glory: The Los Angeles Kings' Incredible Run to the 2012 Stanley Cup.

Next Sunday night, the New Jersey Devils will be in Anaheim to take on the Ducks.

From their start of play in 1993 to 2006, the Anaheim Ducks were officially named the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. I called them the Mighty Dorks and the Mighty Schmucks. Then they changed their name to just the Anaheim Ducks -- and won the next Stanley Cup. Coincidence?

Before You Go. Unlike the Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas, the Los Angeles area has very consistent weather. It's a nice place to visit. If you don't mind earthquakes. And mudslides. And wildfires. And smog.

For the moment, The Angels' hometown (well, home County, anyway) newspaper, the Orange County Register, is predicting the days to be in the low 70s, and the nights in the low 50s. In other words, a little warm for us, but normal for them. The region's (and indeed the Western U.S.') largest newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, mostly concurs. So you might want to bring a jacket to Newark/JFK/LaGuardia Airport/Penn Station/Port Authority. If you're driving in, leave the Winter coat in the back seat once you get past the Rocky Mountains.

Anaheim is in the Pacific Time Zone, 3 hours behind New York. So there will be some clock & watch fiddling.

Tickets. The Ducks are averaging 15,510 fans per home game this season. That's a little over 92 percent of capacity. Getting tickets won't be hard.

Seats in the lower level, the 200 sections, are $154 between the goals and $94 behind them. Seats in the middle level, the 300 sections, are $165 between and $151 behind. Seats in the upper level, the 400 sections, are $65 between and $48 behind.

Getting There. It's 2,791 miles from Times Square in New York to City Hall in Los Angeles, and 2,773 miles from the Prudential Center in Newark to the Honda Center in Anaheim. In other words, if you're going, you're flying. A round-trip flight from Newark to Los Angeles International Airport (a.k.a. LAX) can be had for under $600.

Today is the NHL's trading deadline, and my team, the New Jersey Devils, have gone into full "fire sale" mold. The great new era they tried to build didn't happen, so they're tearing it all down and starting all over.

Before the season began, they signed free agent right wing Wayne Simmonds to a 1-year contract, obtained defenseman P.K. Subban in a trade with the Nashville Predators that looked like a steal, and sent 2 draft picks to the Vegas Gold Knights for left wing Nikita Gusev. Things were looking up.

They didn't stay that way. Head coach John Hynes remained clueless, and the team hasn't looked like making the Playoffs at any point during this season. General manager Ray Shero then traded the team's best player, left wing Taylor Hall, as part of a package with the Arizona Coyotes for right wing Nick Merkley, 2 guys who will probably never make it, and 2 conditional draft picks. This was the 1st sign that Shero intended to blow it all up.

On December 3, Hynes was fired, and replaced by Alain Nasreddine, who still hasn't had the "interim" tag taken off him, and hasn't really earned that yet. On January 12, Shero was fired, and replaced with Tom Fitzgerald, a former Islander and the 1st Captain of the Nashville Predators. He's also serving as an assistant coach to Nasreddine, and also awaits the removal of the "interim" tag.

I thought getting rid of Shero and Hynes was the answer. But the owners -- including Josh Harris, also the owner of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, whose "Trust the Process" slogan also seems to have stalled -- don't seem to get that a question exists.

Then, last Sunday, Fitzgerald made a pair of trades. Andy Greene, a Devils since 2006, thus the last remaining player from the Meadowlands era, and the team's Captain since 2015, was sent to the Islanders for a 2021 draft pick and David Quenneville -- whose brother John had been traded away at the start of the season, and whose cousin Joel was an original 1982-83 Devil and a 3-time Stanley Cup-winning coach for the Chicago Blackhawks.

I can understand trading Greene. He's 37, and isn't doing us or himself any good by staying. But David Quenneville is far from ready for the NHL, and that draft pick won't help us for over a year, if at all.

The same day, Fitzgerald sent center Blake Coleman to the Tampa Bay Lightning for yet another draft pick, and left wing Nolan Foote, son of former NHL star Adam Foote. He's nowhere near ready, either.

Today, it got worse. The Devils traded Simmonds to the Buffalo Sabres for a conditional 5th round pick in 2021. Someone joked online that both teams lost the trade. Another person joked that Simmons deserved the respect of being traded to "not Buffalo."

It was also announced that defenseman Sami Vatanen had been traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for left wing Janne Kuokkanen, defenseman Frederick Claesson, and a conditional 4th round pick this year. Kuokkanen is doing well at the hockey equivalent of Triple-A ball, but this was a trade of a reasonably good NHL defenseman for 3 guys who are not ready to play in the NHL, and might never be.

The Devils are trading good, proven players for prospects. Seems to me that there's a baseball team not far away that tried this, and it spectacularly failed (never mind the Asstros' cheating), and now the owner has said, "Fuck this, I'm opening the vault."

As they used to say on M*A*S*H: "Attention, all personnel: Incoming Wounded!"

The Arsenal-ization of the Yankees continues. On top of the "soulless, corporate new stadium full of tourists that prices the real fans out," the cheap management, and the failure to win the League in a long time, the injuries never seem to end.

Here's the intended starting rotation for the 2020 season:

* Luis Severino has been shut down, and will need Tommy John surgery. After going 19-8 and looking like a genuine ace in 2018, injuries limited him to 20 innings (including the postseason) in 2019, and now he will miss all of 2020, and may even miss the start of 2021.

* James Paxton underwent back surgery, and could be out until June.

* Domingo Germán is absolutely out until at least June 5, because of a suspension for domestic violence, a case from which no criminal charges were filed, but he had to be suspended, including the 2019 postseason, anyway, because, God forbid, MLB should be seen as giving the Yankees a fair chance against a bunch of cheats like the Houston Astros.

* Gerrit Cole, as far as we can tell after his 1st Spring Training start, is okay. And...

* Masahiro Tanaka, as far as we can tell, is okay.

Those are the intended 5 starters. Of the potential contenders to replace Sevy, Big Maple and Germán:

* J.A. Happ appears to be okay, but he had a 4.91 ERA last season, and is now 37 years old. Of these pitchers, he is the likeliest to contribute in 2020, but he's also the likeliest to have no more good MLB seasons.

* Jordan Montgomery missed most of 2019 in recovery from Tommy John surgery, and while he appears to be okay now, he hasn't been nearly as effective as any of the 3 pitchers he'd be subbing for were, or even as much as he was.

I realize that's a small sample size, but that same sample would also throw a question mark on it if he had pitched that well.

* Jonathan Loáisiga was limited by injury to 21 games last season, only 15 of those were in the major leagues, only 4 of those were starts, and none of those excited anybody.

* Luis Cessa made 43 appearances last season, all in relief, and was shaky. That he is even being considered for one of the rotation slots is crazy.

* Mike King was injured most of last season. He made 11 appearances between the minor leagues, and only 8 of them were starts. His entire major league experience consists of 2 innings of relief last September 27.

In other words, last September, the Yankees didn't consider him worth trying until the end was near and the competitive risk was minimal. And the Yankees are considering trying him despite that slightest of major league experience. Which is still more major league experience than...

* Deivi García, who is the current great prospect that Brian Cashman's apologists slobber over, but he wasn't too good in Double-A last season, and got rocked in Triple-A. The good news is, he's not yet 21, and could learn how to pitch at the major league level. The bad news is, he's not yet 21, and the Yankees need 3 major league level starting pitchers now.

Are they going to have ANY starting pitchers available for Opening Day? What next, is Tanaka going to need hip replacement?

(That would be just my luck. I couldn't even talk to him about it, or about baseball, or about anything else, without a translator.)

The 2020 New York Yankees could hit 300 home runs and go 81-81.

The New York Red Bulls begin their 2020 season this Sunday afternoon at 1:00, as they host FC Cincinnati at Red Bull Arena.

Before You Go. The weather in New York and New Jersey is pretty much the same as for the entire Northeastern U.S. It could be chilly for the March and April games, but in May, it will get warmer. By June, you'll wonder what the hell is wrong with the MLS establishment, playing a Summer schedule, where the wearing of that classic soccer accoutrement, the scarf, is insane. By October, the last full month of the regular season, it will start getting cooler.

If you're going for more than just the game, and are also seeing New York City, the easier hotels to get into, both for cost and availability, may be in the Outer Boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island) or New Jersey.

New York and New Jersey are in the Eastern Time Zone, so if you also live there, if your team is NYCFC, Philadelphia, D.C., New England, Montreal, Toronto, Orlando, Columbus, Cincinnati or Atlanta, the times will be the same; in the Central Time Zone, Chicago, Minnesota, Kansas City, Dallas or Houston, 1 hour ahead; Mountain Time, Colorado or Salt Lake, 2 ahead; Pacific Time, either of the Los Angeles teams, San Jose, Portland, Seattle or Vancouver, 3 ahead.

Tickets. The official seating capacity of Red Bull Arena is 25,000 seats even. In 2019, the Red Bulls averaged 16,856 fans per home game, only about 70 percent of capacity, and 16th out of MLS' 24 teams.

"Derbies," games against NYCFC, Philly, DC and New England, will naturally have greater demand than for games against Midwestern, Western, or Canadian teams. FC Cincinnati is not a rival in the slightest, so you can probably get any seat for which you're willing to spend.

For MLS regular-season games: In the Lower Bowl, the 100 sections, midfield seats are $96. Corner flag seats are $48. Seats in the North Ward end zone are $42. Seats in Sections 101, 102 and 133 in the South Ward are supporters' sections, complete with standing, singing and foul language permitted, and are $23.

In the Upper Level, the 200 sections, midfield seats are $72, corner flag seats are $36, and end zone seats are also $36. These end zone seats include Section 220, where the visiting team's fans are placed.

A word of warning: If you buy tickets online or over the phone, the Red Bulls' ticket department will, at many a later date, be very aggressive in trying to get you to buy more. They will e-mail you. They will call you on the phone. They will repeat this process. Over and over again. They are relentless. They are polite about it, and they are only doing their jobs, but they will not give up.

Getting There. Most likely, you're flying. Most likely, you'll be flying into Newark Liberty International Airport. If your hotel is in New York City, a taxi from the airport will cost $52 -- each way. You're better off taking the monorail to New Jersey Transit's Northeast Corridor rail line. From there, it's 7 minutes and $8.50 to Newark's Penn(sylvania) Station; half an hour and $13 to New York's Penn Station.

If you want to drive:

* From Manhattan (about 12 miles from Times Square): Take the Lincoln Tunnel to N.J. Route 3 West, to the New Jersey Turnpike South to Exit 15W. Take Interstate 280 West, to I-280's Exit 16. Take the ramp to Harrison Avenue. Turn left, then right on Frank E. Rodgers Blvd. South, going under the underpasses for I-280 and the railroad. Red Bull Arena will be on your left. This should take about half an hour.

* From The Bronx and points Upstate: Take the George Washington Bridge to Interstate 95 South, until it becomes the Turnpike, and then follow the directions from Manhattan.

* From Queens and northern Long Island: Take the Grand Central Parkway over the Triborough/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, to the Harlem River Drive, to the George Washington Bridge, and then follow the directions from The Bronx.

* From Staten Island: Take any route that gets you to Interstate 278 West, the Staten Island Expressway, and across the new Goethals Bridge. (A new version replaced the 1928 original in 2017.) Take the Turnpike North to Exit 15E, to I-280 West, and then follow the directions from Manhattan.

* From Brooklyn and southern Long Island: Take the Belt Parkway to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and then follow the directions from Staten Island.

* From Bergen County, New Jersey: Take N.J. Route 17 South to the Turnpike, and then follow the directions from Manhattan.

* From anywhere else in North Jersey: Take any route that gets you to I-280 East, including the Garden State Parkway, whose Exit 145 will get you to it. Then take I-280's Exit 16, and then follow the directions from Manhattan.

* From Central Jersey: Same directions as from North Jersey, except you'll be reaching the Parkway and/or I-280 from the south instead of the north.

* From Philadelphia: Take the Betsy Ross Bridge to N.J. Route 90, to N.J. Route 73 South, to the New Jersey Turnpike North, to Exit 15E, to Interstate 280 West, and then follow the directions from Manhattan. This should take about 2 hours.

* From Washington, D.C.: Take Interstate 95 North to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, to the start of the New Jersey Turnpike, and then follow the directions from Philadelphia. About 4 hours.

* From New England: Take any road that gets you to I-95 South, cross the George Washington Bridge, and take the Turnpike South to Exit 15W, then follow the directions from I-280. Depending on where in New England you leave from, it should take anywhere from 2 hours (Western Connecticut) to 8 hours (the population centers of Maine). If from Boston, figure on around 5 hours.

* From Montreal: Take Autoroute 15 South over the border, where it becomes Interstate 87, first as the Adirondack Northway, then as the New York State Thruway. Take that to the Garden State Parkway, to Exit 145 to I-280. About 8 hours.

* From Toronto: Take the Queen Elizabeth Way to Niagara Falls, cross the border, take Interstate 190 to Interstate 90/New York State Thruway. At Syracuse, switch to Interstate 81 South. At Scranton, switch to Interstate 380 South, then Interstate 80 East. I-280 will split off from I-80. About 10 hours.

* From Columbus: Take Interstate 70 East until it merges with Interstate 76 as the Pennsylvania Turnpike. At Harrisburg, switch to Interstate 78 East, to the Garden State Parkway, to I-280. About 10 hours.

* From Cincinnati: Take Interstate 71 North to Columbus, and then follow the directions from there. About 12 hours.

* From Nashville: Take Interstate 40 East to Ext 421. Take Interstate 81 North through Tennessee, Virginia, and the West Virginia and Maryland Panhandles, to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Then follow the directions from Columbus. About 13 1/2 hours.

* From Atlanta: Take Interstate 85 North until it merges with I-95 at Petersburg, Virginia, and then follow the directions from Washington. About 14 hours.

* From Chicago: Take Interstate 90 East until it merges with I-80, then stick with I-80 until I-280. About 18 hours.

* From Miami: Take Interstate 95 North almost up all the way. Eventually, you will reach Petersburg, and you'll be following the directions from Atlanta, Washington and Philadelphia. About 19 hours.

* From Kansas City: Take I-70 East across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, and then follow the directions from Columbus. About 22 hours.

* From Orlando: Take Interstate 4 East to I-95, and then follow the directions from D.C. About 24 hours.

* From Minnesota: Take Interstate 94 East until it merges with I-90, and then follow the directions from Chicago. About 24 hours.

* From Houston: Take Interstate 10 East to Mobile, Interstate 65 North to Montgomery, Interstate 85 North to merge with I-95 in Virginia, and then follow the directions from D.C. At least 36 hours.

* From Dallas: Take Interstate 30 to Little Rock, Interstate 40 across Arkansas and Tennessee to I-81, then take I-81 North to Harrisburg to I-78 East, and then follow the directions from Columbus. At least 36 hours.

From here on out, at least 2 full days:

* From Colorado: Take I-70 to Kansas City, and then follow the directions from there.

* From Salt Lake City: Take I-80 all the way to I-280, and then follow the directions from there.

* From Los Angeles (either one): Take I-10 East to Interstate 15 North to I-70 in Utah, and then follow the directions from Denver.

* From San Jose: Take Interstate 680 North to I-80, and then follow the directions from Salt Lake City.

* From Portland: Take Interstate 84 East into Utah to I-80, and then follow the directions from Salt Lake City.

* From Seattle: Take I-90 to Chicago, and follow the directions from there.

* From Vancouver: Take B.C. Route 99 over the border, where it becomes Interstate 5 South, to Seattle, and follow the directions from there.

Once In the City. The City of New York, which is within the State of New York, has an estimated population of 8.5 million. The entire Tri-State Area (New York, Northern and Central New Jersey, and the southwestern corner of Connecticut) has about 23.7 million. Only about 16,000 live in the Red Bulls' Town of Harrison, though.

New York City was founded by the Dutch in 1624, as New Amsterdam, in the colony of New Netherland. On September 8, 1664, the English took it from the Dutch without firing a shot. It was named after the brother of King Charles II, the Duke of York -- later King James II.

When the British occupied Manhattan after driving George Washington's Continental Army out in 1776, they burned it, and this is why there are very few remaining pre-19th Century buildings anywhere in the City (unlike such other Revolutionary-era cities as Boston and Philadelphia). After the British went home, the City's port, and location between two rivers, made it the richest in the Western Hemisphere, and was a big reason why America became a world power over the next 200 years.

New York City is divided into 5 Boroughs: Manhattan (the central island), The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The City is also part of "the New York Metropolitan Area" or "the New York Tri-State Area," which includes parts of New York State not in the City (such as Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk Counties; and the Lower Hudson Valley, such as Westchester County) and the States of New Jersey and Connecticut.


Aside from your time at the games, most of your time in the City will be spent in Manhattan. North of 14th Street, streets will be a bit easier to navigate, as they will follow the 1811 grid plan. South of 14th Street, you may end up as confused as a foreigner would be in London, as this oldest part of the City doesn't always pay attention to the grid.

In the grid, Manhattan has (almost exclusively) numbered streets running (more or less) east-west, and (mostly) numbered avenues running (more or less) north-south. The numbered streets go up to 264th Street in The Bronx. Brooklyn and Queens also have numbered streets and numbered avenues, but they're a lot more confusing; when someone in New York says, "34th Street" or "5th Avenue," 95 percent of the time, they'll mean the one in Manhattan. But, be advised that they might not.

"Lower Manhattan" or "Downtown" is pretty much everything south of 14th Street, including Houston Street (pronounced HOW-stin, not HYOO-stin like the Texas city), which is, effectively, Zero Street. "Uptown" is pretty much everything in Manhattan north of 59th Street, from the southern edge of Central Park upward. "Midtown" is between 14th and 59th, and is where, aside from the games and some of the major museums, most of the touristy stuff is.
From the East River to the west-bounding Hudson River, the avenues run: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Lexington, Park, Madison, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. There is a 4th Avenue, but it only runs from 8th Street to 14th Street, becoming Park Avenue South at Union Square and then Park Avenue at 32nd Street.

The outlier is Broadway, which starts at the southern tip of Manhattan (known as The Battery), and remains more or less straight until 10th Street, at which point it curves to (more or less) the northwest, until 78th Street, at which point it straightens out again.

The delineator between the East Side and the West Side is Broadway from 8th Street on down, and 5th Avenue from 8th Street on up.

6th Avenue is also known as Avenue of the Americas, and 7th as Fashion Avenue due to its going through the Garment District. 6th and 7th Avenues stop at 59th Street, where Central Park begins, bordered by 5th and 8th Avenues, and 59th and 110th Streets. West of Central Park, 8th Avenue becomes Central Park West, 9th Avenue becomes Columbus Avenue, 10th Avenue becomes Amsterdam Avenue, and 11th Avenue becomes West End Avenue.

North of Central Park, in Harlem, America's most famous black neighborhood, 6th Avenue resumes as Lenox Avenue, but all 3 are also named for civil rights leaders: 6th/Lenox is Malcolm X Blvd., 7th is Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd., and 8th is Frederick Douglass Blvd.

Below 14th Street, the streets frequently don't follow the grid. The fact that the buildings there are, and look, older lends the area a "film noir" look. If you're a comic book fan, there's a running gag that Metropolis, hometown of the optimistic superhero Superman, is Manhattan north of 14th Street on a beautiful spring day; while Gotham City, hometown of the brooding crimefighter Batman, is Manhattan south of 14th Street, a few minutes after midnight, on a cold rainy day in November.

The Subway system is going to sound complicated. I won't go into the difference between the IRT, the BMT and the IND, especially since those companies were absorbed into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1965.

There are lettered lines, and there are numbered lines. The 1, 2 and 3 trains have red logos, and go under 7th Avenue until Times Square (42nd Street), then go under Broadway. The N, Q and R trains have yellow logos, and they're the reverse, going up Broadway until Times Square, and then under 7th Avenue, before curving and heading Crosstown to Queens. The A, C and E trains have blue logos, and go under 8th Avenue, although the E curves at 53rd Street and heads to Queens. The B, D and F trains have orange logos, and go under 6th Avenue, until the F curves at 53rd Street and joins the E.

The 4, 5 and 6 trains have green logos, and go under Lafayette Street, then Park Avenue, then Lexington Avenue. Until the much-discussed, finally under-construction first phase of the 2nd Avenue line opens (they say it will be at the end of 2016), this will be the only north-south line on the East Side. The 7 has a purple logo, and runs under 42nd Street to Queens, where, due to its going through several ethnic neighborhoods in that Borough, is known as the International Express (but only runs express trains during rush hours). And the L has a gray logo, and runs under 14th Street to Brooklyn.

Note that some trains are express (2, 3, 4, 5, A, D and Q, only making the most-used stops), while the others are local (making all stops). And don't worry about the G, J, M and S trains, because, most likely, you won't need them. (The G is the only line on the entire system that does not go through Manhattan at all.)

The Subway fare is $2.75. Free transfers can be made from train to bus, or vice versa. However, there's a $1.00 fee for every new MetroCard.

The sales tax in New York City is 8.875 percent. In New Jersey, it's 7 percent. Consolidated Edison, or "Con Ed," runs the City's electricity, while Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) runs it for New Jersey.

Since the Red Bulls play in New Jersey rather than in New York City: ZIP Codes in North Jersey tend to begin with the digits 07, including 071 for Newark and environs, 072 for Elizabeth, 073 for Jersey City, and 075 for Paterson. Central and South Jersey were assigned ZIP Codes starting with the digits 08, including 084 for Atlantic City, 086 and 086 for Trenton, and 089 for New Brunswick and environs. Interstates 278 and 287 serve as freeway "beltways" for New York, and for Newark.

New Jersey's original Area Code was 201. 609 was split off in 1958, 908 in 1991, 732 in 1997, and 856 in 1999. Now, they serve as follows: 201, with 551 overlaid in 2001, serves only Bergen and Hudson Counties (including the Meadowlands, and thus MetLife Stadium, and Harrison, and thus Red Bull Arena); 609 serves Mercer County (including the capital of Trenton and Princeton University) and the Southern Shore region (including Atlantic City); 732, with 848 overlaid, much of Central Jersey (including Rutgers University) and the Northern Shore region; 856, the Delaware River region that serves as suburbs of Philadelphia; 908, the Counties of Union, northern Somerset, Morris and Warren; and 973, with 862 overlaid, the Counties of Essex (including Newark, and thus the Prudential Center) and Passaic.

Red Bull Arena is in Harrison, next-door to Kearny, once considered the capital of American soccer; and both are across the Passaic River from Newark, the State's largest city. Newark's population of about 285,000 is about 52 percent black, 35 percent Hispanic, 11 percent white, and 2 percent Asian.

Harrison, named for President William Henry Harrison, and home to about 14,000, is 44 percent Hispanic, 38 percent white (much of that Irish, Scottish and, as a result of the spillover from Newark's East Side, the Ironbound district, Portuguese), 16 percent Asian, and 2 percent black. Kearny, named for early American General Stephen Kearny, an area native, and home to about 42,000, is about 49 percent white (with about the same ethnic makeup as Harrison, but with a few more Italians), 40 percent Hispanic, 6 percent black and 5 percent Asian.

Going In. There are 3 ways to get to Red Bull Arena by public transit. None of them is easy or fast. The location in Harrison put it within a reasonable walk of lots of serious soccer fans of Portuguese, Central American, Irish, Scottish and Italian extraction in Newark, Harrison and Kearny. But for anyone who doesn't live nearby, it's hard.

The easiest is to take any means of getting to Penn Station in Newark. From Penn Station in New York, the trip is scheduled (don't laugh) to take 18 minutes, and costs $10.50 round-trip.
From there, you would switch to the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train, riding it 1 stop to Harrison. This part should only take about 3 minutes, and the Harrison station is in good condition and well-policed, therefore safe.

Thankfully, the old station (opened in 1937 -- I had previously believed it to be 1911) has finally been replaced with a new one, eliminating a terrible bottleneck that was designed to serve a town whose population has remained around 14,000 for as long as I can remember, and not to serve a 25,000-seat sports stadium.
Another way is to take the New York Subway's A, C or E train to the World Trade Center, and then switch to the PATH system, at a new transit pavilion that opened in 2016. WTC to Harrison takes 20 minutes.

The last way is to take PATH directly from its 33rd Street terminal at Herald Square (33rd, 6th Avenue & Broadway), a block east of Penn Station, transfer at Journal Square in Jersey City, and take a 2nd train to Harrison. Because PATH reroutes all weekend trains (except the Newark-World Trade Center line) through Hoboken Terminal, doing it this way on a Saturday or a Sunday takes an hour. On a weekday, when you'd only have to change at Journal Square, it should take about 35 minutes.

The PATH fare is $2.75, just like the Subway's. If you're transferring from the Subway to PATH, the cards from one can be used on the other, but it will be separate fares, not a free transfer, so it's $5.50 each way.

There is another way, and if you prefer the English pubgoing experience, it may be more to your liking. Once you arrive at Newark's Penn Station, you can walk out the east entrance onto Market Street. This is the Ironbound section of Newark, so named because it's ringed by railroads and the Passaic River. It is mainly a Portuguese neighborhood, but also with Brazilians due to the common language. It's got a bit of an old-country touch (Iberia Restaurant was built to look like a castle), but if you're friendly, the people will gladly return that.

A number of bars (we usually don't call them "pubs") on Market Street cater to Red Bulls fans, including Bello's Pub (378), Titanic Bar (486) and Catas (538). (R.I.P. El Pastor, 570.) Lots of beer, lots of sangria, lots of glorious meat. (The Portuguese and the Brazilians are both big on barbecue.) The area also has lots of seafood restaurants and bakeries.

It's a special place: It was these people that turned me on to the game after a youth of thinking soccer was "boring" and that people who said, "You don't understand the nuances" were full of shit. They showed me how wrong I was. They showed me just how exciting the game can be.

It's 9 blocks down Market Street from Penn Station to Jackson Street. The walk across the Jackson Street Bridge, over the Passaic River, is a Red Bull fans' sacrament. This shouldn't be a problem for  you, unless you're really afraid of heights.

Once over the Bridge, you will enter the city of Harrison, and the Arena will be on your right. Just follow the crowd. The entire walk from Penn Station down Market, over the Bridge, and into the Arena is a little over 1 mile. It should take about 20 minutes if you don't stop at any of the bars. (Ha ha).

Red Bull Arena, and its home team, are, like their namesakes in Salzburg, Austria and Leipzig, Germany, named for the Salzburg-based beverage company. From their founding in 1996 until 2005, the New York club was named the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, and the nickname "Metro" still holds, as many fans don't like the corporate takeover. (The Austrian club had been known as SV Austria Salzburg, while RB Leipzig was founded with the name in 2009.)

Sky Blue FC, the New York-area team in the National Women's Soccer League, will also begin playing at Red Bull Arena this season, after 11 seasons at Yurcak Field on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway.

The official address of Red Bull Arena is 600 Cape May Street, about 12 miles from Midtown Manhattan, 1 mile from downtown Newark, and 150 miles from Cape May. (No, I don't know why the street has that name.) If you're driving in, parking is $10, and tailgating is not permitted.
Upon arrival at Red Bull Arena, entry gates are as follows: Gate A, southwest; Gate B, northwest; Gate C, northeast; and Gate D, southeast. Since the main parking lot is on the west side, most fans will enter through Gates A and B.
The field has always been natural grass, specifically Kentucky bluegrass, and is aligned north-to-south. The Red Bulls nearly always (but not quite always) defend the south goal during the 1st half, and attack in that direction for the 2nd, thus attacking toward their most loyal support in he 2nd half.

There really isn't a bad seat in the house, although if you're in the lower level in the south end zone, the fans will set off smoke as the players are introduced, and again after every goal. I once got a nasty headache from this -- making me perhaps the only person ever to be unhappy that Thierry Henry had scored a hat trick for his team. (In fact, I only saw the 1st 2 goals. He scored the 3rd in stoppage time, while I was in the first aid station, drinking the water to swallow the Tylenol.)

The Arena has hosted high school matches between nearby soccer powers Harrison and Kearny, and the Big East Conference Tournament.

It's hosted 4 matches by the U.S. men's national team: A 2011 loss to Ecuador, a 2014 win over Turkey, and losses to Costa Rica in 2015 and 2017, the latter a major reason why the U.S. did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

It's hosted 4 matches by the U.S. women's team, a 2011 win over Mexico, and a 2013 win and a 2015 draw vs. South Korea, and a 2017 loss to England in the She Believes Cup. The 2018 She Believes Cup featured a doubleheader there last March 4, and both games ended in draws: The U.S. and France 1-1, and England and Germany 2-2. It's hosted games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup: 2 in 2011, 3 in 2013, and 2 in 2017, and is scheduled to host 2 this year.

Other national teams to have played there include Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Peru, Serbia, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Club teams that have played there include Brazil's Santos (who played the Arena's opening game, losing 3-1 to the Red Bulls on March 20, 2010); English clubs Manchester United (who beat an MLS team in the 2011 MLS All-Star Game), Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur; Lisbon, Portugal clubs Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal (a.k.a. Sporting Lisbon); French clubs Paris Saint-Germain, Olympique Lyonnais and Montpellier; German club Bayern Munich; Italian clubs Juventus of Turin, Fiorentina of Florence, Internazionale of Milan and AS Roma of Rome; Mexican clubs America and Guadalajara (a.k.a. Chivas); Argentine club Estudiantes de La Plata; El Salvadoran clubs FAS and Alianza; Guatemalan club Antigua GFC; and Colombian club Atlético Nacional.

The Arena has also hosted rugby, including the Churchill Cup, shortly after it opened in 2010. A year ago, it hosted a rugby match between London clubs, in which Saracens defeated London Irish (who, despite their name, actually play in Reading, in Berkshire), 26-16. Only once has the Arena ever hosted a concert, by Dispatch on June 18, 2011.

Food. The Arena has concession stands on its north, east and south side concourses, with the west side taken up mostly by the Bullshop and club seating. They serve Nathan's food products, from the Coney Island-originating chain famous for its hot dogs. I'm not crazy about Nathan's hot dogs, but try the crinkle-cut French fries, they're fantastic. Most of the good stands, with the more varied items, such as those catering to local communities like the Portuguese and the Brazilians, are on the east side.
One thing I don't like about the Arena is that all the concession stands are on the lower level. If you're upstairs, in the 200 sections, you'll have to go downstairs to get something to eat. And, unlike at baseball games, there's no roaming vendors.

Team History Displays. When the team was founded, in the leadup to MLS' kickoff season of 1996, attempts were made to buy the rights to the name of the great franchise of the North American Soccer League, the New York Cosmos, but they failed. Had they succeeded, they could have laid a claim, as does the team founded in 2010 that actually does, to the 5 NASL titles that the old Cosmos won: 1972, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1982.

(Ironically, 3 of the 4 the MLS teams that took on the names of NASL teams have done better in their new incarnations: The Seattle Sounders, the Portland Timbers and the San Jose Earthquakes. The Vancouver Whitecaps are, thus far, the lone exception.)

So, in honor of the New York Metropolitan Area, the team was named the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. And, as I said, in 2006, Austrian soft drink maker Red Bull bought the team, and changed the name, a decision which remains unpopular, even though they've now been the Red Bulls longer than they were the MetroStars: 14 seasons to 10.

Despite 24 seasons of history, the MetroStars/Red Bulls haven't won much. They've regularly won, and currently hold, the Atlantic Cup, reflective of the annual winner of their rivalry with D.C. United. The winner is decided by aggregate goals, and Metro won it last season, 4-1. DC leads in overall goals, 153-119; and in overall wins, 43-35 with 17 draws.

There is, as yet, no trophy for the overall winners between the Red Bulls and their other rivals: NYCFC, Philly U, and the Revs. The Red Bulls lead NYCFC 9-5 with 2 draws (and 2017 is the only season in which NYCFC have won the season series), lead Philly 13-10 with 9 draws, and trail New England 35-29 with 18 draws.

The Red Bulls also won the Emirates Cup on a preseason visit to London to play Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain in 2011 -- as close as Arsenal are likely to get to hosting a testimonial for the man who starred for both clubs, Thierry Henry.

But the only trophies that really count in MLS are the MLS Cup, the league playoff championship; the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, America's answer to the FA Cup; and the Supporters' Shield, the regular-season championship. The Red Bulls have won the Supporters' Shield in 2013, 2015 and 2018. There are banners for them above the East Stand.

But they've never won the MLS Cup, only making 1 Final, losing to Columbus in 2008. They've never won the Open Cup, reaching only 2 Finals, losing to Chicago in 2003 and to Kansas City in 2017.
A banner honoring Tab Ramos, who grew up in neighboring Kearny, hangs from the upper deck in the South Ward, and bears his Number 10, but that number has not been retired, and is currently worn by midfielder Alejandro Gammara, a.k.a. "Kaku." Henry's Number 14 has not been retired, either, but is not currently being worn. Nor is the Number 12 of popular former player and former manager Mike Petke.

An adjacent banner honors the Red Bulls' all-time starting XI, named following their 2010 move from Giants Stadium to Red Bull Arena. Goalkeeper: North Brunswick, New Jersey native Tim Howard. Defenders: Jeff Parke, Eddie Pope, and Petke, who was also the manager who won them the 2013 Supporters' Shield. Midfielders: Ramos, Youri Djorkaeff, Amado Guevara, and Dave van den Bergh. Forwards: Clint Mathis, Jozy Altidore and Juan Pablo Angel. Notably not on that list is German superstar Lothar Matthäus, who played the 2000 season for the MetroStars, was a tremendous flop due to injury and attitude, and retired as a player thereafter.

Stuff. The Bullshop can be accessed from the West Stand during the game, and the outside after the game and on non-game days. Various Red Bull-related items can be purchased there.

There are, as yet, no official team videos. The closest any film comes is the documentary Thierry Henry: 1 on 1, which tells of his 2010 and 2011 season with the Red Bulls. The closest we come to having a good book about the team is The Road to Reviving Professional Soccer in New York City, written by Ian Thomson and published just before the Arena opened. Obviously, it couldn't take into account Henry's impending arrival, the international teams and European clubs coming to the Arena, and the expansion to allow NYCFC into MLS.

Until then, you may have to settle for Phil West's fantastic 20th Anniversary piece The United States of Soccer: MLS and the Rise of American Soccer Fandom.

During the Game. With the dangers of European and Latin American soccer in mind, the Red Bulls organization and the local police will not put up with violence. You will not have to fear for your safety.

Opposing fan groups usually make arrangements to have police escorts into the Arena and into their assigned section in the northeast corner of the upper deck. Bottles, cans, fireworks, flares, smoke bombs and weapons are not permitted. Vuvuzelas, the bane of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, are also banned. Musical instruments are also banned, except for the supporters' sections.

The Red Bull ultras -- the Empire Supporters' Club, the Garden State Ultras, the Viking Army and others -- sit in the South stand, a.k.a. the South Ward. (Newark calls its political divisions "wards," and this carried over into the Arena, even though it's not in Newark.)

The Viking Army began in 2010, ignoring the truth that the actual Vikings did not wear horned helmets. (Why wear something that your opponents can easily grab?) I had previously presumed that they took up the name in honor of the manager that the Red Bulls had hired for that season, Sweden native Hans Backe. But after he was fired after the 2012 season, they kept it going, so, clearly, it was not about him.

These groups are ultras, not hooligans: They will wear costumes, play instruments, chant, sing, and use a lot of profane and even sick humor -- but they will never initiate violence. If necessary, they will defend themselves, and many of them are large, solidly-built individuals, and New York and New Jersey does come with a tough reputation. But if you don't start anything, neither will they.

The Red Bulls do not have an official mascot, although a fan named John Russ wears a team jersey, paints his bald head red, wears plastic bull horns, and a bull-style nose ring. He calls himself Johnny Toro (Spanish for "bull"). He can be found in the South Ward.
They hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. For the most part, the fans either sing along or respect the silence -- the exception being that, at "the rockets' red glare," the South Ward will shout the word, "RED!"

Some fans refuse the corporatization of the club: They still wear MetroStars jerseys from the 1996-2005 period, and refer to the club by the original nickname "Metro." Some will go so far as to never drink Red Bull. (I won't drink it -- not because I'm against corporatization of sports, although I am, but because I just don't think the stuff tastes good.)

The Ultras open the game with a version of Little Peggy March's "I Will Follow Him":

We love ya, we love ya, we love ya
and where you go we follow, we follow, we follow
'cause we support the Red Bulls, the Red Bulls, the Red Bulls
and that's the way we like it, we like it, we like it
Oh whoa whoa, whoa...

Some of their songs do cross the line of appropriateness, however. The 2nd half, in which the opposing team defends the south goal, leads to songs about how the ultras think the goalie "sucks" and is a "pedophile." (The former may be true for some goalies; the latter is probably untrue for all of them.)

Even after the mass shootings of the last few years, they include this one, from British punk band Cock Sparrer:

Take 'em all!
Take 'em all!
Line 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em!
Short and tall!
Watch 'em fall!
Come on, boys, take them all!
Take them all!
Watch them fall!
Take them all!
Watch them fall!

The South Ward groups were also among the leading practitioners of what's come to be called "YSA." When the visiting team goalie was mere feet away from them, getting ready for a goal kick, the fans would yell, "Ahhhhhhhh... " and when the ball was finally kicked, yell, "You suck, asshole!"

Caring more about bringing families in than the hardcore support that made its existence even possible, the league cracked down, and Red Bulls management offered the groups a bribe: If they avoided it for 5 straight entire home games, they would get $4,000.

The Empire Supporters Club originally tried to get their members to insult Commissioner Don Garber by chanting, "You suck, Garber!" (which, as you may be aware, or could at least guess, he does), but not enough of them were willing to do that. So they accepted the bribe, and decided to just continue through the goal kicks with whatever song they were singing at the time, instead of stopping said song to do the YSA chant. So did the Viking Army.

The Garden State Ultras refused, even though they didn't participate in the chant in the first place, unfurling a banner reading, "NOT FOR SALE." One member said, "We don't do the chant, but we don't want money to be told not to do something." As a result, club management barred the GSU from taking banners to the game. They got the message, and dropped their protest. Red Bull Arena is now a YSA-free zone.

Most New York Tri-State Area teams have another Area team as their arch-rivals, as with the Islanders and the Devils vs. the Rangers. (Yankees vs. Mets, Giants vs. Jets and Knicks vs. Nets, these are not real rivalries.)

But New York City F.C. -- despite their foolhardy attempt to start a hooligan ruck outside Bello's in the Summer of 2015 -- is not yet there. Their fans hate the Red Bulls more than anyone else, but the RBNY fans think of them as a mere annoyance, inviting their Manchester City-inspired blue shirts to call them the Smurfs, and using the anti-Chelsea song "You Ain't Go No History."

Some Area teams have a Philadelphia team as their rivals: The Mets vs. the Phillies, the Giants vs. the Eagles, the Devils (at least secondarily) vs. the Flyers, and (to an extent) the Nets vs. the 76ers. But the Philadelphia Union are not the Red Bulls' rivals. Their fans hate the Red Bulls more than anyone else, but the Union are an afterthought in Harrison, with the brief exception of this chant: "New York's chillin'! Jersey's chillin'! What more can I say? Fuck Philly!"

And some Area teams have a Boston (or at least New England) team as their rivals: The Yankees vs. the Red Sox, the Jets vs. the Patriots, the Knicks vs. the Celtics, and (at least secondarily) Rutgers vs. UConn and the Rangers vs. the Bruins. But the New England Revolution are not the Red Bulls' rivals. Their fans hate the Red Bulls more than anyone else, but aside from a few Yankee Fans doing the "Boston sucks!" chant, the Revs are barely on Metro fans' radar.

No, the true rivalry is with D.C. United. While Mets vs. Nationals is only a recent rivalry, Giants vs. Redskins hasn't mattered since the early Nineties, St. John's vs. Georgetown hasn't mattered sine the mid-Eighties, Knicks vs. Wizards hasn't mattered since the Wizards were the Bullets in the late Seventies, and the Capitals don't really have a rivalry with any Area team, the "Atlantic Cup" rivalry was forged at the league's beginning, when DCU captured 3 of the 1st 4 MLS Cups, and have since won a 4th.

Metro fans call them "The D.C. Scum." D.C. fans call us "The Pink Cows," and always remind us that the MLS Cup count is still 4-0 in their favor - although their last one is fading into the distance: As with Arsenal, D.C. last won their league in 2004.

After the Game. Stadium security and the local police take no chances on allowing English-style, European-style or South American-style fan violence. The escort out given to opposing fans is equal to the one going in, and no tolerance for fan violence, in either direction, is given. You will be safe.

Some fans head back across the Jackson Street Bridge for the Ironbound bars, others in the other direction toward downtown Harrison and Kearny. Most, though, head out, either by car or the PATH train.

If your visit to New York will include a European soccer matchday, you are probably in luck: The City leads the nation in, among so many other things, available soccer pubs.

Alas, the place that set the standard is gone. Nevada Smith's (or just "Nevada's" to those of us who went there), at 74 3rd between 11th and 12th, was New York's 1st great soccer bar, until a dispute with management in 2011 led bartender Jack Keane to leave and found the Football Factory.

For a while, they hung on, until their building was condemned as unsafe. They moved around the corner to Webster Hall, a historic theater at 125 East 11th Street, which has since kept the bar open for Premiership matches. Nevada's then moved into a new building at 100 3rd Avenue, a block north of their original location, but had to move again. To any of these 3 locations, you would have taken the L Train to 3rd Avenue.

Finally, they rented space at Public House, in the former O'Casey's, at 140 East 41st Street, off Lexington Avenue, a block south of the Chrysler Building. Finally, they had to give up the ghost, although Public House (the term from which the word "pub" comes) still shows Premiership matches. 4, 5, 6 or 7 Train to Grand Central.

At any rate, you can almost certainly find your favorite team at one of these places:

* The Football Factory at Legends: 6 West 33rd Street at 5th Avenue, across from the Empire State Building. D Train to 34th Street-Herald Square. This place is home to more supporters' clubs than any other, and its reputation is such that regulars know that there is not to be any trouble.

Its clubs include: From England, Chelsea, Newcastle United, their North-East rivals Sunderland, both Birmingham clubs (Aston Villa and Birmingham City), both Sheffield clubs (United and Wednesday), Fulham, Southampton, Leicester City, Watford, AFC Bournemouth, Leeds United, Blackburn Rovers, Bristol City, Preston North End and Middlesbrough; Welsh clubs Cardiff City and Swansea City; French clubs Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais; German clubs Hamburger SV, Hertha Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt; Italian clubs Juventus, AC Milan, Napoli and Bologna; Brazilian clubs Fluminense and São Paulo; and Argentine club River Plate.

Bayern fans also pack Paulaner Brewhaus, 265 Bowery (F to 2nd Ave).

* Mulligan's On First: This is the premier soccer bar in New Jersey, at 159 1st Street, between Garden and Bloomfield Streets, in Hoboken, Hudson County. I know the owner, Paul Dawson, a Chelsea fan from Dublin, and he does whatever he can to make it as authentic as possible. He favors Chelsea, and their fans can load the place up. Knowing his local, largely Irish-American clientele, there's also lots of Celtic memorabilia.

But fans of all clubs are welcome there, as long as they don't abuse fans of other clubs. PATH train to Hoboken, then 2 blocks north on River Street, then 4 blocks west on 1st Street.

Chelsea fans also congregate at The Central Bar, 109 East 9th Street at 3rd Avenue (6 Train to Astor Place).

* Manchester United: A club with universal appeal (read: "Bandwagon followers"), Man U fans are everywhere. Like rats, and about as welcome. In addition to Smithfield Hall, they are welcomed at Baker Street Pub at 1152 1st Avenue at 63rd Street (4, 5 or 6 Train to 59th), Maggie Reilly's at 340 West 29th at 9th (A Train to 34th-Penn Station), and Bar 43 & Grill at 43-06 43rd Street in Queens (7 Ttrain to 40th Street).

* Liverpool: The Mersey Reds may have more meeting places than anyone in the game. The 11th Street Bar, 510 East 11th Street at Avenue A was the original, but it's small and fills up quickly. L Train to 1st Avenue. Nearby, Kelly's was once a Tottenham pub. I guess it got promoted. 12 Avenue A, at 1st Street. F Train to 2nd Avenue.

Carragher's Pub and Restaurant is owned by, yes, Liverpool legend Jamie. 228 West 39th Street at 7th Avenue. A Train to 42nd. The Irish American Pub, at 17 John Street at Nassau Street, recently opened its "Boot Room" to Kopites. 4 or 5 Train to Fulton Street. The Grafton (formerly Lunasa) is at 126 1st Avenue at 8th Street/St. Mark's Place. 6 Train to Astor Place. The East End Bar & Grill is on the Upper East Side at 1664 1st Avenue at 87th Street. Q Train (the new 2nd Avenue Subway) to 86th Street. Be warned: This is also an NYCFC "partner pub."

In Brooklyn, there's the Monro Pub in Park Slope. 481 5th Avenue. R Train to 9th Street. In Queens, there's the Shillelagh Tavern in Astoria, at 47-22 30th Avenue. R Train to 46th Street. The Starting Gate was a good Liverpool pub, but it's permanently closed. 59-10 Woodside Avenue. 7 Train to 61st Street-Woodside.

* Arsenal: The new home of New York Gooners is Jack Doyle's, at 240 West 35th Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. A, C or E Train to 34th Street; or 1, 2 or 3 Train to 34th Street. In Hoboken, Finnegan's Pub has begun hosting Arsenal matches. 734 Willow Avenue at 8th Street. It might be easier to get there by taking NJ Transit's Bus 126 from Port Authority than by using the PATH system.

Previously, 14th Street, east of Union Square, was the place to be -- "Gooner Alley," I called it. Arsenal fans' 1st place was the Blind Pig at 233 East 14th, off 2nd Avenue, but it became a victim of its own success, filling up by 45 minutes before kickoff. Ironically, it couldn't pay a big rent increase, and it closed last year, after 9 years. Some fans went to O'Hanlon's, a block away at 349, off 1st. The Winslow, at 243, also took spillover. These bars will still show Arsenal matches. L Train to 3rd or 1st Avenue.

There is also an Arsenal bar in Brooklyn, the appropriately-named Highbury Pub, 1002 Cortelyou Road, Q Train to Cortelyou. Woodwork had been a Brooklyn-based Arsenal and Barcelona bar, but it's closed. Bar 43, in addition to being a Man U bar, is the Arsenal bar in Queens.

* Manchester City: Citizens meet at Amity Hall, 80 W. 3rd Street in Greenwich Village. A, C or E Train to W. 4th Street. Their original bar, The Mad Hatter Pub, 360 3rd Avenue at 26th Street, has been closed and replaced.

* Everton: The Blue side of Merseyside meets at Turnmill, 119 E. 27th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues. 6 Train to 28th Street. Previously, Evertonians met at Mr. Dennehy's, 63 Carmine Street in the West Village. 1 Train to Houston Street. Due to rising rents, Mr. Dennehy's closed on March 31, 2018. The family that runs it hopes to open in a new space nearby, but, as yet, no such luck.

* Tottenham Hotspur: Flannery's, at 205 West 14th at 7th, is the latest in a series of Spurs bars, after they got kicked out of Floyd in Brooklyn and Kelly's on the Lower East Side, and O'Casey's in Midtown closed. 1 Train to 14th.

"Spuds" also meet at Perdition (perhaps appropriately named) at 692 10th Avenue at 49th Street, C Train to 50th Street; and in Brooklyn's Park Slope at the Black Horse Pub, 568 5th Avenue at 16th Street. R Train to Prospect Avenue.

* Stoke City: Potters fans meet at Fitzgerald's Pub, 336 3rd Avenue at 25th Street. 6 Train to 23rd.

* Norwich City: The New York Canaries meet at George Keeley, 485 Amsterdam (9th) Avenue at 83rd Street. 1, 2 or 3 Train to 86th.

* Real Madrid: Madridistas meet at The Playwright Irish Pub, 27 West 35th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues.

* Atlético Madrid: Atleti fans meet at The Long Hall, 58 East 34th Street, between Madison & Park Avenues, a short walk from Legends and their longtime tormentors at The Playwright. The Long Hall, named for the Long Room in the library at Trinity College in Dublin, and is also an Irish-themed restaurant and gift shop.

For both Madrid clubs: B, D, F, M, N, Q, R or W Train to 34th Street-Herald Square.

* Celtic: With the Glasgow club's ties to Ireland, there are lots of Irish-themed bars that show their games, but due to cable network demands, they are required to charge an admission fee, usually $5.00 but sometimes more.

I mentioned Mulligan's in Hoboken. Jack Demsey's (no P) is just a few doors down from the Football Factory, at 36 West 33rd. D Train to 34th-Herald Square. And The Parlour is at 250 West 86th at Broadway. This place fills up quickly, and has more old-country fans than possibly any of these bars, but the burgers and the fries are worth it. 1 Train to 86th Street.

* AS Roma: Fans of the team of the Eternal City, Italy's capital, meets at Grey Bar, 43 West 26th Street at 6th Avenue. R Train to 28th Street.

* Borussia Dortmund: The famously hipsterish Westphalia club that occasionally challenges Bayern for German supremacy has fans meeting at McHale's Bar & Grill, at 251 West 51st Street, off 8th Avenue. C Train to 50th Street.

* Sporting CP and Benfica: I have been unable to find out where Sportinguistas and Benfiquistas meet. Your best bet to see either of the Lisbon clubs is going to be either the Football Factory or one of the bars on Market Street in Newark's Portuguese-heavy Ironbound.

* Boca Juniors: The Buenos Aires giants meet in Queens, at the Boca Junior Steakhouse at 81-08 Queens Blvd. R Train to Grand Avenue-Newtown.

At many of these bars, you can pick up copies of First Touch, the area's free weekly newspaper dedicated to the sport.

Sidelights. On November 30, 2018, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and, as you might guess, New York came in 1st.

Baseball season has not begun yet, but both New York baseball parks allow tours. Yankee Stadium: $25. Citi Field: $13. The former can be reached via the D train on the West Side, and the 4 train on the East Side, both to 161st Street-River Avenue; the latter, by the 7 train to Mets-Willets Point station.

The old Yankee Stadium was home to the Yankees from 1923 to 1973, and again from 1976 to 2008, and to the NFL's Giants from 1956 to 1973. It was on the other side of 161st Street from where the new one now stands. The old Cosmos played the 1971 and 1976 season at the old Yankee Stadium.

New York City FC now play at Yankee Stadium. Sometimes. Last season, due to scheduling conflicts with the Yankees, they had to play one game in Citi Field, and another at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut, forever shattering their argument about the Red Bulls about who actually plays home games in New York City. Red Bull Arena is 15.7 road miles from Times Square; while Yankee Stadium is 5.9 miles, and at Citi Field, 8.2 miles, Harrison isn't that much farther than the South Bronx or Flushing Meadow, and you still have to use a bridge or a tunnel for each -- and East Hartford is 115 miles.

Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium, home of the Mets from 1964 to 2008, the Yankees in 1974 and '75 while the old Yankee Stadium was being renovated, the NFL's Jets from 1964 to 1983, and the Giants in 1975. (The Giants played some 1973 and all 1974 games in the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, far from The City.)

Across Roosevelt Avenue from Citi Field is Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, where the U.S. Open tennis tournament is held every late August and early September, and where the 1939-40 and 1964-65 New York World's Fairs were held. If you saw the Men In Black movies, you'll recognize the Unisphere globe, which is one of the surviving structures from the 1964 Fair.

The name "Flushing" comes from the Dutch "Vlissingen," and, no matter how much the Mets stink, has nothing to do with plumbing, although Citi Field's predecessor, Shea Stadium, was often nicknamed the Flushing Toilet.

The Mets were founded in 1962, to take the place of a pair of teams that moved to California for the reason of greed after the 1957 season: The New York Giants (who played in upper Manhattan) and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants moved to San Francisco, the Dodgers to Los Angeles, and have maintained their nasty rivalry to this day, thought separated by 389 miles instead of 14.

The move of the Giants was upsetting to many, that of the Dodgers to many more, as they were the only team that Brooklyn could then claim as its own, and they moved to the untapped market of California, and took their rivals with them.

The analogy would not be to Wimbledon FC moving to Milton Keynes. Think, instead, of Brooklyn as New York's answer to the East End (complete with docklands and a distinctive accent), and imagine that, near the peak of their success, West Ham had moved to India -- and took Tottenham with them. (Not Millwall. Millwall would be considered "minor league" by U.S. standards.) Then imagine that Chelsea really did have "no history," and only started a few years after the Hammers and Spurs moved, and started as a joke, until they had a couple of titles, and their fans became obnoxious far beyond what their success had yet earned. That would be the Mets.

At any rate, both the Dodgers' and Giants' former homes were replaced by housing projects. Worth visiting in daylight, but not at night. Ebbets Field, home of the Dodgers from 1913 to 1957, was at 1700 Bedford Avenue at Sullivan Place. Q train to Prospect Park. The Polo Grounds was home of the baseball Giants from 1890 to 1957, the Yankees from 1913 to 1922, the football Giants from 1925 to 1955, the Jets from 1960 to 1963, and the Mets in 1962 and 1963. 2955 Frederick Douglass Blvd. (an extension of 8th Avenue). D train to 155th Street.

Madison Square Garden, home of the NBA's Knicks and the NHL's Rangers, and the site of some legendary prizefights and concerts, allows tours, for $27. This is the 4th in a series of buildings with the name, opening in 1968 (this past week was the 50th Anniversary), on top of Penn Station, after the original Roman-inspired Station, built in 1910, was demolished in 1963.

Between 31st and 33rd Streets, between 7th and 8th Avenues. 1, 2, 3, A, C or E train to 34th Street-Penn Station. Across 8th Avenue is the main post office, with its columns inspiring comparisons to the old Penn Station, and a move to make it the next Penn Station is in the planning stages.

(Because of lease issues, the Madison Square Garden Corporation may have to build a new arena in the next few years, despite already having seriously renovated the current Garden both in 1992 and again completing a 2-year renovation job in 2014. Location to be determined.)
The Barclays Center, home of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets since it opened in 2012, and the NHL's New York Islanders since last Autumn, offers tours for $24. 2, 3, 4, 5, B or Q train to Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center. It's built across the street from the Long Island Rail Road's Atlantic Terminal, one of 3 major rail stations in the City.

On December 19, 2017, a deal was announced, to build a new arena for the Islanders at Belmont Park, in Elmont, in Nassau County, just over the City Line, thus returning the Isles to The Island. They plan to have it ready for the 2020-21 season.

The Prudential Center in Newark, home of the NHL's New Jersey Devils since it opened in 2007, is a 5-minute walk from Newark's Penn Station. It does not offer tours.

MetLife Stadium, the home of the NFL's Giants and Jets, does allow tours, but only on Saturdays, for $20. It's in the Meadowlands Sports Complex of East Rutherford, New Jersey, which also includes a horse racing track, and an arena that used to be home of the Devils and the Nets.

This stadium, which opened in 2010, has already hosted a number of matches, including the U.S. vs. Argentina in 2011 (I was there), Brazil vs. Argentina in 2012, and a 2014 Portugal vs. Ireland match. It hosted 2 games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2011, and again in 2015. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup.

Its predecessor, Giants Stadium, hosted the NFL's Giants from 1976 to 2009, the NFL's Jets from 1984 to 2009, the original New York Cosmos from 1977 to 1985, and several games in the 1994 World Cup and the 1999 Women's World Cup. It hosted 3 games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2005, 4 in 2007, and 1 in 2009.

MetLife Stadium is the only domeless Northern stadium to host a Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVIII, on February 2, 2014. New Jersey Transit messed up the train service, but they lucked out with the weather: Kickoff temperature was a tolerable 49 degrees, and a snowstorm hit the next day. The Seattle Seahawks clobbered the Denver Broncos 43-8.


It is hard to get to, though. On game days, New Jersey Transit runs rail service right there, but if you're going from either New York's or Newark's Penn Station, you have to change trains at Secaucus Junction. Without it being a game day, you may need to have to go to the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 41st Street and 8th Avenue (A, C or E train to 42nd Street), and take a NJ Transit bus.

Even harder to get to is the Nassau Coliseum, where the Islanders played from 1972 to 2015, and the Nets from 1971 to 1977. 1255 Hempstead Turnpike, in Hempstead (mailing address Uniondale), Long Island. Across the Turnpike is James M. Shuart Stadium, home of Hofstra University athletics. This 11,929-seat stadium no longer hosts college football (Hofstra played there from 1963 until it dropped its program in 2009), but in 1972 and '73, the old Cosmos played there. The new, minor-league Cosmos played here from 2013 to 2016. Take the Long Island Railroad from Penn Station in New York to Hempstead Terminal, then switch to the N70, N71 or N72 bus.

The new Cosmos began playing at MCU Park, the 7,000-seat home of minor-league baseball's Brooklyn Cyclones since 2001, in 2017, and will play there again at least this season. 1904 Surf Avenue, in the Coney Island section. D, F, N or Q Train to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue.

The 5,000-seat Icahn Stadium was built in 2005 on the site of Downing Stadium, a 22,000-seat horseshoe which stood from 1936 to 2002. It was home to the Cosmos in the 1974 and '75 seasons, the New York Stars of the NFL-challenging World Football League in 1974, and the Negro Leagues' New York Black Yankees in the 1938 season. It hosted the U.S. team against Scotland in 1949 and England in 1964, losing badly both times.

The new stadium hosts track & field events. On Randalls Island, in the East River. Number 4 train to 125th Street, then transfer to the M35 bus at 125th and Lexington Avenue.

The New York area has a team in the National Women's Soccer League, called Sky Blue FC. They won the title of the previous league, Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), in 2009.They play at Yurcak Field, which is the 5,000-seat soccer and lacrosse stadium of Rutgers University, a three-minute walk from its 52,000-seat football stadium, on its Busch Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey. You'd have to take New Jersey Transit rail from Penn Station to New Brunswick, then a campus bus from the station to the stadium. 

In addition to the Meadowlands Racetrack, New Jersey has thoroughbred horse racing at Monmouth Park. Opening in 1946, it has been home since 1968 to the Haskell Invitational, named for the park's former president, Amory Haskell, and annually attracting winners of the Triple Crown races every July; and since 1988 to the Jersey Derby, formerly run at the since-demolished Garden State Park in Cherry Hill and the since-closed Atlantic City Race Course.
175 Oceanport Avenue in Oceanport, 55 miles by road from Midtown Manhattan (although a bit closer as the crow flies, across New York and Sandy Hook Bays). New Jersey Transit runs train service there during the Summer.

As for the City's main tourist attractions: If your secondary goal, beyond the primary goal of seeing your team play the Red Bulls, is to see a "Broadway play," I would advise against it, as you may well be very disappointed. Tickets are expensive and not easy to get, and may not be worth it. This is hardly a golden age for Broadway: Nearly every show is either a borrow from London's West End, a stage adaptation of a movie you may already have seen, or a revival of a classic musical featuring performers whose names are not especially well-known. (And are not likely to be, either: Although a few major actors got their start on Broadway, the days when The Ed Sullivan Show -- which helped the Beatles rise to superstardom -- could, thanks to Sullivan's status as a Broadway columnist, raise performers and songs from nearby theaters to iconic status are long gone.)

An NY CityPass will be expensive, but it will save you a large amount if your goal is to cram in as many tourist attractions as possible. You can tailor your pass to the sites you want to see. For example: The $109 version gets you the Empire State Building, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art, the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island or a Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan Island, and the Top of the Rock observation deck at Rockefeller Center or the Guggenheim Museum. With CityPASS, you'll skip most ticket lines.

As for the museums: While London's are free, New York's are not. They have "donations" -- or "suggested general admissions" -- running form $15 to $22.

The two best-known New York Museums are opposite Central Park from one another, a mile apart. The American Museum of Natural History is at 79th Street and Central Park West (8th Avenue). C train to 81st Street. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- a.k.a. The Met, not to be confused with the opera house, the baseball team, or the London police -- is at 82nd Street and 5th Avenue. This stretch of 5th is known as Museum Mile, and also includes, among others, the egg-shaped, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 4, 5 or 6 train to 86th Street, 4 blocks down Lexington, and then 3 blocks west to 5th Avenue.

The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is New York's center for classical performances, with several venues, most notably the current edition of the Metropolitan Opera House. 63rd Street and Broadway. 1 train to 66th Street-Lincoln Center.

The other major classical venue is Carnegie Hall. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? "Practice, my boy, practice!" The old joke is wrong: Anyone who can afford to rent Carnegie Hall's main auditorium may do so, regardless of level of talent. It's at 881 7th Avenue at 57th Street. 1, A, B, C or D train to 59th Street-Columbus Circle, or F train to 57th Street.

Alas, the legendary delicatessens around the corner on 7th Avenue, the Carnegie Deli at 56th Street and the Stage Deli at 55th, are now closed, victims of excessive rents. The famous Italian restaurant Mama Leone's has been gone for many years.

The Russian Tea Room, a famous restaurant mere steps away from Carnegie Hall at 150 West 57, is to be avoided: The service is only passable, and the food would be mediocre at half the price. In fact, I would avoid the best-known restaurants altogether. It's been said that New York offers the best cheap meals and the worst expensive meals in the world. So if you have the bucks to blow, and you want to be able to say, "I ate at (fill in the blank: Smith & Wollensky's Gallagher's, Peter Luger's, or wherever else)," go ahead, but you have been warned.

The closest thing you may get to a true British pub experience is the Atlantic Chip Shop, at 129 Atlantic Avenue at Henry Street in Brooklyn. The place is decked out in British memorabilia, and when there's no football or rugby match on TV, they usually have a British film on. The last time I was there, they played Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

4 or 5 train to Borough Hall, then 4 blocks down Court Street, then turn right on Atlantic and walk 2 blocks. The owners also run the Park Slop Chip Shop, which is closer to a genuine chippy. 383 5th Avenue at 6th Street -- remember, that's Brooklyn's 5th Avenue, not Manhattan's. R train to 9th Street, walk up 4th Avenue to 6th Street, and 1 block over to 5th.

A Salt and Battery is also a good fish and chips place. The fish is top-notch, but they do have what we call French fries, rather than chips. Next-door is another English-themed place, Tea and Sympathy, owned by the same people. 112 Greenwich Avenue at 13th Street. 1, 2, 3, A, C or E train to 14th Street. If your taste runs more to the Scottish, Caledonia Scottish Pub is at 1609 2nd Avenue at 83rd Street. 4, 5 or 6 train to 86th Street.

The Freedom Tower at the new World Trade Center is now open, complete with observation deck, and certified as the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. It looks over the site of the original Twin Towers, at Liberty and Greenwich Streets, and expect long lines if you want to visit the 9/11 Memorial. E train to World Trade Center, or R train to Cortlandt Street.

Because of security concerns after the 9/11 attacks, it is no longer possible to tour the New York Stock Exchange building at Wall and Broad Streets. However, it doesn't cost anything to walk down Wall Street, the center of the financial world. 2, 3, 4 or 5 train to Wall Street.

The South Street Seaport area is one of the City's last remaining bastions of pre-Civil War (1861-65) architecture. In fact, one of the reasons John Lennon said he loved New York so much was that it reminded him of Liverpool, especially with the dock areas. However, the Pier 17 shopping center, which had lots of goodies, has been demolished to make way for a new one, supposedly to open in late 2016.

There have been 2 Presidents born in New York City. And the 1st would have slapped the 2nd. Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site, a recreation of the townhouse where TR was born in 1858, is at 28 East 20th Street. N or R train to 23rd Street. Donald Trump was born at Jamaica Hospital, at 89-00 Van Wyck Expressway in Kew Gardens. E train to Jamaica-Van Wyck.

New York has relatively easy access to beaches: Coney Island in Brooklyn, the Rockaways in Queens, City Island in The Bronx; Long Island's Long Beach, Jones Beach, Fire Island and "The Hamptons," including Montauk, a.k.a. "The End"; and New Jersey's Shore, from Keansburg off Exit 117 of the Garden State Parkway all the way down to Cape May, Exit 0.

Red Bull Arena is 12 miles from the house that stood in for Tony's house on The Sopranos. 14 Aspen Drive, in North Caldwell, Essex County. About 18 miles due west of Midtown Manhattan. Hard to reach by public transit: From Newark's Penn Station, Newark Light Rail to Bloomfield Avenue, then Bus 11 to Stevens Avenue and E. Lindley Road, then a half-hour walk south on Mountain Avenue, left on Wildwood Drive, left on Aspen. Remember: It's a private residence. I don't think a real mobster lives there, but you should still respect the residents' privacy.

Not many other TV shows have been set in North Jersey. The Heights, about a teenage band named "The Heights" for their Jersey City neighborhood, lasted just 3 months on Fox in late 1992, 13 episodes, but its theme song, "How Do You Talk to an Angel," credited to "The Heights," hit Number 1 on November 14.

*

This is usually where I close the blog post by telling you what a terrific city you'll be visiting, and hoping that you'll have fun.

Well, whatever you might think of your hometown, there is no better city on Earth than New York. While it is very easy for things to go wrong there, if you follow these directions, you should be fine, and be able to enjoy yourself immensely. Good luck.

The 2017-18 NHL season saw the debut of the League's 31st franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights. They did shockingly well, winning the Pacific Division and the Western Conference, before being defeated in the Stanley Cup Finals by the Washington Capitals.

This coming Tuesday night, the New Jersey Devils will face them at the T-Mobile Arena.

Before You Go. Las Vegas may have mountains in the distance, but it's the desert. It can get warm in the Winter, and brutally hot in the Summer. This being early January, you probably won't have to worry about the heat. But check the weather forecast on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's website before you, so you'll know what to bring.

When I visited Las Vegas, a taxi driver told me it only rains about 2 days out of the year. Next Tuesday will not be one of those days. Temperatures will be in the high 60s in daylight and the low 40s at night, so you will need a jacket.

Although the State of Nevada is not on the Pacific Coast, most of it, including Las Vegas and environs, is in the Pacific Time Zone, which is 3 hours behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. Capacity for Knights games is listed as 17,500, and they're averaging 18,286 per game this season, over a sellout. That would be understandable even if they were a typically awful expansion team, because of the novelty. So tickets will be hard to come by.

Seats in the lower level, Sections 1 to 20, are $163 between the goals and $138 behind them. In the upper deck, the 200 level, they're $111 between and $83 behind.

Getting There. It's 2,524 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown Las Vegas, and 2,518 miles from the Prudential Center in Newark to the T-Mobile Arena. In other words, if you're going, you're flying.

If -- pardon the gambling metaphor -- you play your cards right, you can get a round-trip nonstop ticket from Newark Liberty International Airport to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas for a little under $200. More likely, it'll be around $400, and you'd have to change planes in Denver. (Pat McCarran was a U.S. Senator from Nevada from 1933 until his death in 1954, and, despite his Democratic affiliation, he was one of the reckless Communist-hunters in Congress at the time.)

Amtrak doesn't go to Las Vegas anymore. Greyhound does, and round-trip fare is $875, but can drop to as low as $399 with advanced purchase -- and even that might turn out to be more expensive than flying.

The former Amtrak station is now the Greyhound station, and, as with another great party city, New Orleans, it might be the least interesting building in a city full of gaudy ones. 200 S. Main Street, downtown.
Driving is a bad idea -- even if it's not the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson or one of his friends offering to drive you to Las Vegas. After all, even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days' worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don't get pulled over for speeding, you'll still need over 2 full days. Each way.

But, if you really, really want to drive, take Interstate 80 West, nearly to the Nebraska-Colorado line, then Interstate 76 West to Denver, then Interstate 70 West into Utah, to Interstate 15 South, which goes into Las Vegas.

Given an average speed of 60 miles an hour, you'll be in New Jersey for an hour and a half, Pennsylvania for 5:15, Ohio for 4 hours, Indiana for 2:30, Illinois for 2:45, Iowa for 5:15, Nebraska for 6 hours, Colorado for 7:15, Utah for 6 hours, Arizona for half an hour, and Nevada for 2 hours; for a total of 43 hours. Factor in rest stops, you'll need nearly 3 full days. And, remember, that's just one way.

Once In the City. The name Nevada comes from a Spanish word meaning "snow-covered," and Las Vegas means "the stars," perhaps prophetic given the role the city would eventually have in the entertainment industry.

Nevada gained Statehood on October 31, 1864, and mentions of its transition from Territory to State, in the midst of the American Civil War (hence the motto "Battle Born"), were occasionally dropped on the TV show Bonanza, set at the other end of the State, in Virginia City, near Reno and the State capital, Carson City.
Founded in 1905, the arrival of the Golden Knights has allowed Las Vegas to surpass Edmonton as the newest city in North American major league sports, and Oklahoma City as the newest in the U.S. The fastest-growing American metro area in the 1980s and 1990s, it got hammered by the 2007-11 recession, possibly worse than any other city, but has recovered somewhat. It is home to about 630,000 people, and its metro area around 2.3 million. The city is about 48 percent white, 32 percent Hispanic, 12 percent black, 7 percent Asian, and 1 percent Native American.
The "centerpoint" of the city, where east-west and north-south addresses begin, is Main Street and Ogden Avenue. The city has no beltway. It's important to remember that, as with Princeton, New Jersey, a lot of the major sights in "Las Vegas" are actually outside the city limits, south of them. Most of these are in the city of Paradise, including the airport, Caesars Palace, and the UNLV campus.

The Las Vegas Strip runs from Sahara Avenue to Russell Road -- from about 2500 to about 4700 South Las Vegas Boulevard. Northward to Flamingo Road -- with Caesars, the Flamingo, Bally's and the Bellagio on its corners -- in pretty much parallels I-15, the Las Vegas Freeway. Then it curves slightly to the east, toward downtown, separated from Main Street by 5 blocks.

If we accept downtown Las Vegas as "downtown Las Vegas," and Caesars as "downtown" for the casinos, then these are actually 4 miles apart -- not walking distance, especially in the usual Vegas heat.
The city has 2 major newspapers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun. Knowing that it wouldn't exist without Los Angeles and Hollywood, most of the casino-hotels also carry the Los Angeles Times. Knowing that they get visitors from the East Coast, they also carry the New York Times and the Washington Post. (At least, they did when I first visited in 1991. With the Age of the Internet, that may no longer be practical.)

The sales tax in the State of Nevada is 6.85 percent, and in Clark County, including Las Vegas, it's 8.1 percent. ZIP Codes in the Las Vegas area begin with the digits 889, 890, 891 and 893. The Area Code is 702, with 775 overlaid. NV Energy provides all that electricity.

The Deuce and the Strip & Downtown Express (SDX) provide premium frequent service approximately every 15 minutes along the Strip and in downtown. Visitors are required to purchase Strip & All Access passes which includes both Strip routes and all other residential routes. A 2-hour pass is $6.00, a 24-hour pass is $8.00, and a 3-day pass is $20.

The Las Vegas Monorail opened in 2004. It runs from SLS Station at Sahara Avenue south to the MGM Grand. A single ride is $5.00, a day pass is $12, and a 3-day pass is $28.

Going In. Anschutz Entertainment Group and Harrah's Entertainment built the T-Mobile Arena, naming rights bought by the mobile-phone company, and opened it on April 6, 2016, with Las Vegas natives The Killers and Shamir opening for Mr. Las Vegas himself, Wayne Newton.
"The Fortress" (it doesn't look like one, but the nickname ties in with the Knights theme) has a mailing address is 3780 S. Las Vegas Blvd., about 3 1/2 miles south of downtown. It is accessible by MGM Grand Station on the Monorail, and it's a 2-block walk west. If you drive in, parking can be had at the MGM Grand for $20.

The court and rink are laid out east-to-west -- or, more precisely, southwest-to-northeast. The Knights shoot twice toward the northeast end, Sections 10 and 11.
Since it opened for the 2016-17 season, the Arena has hosted Frozen Fury, an annual NHL preseason game. That 1st season, the home team was the Los Angeles Kings, but, from this season onward, it's the Golden Knights. The arena has also hosted the Pac-12 Conference Basketball Tournament, the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor prizefight, the Miss USA pageant, and the Latin Grammys.

Food.  Las Vegas brings in people from all over the world, and knows that these people expect to be catered to. So there's lots of good food at T-Mobile Arena, run by Levy Restaurants:

* Pizza Forte: At Sections 1 and 11.

* Pink's Hotdogs (for some reason, spelled as one word): 3, 18 and 213.

* Cool Intentions Ice Cream: 6.

* Rollin Smoke Barbecue: 10.

* Tail and Fin (seafood): 19 and 219.

* Shake Shack: 20.

* Chronic Tacos: 20 and 209.

Team History Displays. Very quickly, they dispensed with the question, "What history?" At their home opener, they raised separate banners for their 2017-18 Western Conference and Pacific Division Championships.
The team's name is, sort of, a nod to history: Owner Bill Foley is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and he wanted to name the team the Black Knights, which is the name of the Academy's teams. The Academy had no issue with that, but the NHL turned the request down, saying the name would be too close to the Chicago team's name, the Blackhawks. 

But, noting that "Knights" were, in his words, "the epitome of the warrior class," Foley looked for an alternative name, and found it. The helmet logo's exposed facial area seems to form a V, for "Vegas."

(Foley actually owns 85 percent of the team. The other 15 percent is owned by the Maloof family, formerly owners of the NBA's Sacramento Kings.)
They also have a wraparound banner suggesting a window onto the city's skyline, banners of the other NHL teams, and a banner in memory of the 58 people killed in the gun massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival on October 1, 2017, during the team's 1st preseason. It has 58 points of light, rather than the number 58, although they have retired that as a uniform number. It's a number rarely worn in the NHL, anyway.
During the Game. It's hard to tell who the Knights' rivals will turn out to be, but their fans have yet to prove themselves to be rough. They don't even seem to think about playing up Vegas' Mob image. As usual, your best bet for staying safe is to not antagonize anyone.

The Knights-Devils game will not feature a promotion. They hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. The Knights' goal song is "Vegas Lights" by Panic! At the Disco. They also sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" as "Sweet Golden Knights, bomp, bomp, bomp."

Their mascot is a Gila monster with a gambling-themed name, Chance. They opted against using a knight for a mascot, having seen that other knight mascots (such as Rutgers' Scarlet Knight) didn't seem very child-friendly.

These days, when people think of the New York Giants baseball team, two things come to mind, because they've seen the highlights countless times on TV: Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" that won the 1951 National League Pennant, and Willie Mays' catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.

John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Frankie Frisch, Mel Ott, Bill Terry and Carl Hubbell, as great as they were, get forgotten because so much time has passed. But even the Giant Pennant winners of 1951 and 1954 get forgotten, largely because, unlike their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, they didn't have a Roger Kahn to write their version of The Boys of Summer.

Mays and Thomson get remembered, but not Monte Irvin, Sal Maglie, Alvin Dark, Don Mueller, Whitey Lockman... and Johnny Antonelli.

John August Antonelli was born on April 12, 1930 in Rochester, New York. A star pitcher at Jefferson High School in Rochester, Major League Baseball teams fell over themselves trying to sign him. The Boston Braves got him, for $52,000, and, under the "bonus baby" rule, had to immediately put him on their major league roster and keep him there for at least 2 years.

That was in 1948, and he made his major league debut within days of his graduation, on the 4th of July. Wearing Number 34, he pitched the 8th inning in relief, allowing a run, as the Braves lost 7-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park in the 1st game of a doubleheader. The Phils won the 2nd game, too, 5-2.

He appeared in only 4 games that season, although he did get a save (not that anyone knew about that statistic at the time), mostly pitching batting practice. Therefore, when the Braves won the Pennant, he was not included on the World Series roster. In a combination of starting and relief, he went 3-7 in 1949, and 2-3 in 1950, then was drafted into the Korean War, missing the entire 1951 and 1952 seasons.

When he got back in 1953, the Braves moved to Milwaukee, and he was almost entirely a starter, going 12-12, but with an ERA of just 3.18. That got the Giants' attention, and on February 1, 1954, they sent the aforementioned Bobby Thomson and Sam Calderone to the Braves, for Antonelli, Don Liddle, Ebba St. Claire, Billy Klaus and $50,000.

(Thomson would break his ankle in Spring Training. This made the Braves' decision of who their 4th outfielder should be considerably easier, and they chose Hank Aaron.)

Antonelli was a lefthander whose pitching style was good for the Polo Grounds, as he didn't make hitters pull the ball down either foul line. Now wearing Number 43, he went 21-7, led the NL in 2.30, and made his 1st All-Star Game, as the Giants needed few dramatics to win the Pennant, unlike in 1951.

He started and won Game 2 of the World Series against the Cleveland Indians, then relieved to get the save in Game 4 to seal a sweep. Along with Mays and Dusty Rhodes, whose 10th-inning walkoff home run won Game 1, Antonelli was one of the heroes of the Series.

But that would be it for that generation of Giants. They tailed off in 1955, and Antonelli went just 14-16. He bounced back in 1956, going 20-13. But he was only 12-18 in 1957, the team's last year in New York. They moved to San Francisco, and he recovered his form, going 16-13 in 1958 and 19-10 in 1959, as a new set of stars came up, including Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal.

But he got off to a bad start in 1960, and was shifted to the bullpen. In 1961, he was traded to the Indians, and then back to the Braves. He appears not to have been injured, and there was no substance abuse or personal issue. It was a case of what would later be called "Steve Blass Disease": Overnight, for no apparent reason, a pitcher just lost it.

The Braves sold him to the expansion Mets in 1962. It was part of the early Mets' strategy of getting as many ex-New York baseball stars as they could, which backfired, as most of them had little left to give. We'll never know if Antonelli would have been one of them: Claiming to be "tired of traveling" -- or perhaps foreseeing that the Mets would be one of the worst teams of all time -- he retired as a player, finishing at age 31, with a career record of 126-110, an ERA of 3.34, 6 All-Star berths, and a World Series ring.

He went back to Rochester, and owned a chain of Firestone tire salons, totaling 28 before he got out of the business, unhappy that Bridgestone had bought Firestone and with how they were running it. For 40 years, Johnny Antonelli Tire Company held special nights at games of his hometown team, the Class AAA Rochester Red Wings, at Silver Stadium.

His 1st wife, Rosemarie, died in 2002. They had a son and 3 daughters, leading to 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. He later married a woman named Gail, who survives him. He attended some Giants reunions in San Francisco, and remained a fixture at Red Wing games after they moved to Frontier Field in 1997.
He died on Friday, February 28, 2020, at the age of 89. His death leaves 15 living former New York Giants: Wayne Terwilliger, Ron Samford, Foster Castleman, Billy Gardner, Joey Amalfitano, Pete Burnside, Ozzie Virgil, Ray Crone, Jackie Brandt, Al Worthington, Eddie Bressoud, Joe Margoneri, Bill White, Mike McCormick and Willie Mays. Mays, Samford and Gardner are the last 3 surviving 1954 World Champion New York Giants.

It leaves Del Crandall and Bert Thiel as the last 2 living men who played for the Boston Braves. And it leaves Eddie Basinski as the last living player mentioned in Dave Frishberg's song "Van Lingle Mungo."