So ESPN finally finished their miniseries The Last Dance, its return to fawning over Michael Jordan and his team... I've forgotten what they were called.

Oh yeah, the Chicago Bulls.

It did remind people born after 1990, and thus too young to really remember the 1991-98 Bull dynasty, that there were once basketball players better than LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Of course, there were also once basketball players better than Michael Jordan, and teams better than his Bulls.

So I decided to consider the great teams in NBA history, and figure out which one was the best.

I'm going to go by a single season, not by era. I'm going for peak performance here. So this will not be the 1991-98 Bulls vs., for example, the 2015-19 Golden State Warriors.

I'm also going to observe the Bob Ryan Rule of Basketball History. Ryan, the great Boston Globe sports columnist, knows more about the NBA than anyone else who's never played in it. On a 1996 ESPN Classic special titled The Great Debate, which aired within weeks of the Bulls' record-setting 72-win title season, he was a panelist, suggested that the 1986 Boston Celtics were the greatest team ever, and pointed out that the rules used to be different.

Specifically, he said that the 1954 institution of the 24-second shot clock completely changed the game, and rendered what was great before then inoperative. He cited Joe Fulks, the scoring champion in the NBA's 1st season, 1946-47, leading the Warriors, then in Philadelphia, to the league's 1st title; and George Mikan, leader of the Lakers, then in Minneapolis, to 5 titles in 6 years from 1949 to 1954:

Before that, I'm not going to kid you. I don't think Jumpin' Joe Fulks makes it in today's NBA, except maybe as a 12th man. George Mikan? A good backup center. A great player, deserved every accolade he got. But, today? He's Greg Kite with a hook shot.

And that was 24 years ago, before we had Shaquille O'Neal at his peak, before Kobe played so much as a regular-season game beyond high school, before LeBron got to junior high, before we knew Dell Curry had a kid (Steph).

For my cutoff point, I'm going to use not 1954-55, the 1st season with the shot clock, but 1961-62, the 1st season with 80 or more regular-season games.

So here's my 16 teams, all seasonal NBA Champions, seeded by number of regular-season wins, and let me note that they were chosen for perceived historical significance, not for number of wins alone:

1. 1996 Chicago Bulls, 72-10
2. 1972 Los Angeles Lakers, 69-13
3. 1967 Philadelphia 76ers, 68-13
4. 1986 Boston Celtics, 67-15
5. 2000 Los Angeles Lakers, 67-15
6. 2017 Golden State Warriors, 67-15
7. 2008 Boston Celtics, 66-16
8. 2013 Miami Heat, 66-16
9. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers, 65-17
10. 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, 65-17
11. 1989 Detroit Pistons, 63-19
12. 1965 Boston Celtics, 62-18
13. 2014 San Antonio Spurs, 62-20
14. 1970 New York Knicks, 60-22
15. 1994 Houston Rockets, 58-24
16. 2019 Toronto Raptors, 58-24

Note that the team currently holding the single-season record for wins, the 73-9 2016 Golden State Warriors, lost the NBA Finals.

I tried to limit the number of times a franchise could have won it. But with the Celtics and Lakers, it was too difficult to limit them to 2, let alone 1. So they each have 3.

LeBron is here once, with the 2013 Heat, not the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers (57-25). I wanted to include the 2004 Detroit Pistons, who pulled one of the great Finals upsets of all time, defeating the "superteam" Lakers. But with a record of 54-28, I couldn't include them. Come to think of it, with all that high-profile talent, the '04 Lakers were only 2 games better than that over the regular season.

And as much as I wanted to include the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, with a 49-33 record, I just couldn't. They were actually a better team the next year, 58-24. The aforementioned Bob Ryan pointed out that, for a year, from March 1977 to March 1978, they played as well as any NBA team ever has. But injuries did them in as far as the Playoffs were concerned: They went out in the 1st round then available, the Western Conference Semifinals (the round of 8), to their geographical rivals, the Seattle SuperSonics, whose 1978 NBA Finalists and 1979 NBA Champions (52-30) also don't make this list.

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So here's my tournament:

First Round

1. 1996 Chicago Bulls vs. 16. 2019 Toronto Raptors. Dennis Rodman shuts Kawhi Leonard down. That eliminates any hope for the Raps. Bulls in 4.

2. 1972 Los Angeles Lakers vs. 15. 1994 Houston Rockets. I love this matchup in the paint: Wilt Chamberlain vs. Hakeem Olajuwon. But the Lakers also had Jerry West and Gail Goodrich as outside shooters. If I had the '95 Rockets, with Clyde Drexler added, it might have been better. But, according to my own rules, I took the '94 Rockets, who were 11 games better (if not more talented). And I just don't see the rest of the Rockets holding off the rest of the Lakers. Lakers in 6.

3. 1967 Philadelphia 76ers vs. 14. 1970 New York Knicks. An old-schooler's dream. We know what Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and the rest did against Wilt and the Lakers of 1970 (won in 7), 1972 (lost in 5) and 1973 (won in 5). But the '67 76ers were a better team (if not quite a more successful team, by half a game).

The '70 Knicks had an 18-game winning streak, a record broken 2 years later when the aforementioned '72 Lakers won a still-standing 33 straight. But the '67 76ers started off 41-3. That's insane.

The '67 76ers had a 30-year-old Wilt to occupy Willis, Hal Greer to battle Clyde, Luke Jackson against Dave DeBusschere, Chet Walker against Bill Bradley, and Wali Jones against Dick Barnett. I'm sorry, my New York Tri-State Area bretheren, but the men from the Convention Hall on the banks of the Schuylkill were just too strong for Red Holzman's well-disciplined Knickerbockers. Sixers in 6.
4. 1986 Boston Celtics vs. 13. 2014 San Antonio Spurs. Were these Celtics really that great, or were they just lucky that the Rockets had eliminated the Lakers? The Celtics had beaten the Lakers in the Finals in 1984, but the Lakers had beaten them in 1985 and 1987. That's, as Bruce Willis would say, "just the fly in the ointment, Hans, the monkey in the wrench, the pain in the ass."

The aforementioned Bob Ryan said of the '86 Celtics, "How's this for a definition of the greatest team ever: The team that could beat you in the most different ways!" That's an interesting definition, but hardly a definitive one. He added, "And by the way, nobody could guard Kevin McHale! Nobody!" Tim Duncan could handle either McHale or Robert Parish. And who's going to handle Larry Bird? Maybe Tony Parker.

Look, if the '14 Spurs could beat the Miami LeBrons, they could beat the '86 Birdmen. That doesn't mean that they would, only that they could. The great teams of the Eighties were meaner, and Red Auerbach, by then only the president of the Celtics, could have done what he did to the Lakers, and turned off the air-conditioning in the visitor's locker room at the Boston Garden.

But Ryan had a point: The Celtics could beat you in various ways. A strong inside game with Parish and McHale. A strong outside game with Bird, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge (later the GM who built their 2008 Champions). And a very good bench, including a healthy-for-once Bill Walton: Bringing him on was what Ryan called "saving my best for last, the one you cannot top!" Celtics in 7.
5. 2000 Los Angeles Lakers vs. 12. 1965 Boston Celtics. Prime Shaq and young Kobe vs. prime Bill Russell, young John Havlicek, and the meanest bunch of bastards in NBA history. Do the Lakers think the referees are going to save them this time? Against Auerbach's Celtics? Dream the hell on! You think Shaq is too much of a monster for Russell to defend? Russell had his problems with Wilt Chamberlain, but not always. The Boston defense would concentrate on shutting Kobe down, and this would be over quickly. Celtics in 5.

6. 2017 Golden State Warriors vs. 11. 1989 Detroit Pistons. Could Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson have handled Isiah Thomas and the rest of the Motor City Bad Boys? There is a precedent, although it's not basketball, it's hockey: The Montreal Canadiens of 1971 and '73 stopped the Big Bad Bruins of Boston who's won the Stanley Cup in 1970 and '72; and then, after 2 years of Cups by the Broad Street Bullies, the stylish Flying Frenchmen outplayed and swept the Philadelphia Flyers in 1976.

The 2016 Warriors proved that a better team could be worn down and beaten in 7 games. The 2017 and '18 Dubs proved that adding a talent like Durant could make a difference. Steph and Isiah cancel each other out, and maybe Rodman and Bill Laimbeer could handle KD, and maybe Joe Dumars could handle Klay. But the Warriors just had too much overall talent. Warriors in 7.

7. 2008 Boston Celtics vs. 10. 1983 Philadelphia 76ers. Kevin Garnett vs. Moses Malone. The rest of the Celtic "superteam" vs. Julius Erving, Andrew Toney, Bobby Jones, Maurice Cheeks? Child, please. Sixers in 5.

8. 2013 Miami Heat vs. 9. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. Even at 40, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not going to lose to prime LeBron. LeBron also has Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Ray Allen? Kareem also has Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Byron Scott. Lakers in 5.

Quarterfinals. Highest remaining seed vs. lowest remaining seed.

1. 1996 Chicago Bulls vs. 12. 1965 Boston Celtics. Don't tell me Havlicek and Sam Jones couldn't guard Jordan. Even if they can't, it's irrelevant. You think Luc Longley is going to stop Russell? The Bulls proved that an NBA team could be an all-time great team without a dominant center. But that's because the NBA didn't have dominant centers at the time.

The best was Hakeem, and we never got to see a Bulls vs. Rockets final. The next-best was Shaq, and while the 1995 Orlando Magic beat the Bulls in 6, that was when Jordan was working his way back into playing shape. They faced each other in the Playoffs again in 1996, and the Bulls swept. The next-best center was Patrick Ewing, and the only time the Knicks won -- indeed, the only time the Knicks have ever beaten the Bulls in the Playoffs -- was in 1994, during Jordan's gambling-related suspension 1st retirement.

No, I don't care if a team does have Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman: If their top center is Luc Longley, they are not going to beat a team whose top center is prime Bill Russell. Celtics in 6 -- clinching at the United Center in front of 22,000 stunned Bulls fans.

2. 1972 Los Angeles Lakers vs. 10. 1983 Philadelphia 76ers. Wilt was still great at 35. Moses Malone was at his peak at 28. And the Sixers were deeper. Sixers in 5.
3. 1967 Philadelphia 76ers vs. 9. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. Maybe this should have been the Finals. The most talented team in each's respective decade. But while the '67 76ers may have been stronger, the '87 Lakers were a bit faster. I don't think Hal Greer, Wali Jones, Chet "the Jet" Walker and Billy Cunningham can keep up with "Showtime." Lakers in 6.

4. 1986 Boston Celtics vs. 6. 2017 Golden State Warriors. The Dubs already had their hands full with the Bad Boy Pistons. And Bird's Celtics may have been rougher. True, the Celts also had their hands full in their 1st-round matchup, with Duncan's Spurs. Maybe the Dubs' sheer athleticism wins out. Maybe.

Throughout their history, the Celtics have "gotten lucky." This time, "The Luck of the Leprechaun" might not be enough to hold off Golden State's sheer athleticism. Warriors in 7.

So that's "upsets" in all 4 Quarterfinals, after 3 in the 1st Round.

Semifinals

6. 2017 Golden State Warriors vs. 12. 1965 Boston Celtics. The Warriors have already had to handle the Isiah Pistons and the Bird Celtics. Now, they go up against Russell's battered bastards of Boston. A team that would do whatever it took to win, within the rules -- and, sometimes, not.
Honest referees might be willing to call more fouls on the old-time Celtics. And the Warriors might be too athletic and too fast for the old-time Celtics. But did the old-time Celtics have too much talent? They would have had the home-court advantage. The argument for the Warriors is that they beat peak LeBron, so they could beat peak Russell. It would be close. Warriors in 7.
9. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers 10. 1983 Philadelphia 76ers. In that aforementioned Great Debate, Bob Ryan's argument against the '83 76ers was that there was a team that could have beaten them. The Sixers swept the Lakers in the Finals, but James Worthy (then a rookie) and Bob McAdoo (by then, a veteran but a good backup for Kareem, and key to beating the Sixers in the '82 Finals) were both hurt.

If we presume that everybody is, and stays, healthy for this tournament, Moses might be able to handle a 40-year-old Kareem. And Dr. J might blow past Big Game James. So the question is, can Jones and Toney handle Magic? This is a Magic 4 years older and wiser than the one they handled in '83, 5 years beyond the one they didn't handle in '82, and 7 years beyond the rookie the didn't handle in '80. This would be some series. Lakers in 7.

Finals: 6. 2017 Golden State Warriors vs. 9. 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. Finally, a Warriors-Lakers matchup worthy of the Northern California-Southern California rivalry so often intensified by Giants vs. Dodgers, A's vs. Dodgers in 2 World Series, 49ers vs. Rams, Raiders (no longer) vs. Chargers, Cal vs. UCLA in college basketball, and sometimes Sharks vs. Kings or Ducks.

Athleticism and speed won't save the Dubs vs. "Showtime." Quite the opposite: The late 2010s Warriors are exactly the kind of team the '80s Lakers would have been well-suited to run ragged. Nobody playing today passes like the '80s Lakers. The 2019 Raptors did well enough at it to befuddle the Dubs in 5 games, and even they couldn't do it like Magic's Lakers.

There's another difference: Jordan's Bulls would beat you, and Jordan would scowl at you and let you know you'd been humbled; Magic's Lakers would beat you, and Magic would smile at you, humiliating you even more. Lakers in 5.

The 1987 Los Angeles Lakers: The greatest team in NBA history.

I did this yesterday for the NBA, so I'm gonna do it for the other "Big Four" North American sports.

I'll use 1901 as my cutoff point for Major League Baseball, the start of the American League, and with rule changes that are with us to this day. Going back before that, it was a different game. Maybe Cap Anson, King Kelly, John Montgomery Ward or Old Hoss Radbourn could have adapted; but when we're talking about entire teams, who's kidding who?

This time, I'm going to split 64 teams into 2 Leagues, and then into 2 Divisions of 16 teams each, seeding by victory total. Only teams that won the World Series are eligible.

American League Eastern Division
1. 1998 New York Yankees, 114-48
2. 1927 New York Yankees, 110-44
3. 1961 New York Yankees, 109-53
4. 1970 Baltimore Orioles, 108-54
5. 2018 Boston Red Sox, 108-54
6. 1939 New York Yankees, 106-45
7. 1912 Boston Red Sox, 105-47
8. 1929 Philadelphia Athletics, 104-46
9. 2009 New York Yankees, 103-59
10. 1978 New York Yankees, 100-63
11. 1911 Philadelphia Athletics, 101-50
12. 1983 Baltimore Orioles, 98-64
13. 2004 Boston Red Sox, 98-64
14. 1904 Boston Red Sox, 95-59
15. 1993 Toronto Blue Jays, 95-67
16. 1924 Washington Senators, 92-62

I already had the '27 Yanks, so I didn't also need the 107-win '32 team with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The '39 Yanks had the most wins in the Joe DiMaggio era; the '61 team, the most in the Mickey Mantle era. I included the '78 team only because that was my team as a kid.

I picked the 2 Red Sox teams, out of the 4, with the most wins. The '31 A's won 107, but they lost the World Series. The '69 Orioles had 109 wins, but they lost the World Series. The '66 O's were too close in time. The '92 Jays won 1 more game, but the '93 Jays were more talented. The Tampa Bay Rays, of course, have never won the World Series.

American League Western Division
1. 1984 Detroit Tigers, 104-58
2. 1968 Detroit Tigers, 103-59
3. 2017 Houston Astros, 101-61
4. 1917 Chicago White Sox, 100-54
5. 2002 Anaheim Angels, 99-63
6. 1989 Oakland Athletics, 99-63
7. 1920 Cleveland Indians, 98-56
8. 2005 Chicago White Sox, 99-63
9. 1948 Cleveland Indians, 97-58
10. 1991 Minnesota Twins, 95-67
11. 2015 Kansas City Royals, 95-67
12. 1973 Oakland Athletics, 94-68
13. 1935 Detroit Tigers, 93-58
14. 1945 Detroit Tigers, 88-65
15. 1906 Chicago White Sox, 93-58
16. 1985 Kansas City Royals, 91-71

The A's had teams in their Oakland runs of greatness with more wins, but these were the best 2 of their 6 Pennant winners so far. Same with the Astros: They won 107 in 2019, but lost the World Series, in spite of whatever they had been doing to cheat.

Same with the franchise now known as the Los Angeles Angels (they dropped "of Anaheim" for the 2016 season): They've had better teams, but only the 1 Series winner. Same with the Royals: Their 1977 and 1980 teams might have been better than their 1985, and their 2014 might have been better than their 2015, but it's winning the World Series that counts.

The '87 Twins, at 85-77, were the lowest seed of the 17 teams that could have gone in the West to win a World Series, and were too close in time to the '91 Twins, anyway.

The Texas Rangers have never won a World Series, and the Seattle Mariners have never won a Pennant.

National League Eastern Division
1. 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, 110-44
2. 1986 New York Mets, 108-54
3. 1905 New York Giants, 105-48
4. 1969 New York Mets, 100-62
5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, 98-55
6. 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, 98-64
7. 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, 97-65
8. 1954 New York Giants, 97-57
9. 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, 95-59
10. 1914 Boston Braves, 94-59
11. 1921 New York Giants, 94-59
12. 2019 Washington Nationals, 93-69
13. 2008 Philadelphia Phillies, 92-70
14. 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, 91-71
15. 1933 New York Giants, 91-61
16. 1995 Atlanta Braves, 90-54

I dropped the '22 Giants, since they won 1 fewer game than the '21 version. I dropped the 1997 and 2003 Florida Marlins, since I needed to drop 2 more, and they were both Wild Card teams. And also because both Marlin titlists had known cheaters, Gary Sheffield and Ivan Rodriguez, respectively. Finally, I dropped the '25 Pirates: Not because of anything against the Pirate franchise or the City of Pittsburgh, but because they were a relatively weak champion, and because it made it easier to avoid a Buccos vs. Buccos matchup in the 1st Round.

The Nationals have now won a World Series, but they never won a Pennant as the Montreal Expos.

National League Western Division
1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds, 108-54
2. 1907 Chicago Cubs, 107-54
3. 1944 St. Louis Cardinals, 104-49
4. 2016 Chicago Cubs, 103-58
5. 1967 St. Louis Cardinals, 101-60
6. 1940 Cincinnati Reds, 100-53
7. 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers, 99-63
8. 1919 Cincinnati Reds, 96-44
9. 1957 Milwaukee Braves, 95-59
10. 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, 94-58
11. 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers, 94-67
12. 2012 San Francisco Giants, 94-68
13. 1982 St. Louis Cardinals, 92-70
14. 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers, 63-47, translates to 93-69 over a full 162-game season
15. 1990 Cincinnati Reds, 91-71
16. 2011 St. Louis Cardinals, 90-72

Here, I dropped a bunch where there were title teams too close together, like with the '40s Cards, the '60s Dodgers, the '70s Reds and the 2010s Giants.

The San Diego Padres have never won a World Series. Nor have the Colorado Rockies. Nor have the Milwaukee Brewers, in either League.

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Here we go:

AL East 1st Round 

1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. 16. 1924 Washington Senators. What would Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, et al. have done against Walter Johnson? Probably what they did in that 1996-2001 run against Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Kevin Brown, Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Al Leiter, Mike Hampton, Freddy Garcia, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson.

In other words, they wouldn't have won every game, but they would have been able to win the series. Yanks in 6.

2. 1927 New York Yankees vs. 15. 1993 Toronto Blue Jays. What could Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, George Pipgras and Bob Shawkey have done with Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor, Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter? More than Al Leiter, Dave Stewart, Pat Hentgen and Todd Stottlemyre could have done against Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri. Yanks in 5.

3. 1961 New York Yankees vs. 14. 1904 Boston Red Sox. Mickey Mantle vs. Cy Young. Can you imagine it? Can you imagine the rest of the Sox' staff against this squad of Bronx Bombers? Yanks in 5.

4. 1970 Baltimore Orioles vs. 13. 2004 Boston Red Sox. I have given each of these teams a month to prepare, including the announcement that they will be tested for steroids now, and before every game. In other words, if you cheat, we will catch you. Furthermore, I have given these games umpires who will know when a pitcher is purposely trying to injure a batter.

In other words, the rules of baseball will be enforced. In other words, the Sox are screwed. Seriously, you think a non-roided David Ortiz is going to take a Mike Cuellar screwball deep? Dream on. O's in 4 straight.
5. 2018 Boston Red Sox vs. 12. 1983 Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, no Apple Watches, either. O's in 5.

6. 1939 New York Yankees vs. 11. 1911 Philadelphia Athletics. I had to tweak the seedings here, because I wanted to avoid "a team playing itself" in the 1st Round. These A's had great pitching, but even without Lou Gehrig, these Yanks won 106 games. Maybe Connie Mack's later group of A's could have won this, but Eddie Plank and Chief Bender can be canceled out by Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing. Yanks in 6.

7. 1912 Boston Red Sox vs. 10. 1978 New York Yankees. Of course, the '78 Yanks would have to face a Red Sox team. And if they thought Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk were tough, wait 'til they get a load of Tris Speaker.

Actually, aside from the Grey Eagle, these Sox weren't especially good hitters. Their best weapon was Smoky Joe Wood, who went 34-5 that year, and then hurt his arm in the next year's Spring Training and was essentially done as a great pitcher at age 25. In other words, Smoky Joe's 1912 was every bit as good as Ron Guidry's 1978. If Wood goes up against Louisiana Lightning in Games 1, 4 and 7, the Yankees are in trouble.

So they would have to win it in 6 or less. Given the rest of Boston's pitching, Reggie, Thurman, Graig, Sweet Lou, Chris and Mick the Quick could do it. Yanks in 6.

8. 1929 Philadelphia Athletics vs. 9. 2009 New York Yankees. The last title team of George Steinbrenner's life had to get past some pretty good pitchers: John Lackey, Scott Kazmir, Cliff Lee, Jamie Moyer and Cole Hamels. Could they have handled Lefty Grove? Maybe not. Could they have handled George Earnshaw, Rube Walberg and Eddie Rommel? Probably.

The big question is whether CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte would have shut down one of the most fearsome attacks in baseball history, including Hall-of-Famers Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane. Also, it would be interesting to see how Alex Rodriguez responds to having to play in Shibe Park, a ballpark built in 1909, and not for guys who are 6-foot-3. A's in 6.

AL West 1st Round

1. 1984 Detroit Tigers vs. 16. 1985 Kansas City Royals. I had to move the '45 Tigers up 2 seeds so they didn't face another Tiger team in the 1st Round. The '84 Tigers beat the Royals in the AL Championship Series.

The '85 Royals were a little better than the '84 Royals, but they were not better than the '84 Tigers. After all, the '85 Royals came within 1 umpiring mistake of getting knocked out of the World Series in Game 6 on their own field. This one doesn't go that far. Tigers in 5.

2. 1968 Detroit Tigers vs. 15. 1906 Chicago White Sox. The "Hitless Wonders" against the team that won it all in "The Year of the Pitcher." The Pale Hose may have outplayed their crosstown rivals with their all-time record of 116 wins, but while they may have had to face Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, they didn't have to face Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich. Tigers in 5.

3. 2017 Houston Astros vs. 14. 1945 Detroit Tigers.No wires. José Altuve and his pals will have to face MVP Hal Newhouser naturally. They'll also have to put Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole up against Hank Greenberg. Good luck with that. Tigers in 5.

4. 1917 Chicago White Sox vs. 13. 1935 Detroit Tigers. Greenberg. Charlie Gehringer. Goose Goslin. "The G-Men." If gamblers want to win this one, they won't have to pay off Shoeless Joe Jackson or any other South Sider. Tigers in 6.

5. 2002 Anaheim Angels vs. 12. 1973 Oakland Athletics. The Angels were pretty close to getting knocked out in 6 on their own field. And that was against a team managed by Dusty Baker. Now, imagine a team with Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers, managed by Dick Williams, with Charlie Finley barred from entering the stadium. A's in 5.

6. 1989 Oakland Athletics vs. 11. 2015 Kansas City Royals. Again: No steroids. The A's won't need 'em: Those Royals weren't that good. They choked in Game 7 at home the year before, and the big reason they won in 2015 is that they were playing the 2015. Mets, a team that collapsed completely when you stood up to them. A's in 5.

7. 1920 Cleveland Indians vs. 10. 1991 Minnesota Twins. The Tribe rode the emotional lift of playing for the late Ray Chapman, and had Tris Speaker hitting, playing center field, and managing. But they'd never played at night, indoors, or on artificial turf. In short, they've never seen anything like the Metrodome. Twins in 7.

8. 2005 Chicago White Sox vs. 9. 1948 Cleveland Indians. The '05 ChiSox looked like a team of destiny, but if Josh Paul had thrown to 1st base, they would have been down 2-0 in the ALCS, and might not even have won the Pennant, and their World Series sweep of what was probably a better Astro team than 2017-19 wouldn't have happened. Indians in 7.

This Division: 5 upsets, although the top 2 survive.

NL East 1st Round

1. 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates vs. 16. 1995 Atlanta Braves. Honus Wagner, meet Greg Maddux. Braves in 6.

2. 1986 New York Mets vs. 15. 1933 New York Giants. Mel Ott vs. Dwight Gooden. Carl Hubbell vs. Darryl Strawberry. And the Giants won't be bringing Calvin Schiraldi in to pitch. Or Bob Stanley. And even if they do, manager Bill Terry was still capable of playing a good 1st base. Showing New York what "baseball like it oughta be" really means, Giants in 6.
3. 1905 New York Giants vs. 14. 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. What would John McGraw make of Dickie Noles brushing Turkey Mike Donlin back, like he did to George Brett? He'd probably understand, and have Joe McGinnity do it to Mike Schmidt. Here's a pitching matchup for the ages: Christy Mathewson vs. Steve Carlton.

But McGraw's 1st title team played at a time when depth wasn't really necessary. The Phils had depth, offensively and defensively. And what would Schmidt and Greg Luzinski have made of the Polo Grounds? Phils in 6. So that's the top 3 seeds all going down.

4. 1969 New York Mets vs. 13. 2008 Philadelphia Phillies. Okay, Charlie Manuel and company, you're not facing the Tampa Bay Rays now. You're facing a bunch of "Miracle" workers who knocked off a 109-win Baltimore team. And Gil Hodges will keep his team calmer than Joe Maddon kept his.
The '69 Mets won't be fazed by Hamels and Moyer, or Brad Lidge coming out of the bullpen. And after facing Hank Aaron and Orlando Cepeda in the NL Championship Series, and Frank Robinson and Boog Powell in the World Series, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley won't seem so intimidating. The '08 Phils were tough, and maybe the '69 Mets won't have the same kind of luck they had. Then again, maybe Tom Seaver doesn't lose Game 1 this time. Mets in 7.

5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. 12. 2019 Washington Nationals. This time, the Nats are facing a team that doesn't need to cheat. Duke Snider. Roy Campanella. Gil Hodges. These guys are killers. An aging but still effective Jackie Robinson. Carl Furillo. Both past batting champions. And Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg are each going to have to make at least 1 start in the cramped confines of Ebbets Field.

And these Dodgers didn't care that they had to face the Yankees 1 more time, and won't be facing the Yankees this time. Dodgers in 5.

6. 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates vs. 11. 1921 New York Giants. Willie Stargell did play at the Polo Grounds when the Mets hosted the Pirates early in his career. Dave Parker is going to like it. And the Giants just won't have the pitching: Art Nehf was no Mathewson. Pirates in 4 straight.

7. 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates vs. 10. 1914 Boston Braves. Like the '69 Mets, these Braves were called a "Miracle" team. Their luck will run out against Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Al Oliver, and the rest of the "Lumber Company." Pirates in 5.

8. 1954 New York Giants vs. 9. 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. Vern Law, Bob Friend and Harvey Haddix didn't like facing an older, wiser Willie Mays. They won't like facing him when he's younger and just feeling his oats for the 1st time. They also won't like facing Monte Irvin, Hank Thompson, Don Mueller and Whitey Lockman.

This won't go to a Game 7, and if Bill Mazeroski has any heroics, it will be with his glove. Giants in 5.

NL West 1st Round

1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds vs. 16. 2011 St. Louis Cardinals. These Cards barely survived Game 6 of the World Series against a Texas Rangers team that really wasn't all that good. What are they going to do against the Big Red Machine? Reds in 4 straight.

2. 1907 Chicago Cubs vs. 15. 1990 Cincinnati Reds. The year before, the Cubs fell victim to the 1st true World Series upset. The '90 Reds pulled another great Series upset. Frank Chance's boys will be facing a modern team, and how will he, Johnny Evers and Joe Tinker handle the artificial turf of Riverfront Stadium? Then again, how will Barry Larkin handle a Theodore Roosevelt-era field at West Side Park? Reds in 6.

3. 1944 St. Louis Cardinals, 104-49 vs. 14. 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers. I tweaked this seeding a little so I wouldn't end up with Cards vs. Cards in the 1st Round. Here's a matchup I'd love to have seen: Not-quite-21-year-old Fernando Valenzuela vs. not-quite-24-year-old Stan Musial. Screwball vs. corkscrew stance.

Actually, the Dodgers were lucky. They barely squeezed by the Astros and then the Expos in the Playoffs, and would have been swept by the Yankees had Reggie not gotten hurt, and still would have lost the Series if George had let Bob Lemon start him when he was ready to return. Tommy Lasorda will have no such luck with Stan the Man. Cards in 5.

4. 2016 Chicago Cubs vs. 13. 1982 St. Louis Cardinals. A bunch of scrappers against another: I think Joe Maddon would have enjoyed managing against peak Whitey Herzog. But these Cubs had enough of something previous Cub challengers -- 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945, 1969, 1984, 1989, 1998 and 2003 -- didn't have enough of: Character. Cubs in 7.
5. 1967 St. Louis Cardinals vs. 12. 2012 San Francisco Giants. Would peak Bob Gibson have put up with Aubrey Huff and Melky Cabrera? No. Cards in 5.

6. 1940 Cincinnati Reds vs. 11. 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers. The '88 Dodgers were among the weakest World Series winners ever. No Hall-of-Famers. No, not Kirk Gibson. No, not Orel Hershiser. That 1 ball hit by Gibson turned a possible 4-game sweep by the A's into a 5-game win by the Dodgers. And while he was no Dennis Eckersley, the Reds could have brought lefty Johnny Vander Meer in to face Gibson. Reds in 6.

7. 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers vs. 10. 1934 St. Louis Cardinals. Oh, here's a pitching duel for the ages: Sandy Koufax vs. Dizzy Dean. And no getting out of it because of Yom Kippur this time: This is not October.

Other than that, though, the '63 Dodgers were weak. Yes, they had batting champion Tommy Davis, base-stealing wizard Maury Wills, and big bomber Frank Howard. But they were also the 1st team ever to win the World Series without a single offensive player going to the Hall of Fame. No, Wills isn't in it. Nor is Howard, whose 382 career homers give him as many as Jim Rice, who is in. Just Koufax and Don Drysdale.

And if the Gashouse Gang could overcome the '34 Tigers' big trio of Lynwood "Schoolboy" Rowe, Tommy Bridges and Elden Auker, they could overcome the '63 Dodgers' big trio of Koufax, Drysdale and Claude Osteen. Cards in 7.

8. 1919 Cincinnati Reds vs. 9. 1957 Milwaukee Braves. For the rest of their lives, Hall-of-Famer Edd Roush and the rest of the 1919 Reds swore that they still would have won the Series if it was fully on the level. They have a case: They won 95 games that season, while the "Black Sox" won just 88. We'll never know for sure.

What we do know for sure is that Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Eddie Mathews and a young Hank Aaron not only beat a Yankee team that was fully trying, and fully healthy (which wasn't always the case: Mantle played just 1 game each in 1955, which the Yankees lost, and 1961, which they won anyway), but clinched in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. (Aaron has gone on record as saying the Braves were more intimidated by The Stadium than they were by the Yankees themselves.) Braves in 7.

*

AL East Quarterfinals

1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. 12. 1983 Baltimore Orioles. In 1996, the Yankees beat an older Cal Ripken and some steroid freaks. Would the improved '98 Yanks beat young Cal, prime Eddie Murray, and a pretty good pitching staff? They beat better teams. Yanks in 6.

2. 1927 New York Yankees vs. 10. 1978 New York Yankees. Murderer's Row vs. my childhood heroes. Time for me to take the blinkers off: '27 Yanks in 5.

3. 1961 New York Yankees vs. 8. 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. Even batting righthanded, Mantle would have had trouble with Grove. Roger Maris, only a lefty, even more so. Indeed, in '61, the Yanks didn't face a Grove-level pitcher.

The AL only had one that year... and it was their own, Whitey Ford. Whitey took care of business with lineups full of killers, so if Ralph Houk doesn't put him up against Grove, the Yanks can win this. Yanks in 6.

4. 1970 Baltimore Orioles vs. 6. 1939 New York Yankees. Joe McCarthy's teams faced some tough pitching from 1936 to 1943, so going up against Cuellar, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and Pat Dobson wouldn't have been daunting. Would Brooks Robinson have made the difference? Not if DiMaggio and company hit the ball over him. Yanks in 6.

AL West Quarterfinals

1. 1984 Detroit Tigers vs. 14. 1945 Detroit Tigers. It doesn't seem fair to have 2 Detroit vs. Detroit matchups and an Oakland vs. Oakland matchup in the same round, but that's what we have. The '84 group is just too deep for the war-depleted '45 team. '84 Tigers in 6.

2. 1968 Detroit Tigers vs. 13. 1935 Detroit Tigers. McLain lost Games 1 and 4 against Bob Gibson. He won't have to go up against Gibson. He will have to go up against the G-Men and catcher-manager Cochrane. '35 Tigers in 7.

6. 1989 Oakland Athletics vs. 12. 1973 Oakland Athletics. Just imagine Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco and the young Mark McGwire hitting against the artistry of Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue. Just imagine Reggie facing Smoke Stewart. '73 A's in 5.

9. 1948 Cleveland Indians vs. 10. 1991 Minnesota Twins. Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek won't be facing Charlie Liebrandt now. It'll be Bob Feller and Bob Lemon. Now imagine Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby, Joe Gordon, Dale Mitchell and a young Al Rosen hitting inside the Metrodome. Indians in 5.

NL East Quarterfinals

4. 1969 New York Mets vs. 16. 1995 Atlanta Braves. Can the Miracle continue? Of course: If you can beat Palmer, Cuellar and McNally, you can beat Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz. If you can stop the Robinsons and Powell, you can stop David Justice, Fred McGriff and Chipper Jones. Mets in 7.

5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. 15. 1933 New York Giants. Arguably, the best Brooklyn Dodger team vs. the best New York Giant team. As a lefty, Duke Snider might really struggle against Carl Hubbell. But so might Mel Ott against Johnny Podres. Given the dimensions of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, this could be a wild one. But if Don Newcombe has his stuff, then he could cancel King Carl out. Dodgers 7.

6. 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates vs. 14. 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies made the Playoffs every year from 1976 to 1983, except for 1979 when the Pirates beat them out for the NL East title, and 1982 when the Cards did it.

This Keystone State Classic will feature some ugly fields and some ugly uniforms, but some great baseball. Will the calm of Chuck Tanner help the Bucs win, or will the mad motivating mouth of Dallas Green push the Phils over the top? The Pirates don't have a Carlton, but they do have a better bullpen. It's tough. But I think the Phils are a better team, top to bottom. Phils in 7.

7. 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates vs. 8. 1954 New York Giants. The young Willie vs. the veteran Roberto. Peak Leo Durocher managing against an aging but still proud Danny Murtaugh. This time, the Pirates don't have the better bullpen, and I think that makes a difference. Giants in 7.

NL West Quarterfinals

1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds vs. 15. 1990 Cincinnati Reds. Okay, 1990 Reds, you've had your fun. That ends now. Maybe Larkin was a better shortstop than Dave Concepcion, and Eric Davis was definitely a better center fielder than Cesar Geronimo. But the way to beat the Big Red Machine was to have the better starting pitching, and the '90 Reds simply didn't. '75 Reds in 5.

3. 1944 St. Louis Cardinals vs. 10. 1934 St. Louis Cardinals. Stan's men vs. the Gashouse Gang. Musial vs. Ol' Diz. But the '34 Cards also had Joe Medwick, who, before a 1940 beaning, looked like he was headed for 3,000 hits and 500 home runs.

On the other hand, pretty much every strength the '34 Cards had, the '44 Cards were stronger at it, including defense and their fabled baserunning. The '44 team didn't have a Dean brother? They might not have needed one. '44 Cards in 7.

4. 2016 Chicago Cubs vs. 9. 1957 Milwaukee Braves. A big battle on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Cubs had to get past the Giants and the Dodgers, both Playoff perennials, to get into the Series, and then a tough Indians team took them literally beyond the prescribed limit: Game 7 went to 10 innings.

But can we really say they faced a better team than the '57 Yankees? We can say the '57 Braves faced that team, and beat them. And they had better pitching. Braves in 6.
5. 1967 St. Louis Cardinals vs. 6. 1940 Cincinnati Reds. Except for Ernie Lombardi, the Reds were not a big red machine (capitalized or otherwise). The Cards had some pop with Orlando Cepeda and an aging but still strong Roger Maris. The Reds had good pitching, but they didn't have a Bob Gibson. Cards in 5.

*

AL East Semifinals

1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. 6. 1939 New York Yankees. So it's all Yankees from here on out, is it? Now, I'm going to have to really think about it. How do David Cone, Andy Pettitte, David Wells and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez stop young Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Charlie Keller and Joe Gordon, and prime Bill Dickey?

Well, Pettitte and Wells were lefties, so Henrich, Keller and Dickey might have had trouble. And Coney and Duque were tricksters, often looking like they were making up pitches as they went along. Maybe that would spell trouble for even The Great DiMaggio.

And with their lineup, and Joe Torre's hunches, maybe the '98 Yanks could get past Gomez, Ruffing, Monte Pearson and Steve Sundra in the '39 rotation. '98 Yanks in 7.

2. 1927 New York Yankees vs. 3. 1961 New York Yankees. Here we go: Murderer's Row vs. the M&M Boys. Houk would tell Ford, Ralph Terry and Bill Stafford to forget about stopping Ruth and Gehrig, just get your outs where you can. Miller Huggins would say the same to Hoyt, Pennock, Pipgras and Shawkey regarding Mantle and Maris.

The bullpen might make the difference. The '27 Yanks had one of the earliest good relievers, Wilcy Moore. But the '61 Yanks had Luis Arroyo, Jim Coates and Hal Reniff. Sorry, Babe. '61 Yanks in 7.
AL West Semifinals

1. 1984 Detroit Tigers vs. 13. 1935 Detroit Tigers. The '84 Tigers jumped out to a 35-5 start. But they didn't have to face a bunch of killers like Mickey Cochrane's men. '35 Tigers in 6.
9. 1948 Cleveland Indians vs. 12. 1973 Oakland Athletics. The '78 Yanks are out, but Reggie and Catfish are still in this. The Oakland dynasty beat Earl Weaver's O's twice, Billy Martin's Tigers, Yogi Berra's Mets, a Dodger team that was managed by Walter Alston but was really the beginning of the Tommy Lasorda-managed team, and, yes, Sparky Anderson's Reds without home-field advantage and with Reggie unavailable due to injury. I think they can beat Lou Boudreau's Indians. A's in 6.

NL East Semifinals

4. 1969 New York Mets vs. 14. 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. Surprised to see me include a Met team in the last 16? Well, so am I. And it's not the 1986 team? Actually, that's less surprising: As I've said a few time, the wrong Met title team is called a "miracle."

Tom Seaver, age 25. Steve Carlton, age 35. I can almost hear Darth Vader tell Luke Skywalker he's been taught well, but he's not a Jedi yet.

Dallas Green was a yeller, much like Earl Weaver, the manager that Gil Hodges outfoxed in October '69. And did the '80 Phils have a better lineup than the '69 O's? No.

But the '80 Phils were the toughest team in the history of Philadelphia baseball -- or, at least, since the 1929-31 A's. They were seasoned veterans, whereas, with a few exceptions like Donn Clendenon and Ed Charles, the '69 Mets were mostly kids who didn't realize that this was supposed to be hard. The '80s Phils knew, having come so close 3 times, but having it snatched away, and they weren't about to let it happen again.

The Miracle comes to an end. Phils in 6.
5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. 8. 1954 New York Giants. Can peak Mays beat peak Big Newk? Can peak Duke take peak Sal the Barber down? Did Sandy Amoros make a tougher catch than Mays did the year before? Maybe, maybe, and it was certainly a more important catch that Amoros made. But, top-to-bottom, the Brooks were stronger. Dodgers in 5.

NL West Semifinals

1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds vs. 9. 1957 Milwaukee Braves. In 1948 in Boston, with Spahn and Johnny Sain being actually backed up fairly well by Vern Bickford and Bill Voiselle, it wasn't quite "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." In 1957 in Milwaukee, it was Spahn and Burdette and then Buhl is what you get.

But if that team were transported to 1975 in Cincinnati, they might want to start a divine appeal for inclement weather. And while their rotation wasn't the equal of their lineup, the '75 Reds did have good starters in Don Gullett, Jack Billingham, Fred Norman and Gary Nolan. And a very good bullpen. Reds in 5.

3. 1944 St. Louis Cardinals vs. 5. 1967 St. Louis Cardinals. Can you imagine Gibson brushing Musial back? Of course you can. Can you imagine Stan slicing Gibby's next pitch down the line for a double anyway? Yes. And the '44 Cards wouldn't be facing Gibson in every game.

But the '67 Cards would be a tougher day-to-day opposition than most teams the Cards faced during The War. '67 Cards in 7.
*

Divisional Finals

AL East: 1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. 3. 1961 New York Yankees. We have a best team of the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium era (1923-1973), and a best team of the post-renovation Yankee Stadium era (1976-2008).

Let's presume that everybody is healthy. Darryl Strawberry was the only major player unavailable for the '98 postseason, but in '61, Mickey Mantle played only in Game 3, while Yogi Berra, still a threat -- he homered in Game 2, the only game of the Series the Yankees lost -- sat out Game 5.

The '61 Reds had a good lineup, roughly the equal of the '98 Yanks. And that was the only postseason round the '61 Yanks had to go through. The '98 Yanks had to face Texas, Cleveland and San Diego, and each team may well have been as good as their respective franchises have ever been. So they're not going to be daunted by facing a lineup with Mantle, Maris, Berra and Moose Skowron in it.

Home-field advantage won't make much difference: Although left and center field are a lot further out for the '61 Yanks, that won't bother Bernie Williams, and the '98 Yanks will have the post-renovation Stadium for Games 1, 2, 6 and 7 anyway.

If we go by the starting rotations the teams actually used in their respective World Series, it will be Whitey Ford vs. David Wells in Game 1, Ralph Terry vs. Orlando Hernandez in Game 2, Bill Stafford vs. David Cone in Game 3, Ford vs. Andy Pettitte in Game 4; and, if we presume each Series had gone the limit, it would have been Terry vs. Wells in Game 5. Stafford vs. El Duque in Game 6, and Ford vs. Cone in Game 7. Man alive, would I love to see that Game 7!

Game 1. Ford, 25-4, vs. Wells, 17-4. In real life, Whitey was really on his game, pitching a 2-hit shutout. In contrast, Boomer did not have his best stuff, and the Yanks needed a 7-run 7th inning to win it. '61 leads 1-0.

Game 2. Terry vs. Duque. This is the 1 game in the Series the '61 team lost. Duque was strong. Series tied 1-1.

Game 3. Stafford vs. Cone. Stafford pitched well, but left losing 2-1 before a Yankee comeback. Cone didn't pitch well. '61 leads 2-1.

Game 4. Ford on 3 days' rest vs. Pettitte. Whitey left with a bad ankle after 5 innings, only up 2-0, but, as I said, no injuries here. Andy pitched 8 scoreless innings, and Whitey could have done the same. But I can see Andy hanging a slider, and Mickey unable to refuse. '61 leads 3-1.

Game 5. Terry on 3 days' rest vs. Wells on 4. Terry went 16-3 that year, and won the Cy Young Award the next season. But Wells may have been better in '98 than Terry was either year. We don't know what the '98 Yanks would have done in Games 5, 6 and 7, because they swept the Padres. But if Wells shook off his Game 1 start, and pitched like he did in Game 5 of the ALCS, then his team stays alive. '61 leads 3-2.

Game 6. Stafford on 3 days' rest vs. Duque on 4. Series tied.

Game 7. Ford on 3 days' rest vs. Cone on 4. It's all about the bullpen now. The '61 Yanks may have Luis Arroyo, but if they don't get to Ramiro Mendoza in the 7th inning or Mike Stanton in the 8th, here's how the 9th inning could go: Mariano breaks Maris' bat, fans Mickey on 3 pitches, and toasts the Moose. '98 Yanks come from 3 games to 1 down to win the greatest series ever.

AL West: 12. 1973 Oakland Athletics vs. 13. 1935 Detroit Tigers. That's right, 12th vs. 13th. In this case, the seedings did not reflect talent. Given the firepower the Oakland pitchers faced in their Green & Gold dynasty, I don't think they're going to be afraid of the '35 Tigers. Whereas the Tigers will look at the A's, and, colors aside, be reminded stylistically of the Cardinal team that beat them the year before. A's in 6.
NL East: 5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. 14. 1980 Philadelphia Phillies. Winner gets Central Jersey. (Kidding.) Dem Bums had a better lineup and better starting pitching. Newk could have outpitched Carlton. Dodgers in 6.

NL West: 1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds vs. 5. 1967 St. Louis Cardinals. Did Bob Gibson ever throw at Pete Rose? Here, he might. And Rose might get hit. And he might get up and trot to 1st base. And then he might try to break up a double play and pick a fight with the much smaller Dal Maxvill, the way he did with Bud Harrelson of the Mets in the '73 NLCS? You bet your sweet bippy. Oops, did I say, "bet," Pete?

Look, Gibson didn't win every World Series game he pitched. He lost 1964 Game 2, and 1968 Game 7. He just won the 7 he pitched in between, and looked absolutely dominant in so doing. But take the aces out of the equation, Gibson and... heck, who was the ace for the '75 Reds? Gullett?

Gibson is supposed to be the factor swinging this battle in the Cards' favor. But what if the Reds do to him what they did to the '70, '72 and '75 Pirates; the '73 Mets; the '75 Red Sox; and the '76 Phils and Yanks? What if they go the small-ball, nickel-and-dime, station-to-station, "death of a thousand cuts" route? In other words, what if they do to the '60s Cards what the '60s Cards themselves did so well? These teams, Gibson aside, were pretty much a mirror image of each other.

The '75 Reds didn't have a Gibson? True. But the '67 Cards didn't have a Rose. The '75 Reds didn't have a Cepeda? True. But the '67 Cards didn't have a Johnny Bench. The '75 Reds didn't have a... Never mind: The '67 Cards didn't have a Joe Morgan or a George Foster. And even if Gibson is brilliant 3 times, the Cards still have to win 1 more game, and at least 1 of their 4 wins will have to be at Riverfront. Reds in 7.

*

American League Championship Series: East 1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. West 12. 1973 Oakland Athletics. Because of when I came along, I knew the great players for the A's, but I knew them only after they left. Reggie, Catfish and Ken Holtzman with the Yankees. Joe Rudi and eventually Reggie with the team then known as the California Angels. Rollie Fingers with the San Diego Padres and then the Milwaukee Brewers. Gene Tenace with the Padres and then the St. Louis Cardinals. Sal Bando with the Brewers. Bert Campaneris with the Texas Rangers, then the Angels, and retiring as a Yankee. Vida Blue with the San Francisco Giants. Bill North with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Reggie still thinks that if Charlie Finley hadn't been so cheap, and had kept them together, they could have won a couple of more World Series. Certainly, the Yankees not having him, Catfish and Holtzman would have made it a lot easier once they got to the ALCS.

But how would the '73 A's, the strongest edition of that dynasty, have matched up with the '98 Yankees? Not as well as you might think. Blue and Holtzman weren't great postseason pitchers, and John "Blue Moon" Odom was already starting to wind down. Fingers was in Mariano Rivera's league as a reliever, and would often pitch 2 or 3 innings, removing the need for any other relievers. But I think the pitching gives the Pinstripes the edge. Yanks in 6.

National League Championship Series: West 1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds vs. East 5. 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. So it's going to be a showdown between the '75 Reds and the '98 Yanks, the one that Joe Morgan, broadcasting on NBC and now on ESPN, is so sure Cincinnati will win?
Not so fast: They still have to get past the Boys of Summer. Again, I'm going to use the actual World Series rotation used to consider this:

Game 1: Don Newcombe vs. Don Gullett. Oddly, both of these teams lost Game 1, though it should be pointed out both started the Series on the road. Newk was 20-5 with 7 homers that year -- more home runs than were hit in '75 by Ken Griffey Sr. (4), Dave Concepcion (5) or Cesar Geronimo (6), and as many as were hit by Pete Rose, all of whom had a lot more at-bats.

Gullett pitched pretty well until the 7th, when the Red Sox hung 6 runs on the Reds. That's longer than Newk held out, and I can imagine manager Sparky Anderson, known as Captain Hook for how quickly he removed pitchers, reacting sooner this time. Reds lead 1-0.

Game 2: Billy Loes vs. Jack Billingham. Billingham pitched well into the 6th. Loes had nothing, and was knocked out of the box in the 4th. Reds lead 2-0.

Game 3: Johnny Podres vs. Gary Nolan. Podres pitched out of trouble in the 2nd, and cruised against the Yankees the rest of the way. Sparky decided to get cute: He only let Nolan pitch 4 innings, then Pat Darcy for 2, then Clay Carroll, then Will McEnaney, finally Rawly Eastwick. The Reds won this game in 10 innings, largely due to the Ed Armbrister-Carlton Fisk collision that Sox fans still swear was interference. The Dodgers win this one. Reds lead 2-1.

Game 4: Carl Erskine vs. Fred Norman. Neither starter had anything: Oisk didn't get out of the 3rd inning, and Norman not out of the 4th. The Reds got beat by Luis Tiant as they had in Game 1, while the Dodgers rode big hitting and the bullpen work of Don Bessent and Clem Labine to beat the Yankees. Series tied 2-2.

Game 5: Roger Craig vs. Gullett. Craig pitched decently for 6 innings, with Labine doing well the rest of the way. Gullett pitched better, though. Reds lead 3-2, and need to win only 1 out of 2 at Riverfront to take the Pennant.

Game 6: Karl Spooner vs. Nolan. Walter Alston had used 6 different starts in the Series' 1st 6 games. This is not a recommended way to run a ballclub. Spooner only got 1 out before allowing 5 runs, and while Russ Meyer and Ed Roebuck pitched scoreless ball the rest of the way, it was too late.

In 1975, Game 6 remains the game that everybody talks about, but, again, Sparky played musical chairs on the mound. Nolan went only 3 innings, and he ended up using 8 pitchers over the course of the game's 12 innings, closing with Darcy giving up the famous home run to Carlton Fisk.

That wouldn't be necessary if Alston holds true to form and starts Spooner. Why didn't he start Newcombe again? Newk didn't throw a pitch after the 6th inning of Game 1. So the Reds win the Pennant in 6 games, not because they were better, but because Alston was a fool.

*

World Series: AL East 1. 1998 New York Yankees vs. NL West 1. 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Do I have to say it? Sparky's pitching changes doom the Big Red Machine.

Game 1 may well turn out how 1998 Game 1 did, with the Yanks pouncing in the 7th, which is how long Gullett lasted in 1975 Game 1. The Reds can't count on Billy Loes, or Bill Lee as in real life, choking under pressure, because, as the joke went, El Duque pitched for the 2 most demanding bosses in the Western Hemisphere: Fidel Castro and George Steinbrenner. The Yanks take a 2-0 lead to Riverfront.

In 1998 Game 3, the Yankees stunned the Padres with a big comeback, with Scott Brosius taking the supposedly unbeatable Trevor Hoffman over the center field wall. The Reds had Carroll, McEnaney and Eastwick: All were good, none was as good as Hoffman, who wasn't as good as Rivera. Cone will be fine. Game 4? Pettitte against Nolan, and the Yankees get the runs Andy needs.

This is not the 1976 World Series. Lo and behold, the Bronx Bombers sweep the Big Red Machine.

Would the '55 Dodgers have been a better opponent for the '98 Yankees? Maybe, if Newcombe can pitch Game 6, and everybody else does their job the same way. But it has to get that far first.
The 1998 New York Yankees really were the greatest baseball team of all time.

Today, it's the NFL's turn. Remember: Super Bowl winners and pre-1966 League Champions only. So, no Atlanta Falcons, no Carolina Panthers, no Cincinnati Bengals, no Houston Texans, no Jacksonville Jaguars, no Minnesota Vikings, no Tennessee Titans. The Chicago Cardinals, yes; the Arizona Cardinals, so far, no.

Since the 1960s AFL was fully merged into the NFL, I'll include its champions, but not any of the other leagues' titlists.

My cutoff point is 1933, the start of official NFL Championship Games, and the start of the modern passing game.

Teams will be listed with their seasons. In other words, while the Jets won Super Bowl III on January 12, 1969, they were AFL Champions for 1968. If a team won multiple championships in an era, I pick the one that had the best record. And, geographically, putting them into Divisions didn't really work out, so I'm just going to have an AFC and an NFC.

I ended up with 24 teams for the AFC, so I needed a play-in round and 8 byes. I ended up with 32 teams for the NFC, which worked out right. And, again, I tweaked some seeds, so I didn't have a franchise play another version of itself in the 1st Round.

AFC

1. 1972 Miami Dolphins, 14-0
2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers, 14-2
3. 1998 Denver Broncos, 14-2
4. 2003 New England Patriots, 14-2
5. 2016 New England Patriots, 14-2
6. 1976 Oakland Raiders, 13-1
7. 1964 Buffalo Bills, 12-2
8. 1983 Los Angeles Raiders, 12-4
9. 2006 Indianapolis Colts, 12-4
10. 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers, 12-4
11. 2019 Kansas City Chiefs, 12-4
12. 2015 Denver Broncos, 12-4
13. 2000 Baltimore Ravens, 12-4
14. 1970 Baltimore Colts, 11-2-1
15. 1968 New York Jets, 11-3
16. 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, 11-3
17. 1963 San Diego Chargers, 11-3
18. 1962 Dallas Texans, 11-3
19. 1950 Cleveland Browns, 10-2
20. 1964 Cleveland Browns, 10-3-1
21. 1961 Houston Oilers, 10-3-1
22. 2012 Baltimore Ravens, 10-6
23. 1958 Baltimore Colts, 9-3
24. 1955 Cleveland Browns, 9-2-1

NFC

1. 1984 San Francisco 49ers, 15-1
2. 1985 Chicago Bears, 15-1
3. 1989 San Francisco 49ers, 14-2
4. 1991 Washington Redskins, 14-2
5. 1986 New York Giants, 14-2
6. 1962 Green Bay Packers, 13-1
7. 1992 Dallas Cowboys, 13-3
8. 1994 San Francisco 49ers, 13-3
9. 1996 Green Bay Packers, 13-3
10. 1999 St. Louis Rams, 13-3
11. 2009 New Orleans Saints, 13-3
12. 2013 Seattle Seahawks, 13-3
13. 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, 13-3
14. 1977 Dallas Cowboys, 12-2
15. 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 12-4
16. 1949 Philadelphia Eagles, 11-1
17. 1963 Chicago Bears, 11-1-2
18. 1971 Dallas Cowboys, 11-3
19. 1941 Chicago Bears, 10-1
20. 1942 Washington Redskins, 10-1
21. 1936 Green Bay Packers, 10-1-1
22. 1953 Detroit Lions, 10-2
23. 1960 Philadelphia Eagles, 10-2
24. 1933 Chicago Bears, 10-2-1
25. 2007 New York Giants, 10-6
26. 2010 Green Bay Packers, 10-6
27. 1945 Cleveland Rams, 9-1
28. 1947 Chicago Cardinals, 9-3
29. 1938 New York Giants, 8-2-1
30. 1956 New York Giants, 8-3-1
31. 1951 Los Angeles Rams, 8-4
32. 1935 Detroit Lions, 7-3-1

*

AFC 1st Round

9. 2006 Indianapolis Colts vs. 24. 1955 Cleveland Browns. Peyton Manning vs. Otto Graham. This game could have a basketball score. But the Colts have a better defense. Colts win.

10. 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. 23. 1958 Baltimore Colts. Johnny Unitas, Lenny Moore and Raymond Berry could beat Chuck Bednarik, Sam Huff and Dick "Night Train" Lane, so they're not going to be afraid of James Harrison and Troy Polamalu. Ben Roethlisberger, meet Gino Marchetti. Colts win.

11. 2019 Kansas City Chiefs vs. 22. 2012 Baltimore Ravens. Can Ray Lewis stop Patrick Mahomes? Maybe. Can John Harbaugh outcoach Andy Reid? Certainly. Ravens win.

12. 2015 Denver Broncos vs. 21. 1961 Houston Oilers. The passing attack of George Blanda to Charley Hennigan faced nothing like the modern Bronco defense -- until the '62 Texans, '63 Chargers and the '64 Bills, and that's when they stopped winning. Broncos win.

13. 2000 Baltimore Ravens vs. 20. 1964 Cleveland Browns. I love this matchup: Jim Brown vs. Ray Lewis. The Browns will have to keep the ball on the ground, to avoid the Ravens' punishing secondary. But the '64 Browns had a defense good enough to shut down prime Johnny U. Shutting down Trent Dilfer is going to be a piece of cake. Browns win.

14. 1970 Baltimore Colts vs. 19. 1950 Cleveland Browns. Both teams won the title on a last-30-seconds field goal -- in the Colts' case, on the last play. But we're avoiding injuries this time, so Unitas can play the whole game. Can Mike Curtis stop Marion Motley? Maybe, but Graham had a better overall receiving corps than Unitas. Browns win.

15. 1968 New York Jets vs. 18. 1962 Dallas Texans. The Texans needed a 2nd overtime to beat the Oilers for the AFL title. The Jets beat the Raiders in regulation, then shut the Colts down for most of the Super Bowl. The Texans would become the Chiefs, but they weren't yet ready to take on these Jets. Jets win.

16. 1969 Kansas City Chiefs vs. 17. 1963 San Diego Chargers. The Chargers were the more exciting team. But more exciting doesn't necessarily mean better. The Chiefs were very deep, and that will give them the victory. Chiefs win.

NFC 1st Round

1. 1984 San Francisco 49ers vs. 32. 1935 Detroit Lions. Joe Montana against a 1930s defense? In the immortal words of Ariana Grande, "Thank you, next." 49ers win.

2. 1985 Chicago Bears vs. 31. 1951 Los Angeles Rams. This Ram squad was the original "Greatest Show on Turf," the natural kind. The most exciting team of its era. But... Bob Waterfield, meet Mike Singletary. Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, meet Gary Fencik. Rams defense, meet Walter Payton and William "the Refrigerator" Perry. This game is won by a certain team which is known as... Da Bears!

3. 1989 San Francisco 49ers vs. 30. 1956 New York Giants. A great matchup: The 1st great NFL defense against maybe the best-ever offense. But if Montana and company could beat a Giant defense led by Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, they could beat one led by Sam Huff and Andy Robustelli. 49ers win.

4. 1991 Washington Redskins vs. 29. 1938 New York Giants. The Hogs pushing aside a 1930s defense? Tuffy Leemans trying to keep up with the Fun Bunch? No. Redskins win.

5. 1986 New York Giants vs. 28. 1947 Chicago Cardinals. The '47 Cards had the original "Million Dollar Backfield": Quarterback Paul Christman, and running backs Charley Trippi, Pat Harder and Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg. The '86 Giants had the Big Blue Wrecking Crew. Giants win.

6. 1962 Green Bay Packers vs. 27. 1945 Cleveland Rams. The 1st Rams title team wouldn't have a chance against Vince Lombardi's power sweep. Packers win.

7. 1992 Dallas Cowboys vs. 26. 2010 Green Bay Packers. I'd like to think that Aaron Rodgers and company would have a chance against "The Triplets." But it wouldn't be a great chance. Cowboys win.

8. 1994 San Francisco 49ers vs. 25 2007 New York Giants. If the Giants could beat Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the 18-0 Cheatriots, they could beat anybody, right? Not necessarily: Steve Young and Jerry Rice might torch them. 49ers win.

9. 1996 Green Bay Packers vs. 24. 1933 Chicago Bears. The NFL's greatest rivalry, but can Red Grange and Bronko Nagurski beat Brett Favre and Reggie White? I don't think so. Packers win.

10. 1999 St. Louis Rams vs. 23. 1960 Philadelphia Eagles."The Greatest Show On Turf" playing in the 1923-built Franklin Field? Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk would have enough trouble 2 years later with the Patriots. What would Chuck Bednarik do with them? "This (George Carlin word)ing game" would be over quickly. Eagles win.

11. 2009 New Orleans Saints vs. 22. 1953 Detroit Lions. The Saints provided a great moment, but they weren't as good a team as the balanced '50s Lions. Lions win.

12. 2013 Seattle Seahawks vs. 21. 1936 Green Bay Packers. Don Hutson vs. Richard Sherman? You love to see it. But the 'Hawks would have too much for this old time Packer bunch. Seahawks win.

13. 2017 Philadelphia Eagles vs. 20. 1942 Washington Redskins. Another shootout, between Nick Foles and Slingin' Sammy Baugh. But I don't think the 'Skins have enough of a defense to win this one. Eagles win.

14. 1977 Dallas Cowboys vs. 19. 1941 Chicago Bears. Doomsday vs. the Monsters of the Midway. Roger Staubach vs. Sid Luckman. The Cowboys have the higher seed, so this game is at Texas Stadium. But what could Luckman and his attack do with artificial turf adding to their speed? Probably not enough. So unless the Bears can get through the line and knock Staubach on his perfectly-starched ass, I don't see them winning. Cowboys win.

15. 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. 18. 1971 Dallas Cowboys. Tampa Bay, winning the Super Bowl? As the bartender said when the priest, the minister and the rabbi walked in, "Is this some kid of joke?" No, the Bucs actually did win one. But against the old Cowboys? This won't be funny. Cowboys win.

16. 1949 Philadelphia Eagles vs. 17. 1963 Chicago Bears. The Bears never made the Playoffs when they had Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus. But a team with Willie Galimore and Bill George should be able to beat one with Steve Van Buren and a young Bednarik. Bears win.

*

AFC 2nd Round

1. 1972 Miami Dolphins vs. 23. 1958 Baltimore Colts. Could Johnny U beat the undefeated Dolphins? The '72 Redskin "Over-the-Hill Gang" almost beat them. And the '58 Colts were better that. No champagne. Colts win.
2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. 22. 2012 Baltimore Ravens. Ray Lewis' D against the guys they pretend they were: The Steel Curtain. Mike Webster's line protects Terry Bradshaw from Lewis and his guys. Lynn Swann blows past Ed Reed. Steelers win.

3. 1998 Denver Broncos vs. 20. 1964 Cleveland Browns. Would Jim Brown teach Bill Romanowski some manners? Probably not. Would Brown teach Romanowski a lesson? Maybe. But the Browns don't have a secondary capable of stopping a passing attack led by John Elway. Broncos win.

4. 2003 New England Patriots vs. 19. 1950 Cleveland Browns. Can Paul Brown out-think Bill Belichick? Yes. Will that be enough? Against a modern offense, no. Patriots win.

5. 2016 New England Patriots vs. 16. 1969 Kansas City Chiefs. These Pats needed a huge comeback to beat the '16 Falcons. The '69 Chiefs were a lot better than the '16 Falcons. Cheating doesn't work this time. Chiefs win.

6. 1976 Oakland Raiders vs. 15. 1968 New York Jets. The Jets were good. The Raiders were good and deep. Joe Namath may have avoided Ted Hendricks when he was with the Colts in the Orange Bowl in '69, but with Hendricks playing for the Raiders in the Oakland Coliseum in '76, with a better overall defense around him? In the immortal words of Billy Joel, "I've seen the lights go out on Broadway." Raiders win.

7. 1964 Buffalo Bills vs. 12. 2015 Denver Broncos. The '64 Bills might have had the best chance of any pre-Super Bowl AFL team of beating the NFL Champions (the Browns). But that doesn't mean they were a better overall team than these Broncos. Broncos win.

8. 1983 Los Angeles Raiders vs. 9. 2006 Indianapolis Colts. The Raiders totally shut down Joe Theismann and the Redskin "Fun Bunch." I don't think they would have had much trouble shutting down Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison. Raiders win.

NFC 2nd Round

1. 1984 San Francisco 49ers vs. 23. 1960 Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles beat Lombardi's Packers, who might have been the greatest team of all time. But the Packers weren't there yet. The 49ers might already have been one of the best team ever. 49ers win.

2. 1985 Chicago Bears vs. 22. 1953 Detroit Lions. Bobby Layne against the 46 Defense? This could get ugly. Bears win.

3. 1989 San Francisco 49ers vs. 18. 1971 Dallas Cowboys. People forget that the Niners also had a good defense, known as the Gold Rush. You think Bob Hayes was too fast for Ronnie Lott? Think again. 49ers win.
4. 1991 Washington Redskins vs. 17. 1963 Chicago Bears. If these Bears could add Sayers and Butkus, they might win. But Washington just had too much talent. Redskins win.

5. 1986 New York Giants vs. 14. 1977 Dallas Cowboys. Wouldn't you love to see LT knock Staubach out? Giants win.

6. 1962 Green Bay Packers vs. 13. 2017 Philadelphia Eagles. As much as I would love to see the Eagles win, against Lombardi's Pack, it's just not gonna happen. Packers win.

7. 1992 Dallas Cowboys vs. 12. 2013 Seattle Seahawks. Michael Irvin vs. Richard Sherman? Yes, please. Russell Wilson vs... Oh, that's right, the Cowboys don't yet have Deion Sanders. Sorry, but the Cowboys had a better record in '92 than in '95. How 'bout them Seahawks?

8. 1994 San Francisco 49ers vs. 9. 1996 Green Bay Packers. These Niners did have Deion, and he can give Robert Brooks and Antonio Freeman a hard time. 49ers win.

*

AFC Quarterfinals

2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. 23. 1958 Baltimore Colts. Jim Parker was one of the best guards who ever lived, but he will have his hands full with Mean Joe Greene, and that means Johnny U is going to have to scramble in those black high-tops. Meanwhile, one of those Colts' few weaknesses was their secondary. Bradshaw, Swann and John Stallworth are going to have some fun. Steelers win.

3. 1998 Denver Broncos vs. 16. 1969 Kansas City Chiefs. Terrell Davis running against Willie Lanier and Bobby Bell would be a sight to see. But the Chiefs had a great all-around offense, and I think that makes the difference. Chiefs win.

4. 2003 New England Patriots vs. 12. 2015 Denver Broncos. You knew there had to be a Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning game in here, but you might not have expected it to be the Broncos instead of the Colts. Well, no Spygate or Deflategate here. The Pats will have to win on merit. They will not. Broncos win.

6. 1976 Oakland Raiders vs. 8. 1983 Los Angeles Raiders. This is like the Hell's Angels taking on a heavy metal band. Ken Stabler was a better quarterback than Jim Plunkett, and John Madden was a better coach than Tom Flores. '76 Raiders win.

NFC Quarterfinals

1. 1984 San Francisco 49ers vs. 12. 2013 Seattle Seahawks. Bill Walsh can outcoach Pete Carroll. 49ers win.

2. 1985 Chicago Bears vs. 8. 1994 San Francisco 49ers. Maybe the Montana Niners could have beaten the Ditka Bears. The Steve Young Niners can't. Bears win.

3. 1989 San Francisco 49ers vs. 6. 1962 Green Bay Packers. You know what, call off the other games. This is the all-time Super Bowl right here. Not only will Montana have to avoid Willie Davis and Ray Nitschke, but Rice will have to get open against Herb Adderley and Willie Wood. But these Niners also had Romanowski, and Charles Haley. I don't think that's enough defense to stop Bart Starr, Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor at their peak. Packers win.

4. 1991 Washington Redskins vs. 5. 1986 New York Giants. The Hogs stopped LT & company a few times. They could do it again. Whereas the Redskin defense could gobble up Phil Simms and Joe Morris. Redskins win.

*

AFC Semifinals

2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. 16. 1969 Kansas City Chiefs. The last AFL Champions have had a good run. It ends here, driven into the plastic turf of Three Rivers Stadium. Steelers win.

6. 1976 Oakland Raiders vs. 12. 2015 Denver Broncos. Peyton Manning is going to see a lot of white shirts knocked down by Jack Tatum. Raiders win.

NFC Semifinals

1. 1984 San Francisco 49ers vs. 6. 1962 Green Bay Packers. Yes, the game will be at Candlestick Park, but the 49ers did lose some home games in the Playoffs. Too much offense for this San Francisco defense. Packers win.

2. 1985 Chicago Bears vs. 4. 1991 Washington Redskins. Hogs vs. 46 Defense. Talk about your "Big Uglies in the Trenches." But even when Mark Rypien gets his passes off, the Chicago D could make life miserable for him. The track-meet matchup of Willie Gault vs. Darrell Green would be interesting, but the 'Skins would have to stop Walter Payton. The Bears did lose some Playoff games at Soldier Field, but this won't be one of them. Bears win.
*

AFC Championship Game: 2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. 6. 1976 Oakland Raiders. Chuck Noll vs. John Madden. The Steelers beat the Raiders in the Playoffs at Three Rivers in 1972 and 1975, and at the Coliseum in 1974. The Raiders beat the Steelers in the Playoffs at the Coliseum in 1973 and 1976. Does knowing that help? Not really: The Steelers got better after all of that. And this game is at Three Rivers. Pittsburgh won't need an Immaculate Reception to win this one. Steelers win.

NFC Championship Game: 2. 1985 Chicago Bears vs. 6. 1962 Green Bay Packers. I suppose the NFC just had to come down to the Monsters of the Midway vs. the Creatures from the Frozen North. The Green Bay offense just might have enough to top the Chicago defense. I don't see the Chicago offense having enough to top the Green Bay defense. Packers win.

*

All-Time Super Bowl: AFC 2. 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers vs. NFC 6. 1962 Green Bay Packers. Both teams won a Super Bowl at the neutral site of the Orange Bowl in Miami -- in the Steelers' case, 2 of them. Both teams will be playing on the same field (real grass), in the same weather (unseasonably cool and dry), with all the knowledge of how football can be played up to and including Super Bowl LVI in 2020, and with all the footage of each other that they could ever want (but no secretly taped practices).
Paul Hornung, how smart is Terry Bradshaw? "Not smarter than me."

Vince Lombardi, is Hornung right? "I hope so, but it should have been, 'Not smarter than I.'"

The Packer power sweep was both guards, in this case Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston, pulling out of the line to block, so that Hornung or Jim Taylor could run an end-around. Are Kramer and Thurston good enough to block any 2 of the following: Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes and Dwight White? Maybe if Greene isn't 1 of them. But if he isn't, it's probably because he's already broken through past center Jim Ringo, or maybe gotten around tackle Forrest Gregg.

So the Packers will have to switch to the air. Starr will throw to Max McGee, Boyd Dowler, Carroll Dale and Marv Fleming. But Mel Blount and Donnie Shell are capable of stopping them.

So what can the Pittsburgh offense do against the Green Bay defense? Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier will be running against Willie Davis, Henry Jordan and Ray Nitschke. Terry Bradshaw will be passing to Lynn Swan and John Stallworth, and they will have to get past Herb Adderley and Willie Wood. Sounds as tough as anything they had to face in their time.

The Packers won 3 NFL Championship Games, 37-0, 16-7 and 23-12, and then 2 Super Bowls, 35-17 and 33-14. The Steelers won 4 Super Bowls, 16-6, 21-17, 35-31 and 31-19. Both teams were capable of winning slugfests, defensive struggles, and blowouts.

Vince Lombardi was on the coaching staff of Red Blaik at Army. Chuck Noll played for Paul Brown with the Cleveland Browns. Each was a genius in his own way, having learned from another. Each imbued his team with a sense of pride, that they were playing for something larger than themselves.

And there's no home-field advantage. It may come down to a last-minute field goal. Hornung had been the Pack's main kicker, but in 1962 made only 6 field goals, the longest being 45 yards, in just 10 attempts. Kramer became the new kicker, making 9 of 11, but his longest was just 39 yards. But that's still better than the Steelers' Roy Gerela: In 1978, he made only 12 of 26, the longest being 44. No wonder they got Matt Bahr for the next season.

Green Bay Packers 24, Pittsburgh Steelers 21.
The 1962 Green Bay Packers, All-Time NFL Champions.

I conclude this series with the National Hockey League. My cutoff point is 1939, the year the Stanley Cup Finals became a best-4-out-of-7 series.

Only Cup winners are allowed. Therefore, no Arizona Cardinals, no Buffalo Sabres, no Columbus Blue Jackets, no Minnesota Wild, no Nashville Predators, no Ottawa Senators (not even the old version, who went bust in 1935, before my cutoff date), no San Jose Sharks, no Vancouver Canucks, no Vegas Golden Knights, no Winnipeg Jets. Also, no WHA Champions, so, still no Jets, and no New England/Hartford Whalers, no Houston Aeros, and no Quebec Nordiques.

Seedings will be done by points, which will favor later teams that played more games. I moved the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs back over into the West. And I still needed a play-in round in each Conference, because I was only able to cut it down to 24 in each, once I weeded out teams to pick out the best of the respective dynasties.

Eastern Conference

1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens, 132
2. 1973 Montreal Canadiens, 120
3. 1972 Boston Bruins, 119
4. 1982 New York Islanders, 118
5. 1975 Philadelphia Flyers, 113
6. 1994 New York Rangers, 112
7. 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, 112
8. 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins, 111
9. 2003 New Jersey Devils, 108
10. 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning, 106
11. 2018 Washington Capitals, 105
12. 1969 Montreal Canadiens, 103
13. 2011 Boston Bruins, 103
14. 1993 Montreal Canadiens, 102
15. 1956 Montreal Canadiens, 100
16. 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins, 99
17. 1960 Montreal Canadiens, 92
18. 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins, 88
19. 1986 Montreal Canadiens, 87
20. 1944 Montreal Canadiens, 83
21. 1939 Boston Bruins, 74
22. 1953 Montreal Canadiens, 75
23. 1995 New Jersey Devils, 52
24. 1940 New York Rangers, 64

Western Conference

1. 1984 Edmonton Oilers, 119
2. 2001 Colorado Avalanche, 118
3. 1989 Calgary Flames, 117
4. 2002 Detroit Red Wings, 116
5. 2008 Detroit Red Wings, 115
6. 1999 Dallas Stars, 114
7. 2010 Chicago Blackhawks, 112
8. 2007 Anaheim Ducks, 110
9. 1996 Colorado Avalanche, 104
10. 1998 Detroit Red Wings, 103
11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings, 100
12. 2014 Los Angeles Kings, 100
13. 2019 St. Louis Blues 99
14. 1951 Toronto Maple Leafs, 95
15. 1997 Detroit Red Wings, 94
16. 1990 Edmonton Oilers, 90
17. 1962 Toronto Maple Leafs, 85
18. 1948 Toronto Maple Leafs, 77
19. 1961 Chicago Blackhawks, 75
20. 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs, 75
21. 1943 Detroit Red Wings, 61
22. 1947 Toronto Maple Leafs, 72
23. 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, 57
24. 1949 Toronto Maple Leafs, 57

*

Here we go:

Eastern Conference, 1st Round

9. 2003 New Jersey Devils vs. 24. 1940 New York Rangers. I tweaked the seedings so I didn't end up with Devils vs. Devils in the 1st Round. This Ranger team was very solid, but not nearly deep enough to stand up to the best Devils team ever. Devils in 5.

10. 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning vs. 23. 1995 New Jersey Devils. Time to take off the blinkers, and admit that the '95 Meadowlands Marauders were thrilling, but not quite talented enough to beat the '04 Bolts. Lightning in 7.

11. 2018 Washington Capitals vs. 22. 1953 Montreal Canadiens. Another tweak to avoid a same-team 1st Round matchup. If these were the Habs of 1956 to 1960, I would trust Jacques Plante to handle Alex Ovechkin. But these were the Habs with Gerry McNeil in goal. Caps in 5.

12. 1969 Montreal Canadiens vs. 21. 1939 Boston Bruins. The Kraut Line led by Milt Schmidt, and the late-game heroics of "Sudden Death" Mel Hill give the B's a chance. An older Frank Brimsek in goal might have helped, but the '39 Bruins, with Brimsek as a rookie, had more points than the '41 Cup-winning version. Canadiens in 6.

13. 2011 Boston Bruins vs. 20. 1944 Montreal Canadiens. Brad Marchand is not going to stop Maurice Richard. Nor is Zdeno Chara. Neither is Tim Thomas. Canadiens in 5.

14. 1993 Montreal Canadiens vs. 19. 1986 Montreal Canadiens. This was the only time I couldn't avoid a same-team 1st Round matchup, and it's the last 2 Habs Cup winners. A few of the 1970s holdovers like Larry Robinson and Bob Gainey were still around, but the '93 team was better. '93 Canadiens in 6.

15. 1956 Montreal Canadiens vs. 18. 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins. Jacques Plante facing Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Ron Francis without a mask? With Doug Harvey also defending against them, I like the Habs' chances. Canadiens in 5.

16. 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. 17. 1960 Montreal Canadiens. Jacques Plante facing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin with a mask? And Harvey and Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion reacting to Sid the Kid doing his little dives? Canadiens in 4 straight.

Western Conference, 1st Round

9. 1996 Colorado Avalanche vs. 24. 1949 Toronto Maple Leafs. Ted "Teeder" Kennedy and company aren't going to be fast enough for Joe Sakic's bunch. Avs in 5.

10. 1998 Detroit Red Wings vs. 23. 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs. Stopping prime Syl Apps? There's an app for that, and it's Viacheslav Fetisov and Nicklas Lidstrom. Wings in 5.

11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings vs. 22. 1947 Toronto Maple Leafs. Tweaked to avoid a Wings vs. Wings matchup in the 1st Round. This was the year the Wings did the 1st 8-game sweep in Playoff history (hence the guy throwing the 8-legged octopus onto the ice, starting the tradition), a feat that ended up being matched only by the '60 Canadiens. The Leafs weren't ready for the Production Line at its peak. Wings in 5.

12. 2014 Los Angeles Kings vs. 21. 1943 Detroit Red Wings. This was when the Howe starring for Detroit was Syd, not Gordie. I guess it depends on whether the referees let the Kings cheat. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe they're just too deep for any 1940s team. Kings in 7.

13. 2019 St. Louis Blues vs. 20. 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs. Here's a nice matchup: The current Stanley Cup holders against the last of the "Original Six" champs, a pair of veteran, knowledgeable squads. But who do the current Blues have that can stop the Big M, Frank Mahovlich? Leafs in 6.

14. 1951 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. 19. 1961 Chicago Blackhawks. Can Turk Broda stop a young Bobby Hull and a young Stan Mikita? Can a young Glenn Hall stop prime Teeder Kennedy? The latter is more likely. Hawks in 5.

15. 1997 Detroit Red Wings vs. 18. 1948 Toronto Maple Leafs. Teams in the Fighting Forties didn't get much deeper than the '48 Leafs, Syl Apps' last team. But they weren't nearly deep enough to take on a team assembled by Jim Devellano and coached by Scotty Bowman. Wings in 4 straight.

16. 1990 Edmonton Oilers vs. 17. 1962 Toronto Maple Leafs. Remember, this Oiler team has prime Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Kevin Lowe, and a young Adam Graves; but it doesn't have Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri or Paul Coffey; and Andy Moog has replaced Grant Fuhr as the starting goalie. And when Punch Imlach's Leafs are veteran-laden, they're not old yet. Leafs in 5.

*

Eastern Conference, 2nd Round

1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens vs. 20. 1944 Montreal Canadiens. The '44 Habs, with the Punch Line of Maurice Richard, Elmer Lach and Toe Blake, might have been the fastest team anyone had yet seen. But the '77 edition was the ultimate in "The Flying Frenchmen."'77 Canadiens in 5.

2. 1973 Montreal Canadiens vs. 17. 1960 Montreal Canadiens. The '73 Habs collected more points in a season than anyone yet had. But old Henri Richard and the rest couldn't keep up with young Henri, old Maurice, prime Geoffrion, prime Harvey, prime Plante, and prime Jean Beliveau. '60 Canadiens in 6.

3. 1972 Boston Bruins vs. 15. 1956 Montreal Canadiens. In '56, the Habs were burning over their Finals losses to Detroit in '54 and '55, and were hungry. In '72, the Bruins were burning over their Playoff loss to the Habs the year before.

The difference could be that, in '56, the Habs had a bunch of rookies making good, including Henri Richard; while the '72 Bruins were an outfit of prime stars, already battle-tested. Not that the '56 Habs didn't have Maurice Richard, Butch Bouchard and Harvey. But this was the best Bruin team ever. Bruins in 6.

4. 1982 New York Islanders vs. 14. 1993 Montreal Canadiens. The '93 Habs won some time games, including in overtime, including against the '93 Isles, who put together a fun ride. But the '82 Isles were much better. Isles in 5.

5. 1975 Philadelphia Flyers vs. 12. 1969 Montreal Canadiens. In spite of being defending Champions, and then Champions again, the Habs were kind of in a transition from the Beliveau and Henri Richard team of the Sixties and the Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard, Ken Dryden and Guy Lafleur team of the Seventies: Cournoyer and Savard were already there, but Dryden and Lafleur weren't.

In '76, they were ready to take the Flyers down and cut their dynasty short. In '69, they wouldn't have been. Flyers in 6.

6. 1994 New York Rangers vs. 11. 2018 Washington Capitals. For all the hype over them, it's easy to forget that the '94 Rangers were among the least deserving Stanley Cup Champions ever. Not just because they were big-money assembled. Not just because half the team was Edmonton Oiler retreads. And not just because Messier is an asshole.

But because they came damn close to both losing the Conference Finals -- both in Game 6 and at home in Game 7 -- and blowing a 3-games-to-1 lead in the Stanley Cup Finals, losing Game 5 at Madison Square Garden and Game 6 in Vancouver before finally holding the Vancouver Canucks off in Game 7 at home.

Mike Richter stopped Pavel Bure on the most famous penalty shot in hockey history. He could stop Ovechkin. And maybe, as a team, the '94 Rangers had more talent than the '18 Caps. But the Caps would not be intimidated by the Rangers. Caps in 7 -- winning at The Garden.

7. 2006 Carolina Hurricanes vs. 10. 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning. Both of these teams should have lost the Finals to a team from Alberta, the former to the Oilers, the latter to the Calgary Flames. Both got robbed by the referees and their boss Gary Bettman. The Bolts needed more help to win. 'Canes in 7.

8. 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. 9. 2003 New Jersey Devils. Sidney Crosby, meet Scott Stevens. If you survive that, meet prime Martin Brodeur. Devils in 7.

Western Conference, 2nd Round

1. 1984 Edmonton Oilers vs. 20. 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1984, the Oilers dethroned the 1980s Islander dynasty. Now, they face the end of the 1960 Maple Leaf dynasty. Can Tim Horton (then very early in the donut business), Allan Stanley, and the goaltending tandem of Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk hold off Gretzky, Kurri, Messier and Anderson? I doubt it. Oilers in 6.

2. 2001 Colorado Avalanche vs. 19. 1961 Chicago Blackhawks. If there were a "Mount Rushmore" of 4 guys who popularized hockey in America, it would be Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Hull. But, given that I've made all teams full-strength, and thus Peter Forsberg gets added to a very strong and deep Colorado team, I don't think the Golden Jet can do enough here. Avs in 6.
3. 1989 Calgary Flames vs. 17. 1962 Toronto Maple Leafs. The 1980s Flames were good, but they only won 1 Cup and reached 1 other Final, because they had so much trouble getting past their arch-rivals, the Oilers. In contrast, the 1960s Leafs were a team that knew how to overcome the teams they played so often with the "Original Six" schedule. Leafs in 5.

4. 2002 Detroit Red Wings vs. 15. 1997 Detroit Red Wings. The '97 Wings broke a 42-year drought, and are the most beloved team in franchise history. But the '02 Wings, including many of the same players, are the best. '02 Wings in 6.

5. 2008 Detroit Red Wings vs. 12. 2014 Los Angeles Kings. Jonathan Quick is not ready for this Motor City madness. Wings in 4.

6. 1999 Dallas Stars vs. 11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings. Go ahead, Derian Hatcher: Mess with a team that has Gordie Howe on it. I dare you. Wings in 4.

7. 2010 Chicago Blackhawks vs. 10. 1998 Detroit Red Wings. Arch-rivals. There could be some fights. If it were the '13 or '15 Hawks, they might win. But it was the '10 Hawks who had the better record. Experience wins out here. Wings in 6.

8. 2007 Anaheim Ducks vs. 9. 1996 Colorado Avalanche. Patrick Roy. "Roy" is a variation on "Roi," which is French for "King." I don't care how many Niedermayer brothers are on the Ducks. Avs in 5.

*

Eastern Conference Quarterfinals

1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens vs. 17. 1960 Montreal Canadiens. Too soon. This should have been the ultimate Finals: The 4-time champs vs. the 5-time champs. The '60 Habs had maybe the best top 10 in NHL history. But the '77 Habs may have had the best top-to-bottom team. '77 Canadiens in 7 -- maybe in overtime.

3. 1972 Boston Bruins vs. 11. 2018 Washington Capitals. How's this for a matchup: Bobby Orr vs. Alexander Ovechkin! But it's also Phil Esposito vs. Braden Holtby. Bruins in 5.
4. 1982 New York Islanders vs. 9. 2003 New Jersey Devils. For those of you too young to remember the Islander dynasty, let me too you: Their excellence was exceeded by their arrogance. I would love to see the best Devils team ever win this series. Unfortunately, this was the best New York Tri-State Area hockey team ever. Islanders in 6.

5. 1975 Philadelphia Flyers vs. 7. 2006 Carolina Hurricanes. Let's see how these pampered 21st Century players handle the Broad Street Bullies. Flyers in 4 straight.
Western Conference Quarterfinals

1. 1984 Edmonton Oilers vs. 17. 1962 Toronto Maple Leafs. These Oilers have already taken down one part of the Sixties Leafs dynasty in this tournament. No reason why they can't take down another. Oilers in 5.
2. 2001 Colorado Avalanche vs. 11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings. This could be the all-time goalie matchup: Patrick Roy vs. Terry Sawchuk. Although neither is really in his prime: Roy was 35, Sawchuk just 22.

Still, the '52 Wings could boast a Hall-of-Famer at every starting position: Sawchuk in goal, a defensive pairing of Red Kelly and Marcel Pronovost, and the Production Line of Gordie Howe, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay. Do the '01 Avs, with Roy, a healthy Forsberg, and the way led by Sakic and the retiring Ray Bourque, have enough depth to get past that? Maybe, but I don't think so. Wings in 7.

4. 2002 Detroit Red Wings vs. 10. 1998 Detroit Red Wings. Yet again, the '02 Wings take on one of their recent forebears. Yet again, they just have too much talent. '02 Wings in 6.

5. 2008 Detroit Red Wings vs. 9. 1996 Colorado Avalanche. This was Lidstrom's team, with Steve Yzerman having retired. I think they may be missing a little something here. Avs in 7.

*

Eastern Conference Semifinals

1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens vs. 5. 1975 Philadelphia Flyers. We already know how this will turn out, since, more or less, it happened, in between, in 1976. Maybe it won't be a sweep this time, but beautiful hockey wins out over winning ugly. Canadiens in 5.

3. 1972 Boston Bruins vs. 4. 1982 New York Islanders. With Clark Gillies, John Tonelli, and even goalie Billy Smith, the early Eighties Isles could fight. Of course, so could the Big Bad Bruins of the Seventies. So the question is: Do the Bruins of Orr, Esposito, Johnny Bucyk and Gerry Cheevers have the talent to overcome the Isles of Smith, Denis Potvin, Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier? I don't think so. Isles in 7.

Western Conference Semifinals

1. 1984 Edmonton Oilers vs. 11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings. This won't settle the "greatest player ever debate" between Howe and Gretzky. But it will put the Oilers against a tougher team than anybody they'd yet faced. (And let's face it: While they would beat the Flyers in the Cup Finals in '85 and '87, those were not the Flyers of '74 and '75.)

Having the speed advantage won't help the Oilers, because they might not actually have it here. Having Sawchuk rather than Fuhr might help the Wings. Wings in 7.
4. 2002 Detroit Red Wings vs. 9. 1996 Colorado Avalanche. This will be Detroit's final revenge on Claude Lemieux. Wings in 6.

*

Eastern Conference Finals: 1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens vs. 4. 1982 New York Islanders. Here's how good the early Eighties Isles were: They had the speed and quick-strike capability of the late Seventies Habs, the early Seventies Bruins and the Eighties Oilers; and the toughness of the mid-Seventies Flyers, the early Seventies Bruins and the Eighties Oilers.

But that won't be enough here. Ken Dryden is in goal. Serge Savard, Larry Robinson and Guy Lapointe are on defense. The attack features Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Jacques Lemaire, Steve Shutt and Bob Gainey. That's 9 Hall-of-Famers. And that doesn't count these guys, who aren't in the Hall but were still pretty good: Peter Mahvolich, Doug Risebrough, Doug Jarvis, Yvon Lambert and Rejean Houle.

Take a look at the team photo. See the trophies? From left to right: The Art Ross trophy for most points by a player, Lafleur; the Hart Memorial Trophy, for the Most Valuable Player of the regular season, also Lafleur; the Prince of Wales Trophy, for Eastern Division Champion (now for the Eastern Conference Champions); the Stanley Cup; the Vezina Trophy, for best goaltender, Dryden; the James Norris Trophy, for best defenseman, Robinson; and the Conn Smythe Trophy, for MVP of the entire Playoffs, Lafleur again.
To put Lafleur's achievement in perspective: There are only 3 players who have ever won the Hart and the Smythe in the same season. Orr did it (as a defenseman) in 1970, and again in '72; Lafleur did it in '77; and Gretzky did it in '85.

Throw in the Ross, and only Orr in '70, Lafleur in '77 and Gretzky in '85 have ever done it. Orr, as you might guess, also won the Norris in '70, and he scored the Cup-clinching goal, giving him perhaps the greatest individual season in NHL history. Lafleur with Robinson, and Gretzky with Coffey, had their teammates win the Norris in their respective seasons.

Throw in the Vezina, though, and the '70 Bruins didn't turn the trick, as Tony Esposito of Chicago won it. (In fact, no Bruin won it between Frank Brimsek in 1942 and Pete Peeters in 1983.) Nor did the '85 Oilers: Grant Fuhr won it in '88, but in '85, it went to Pelle Lindbergh of the Flyers. But with the '77 Habs, Dryden got it.

Oh yeah: Scotty Bowman won the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year, a trophy not pictured here. The only major award available to the '77 Habs that they didn't win was the Calder Memorial Trophy, for Rookie of the Year, which went to Willi Plett of the Atlanta Flames.

The winningest coach ever, with 9 Hall-of-Fame players, between them winning 7 major trophies. The Habs were just too strong. Canadiens in 7.

Western Conference Finals: 4. 2002 Detroit Red Wings vs. 11. 1952 Detroit Red Wings. No way does one Detroit team roll over so that the other will be stronger and fitter for the overall Finals. The old Wings had a great starting lineup. So did the more recent wings, and they had a strong bench, too. So it's a question of whether the old guys' pride will be enough. It won't. '02 Wings in 7.

*

All-Time Stanley Cup Finals: East 1. 1977 Montreal Canadiens vs. West 2. 2002 Detroit Red Wings. A team coached by 43-year-old Scotty Bowman, taking his 3rd Cup, vs. a team coached by 69-year-old Scotty Bowman, taking his record 9th and last Cup.

I've named the '77 Habs stars. Here's what the '02 Wings come with: Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Igor Larionov, Brendan Shanahan, Luc Robitaille, Chris Chelios, Dominik Hasek. All past their prime, but all still showing why they're in the Hall of Fame. Nicklas Lidstrom and Sergei Fedorov. Still very much in their prime, and in the Hall. Pavel Datsyuk, not in the Hall yet, but still in his prime then. Kris Draper, Darren McCarty, Kirk Maltby and Tomas Holmstrom, good holdovers from the 1997 and '98 Champs.

Would Bowman being older and wiser in 2002 make the difference? Probably not: As I said in my NFL piece, everybody involved has been fully briefed on what has happened since. Any knowledge available to '02 Bowman is also available to '77 Bowman. The old man may have a better idea of how to use it, but the middle-aged man can still use it.

The difference may well be in the goalies. In the regular season, Hasek was as good as anyone, ever. But in the postseason, especially the further he got, the shakier he got. Dryden got better the further he got. Canadiens in 7.

The 1977 Montreal Canadiens: All-Time Stanley Cup Champions.

"Charlie Hustle" has died. No, not Pete Rose. This guy may have had the nickname first. Certainly, he never disgraced his sport, the way Rose did his.

Gerald Eugene Sloan was born on March 28, 1942 in McLeansboro, Illinois, in the southern "Little Egypt" part of the State, closer to Louisville than to St. Louis, never mind Chicago. He grew up on a nearby farm, in a place called Gobbler's Knob. If that name sounds familiar, it's because it's also the place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania where they keep the groundhog.

Jerry Sloan was 4 years old when his father died, Fortunately for him, he was the youngest of 10 children, so the burden of helping raise the family wasn't on him. But he did have to do farm work, and got up at 4:30 every morning to do them. Then he would walk 2 miles to school for basketball practice, starting at 7:00.

He was All-State at McLeansboro High School, and got a scholarship to the nearest big basketball school, the University of Evansville in Indiana. He helped them win the 1965 NCAA Division II Championship, and they retired his Number 52.
The Baltimore Bullets made him the 4th pick in the 1965 NBA Draft. He only played 1 season for them, and was taken in the 1966 expansion draft, the 1st pick ever by the Chicago Bulls, making him "The Original Bull."

By the standards of 1st-year expansion teams, they did pretty well, With Sloan, former Temple and Warriors star Guy Rodgers, 1960 Olympian Bob Boozer, UCLA National Champion and eventual 1972 Laker Keith Erickson, and eventual 1970 Knick Nate Bowman, and coached by Syracuse Nationals star and later Bulls broadcaster Johnny "Red" Kerr (who personally recommended Sloan to team management), the Bulls went 33-48, and made the Playoffs, although they got swept by the St. Louis Hawks.

Sloan made the NBA All-Star Game in 1967 and '69. He was named to the NBA's All-Defensive First Team 4 times and the Second Team 2 others. He was good on offense, too, with 4 seasons in which his points-per-game average was 15 or higher, peaking at 18 in 1970-71. He averaged 7.4 rebounds a game, and was a career 72 percent on free throws.

He helped the Bulls reach the Playoffs again in 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975, the last of these being the Bulls' 1st Division title, in that case the Midwest Division. The 1974-75 Bulls included Sloan, Norm Van Lier, Bob Love, and Hall-of-Famers Nate Thurmond and Chet "the Jet" Walker.
They won Playoff rounds over the Detroit Pistons in 1974 and the Kansas City Kings in 1975, before losing the Western Conference Finals to the Milwaukee Bucks and the Golden State Warriors, respectively. (They were moved to the Eastern Conference in 1980.)

Sloan retired as a player after missing the Playoffs in 1976. His college coach, Arad McCutchan, suggested that he return to Evansville as an assistant coach. This was a good program that had won 5 Division II National Championships between 1959 and 1971, including 1964 and 1965 with Sloan as a player. They were preparing to move up to NCAA Division I for the 1977-78 season.

But Sloan quit after 5 days. It was the best move he could have made, because tragedy struck: On December 13, 1977, on the way to play away to Middle Tennessee State, their team plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all 29 people on board. McCutchan had retired as head coach, so he was not on board. His replacement, Bobby Watson, was. McCutchan was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach, and lived until 1993.

One member of the team was not on board. His name was David Furr, out for the season with an ankle injury. Just 2 weeks later, he died anyway: He and his brother Byron were killed in a car crash near Newton, Illinois. As a result, his name is included with those of his teammates on the University's official memorial.

*

The Bulls subsequently hired Jerry as a scout, and in 1978 made him an assistant coach. That same year, they made his Number 4 the 1st they ever retired. In 1979, he was promoted to head coach, but lasted only 3 seasons. He got them to the Playoffs in 1981, and beat the Knicks in the 1st Round -- the only time the Knicks and Bulls met in the Playoffs before Michael Jordan got to Chicago. But they got off to a bad start in the 1981-82 season, and he was fired.

He was hired as a scout by the Utah Jazz, then an assistant coach in 1985. When Frank Layden moved upstairs to become team president in 1988, Sloan was named head coach. With Karl Malone at power forward and John Stockton at point guard. the Jazz made the Playoffs 16 straight seasons. He won Midwest Division titles in 1989, 1992, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2007 and 2008.

The Jazz always seemed to smack into tougher teams, including the Houston Rockets. In 1994, they lost the Conference Finals to the Jazz in 5 games. Game 5 was played in Houston on a Sunday, and a fan, citing Malone's nickname, "The Mailman," since he "always delivered," held up a sign saying, "THERE'S NO MAIL ON SUNDAY!" (Except in the British newspaper industry.)

In 1997, the Jazz finally broke through, beating the Rockets in Game 6 on a buzzer-beater by Stockton. But since the basketball gods have a sense of irony, they had to face the Bulls, Sloan's old team. Jerry may still have had the nickname "Mr. Chicago Bull," but Michael Jordan was now the face of the franchise.

The series was tied after 4 games, and the Jazz stood to have Games 5 and 7 at home, and Jordan was sick in Game 5. (Was it the flu? Was it food poisoning? Does anyone know for sure?) He still scored 38 points, at altitude, against the best defense in the league. And the Bulls won at home in Game 6. The Bulls beat the Jazz in the Finals again the next year.

In 2003, Stockton retired. Malone's contract ran out, and he signed with the Los Angeles Lakers. And Matt Harpring missed most of the season due to a knee injury. It looked like the Jazz were played out, and some people predicted a historically bad season. But Sloan did some of his best coaching, and got them to a 42-40 finish, though not quite enough to make the Playoffs for a 17th straight season.

The 2004-05 season turned out to be a bad one, easily Sloan's worst at 26-56. But he got them back up to .500 at 41-41 the next year, and then got them all the way to the Conference Finals in the next, before losing to the San Antonio Spurs.

He retired in 2011, 2 years after being elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, in the same election as Stockton. Malone, who played 1 year longer, was elected the next year. Coaches can be elected if still active if they have coached at least 25 years and are at least 60 years old.
He finished his coaching career with 1,221 wins, 3rd-most in history at the time, and 803 losses, for a .603 winning percentage. To this day, that total has been exceeded only by Lenny Wilkens, Don Nelson and Gregg Popovich. Counting the Playoffs, he was 1,319-907, for .593. Also counting the Playoffs, 1,223 of those wins were with the Jazz, and, in place of a retired uniform number, they raised a banner with the number 1223 on it. In fact, he was the 1st coach to win 1,000 games with 1 team.

In his 23 seasons in charge of the Jazz, NBA teams changed head coaches 245 times, and 5 teams were expanded into existence: The Orlando Magic, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Toronto Raptors, the Vancouver (now Memphis) Grizzlies and the Charlotte Bobcats (now the new Hornets).

In his NBA experience, he arrived in 1965, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson were still running the show, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had just arrived at UCLA under the name Lew Alcidor; and left in 2011, a year after LeBron James had taken his talents to South Beach.

To put it another way: Of the 9 teams in the NBA when he arrived, the New York Knicks, the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Detroit Pistons, the Los Angels Lakers and the San Francisco (now Golden State) Warriors are still in the same metro area they were in then; but the St. Louis Hawks moved to Atlanta; the Cincinnati Royals have moved twice, and are now the Sacramento Kings; and his original team, the Baltimore Bullets, moved to Washington in 1973, and changed their name to the Washington Wizards in 1977.

Jerry Sloan was married to Bobbye, his high-school sweetheart, for 41 years, until her death from cancer. They had 3 children, including Brian Sloan, who followed his father as an All-State player for McLeansboro High School, leading them to a 1984 State Championship, and being named Illinois' Mr. Basketball for that year. He was a member of Indiana University's 1987 National Championship team under Bob Knight. Brian's son Grant Sloan now plays for IU's baseball team. (Or has played for it, and would be playing for it now, if not for the Coronavirus closures.)

In 2006, Jerry remarried, to Tammy Jessop, whose son Rhett became his stepson. Jerry and Tammy were married for 14 years.

In 2016, Jerry was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which would be bad enough, and Lewy body dementia. This is a terrible combination, one which led comedian Robin Williams to take his own life. Jerry stepped away from his front office role with the Jazz, and lived in retirement until his death today, May 22, 2020, at age 78.

Michael Wilbon of ESPN, who grew up in Chicago as a Bulls fan, watching Jerry: "There certainly have been greater backcourts, tag-teams that won more games or produced more highlights...but none were tougher than Norm Van Lier and Jerry Sloan. May the great #4 Rest In Peace."

Rachel Nichols, also of ESPN: "In a league that often values style, Sloan was substance. He was consistent, he was straightforward, and he was damn good at basketball."

Kenny Smith of TNT, a member of the Rockets' 1994 and '95 NBA Champions: "RIP #JerrySloan .. one of the greats! No player achieves greatness without great coaching. john Stockton projected as a good little backup and Karl Malone as a quality power forward before meeting Sloan and became Alltime greats! RIP"

Scottie Pippen of the Bulls teams that beat his Jazz in the 1997 and '98 Finals: "I loved everything about Jerry Sloan, from the way he played to the way he coached. He was a tenacious competitor who represented the Bulls of the 70s so well. Jerry became one of my favorite coaches when he was on the 1996 Dream Team staff and it was an honor to learn from him."

Gregg Popovich, head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, who lost to Sloan's Jazz in the Playoffs in 1998, before beating them in 2007: "He was a mentor for me from afar until I got to know him. A man who suffered no fools, he possessed a humor, often disguised, and had a heart as big as the prairie."

Lori Lightfoot, Mayor of Chicago: "Before Chicago basketball had Jordan and Pippen, we had Jerry Sloan, whose death comes as sad news to all us die-hard fans. An original Bull, Jerry followed his All-Star playing career with a Hall of Fame coaching legacy. Our prayers are with his family during this painful time."

Gary Herbert, Governor of Utah: "Jerry was old school, a legend, and will be greatly missed."

He once said, himself, “There’s not a guy who goes to work at 8 o clock in the morning, that gets off at 5, that wants to read that basketball players are tired. I’m right along with them. I can’t live with the idea that we should be tired because we had to play.”

Jerry Sloan was an NBA lifer. And few people had a better NBA life than he did.

In the Finals, they faced the Philadelphia Flyers, who had won the Cup in 1974 and '75, lost in the Finals in '76, and, earlier in the 1979-80 season, with a few holdovers from their Cup-winning teams including Captain Bobby Clarke, set a North American major league sports record by going 35 games unbeaten: Won 26, tied 9, lost exactly none. They had swept the Edmonton Oilers 3-0, beaten the New York Rangers 4-1, and beaten the Minnesota North Stars 4-1. They had also beaten the Islanders in the 1975 Playoffs.

In Game 1 of the Finals, Islander Captain Denis Potvin scored in overtime to give the Isles a 4-3 win at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Flyers made them pay dearly for that, pounding them 8-3 in Game 2.

On May 17, the Nassau Coliseum, having already hosted the Nets in the ABA Finals in 1974 and '76 (the team now in the NBA, and in New Jersey, winning both), hosted its 1st Stanley Cup Finals game, and the Isles won 6-2. They won Game 4 5-2. The series went back to Philly for Game 5, and the Flyers won it 6-3.

Game 6 was crucial for the Isles: As was the case with the Flyers in '74, facing the Boston Bruins, they did not want to lose Game 6, and give themselves the task of going on the road in Game 7 against the far more experienced team that already knew how to win.

Reggie Leach opened the scoring for the Flyers, but Potvin soon equalized. A little over 2 minutes later, Clark Gilles made a drop pass to Butch Goring, and the instant replay showed that it was offside. But referee Leon Stickle missed this, and Goring passed to Duane Sutter, who scored at 14:08 of the 1st period, giving the Isles a 2-1 lead.

This was not enough to stop the Flyers, as Brian Propp scored at 18:58, and the game went into the 1st intermission at 2-2. Mike Bossy scored midway through the 2nd period, and Bobby Nystrom did so with 14 minutes left, and it was 4-2 Islanders.  But within 6 minutes and 2 seconds of the 3rd period, Bob Dailey and John Paddock scored for the Flyers, and the game was tied. It went to overtime.

At 7:11 of overtime, Nystrom scored the most important goal in Islander history, past Pete Peeters. The New York Islanders had won the Stanley Cup. A franchise had grown up.

Hail the Champions: 1, backup goaltender Glenn "Chico" Resch; 3, defenseman Jean Potvin; 4, defenseman Bob Lorimer; 5, Captain and defenseman Denis Potvin, Jean's brother; 6, defenseman Ken Morrow; 7, defenseman Stefan Persson; 8, left wing Garry Howatt; 9, left wing Clark Gillies; 10, center Lorne Henning; 11, center Wayne Merrick; 12, right wing Duane Sutter; 14, center Bob Bourne; 16, center Steve Tambellini; 17, left wing Alex McKendry; 19, center Bryan Trottier; 22, right wing Mike Bossy; 23, right wing Bobby Nystrom; 24, defenseman Gord Lane; 26, defenseman Dave "Bam Bam" Langevin; 27, left wing John Tonelli; 28, right wing Anders Kallur; 31, goaltender Billy Smith and 91, center Robert "Butch" Goring.

Morrow had gone from an Olympic Gold Medal, with the U.S. team, to the Stanley Cup in exactly 3 months. Denis Potvin, Gillies, Trottier, Bossy and Smith have been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Those 5, and also Nystrom, Tonelli and Goring, have had their numbers retired by the Islanders. Resch and Tambellini would be original 1982-83 New Jersey Devils.

*

The Flyers and their fans were outraged. They were sure that this goal was offside as well. The instant replay was inconclusive, but if they'd gotten the earlier call right, the game never would have gone to overtime: The Flyers would have won 4-3, and forced a Game 7 in Philadelphia. Instead, it was 5-4, and the Islanders were World Champions.

Did Stickle really cost the Flyers the title?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Leon Stickle for the Philadelphia Flyers Losing the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals

The Best of the Rest.

Leon Stickle. He had already been an NHL referee for 11 seasons, and had previously worked the Stanley Cup Finals in 1977 and 1978. Each was a victory by the Montreal Canadiens over the Boston Bruins.
Boston fans are notoriously whiny. So is Don Cherry, then the coach of the Bruins. But nobody complained about missed calls or unfair treatment from Stickle then. It's only Flyer fans, due to 1980.

What's more, in spite of his apparent mistakes, the NHL continued to assign Stickle to big moments: The Stanley Cup Finals again in 1981, 1984 and 1985. The Canada Cup in 1981 nd 1984. And Rendez-vous '87, the Canada vs. Soviet Union "summit series" that took the place of that year's All-Star Game.

He kept officiating until he retired after the 1997-98 season, and Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals remains the only game, out of the 2,069 regular-season and 206 postseason games at which he officiated in 28 years, that anybody complains about him for.

Which doesn't mean he didn't make a mistake or two during the game in question. But you should also consider:

The Linesmen. They missed the Gillies-Goring offside as well. And linesmen are supposed to look out for offside.

Now, for the Top 5:

5. The Flyers' Reputation. If they hadn't done the things that got them nicknamed the Broad Street Bullies from 1969 onward, maybe they would have gotten the benefit of the doubt on close calls. Many times, the Fly Guys dug their own graves. That's no excuse for getting calls wrong, but it is, however flimsy, an explanation.

4. Bernie Parent's Injury. In both 1974 and 1975, Parent won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goaltender of the year, and the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff Most Valuable Player. Those are the only 2 seasons in which the Flyers have ever won the Stanley Cup.

He was a 5-time All-Star, and in spite of a career that wasn't as long as it should have been, he was listed as 63rd on The Hockey News' 1998 list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, and was also named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players in 2017, which only listed players, and didn't rank them.
On February 17, 1979, Parent suffered a freak injury, when a stick went through the right eyehole of his mask. He was only 34 years old, but the damage to his eye was such that he had to retire. The Flyers have gone through a lot of goalies since: Pete Peeters, Bob Froese, Pelle Lindbergh, Ron Hextal, Garth Snow, Brian Boucher, Roman Cechmanek, Robert Esche, Martin Biron, Michael Leighton, and now the tandem of Carter Hart and Brian Elliott.

None of them have been able to protect the net like Parent. Few goalies ever have. But in 41 years, they're still looking for that Cup-worthy goalie. And it certainly wasn't Parent's replacement:

3. Pete Peeters. It's not that he was a bad goalie. He was a 4-time All-Star. He won the Vezina Trophy in 1983, while with the Boston Bruins. He won the Canada Cup (then the hockey equivalent of the World Cup) as Canada's starting goalie in 1984. He had an unbeaten streak of 25 or more games with the Flyers, and again with the Bruins.
But he was not a clutch goalie. The 1979-80 season, his rookie year, was the closest he would get to the Cup. The Flyers didn't get back to the Finals until after they traded him. The same is true for the Bruins. He let in another famous Islander overtime goal in 1987, with the Washington Capitals, in the 4-overtime "Easter Epic."

When Peeters retired after the 1990-91 season, he had won 246 regular-season games, losing 155 -- but his Playoff record was dead-even at 35-35. His goals-against average rose from 3.08 to 3.31 in the Playoffs. No, he was never going to be the guy.

And even if he had saved Nystrom's shot, and the Flyers had gone on to win Game 6...

2. There Would Still Have Been a Game 7. Yes, it would have been at The Spectrum. But look at what the Islanders had already done in the Playoffs:

* They won 5 road games in 1975, including both games at Madison Square Garden, Games 5 and 7 in Pittsburgh, and, yes, Game 5 in Philadelphia.

* They won 2 in 1976, including the clincher in Vancouver and Game 6 in Buffalo.

* They won 3 in 1977, including Games 3 and 4 in Buffalo and an overtime Game 5 in Montreal.

* They didn't win any in 1978. But...

* They won 3 in 1979, including Games 3 and 4 in Chicago, and Game 4 in overtime at The Garden.

* And they had already won 7 in 1980, including Games 3 (in overtime) and 4 in Los Angeles, all 3 games (1 in overtime) in Boston, and Games 1 and 2 (the latter in overtime) in Buffalo. And this was before they had the label of "Champions," let alone that of "Dynasty."

In other words, had this series gone to a Game 7 in The Spectrum, there's no guarantee that the Flyers would have won it. You think the Islanders were going to be intimidated by the Philly crowd? They weren't intimidated by Ranger fans, or Boston fans, or Montreal fans. Compared to that, Philly fans were going to be a piece of cake.

Which brings us to...

1. The Islanders Were Better. They did win all those road Playoff games. And a bunch of home Playoff games. And would go on to reach 5 straight Stanley Cup Finals and win 4 straight Stanley Cups. The Islanders? From 1976 to 1987, 12 seasons, they would make the Finals 4 times, and lose them all.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. Did Leon Stickle make mistakes? Sure, he did. Is he a reason why the Flyers lost the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals? Certainly. Is he the biggest reason why? No.

Of the 1980 Stanley Cup Champion New York Islanders: Head coach Al Arbour died in 2015, at age 82. Team president and general manager Bill Torrey died in 2018, at 83. Team owner John Pickett is 85.

The players are all still alive: Chico Resch and Jean Potvin are 71; Butch Goring is 70; Billy Smith is 69; Lorne Henning and Wayne Merrick are 68; Bobby Nystrom, Gary Howatt, Bob Bourne, Gord Lane and Anders Kallur are 67; Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies, Bob Lorimer and Dave Langevin are 66; Stefan Persson is 65; Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, John Tonelli, Ken Morrow and Alex McKendry are 63; Steve Tambellini is 61; Duane Sutter is 60.

It's been hard to think about sports during the Coronavirus lockdown. The NHL regular season was entering its closing stretch. Had the season played to its intended conclusion, and the standings at the time of the shutdown held, the Edmonton Oilers, led by young superstar Connor McDavid, would have had the 5th seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. Their chances of winning the Stanley Cup weren't great, but it would hardly have been implausible.

On May 24, 1990, 30 years ago today, the Oilers won the Stanley Cup. They beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1 at the Boston Garden, and won the Finals by the same margin. They had also beaten the Bruins in 5 games in 1990, but that's because the power went out at the Garden in Game 4. The Oilers won all 4 of the completed games.

The 1990 Cup was won with Glen Sather as only the general manager, not also the head coach, as he was with the Cups of 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988. John Muckler was now the head coach. His team included future Hall-of-Famers Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri and Grant Fuhr, although Fuhr had been replaced as starting goaltender by Bill Ranford. Also on this team, with notable NHL resumes, were Kevin Lowe, Craig MacTavish, Adam Graves, Esa Tikkanen, Kelly Buchberger, Craig Simpson, Martin Gelinas, Petr Klima and Reijo Ruotsalanien.

Wayne Gretzky had been traded away after 1988; Paul Coffey, 1987. Winning this Cup without them, and with Fuhr as backup, was a tremendous achievement for the others who had been there since the start, including Messier, Kurri and Anderson.

Since then, though, the Oilers have struggled. The remnants of the dynasty got old. The Oilers reached the Conference Finals in 1991 and 1992, but lost to the Minnesota North Stars and the Chicago Blackhaws, respectively. Some of the players went on to win another Stanley Cup, as the New York Rangers built an "Oilers East" and won the Cup in 1994. (Right, let's not talk about that. Let's move on.)

From 1992 to 2005, they won just 2 Playoff series. Then they made a remarkable run in 2006, getting into the Playoffs, and defeating the Detroit Red Wings, the San Jose Sharks and the Anaheim Ducks, before losing a tough Stanley Cup Finals in 7 games to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Then they missed the Playoffs for 12 of the next 13 years, coming into this season. They did make the Playoffs in 2017, beating the Sharks, before losing to the Ducks in the next round.

It's been 30 years since the Oilers won the Cup. How long has that been?

*

The NHL had just begun a wave of expansion. The San Jose Sharks had been granted entry into the League for the 1991-92 season. Soon, the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning would be brought in for 1992-93; and the Florida Panthers and the Anaheim Ducks (until 2006 officially named "the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim") for 1993-94.

The Nashville Predators were added in 1998, the Atlanta Thrashers in 1999, and the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild for 2000. The Vegas Golden Knights were added for 2017, and a Seattle team has been announced for 2021. (Whether the Coronavirus closures will delay that remains unknown.)

The Wild were added because the Minnesota North Stars were moved to Texas in 1993, becoming the Dallas Stars. In 1995, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche. In 1996, the original Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix, and are now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In 1997, the Hartford Whalers moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and became the Carolina Hurricanes, moving to Raleigh for 1999. In 2011, the Thrashers moved, becoming the new Winnipeg Jets.

The Oilers left their home, the Northlands Coliseum, for the new Rexall Place in 2016. In fact, the only NHL teams playing home games in the same buildings as in 1990 are the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, and the Calgary Flames at the Saddledome -- and both teams are now looking to build new arenas.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, the New Jersey Devils, the Nords/Avs, the Stars, the Lightning, the Whalers/Canes, the Los Angeles Kings, the Washington Capitals and the St. Louis Blues had never won the Stanley Cup. The New York Rangers hadn't won it since 1940, the Detroit Red Wings since 1955, the Chicago Blackhawks since 1961, and the Boston Bruins since 1972. The Pens, the Kings, the Devils, the Nords/Avs, the Caps, the Whalers/Canes, the Ducks, the Lightning, the Senators, the Sharks, the Predators and the Knights had never made the Finals.

All of those facts were then true. Now, none of them are.

Hockey legends Syl Apps, Milt Schmidt, Red Horner, and Murray Murdoch of the 1928 and 1933 Stanley Cup-winning Rangers were still alive. Guy Lafleur, the last remaining of the defining players of my childhood, had just retired.

Martin Brodeur was in high school. Zdeno Chara was 13 years old; Henrik Zetterberg 9; Henrik Lundqvist 8; Marc-Andre Fleury 5; Alexander Ovechkin and Jonathan Quick 4; Evgeni Malkin and T.J. Oshie 3; Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Claude Giroux, Jonathan Towes and Brad Marchand 2; Sergei Bobrovsky and Patrick Kane a year and a have; P.K. Subban had just turned 1; Braden Holtby was 8 months old; Steven Stamkos was 3 months old; and John Tavares, Ryan O'Reilly, Artemi Panarin, Taylor Hall, Jordan Binnington, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Nicho Hischier and Jack Hughes weren't born yet.

Current Oilers coach Dave Tippett was playing for the Hartford Whalers. Barry Trotz of the Islanders was a scout for the Washington Capitals. Mike Miller of the Knicks was an assistant coach at Western Illinois University. David Quinn of the Rangers was out of the game, recovering from a long illness. Alain Nasreddine of the Devils, Aaron Boone of the Yankees, Jacque Vaughn of the Nets, Chris Armas of the Red Bulls and Ronny Deila of NYCFC were in high school. Adam Gase of the Jets was 12 years old. Luis Rojas of the Mets and Joe Judge of the Giants were 8. Walt Hopkins of the Liberty was 5.

The Oilers dethroned their Alberta arch-rivals, the Calgary Flames, as Cup holders. The Detroit Pistons were about to repeat as NBA Champions. The Oakland Athletics had won the last World Series, and the San Francisco 49ers had won the last 2 Super Bowls. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was James "Buster" Douglas, who had shocked the world by knocking Mike Tyson out 3 months earlier.

The Olympic Games have since been held in America twice, France, Spain, Norway, Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China, Canada, Britain and Russia. The World Cup, which had recently been held in Italy, with Germany winning it (as they did this year), has since been held in America, France, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa and Brazil.

There were 26 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The idea that corporations were "people" and had the rights thereof was considered ridiculous -- but so was the idea that a person could legally marry a person of the same gender. No Justice then on the Supreme Court is still on it today.

The President of the United States was George H.W. Bush. His son George W., having failed spectacularly in business, had recently (with more than a little help from his "friends") bought baseball's Texas Rangers. Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, their wives, and the widows of Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy were still alive. Bill Clinton was about to be elected to a 5th term as Governor of Arkansas. Barack Obama was President... of the Harvard Law Review.

The Governor of New York was Mario Cuomo, whose son, current Governor Andrew Cuomo, was Chairman of the New York City Homeless Commission, reporting to Mayor David Dinkins. Also reporting to him was current Mayor, then City Hall aide, Bill de Blasio. The Governor of New Jersey was Jim Florio. Current Governor Jim Murphy was in his early years at Goldman Sachs.

The Premier of Alberta, the Oilers' home Province, was Don Getty. Current Premier Jason Kenney was president of Canadian Taxpayers, a group similar to the people whining about Governor Florio's necessary tax hike. The Mayor of Edmonton was Terry Cavanagh. Current Mayor Don Iveson was about to turn 11.

There were still living veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine Campaign, the Mexican Revolution, the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. There were still living survivors of the Johnstown Flood of 1889, the fire aboard the General Slocum in the East River in 1904, and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was about to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was a bishop in Buenos Aires in his native Argentina.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Brian Mulroney. The head of state for Canada, and Britain, was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed -- but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was about to lose her job to John Major, due to her support of an onerous poll tax. There have since been 5 Presidents of the United States, 5 Prime Ministers of Canada, 5 Prime Ministers of Britain, and 3 Popes.

England's Football League had recently been won by Liverpool for a record 18th time -- but they haven't won it since. (No, they have not been declared so for this season. The season may yet play out, in which case, they almost certainly will win the title.) Manchester United had won the FA Cup, their 1st trophy under manager Alex Ferguson, who said he was determined to beat Liverpool and "knock them off their fucking perch." It would take until 1993, but he would do it.

Major novels of 1990 included Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum, and The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow. The last of these became a TV miniseries the next year, while the rest all became major feature films.

Stephen King was working on Needful Things. George R.R. Martin, frustrated that his screenplays and teleplays were getting cut, or dropped completely, decided to return to fantasy novels, and began the process that led to Game of Thrones. J.K. Rowling was on a long train trip from Manchester to London, when she got the idea that would become the Harry Potter series.

Major films of the Spring of 1990 included Back to the Future Part III, Total Recall, I Love You to Death, Miami Blues, Wild Orchid, Bird On a Wire, Cadillac Man, and Warren Beatty's misguided attempt to revive Dick Tracy. Steven Spielberg was directing Hook, a story of a grownup Peter Pan (played by Robin Williams) returning to Neverland, and George Lucas helped him out on it.

TV series that were beginning near the end of the 1989-90 season included Twin Peaks, In Living Color and Wings. Recently ended were the new version of Mission: Impossible (essentially, a "Next Generation" of the original), Miami Vice, Mama's Family, ALF, My Two Days, 227, Falcon Crest, and, with the biggest twist in TV history, Newhart.

Michael Keaton was reaping the benefits of the previous year's Batman film, Christopher Reeve was still thought of as Superman, Lynda Carter was still thought of as Wonder Woman, and Nicholas Hammond was still the most recent live-action Spider-Man. Timothy Dalton had played James Bond in the previous year's Licence to Kill, but quit, and legal wrangling kept the 007 franchise in limbo for a while. So was Doctor Who, recently canceled with the last and Seventh Doctor having been Sylvester McCoy.

Jerry Seinfeld was known, but no one had yet heard of George Costanza, Elaine Benes and Cosmo Kramer. Or of Deadpool, Buffy Summers, Fox Mulder, Ross Geller & Rachel Greene, Bridget Jones, Xena, Carrie Bradshaw, Jed Bartlet, Tony Soprano, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Rick Grimes, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan, Don Draper, Katniss Everdeen, Walter White or Richard Castle.

Madonna's "Vogue" was the Number 1 song in the country, making it the 2nd Number 1 single in the last 6 months to rhyme Marilyn Monroe with her one-time husband Joe DiMaggio in the lyrics, after Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." Joel was about to become the 1st concert performer to sell out Yankee Stadium without being a postgame show, doing so a day after Nelson Mandela sold the place out, something the Yankees, having a rare awful season, didn't do all year.

Paul McCartney was touring for his album Flowers In the Dirt. Bob Dylan had recently released his album Oh Mercy. Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses married Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers, then they quickly got divorced. The Stone Roses had their famous Spike Island concert.

Public Enemy released Fear of a Black Planet. Ice Cube released AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. En Vogue released their debut album, Born to Sing. Green Day released their debut album, 39/Smooth. Wilson Phillips released their self-titled debut album. So did Johnny Gill.

Kris Jenner was in the process of divorcing Robert Kardashian, so she could marry 1976 Olympic hero Bruce Jenner. None of the children of any of the 3 of them was famous yet. Kanye West and Shakira were 13 years old; Sean Murray and Stana Katic 12; Katie Holmes, Heath Ledger and Pink 11; Cote de Pablo 10; Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Hyden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Natalie Portan, Chris Evans and Beyonce 9; Britney Spears, Sienna Miller, Cobie Smulders, Hayley Atwell, Kirsten Dunst, Cory Monteith and Elisabeth Moss 8; Matt Smith, Anne Hathaway, Henry Cavill and Andrew Garfield 7; Emily Wickersham 6; Katy Perry and Scarlett Johansson 5; Lady Gaga, Robert Pattinson and Lea Michele 4; Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Naya Rivera and Rose Leslie 3; Rhianna 2; Emma Stone and Daniel Radcliffe 1; Taylor Swift 9 months, Kristin Stewart and Emma Watson 5 months; and Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Arian Grande, Justin Bieber, all of the members of One Direction, and all of the Modern Family kids hadn't been born yet.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.96 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 25 cents, and a New York Subway ride $1.15. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.22, a cup of coffee $1.49, a McDonald's meal (Big Mac, fries, shake) $5.23, a movie ticket $4.23, a new car $15,045, and a new house $150,100. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 2855.55.

The World Wide Web was about to debut, but hardly anybody would know about it for a while. Mobile phones were still the size of the original Star Trek series' communicators. The Hubble Space Telescope had been launched, but it wasn't working, and would need to be repaired by a later shuttle mission. The 1st digital camera was sold in the U.S. The leading home video game system was the Sega Genesis. The birth control pill was long-established, but there was, as yet, no Viagra.

In the Spring of 1990, Saddam Hussein was still considered America's ally. Violeta Chamorro was elected President of Nicaragua, ending that country's civil war. Another civil war starts in Yugoslavia, with a riot at a match between soccer powers Red Star Belgrade (Serb) and Dinamo Zagreb (Croat). Latvia and Estonia declared independence from the Soviet Union. The Tamil Tigers massacred 600 unarmed police officers in Sri Lanka. The Scandinavian Star, a ferry, caught fire en route from Norway to Denmark, killing 158 people. And an earthquake killed 50,000 people in Iran.

In North America, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev met for a Summit in Washington, and signed a treaty to end the production of chemical weapons and begin destroying their respective stocks. Protests were held on Wall Street against corporate greed and in favor of pro-environment policies, and at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington in favor of more progress in AIDS research -- and I attended both. Junk bond financier Michael Milken pleaded guilty to fraud. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched. The theme park Universal Studios Orlando opened. And the Meech Lake Accord, designed to keep Quebec in Canada, expires when the Provinces of Manitoba and Newfoundland refused to approve it before the deadline.

Greta Garbo, and Sammy Davis Jr., and former boxing champion Rocky Graziano died. Kristen Stewart, and Emma Watson, and Paul George were born.

May 24, 1990. The Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup, their 5th in the last 7 years. They have never won another.

Will they win one in the next few years? They have Connor McDavid, but they will need more than him. Stay tuned.

May 25, 1977:Star Wars -- or, as people born after 1990 know it, Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope -- premieres. It changes the movie industry forever.

Note that, while I'm using the date of the premiere for this post, the time of it is 5:04 AM -- or 0504, or May the 4th, which some celebrate as Star Wars Day: "May the 4th be with you."

July 16, 1977: My father took me to see it, at the Menlo Park Twin Cinema on U.S. Route 1 in Edison, New Jersey. It has since been demolished, as has the old Menlo Park Mall. The new Mall has a multiplex.

You hear that 20th Century Fox fanfare, and then that pause, and then that John Williams score, through Dolby stereo speakers, when you're 7 years old, and your previous science fiction experience has been watching Star Trek, the Tom Baker version of Doctor Who, and the old Flash Gordon serials on TV with your father... and you totally get it when, years later, you first hear the expression "the magic of the movies."

The Yankees frequently use Williams' familiar theme song to introduce their players on special days, like Opening Day and postseason games, and Williams'"Imperial March," a.k.a. "Darth Vader's Theme," to introduce the opposing players.

Creator George Lucas envisioned a 9-episode "Skywalker Saga." It's now been done, plus 2 "Star Wars Stories" that were intended to add some background to the 9. How should they be ranked?

Some Lucasians insist that Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back is the greatest film not just of the series, but in motion picture history. They are wrong, as I will explain in this ranking. Nor is Episode I -- The Phantom Menace the worst one.

11. Solo: A Star Wars Story, 2018. An origin story for Han Solo, played as a young man by Alden Ehrenreich, showing how he met Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian, and how he became the captain of the Millennium Falcon.

It had Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, as the young Lando. It had Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones. It had Woody Harrelson. It had Thandie Newton. It had Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It had Paul Bettany. It had Ray Park reprising his role as the popular villain Darth Maul, somehow having survived getting cut in half by young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode I. It was directed by Ron Howard. What could go wrong?

Lots of things. It grossed a little under $400 million worldwide, or about $100 million less than it needed to break even. Critics thought that the younger version of the "scruffy nerf-herder" so beloved in the original trilogy was held back a little too much, suggesting that, as a younger guy, he should have been rougher, not neater. (Howard said that Harrison Ford talked to him and praised both Ehrenreich and the film in general.)

For the most part, the story was unnecessary. Essentially, it was a chance for people who always wanted to be in a Star Wars film to get their chance, like all those original Trekkies who fought hard to keep the torch burning in the wilderness years of the 1970s, and were rewarded by bring the crew/audience for Admiral Kirk's mission briefing in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That wasn't a very good movie, either.

10. Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, 1999. Three words: Jar Jar Binks. Okay, that's not the only bad part of it. George Lucas ripped off his own early film, American Graffiti, to do the podracing scene. Don't blame Jake Lloyd for being a 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker that just couldn't be taken seriously. Blame Lucas for writing the character that way.

It wasn't just Binks that helped to make this film bad, it was all the Gungans. Watto. The Battle Droids. The Trade Federation didn't make for quality villains. (If they were, Palpatine could not have manipulated them so easily. He had to really work to eventually turn Anakin to the Dark Side.)

Liam Neeson is used to saving people in movies, but he couldn't save this movie. Nor could Ewan McGregor, though he made a fine young Obi-Wan. Nor could Natalie Portman, although she was a believable teenage royal. (She was 17 playing 14, so it wasn't outrageous.) Nor could Ray Park as the nasty Darth Maul. They were all good. But, overall, this film stunk like tauntaun guts.

9. Episode VIII -- The Last Jedi, 2017. Easily the most depressing film in the canon, and that includes Revenge of the Sith, or ROTS, a film in which the Republic falls, Padme dies, and 99 percent of the Jedi are slaughtered.

This movie lasted 2 hours and 32 minutes. For the 1st 2 hours and 15 minutes, it felt like a complete waste. Rey failed to convince Luke to rejoin the fight. The Resistance got clobbered, almost down to the last man. Snoke was killed, but Kylo got no closer to his teased redemption. The entire Canto Bight sequence was pointless.

Worst of all, once again, J.J. Abrams and his lackey Rian Johnson held to the pattern, and remade the 2nd film of the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back. Only this time, the last-ditch retreat was on a planet where the snow was actually salt. They're running out of atmospheres and surfaces to try.

My brother-in-law is a huge Star Wars fan. He really, really hated this movie. I told him the only good thing about it was the end, and he didn't even like that.

But as someone who is old enough to remember the original Star Wars film (he isn't), I loved the way that Luke went out, holding the First Order off long enough for the Resistance's "Dunkirk" to be completed. It was a noble sacrifice, especially when you consider that he could come back as a Force Ghost in Episode IX, which he did.

8. Episode II -- Attack of the Clones, 2002. Samuel L. Jackson being a badass is nothing new. Nor is Christopher Lee being one. Natalie Portman being one was. But that was about it for the good stuff in this movie.

Like Return of the Jedi, AOTC made Boba Fett look like the overrated schmuck that he really always was. Hayden Christensen did Anakin's character development few favors. C-3PO was rendered truly slapstick. There was another of Lucas' beloved "car chases."

And the fight between Yoda and Count Dooku was not worth it. Imagine, a fight involving Christopher Lee, and it not only isn't worth it, but is outright silly. Congratulations, George Lucas.

7. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 2016. Set just before Episode IV, it tells of how the Rebel Alliance got the all-important plans to the 1st Death Star. Critics used words like "lobotomized" and "depersonalized." The critic for The New York Times said:

All the pieces are there, in other words, like Lego figures in a box. The problem is that the filmmakers haven't really bothered to think of anything very interesting to do with them. A couple of 9-year-olds on a screen-free rainy afternoon would come up with better adventures, and probably also better dialogue.

Somebody searched their feelings, and found strong ones.

6. Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, 2005. Since, at that point, we did not really expect Episodes VII, VIII and IX to get made, many of us thought that this was going to be it. We wanted a satisfying conclusion, even though we knew the ending had to be unhappy.

It was the best of the prequel trilogy, but that's like calling Tiffany the best Trump child. Honestly, the best thing about this movie is seeing a great villain truly revealed, but it's Palpatine, not Vader. We're supposed to believe that Anakin begins the movie as a battle-hardened 22-year-old Jedi, but he still comes off as a petulant child, not as a believable Sith Lord-to-be.

5. Episode VII -- The Force Awakens, 2015. After making Star Trek films that Star Wars fans could like but Star Trek fans couldn't, J.J. Abrams finally got to achieve his dream, and make Star Wars films. And, judged on its own merit alone, TFA is a good movie.

The problem is, Abrams basically made the 1st movie (Episode IV) all over again. Luke becomes Rey. The Young Han part was kind of split between Finn and Poe. R2-D2 becomes BB-8. Darth Vader becomes Kylo Ren. Grand Moff Tarkin becomes General Hux. Emperor Palpatine (for a movie and a half, as it turns out) becomes Supreme Leader Snoke. The Death Star becomes Starkiller Base. The hard part, of course, was that Obi-Wan became Old Han.

The thing we hated the most about Episodes II and III? The big dark villain turned out to be a whiny petulant manchild, hard to take seriously. Kylo seemed less the corrupted son of the Han and Leia we saw finally, officially, get together at the end of Episode VI, and more the grandson of the Anakin we saw in Episodes II and III.

So, as a science fiction/fantasy movie, TFA works. As a Star Wars movie, less so.

4. Episode IX -- The Rise of Skywalker, 2019. The final chapter of "The Skywalker Saga," but apparently not the last Star Wars film. Knowing that it was an Abrams film, that Episode VII was an underwhelming retread, that Episode VIII was an underwhelming and depressing retread, and that it had already been leaked that ultimate villain Palpatine was returning, I couldn't have been the only Star Wars fan who thought, "I've got a bad feeling about this!"

That feeling was wrong. Abrams finally got it right: He didn't just hold to the pattern and "remake Episode VI," he properly evoked Episodes IV and VI, and providing the happy ending we all needed, the success the new generation of characters had worked so hard for, and the closure that the previous generation deserved.
Jude Dry of Yahoo! Entertainment said it "suffered from a frustrating lack of originality and failed to thrill in its efforts to tie everything up with a neat little bow." Did he really expect originality from an Abrams film? And did he really not get thrilled by seeing Old Man Lando lead a massive fleet to save the day in the final assault? (A plot device stolen by CBS/Paramount for Star Trek: Picard, with "Daddy Riker" as the Calrissian stand-in.) If so, then that says more about him than it does about the film.

And let's be honest: "I am all the Sith!""And I... am all the Jedi!" was a better last exchange than Avengers: Endgame's "I am inevitable!""And I... am... Iron Man!"

3. Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back, 1980. Just as it is blasphemy among some James Bond fans to say that Sean Connery is not the best actor to play Bond, and that Goldfinger is not the best Bond film; and that it is blasphemy among some Star Trek fans to say that The Wrath of Khan is not the best Trek movie (and I said each of these in recent posts); I am going to blaspheme the cult of Darth Vader (Rolling Stone magazine called it one in 1999 when TPM was released), and say that this is not the best Star Wars film.
Is the character development better than in Episode IV? Yes. Is the drama better? Yes. Are the special effects better? Slightly. Is the story better?

No. It is a very dark and depressing film, and not just because Dagobah being a swamp planet made it hard to see things. Much of the Bespin scenes had white walls, but it was still a dark film. Let's face it, we spent about 90 percent of this film thinking Luke Skywalker was going to die, and about 25 percent of it thinking Han Solo was going to die.

There is no happy ending, only the promise of Episode VI having one. If something had happened to prevent that film from ever getting made, and the saga ended here, it would have been a tremendous letdown -- worse than Spock dying near the end of Star Trek II.

Even at the time, there was no consensus that this film was better than the original. Vincent Canby of The New York Times correctly stated that the sequel wasn’t “as fresh and funny and surprising and witty” as Star Wars. It was, he believed, “a big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.”

But it goes beyond even that. In an article for the BBC, Nicholas Barber argues that Episode V actually betrayed the original film (not unlike the way Anakin betrayed the Jedi), and set up all the flaws in not just the Star Wars franchise as a whole, but in most film franchises.

It's worth pointing out that sequels weren't really a thing until 1980. The Godfather and Jaws had each released a second film in their series, but that was about it. Most film series were basically one single one-off after the other. You didn't need to watch a previous James Bond or Sherlock Holmes or Tarzan film to appreciate the next one. 

TESB (or just "Empire") changed that, forever: From this point onward, pretty much every single film has been designed to set up a franchise, some successfully, some not. So much is invested now, that producing just one film is considered short-sighted.

This is not the only thing that started in 1980 that got out of control, but it's a big one. And that's not just a potshot at the American conservative movement: Just 2 months before Empire premiered, the TV show Dallas ended its season by having J.R. Ewing get shot, thus inventing the season-ending cliffhanger, something all too common on TV shows ever since.

Also, having a big "twist" is not necessary, and you're not going to have a more effective one than "No. I am your father," either.

Be honest: If you believe TESB is the best Star Wars film, it means you wanted the Empire to win. It means you have given yourself over to the Dark Side. As Yoda put it when Luke asked, midway through this film, "Is the Dark Side stronger?""No -- but, seductive, it is."

Sometimes, bad guys have appeal. Even James Earl Jones, who voiced Darth Vader while David Prowse wore the armor, has admitted this. But you should never, ever root for them.

It doesn't matter if any of them actually have a point to their arguments. You don't root for the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. You don't root for Emilio Barzini in The Godfather (even though the Corleones are also mobsters). You don't root for Doc Hopper in The Muppet Movie. You don't root for Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. You don't root for Thanos in the Avengers movies. You don't root for the Klingons in the original Star Trek series or the Borg or the Dominion in the subsequent series.

In the closest analogy, you do not, under any circumstances, root for the Nazis in Casablanca, or in any other World War II-themed movie (or even in The Blues Brothers). And you do not root for the Empire in the Star Wars saga.

2. Episode VI -- Return of the Jedi, 1983. I know what you're thinking: "What?!? Are you kidding me, Uncle Mike? Ahead of Empire? Surely, you can't be serious!" I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

One of the things you don't like about this movie is the Ewoks. Well, that's one of the things I like about it. Losing to an alliance that included the Ewoks shows just how incompetent the Empire really was.

One of the things you don't like about this movie is that it made Boba Fett look like a complete joke. Well, that's one of the things I like about it. It shows that neither the Empire nor Jabba the Hutt really had an eye for talent.

I get the fact that Palpatine was truly powerful in The Force, and that he had absolute command over his troops, their total loyalty. So that's how the Empire managed to last as long as it did, despite being a very backward government, as well as an authoritarian and evil one.

But how the hell did the Hutts maintain control of Tattooine for so long? Was it that there was simply no resistance to them? No planetary equivalent of the FBI to crack down on them?

Anyway, ROTJ is a very good action movie, but also a very good psychological thriller. On both of those bases, it is better than TESB. And, of course, it has what everybody except the moral defectives who rooted for the Empire wanted: A happy ending. (Which J.J. Abrams managed to screw up, 32 years later.)

1. Episode IV -- A New Hope, 1977. For all the silliness, and for all the borrowing from various mythologies to begin a new one, Star Wars remains 1 of my top 5 favorite films of all time. That happens when you're 7 years old, you haven't yet seen a real movie in a real theater with a big screen and Dolby stereo, and you're into comic books and superheroes, and Luke Skywalker is a new Superman.

The cult of Darth Vader wants us to believe that he's the greatest villain ever, but this film makes it clear that Governor Tarkin is the big villain in this film. Think about it: Who ordered the destruction of Alderaan? Tarkin. And, in the next 2 movies, Vader freely calls Palpatine "my master."

Vader is big, black, powerful and foreboding, but you don't need to have seen the prequel trilogy -- or to know that he's Luke's father, as we didn't until Episode V -- to realize that he's a symptom, and that the Emperor and his Empire are the disease.

And how many films have so satisfying an ending? Well, except for Chewie not getting one of those medals along with Luke and Han.

So, yes: 43 years later, the original is still the best. See ya around, kid.

May 26, 2000, 20 years ago: Game 7 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals, at what was then named the First Union Center in Philadelphia. (It's now named the Wells Fargo Center.) The New Jersey Devils have come from 3 games to 1 down to force this game.

The Devils win, 2-1. Both of their goals are scored by Patrik Elias. But the biggest story is the confrontation between Scott Stevens, the Devils' Captain; and Eric Lindros, the Flyers' biggest star and former Captain. In the 1st period, Stevens hit Lindros with his shoulder, leveling him, and giving him the 7th concussion of his career, which is only in its 8th season.

Earlier in his career, with the Washington Capitals, Stevens had been known as one of the dirtiest defensemen in the game. He had grown into a man worthy of his team's Captaincy, and had already led the Devils to the 1995 Stanley Cup. Now, he was 34, and the League's top "traffic cop."

Flyer fans, who loved their "Broad Street Bullies" of the 1970s and '80s, have hated Stevens, but freely admit that this was, however devastating, a clean hit. No penalty was called on the play.

Lindros never played for the Flyers again. He had already been feuding with Flyer management, including team owner Ed Snider, his son and operating owner Jay Snider, and general manager and former Captain Bob Clarke. (In the Delaware Valley, it's understood that "Bobby Clarke" is the team's greatest legend, while "Bob Clarke" was a lousy GM.)

Lindros missed the next season due to his lingering concussion issues, and was traded to the New York Rangers, and scored 37 goals in the 2001-02 season, but only scored another 45 goals. He played all but 1 game in 2002-03, but, between more injuries and the 2004-05 NHL lockout, he only played another 121 games.

In the 1990s, each of Philadelphia's "big four sports" teams had at least 1 player who was supposed to lead them to championships: The Phillies, Lenny Dykstra, then Scott Rolen; the Eagles, Randall Cunningham; the 76ers, first Charles Barkley, then Allen Iverson; and the Flyers, Eric Lindros.

Between them, these 6 men won just 2 World Championships: Dykstra, and his had already happened, with the 1986 New York Mets; and Rolen, with the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals. Between the 6 of them, they only got 3 trips to their sports' finals, all defeats: The '93 Phillies, the '97 Flyers and the '01 Sixers. It was a complete letdown.

A native of London, Ontario, Lindros was the biggest prospect in the game in the early 1990s. In comparison with Wayne Gretzky, known as The Great One, Lindros was called The Next One -- as in, Gretzky's successor as the sport's best player. (Mario Lemieux could not be reached for comment.)
He retired early in the 2007-08 season. He had reached the Eastern Conference Finals with the Flyers in 1995, 1997 and 2000. But he only reached the Stanley Cup Finals once, in 1997, and the Flyers were swept by the Detroid Red Wings. The game where Stevens knock him out was his 50th Playoff appearance. He only had 3 more, all in 2007, his last season, with the Dallas Stars.

He played 486 regular-season games, only enough to add up to 6 full seasons. He scored 290 regular-season goals with 369 assists. He was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team in 1993. In 1995, he was awarded both of the NHL's annual Most Valuable Player awards: The Hart Memorial Trophy, voted on by the sportswriters; and the Lester B. Pearson Award (since renamed the Ted Lindsay Award), voted on by his fellow players. He was named to 7 All-Star Games, but only once after Stevens leveled him.

Like Bobby Orr, injuries limited him to, essentially, only half a career. As Hall of Fame sportswriter Eric Duhatschek said, "This wasn't the next Gretzky. This wasn't even the first Lindros."

But is it fair to say that Eric Lindros was a failure as a hockey player? And, if so, is that all, or even mostly, his fault?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Eric Lindros for Failing

5. The Quebec Nordiques. They selected Lindros with the 1st pick in the 1991 NHL Draft, in spite of his having said that he would never play for them. Team owner Marcel Aubut ordered the selection anyway, saying he would make Lindros the centerpiece of the team's revival, and that the only way that Lindros would play in the NHL would be in Quebec City.

Lindros did play hockey in the 1991-92 season, but remained in junior hockey with the Oshawa Generals. He also played for Canada in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, which, under the rules of the time, he wouldn't have been able to do had he already played in the NHL. Canada won the Silver Medal, losing the Gold Medal Game to the Soviet-to-Russian-transitioning "Unified Team."

Knowing that they would lose his rights if they still didn't sign him before the 1992 Draft, the Nords finally caved in, working out trades with the Flyers and the Rangers. An arbitrator was appointed to decide which trade had legal merit. The arbitrator was Larry Bertuzzi, and he ruled that the deal with the Flyers had been agreed to first, and it went through.

Ironically, goaltender Ron Hextall was part of the deal, going to Quebec, but would return to Philly. Through this trade, Aubut got the generational talent he wanted, but, instead of Lindros, it was Peter Forsberg. Alas, he would have to sell the team before the dream came true: In 1995, they were bought by a Denver group, moved, and became the Colorado Avalanche, winning the Cup in 1996 and 2001.

In a 2016 interview, Lindros debunked the myth that he refused to play for the Nordiques because he couldn't speak French (unlike Montreal, Quebec City is not merely majority-French but actively pro-French and anti-English), and that Aubut himself was the reason: "I was not going to play for that individual, period."

Certainly, Lindros didn't hate French people. In 2012, he married a Quebec native, Kina Lamarch. They remain together, and have 3 children. He even agreed to wear a Nordiques jersey in a 2017 interview on Francophone TV network TVA.
4. The New Jersey Devils. Twice, in 1995 and 2000, they beat the Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals, thus standing in their way more than any other team did during Lindros' time with them.

The 1995 series ended what had been Lindros' best season. The 2000 series ended his Flyers tenure. Had the Flyers won either one, he might well have won the Cup: The Devils swept the Detroit Red Wings in the former (although the Wings would sweep the Flyers 2 years later), and dethroned the Dallas Stars in the latter.

3. His Parents. His father Carl, an accountant (and a football star at the University of Western Ontario, who had been good enough to be drafted by the Edmonton Eskimos in 1970), and his mother Bonnie, a nurse, promoted him, and babied him, and gave him an entitlement complex. And did they ever feud with the Flyers, especially with Clarke. They made nuisances of themselves.
Had they eased up a bit, things with the Flyers could have been smoothed out, and even the meeting between Eric and the Stevens Shoulder might not have been the end of the Lindros Era in Philadelphia.

2. The Philadelphia Flyers. Bob Clarke mishandled things six ways to Sunday. He may have been jealous that Lindros was more talented than he ever was. He didn't handle things well with Eric, or Carl, or Bonnie. The feud lasted about 10 years.

What's more, the one thing the Flyers have never had since Bernie Parent had to retire due to an eye injury in 1979 was a goaltender good enough to win the Stanley Cup. They went into the 1980 Finals with Pete Peeters as their starting goalie. That was as close as he got to winning a Cup with anyone.

They went into the 1985 Finals with Pelle Lindbergh. He stood up to Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers as best he could, but allowed 22 goals in the 5 games, and then, early the next season, lost, got drunk and crashed his car, killing himself. Who knows what Lindbergh could have done if he'd lived? He was 26, so when they lost to the Devils in 2000, theoretically, he could still have been playing at 41.

They went into the 1987 Finals with Ron Hextall, and he was given the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP, but he didn't deserve it. They went into the 1989 Conference Finals with Hextall, and he didn't do so hot that time. They went into the 1995 Conference Finals, their 1st serious postseason run with Lindros, with Hextall in the net, and he couldn't even stop that 65-foot wobbler fired by Claude Lemieux in the last minute of Game 5.

Through the 1997 Playoffs, they alternated with Hextall and Garth Snow, and a Detroit fan held up a sign saying, "Hey Hextall! You and Snow get pulled more than a U-Haul!" They got swept. They went into the 2000 Conference Finals with Brian Boucher, and he allowed 18 goals, including 8 in the last 3 that the Flyers lost.

It didn't stop with Lindros' departure, or with Clarke's firing as GM. They went into the 2004 Conference Finals with Robert Esche, and while he wasn't bad, he did lost by 1 goal 3 times in that series. They went into the 2008 Conference Finals with Martin Biron, and he allowed 20 goals in 5 games, including 6 in the clincher.

They reached the Finals in 2010, with Boucher having returned, but with Michael Leighton as the main Playoff goalie. Leighton was pulled for Boucher in Games 1 and 5, but it was Leighton who allowed the winning goal in overtime in Game 6 (though it famously required a review).

So, if we consider that Lindros let the Flyers down, we should also consider that it was much more the other way around. If Lindros let Flyer fans down, the team did so, and much more so.

Because, really, who let who down? Did Lindros let anyone down?

1. Eric Lindros. He didn't fail. Maybe he didn't reach the heights he was expected to reach. And maybe he didn't win the Stanley Cup. But he did eventually win an Olympic Gold Medal for Canada, after the ban on NHL players in the Olympics was lifted, in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
After his career ended, he received multiple honors to commemorate it. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. He was named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players. Hardly anybody has publicly said that either of these honors was undeserved. He and the Flyers patched things up, and they retired his Number 88.

In other words, while he didn't win a Stanley Cup, he didn't exactly "fail" as a player.

VERDICT: Not Guilty.

Aftermath: In 2007, shortly after his retirement, the NHL Players' Association appointed him their ombudsman, negotiating with the representatives of the NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, and the teams' owners. He held the job until early 2009. He became an advocate for concussion research, using his own history as an example. He and his family now live in Toronto.
He played in the 2012 NHL Winter Classic Alumni Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, for the Flyer team, against alumni of another of his former teams, the Rangers. In 2017, he played for a Flyer alumni team against one from the Pittsburgh Penguins, in celebration of both teams' 50th Anniversaries.

Such games generally don't have much hitting, and players usually don't wear helmets. Eric Lindros always wears one. He knows how dangerous it can be, even when you do wear one. Why take chances now?

May 27, 1993: Game 6 of the NHL Western Conference Finals, at what was then named the Great Western Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won the Stanley Cup, or even been to the Finals, since 1967. The following season, the Los Angeles Kings began play, and have never been to the Finals. Something's got to give.

The Kings had some big names on their roster. They had Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri and Paul Coffey -- and, if you want to count him as a "legend," Marty McSorley -- from the 1980s Edmonton Oilers dynasty. They also had Dave Taylor, the last remaining player from their 1980s "Triple Crown Line" with Marcel Dionne and Charlie Simmer. They also had Luc Robitaille, Rob Blake, Tomas Sandstrom, Alexei Zhitnik and Darryl Sydor. And a decent goalie, Kelly Hrudey.

The Leafs were no slouches, either. They had their own 1980s Edmonton refugees, Grant Fuhr, Glenn Anderson and Mike Krushelnyski. They also had Doug Gilmour, from the 1989 Calgary Flames Champions. They had Dave Andreychuk, Wendel Clark, Peter Zezel, Mike Foligno, Sylvain Lefebvre, and a good goalie in Felix Potvin (to whom the more accomplished Fuhr was backup).

What's more, the Leafs went into Game 6 with a 3-games-to-2 lead. Win Game 6, and they were in the Finals, and against their ancient rivals, no less: The Montreal Canadiens. The Habs and the Leafs were (and are) the last 2 remaining founding franchises of the NHL from 1917. (The new Ottawa Senators, named for the founding franchise that went bust in 1935, had just played their 1st season.)

Leaf fans from St. John's Newfoundland to Kenora, Ontario were pumped. This was going to be The Year. And it was far from a delusion: Their team was talented enough to deserve to get as far as they already had, 5 wins from the Cup.

There was already bad blood between the Leafs and the Kings. On November 22, 1992, Gilmour had slashed at Sandstrom with his stick, breaking Sandstrom's arm. The injury kept him out for over a month. Gilmour was suspended for 8 days.

Game 6 went to overtime, 4-4. Then, in the 1st minute of overtime, Gretzky, so often hailed as the greatest player of all time (even then), and as a class guy, did something decidedly unclassy: He high-sticked Gilmour in the face, drawing blood from his chin.

According to the rules, this should have meant a game misconduct penalty, meaning Gretzky should have been thrown out of the game; and a 5-minute major penalty (with another player sent to the penalty box in Gretzky's place), meaning the Leafs should have had a 5-minute power play in overtime. Gretzky probably also should have been suspended for a potential Game 7.

But referee Kerry Fraser did not penalize Gretzky. Apparently, 2 "unwritten rules" came into play: Don't call penalties in overtime, and don't call penalties on The Great One.

To make matters worse, within a minute of the unpenalized infraction, 1:41 into the overtime, Gretzky scored the winning goal. In Game 7 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the Kings won 5-4, with Gretzky scoring 3 times and assisting on another goal.

He would call that the greatest game he'd ever played -- and it was a game which, due to what he'd done in the previous game, at the very least, he shouldn't even have been in; and, at the most, shouldn't have been played, because his absence and the 5-minute power play that should have resulted should have given the Leafs the win that would have made a Game 7 unnecessary.

It's been 27 years. Leaf fans are still outraged. This was probably their best team since the breakup of their 1960s dynasty (4 Cups in 7 years).

What's more, in a 2016 article for Canadian newspaper The National Post, Fraser admitted he blew the call:

I was uncertain but thought I had it right. I’m sorry. Most people probably know the story, but they know it from the perspective of a single camera in one corner of the Great Western Forum. All I can tell you is my perspective from the ice..

As the Kings set up on the power play, I was down by the far circle, away from the puck. In my brain, this is what I was processing: Gretzky gets the puck. He shoots it, and my eyes go to the net. But Jamie Macoun blocks it. The puck rebounds between Gretzky and Doug Gilmour. When my eyes go back to Gretzky, I see a motion. Gilmour goes down.

Did Gretzky’s stick follow through and catch him? Gilmour’s bent over now. He’s got blood on his chin. And I have no idea what happened. That’s a helpless, helpless feeling.

Under the 1993 rules, if Gretzky high-sticks Gilmour and it draws blood, it’s a five-minute major. He’s gone. It was a huge call to make — a worse one to miss.

Guys from both teams were skating up to me. It didn’t smell right. I should have known when I saw Gretzky skating away. Whenever there was a dispute, Gretz was always at the forefront arguing his side of it. But this time, he kind of slinked away. That was uncharacteristic. That should have tipped me off.

But to be honest, I was attempting to roll back the play in my mind, over and over, looking for some measure of recall that would provide the evidence I needed. 

Would it make Leaf fans angrier if he still denied it? Maybe. But it makes them feel justified in their anger to hear Fraser admit it.

The Leafs would return to the Conference Finals the next year, and again in 1999, but lost both. They still haven't made the Finals since 1967.

The Kings took a 1-0 lead over the Canadiens in the finals, and were leading in Game 2. This time, they got caught cheating: McSorley was cited for having too big a curve on his stick, and the Canadiens tied the game, and then won it in overtime, and made it 4 straight wins for the Cup. They haven't won it since, either. The Kings would finally win their 1st Cup in 2012, and a 2nd in 2014. But the 1988 Cup with Edmonton remained Gretzky's last.

Barry Melrose was the Kings' coach then. He has since built a career as an ESPN hockey pundit. He points out that the Leafs' huge fan base, encompassing so much of Canada (including some places that have NHL teams, but didn't before the expansions of the 1970s):

Of course, it gets more attention because it's Toronto... The minute I get on a plane, someone will say, "Barry, high stick, what do you think?" And I'll go, "Toronto, right?" And he'll go, "Yeah, yeah, Toronto." It's funny to figure that out. I never hear an L.A. guy ask me that question...

I'm a big believer in the harder you work, the luckier you get. And I really feel like we were the hardest-working club in that series. We deserved everything we got.

Fraser admitted he blew the call. But was he really the sole, or the biggest, reason the Leafs lost that series?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Kerry Fraser for the Toronto Maple Leafs Losing the 1993 Stanley Cup

Let me start with a couple of reasons that didn't make the cut: The Best of the Rest.

The Linesmen. They missed the call, too. Had one of them said, "Absolutely, Gretzky cut Gilmour with a high stick. It might not have been intentionally malicious, but he did it," Fraser would have had the justification he needed to send Gretzky off. He never got it until he saw the replay the next day, when it was too late.

Which brings us to...

No Instant Replay. At the time, the NHL only used it to check whether a goal had been properly scored. It wouldn't be until the 2015-16 season that coaches could challenge other plays.

Had that rule been in place in 1993, it would have been obvious, Gretzky would have been sent off, and the Leafs would have had a golden opportunity to finish the Kings off, and the next game in Toronto would have been Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. (Not Game 1: The Canadiens had the better record, and thus would have had home-ice advantage.)

Now, the Top 5:

5. Kerry Fraser. He was one of the NHL's most respected officials. He had been calling games since 1973, and as a full referee since 1980. He was so respected by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) that, after this incident, he was still hired to officiate at the 1996 World Cup and the 1998 Winter Olympics. In 2005, NHL players -- the players, mind you -- voted him the League's most consistent referee.

He retired in 2010, having officiated at the NHL Winter Classic, and still holds the NHL records for most regular-season and most Playoff games officiated.

Did he make a mistake in that 1993 game? Yes, and he admitted it. Was it indicative of a pattern of favoritism toward Gretzky, or toward the Kings? Far from it.

4. The Goaltenders. In the 7 games, Felix Potvin of the Leafs allowed 22 goals, or 3.14 per game. Kelly Hrudey of the Kings allowed 23, or 3.28 per game. Sounds like the Leafs had the better goalie, right?

Not so fast. Games 2, 5, 6 and 7 were all 1-goal games, and the Leafs only won 1 of the 4. And when the Leafs needed Potvin to help them win Game 6, and then Game 7, he allowed 5 goals each time.

3. No Guarantee. Remember that "golden opportunity" I mentioned? Sometimes, when opportunity knocks, the door isn't fully opened. Suppose Gretzky had been sent off, and the Leafs had gotten a 5-minute power play. Does that mean they would have gotten the goal they needed to win the game? Not necessarily. Paul Coffey was a Hall of Fame defenseman. So was Rob Blake. Darryl Sydor probably should be in the Hall.

And the Kings could have won the game anyway. After all, they had other good attacking players besides Gretzky. And they were at home.

Of course, home-ice advantage is no guarantee, either. Which brings us to...

2. There Was a Game 7. In Toronto. The Leafs had home-ice advantage, in front of their fans, who were out for blood. There was no way they should have lost that game. But they did. They fell behind 3-0, and tied it 3-3, before losing 5-4.

They became the hockey equivalent of the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals: Instead of saying, "The hell with what happened in Game 6, let's beat these guys in Game 7," they let the mistake stick in their heads, and fell totally flat. And unlike the '85 Cards, they had the home comforts and home crowd behind them. (The NHL and the NBA go 2-2-1-1-1, while MLB goes 2-3-2, so if a World Series or an LCS goes the full 7, the same team hosts Games 6 and 7.)

If you blow Game 7 on home ice, you're (Atrocious Pun Alert) on thin ice to claim you got screwed out of a deserved victory in that round.

1. The Kings Were Better. They won Games 2 and 7 in Toronto. And they were 1 minute and 14 seconds away from going to home ice up 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals, before McSorley got caught cheating. True, it's possible he was cheating the whole way, and maybe other Kings were as well. But we don't know that.

We do know that the Kings had more talent -- and still might have even without Gretzky. If they had won Game 6 without him, they might have won Game 7 without him, too.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. Fraser pleaded guilty to making a mistake. But he certainly didn't singlehandedly cost the Leafs the series.

June 3, 1993: The Los Angeles Kings lead the Montreal Canadiens 2-1, late in the 3rd period of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, at the Montreal Forum. The Kings, in the Finals for the 1st time in their 26-year history, are mere minutes away from taking a 2-games-to-0 lead back to Los Angeles (well, Inglewood, to their own Forum). And they are doing so on the home ice of the greatest franchise in hockey, playing in their 34th Stanley Cup Finals -- having already won a record 23.

But Jacques Demers, head coach of the Canadiens, notices something. During a break in the action, with 1:45 left in regulation, he asks to speak to the referee. He asks them to measure the curve of the stick used by Kings defenseman Marty McSorley.

In the 1960s, players such as Bobby Hull used what became known as the banana blade, a stick whose blade curved by up to 3 inches. These curves made the puck faster and more erratic. Since most goaltenders didn't yet use facemasks, this scared them. By 1967, most were using masks, but shots off the banana blade were still dangerous. So the NHL made a rule, limiting stick blades to 3/4 of an inch.

McSorley was a part of the Edmonton Oilers' dynasty of the 1980s, led by Wayne Gretzky. At this point, Gretzky was leading the Kings. In addition to McSorley, he was joined by fellow ex-Oilers Jari Kurri and Paul Coffey.

McSorley's stick is measured, and is found to have to great a curve. He is given a 2-minut minor penalty for "unsportsmanlike conduct." The Canadiens will have a power play for the rest of regulation. So he pulls goalie Patrick Roy, to give the Habs a 6-on-4 advantage.

And defenseman Eric Desjardins, who had already scored, scores to force overtime. And just 51 seconds into overtime, Desjardins scores again, to give the Canadiens a 3-2 win. This made him the 1st defenseman ever to score a hat trick in a Stanley Cup Finals game. He remains the only one.

It was all Canadiens from that point on. They blew a 3-0 lead in Game 3, but won on an overtime goal by John LeClair. Game 4 was similar: Montreal blew a 2-0 lead, but LeClair won it with another overtime goal. Game 5 was back in Montreal, and this one did not go to overtime: The Canadiens won 4-1, and clinched their 24th Stanley Cup on home ice.

If McSorley had simply obeyed the rules, the Kings would have been up 2-0 and been in great position to win the Cup. He blew it for them. They didn't win the franchise's 1st Cup until 2012.

McSorley can't be blamed for the Kings' failure to win until 2012. But he can certainly be blamed for blowing their 1st Finals in 1993, right?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Marty McSorley for the Los Angeles Kings Losing the 1993 Stanley Cup

5. Bobby Hull. True, the Golden Jet had been retired since 1980, and had never been involved with the Kings franchise. But he's the one who made the curved blade popular.

Even in this picture, with his Chicago Blackhawks teammate Stan Mikita at the left, you can see that Hull's stick blade is curved much more than its modern counterparts. And when the World Hockey Association was founded in 1972, and Hull was its 1st big signing -- he even became a part-owner of the team, and it was kind of named for him, the Winnipeg Jets -- they didn't have a rule against the curve, and he restored it, and feasted off the WHA's lesser goalies.
The curved blade was so popular among players, especially on the U.S.-based teams then in existence -- the Blackhawks, the Detroit Red Wings, the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins -- because Hull was the most popular hockey player America had ever known, until Bobby Orr came along.

If Hull hadn't popularized the banana blade, and hadn't scored so many goals with it, it wouldn't have been banned. McSorley wouldn't have broken the rule. Not just because the rule wouldn't have existed, but because no one would have considered it. McSorley wouldn't have taken an advantage that he didn't know existed.

4. Barry Melrose. A head coach is supposed to keep his team disciplined. If he sees a player breaking a rule, he has to take him aside and tell him to stop, lest he get caught and it hurts the team.

Melrose, now a familiar NHL studio pundit but then head coach of the Kings, either didn't notice that McSorley was in violation of the rule, or did, and didn't care. Either he was incompetent or, worse, complicit.

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk reading, "The buck stops here." Meaning, "I'm the boss, therefore, I'm the one responsible, and I can't pass the buck. If something goes wrong, blame me." Melrose either passed the buck, or didn't see the buck.

3. Kelly Hrudey. The former New York Islander goal had been decent in getting the Kings this far, but he had been kind of shaky in the Conference Finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs -- a series the Leafs probably should have won, and another for the "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame" file.
For most of the 1st 2 games in the Finals, Hrudey allowed only 2 goals. But from the last 2 minutes of Game 2 onward, he allowed 13 goals in a little over 3 games. That is not a clutch performance. Contrast that with Patrick Roy: Over the same stretch, he allowed just 6 goals.
Which leads us to...

2. The Kings choked. They led 2-1 in Montreal in Game 2, having already won Game 1 in Montreal. They had overtime and home-ice advantage in Game 3. They had overtime and home-ice advantage in Game 4. If they win any one of those games, the series at least goes back to Inglewood for a Game 6. They had their chances, even after McSorley got busted. But they blew it.

Or maybe, just maybe, this series wasn't blown. Maybe it was taken, by the better team:

1. The Canadiens were better. Yes, the Kings had Gretzky, Kurri and Coffey, as well as Dave Taylor, Luc Robitaille, Darryl Sydor, Rob Blake and Tony Granato.

But the Canadiens had lots of players with Playoff experience. Roy and Guy Carbonneau were holdovers from the Canadiens team that won the 1986 Stanley Cup. They, and also Desjardins, LeClair, Donald Dufresne, Benoit Brunet, Lyle Odelein, Mike Keane, Ed Ronan, Mathieu Schneider, Sean Hill and Stephan Lebeau were members of their 1989 team that reached the Finals before losing to the Calgary Flames.

Rob Ramage was a member of those '89 Flames that beat the Canadiens, and the '86 Flames that the Habs beat in the Finals. Denis Savard was a Playoff perennial with the Chicago Blackhawks. Kirk Muller was the Captain of the New Jersey Devils team that reached the 1988 Conference Finals. (And, yes, we called him "Captain Kirk." Others, such as Vincent Damphousse, Mathieu Schneider, Patrice Brisebois and Jean-Jacques Daigneault would go on to prove themselves to be among the game's best players.

Maybe the Canadiens couldn't match the Kings for star power -- except for Roy, who might have been the greatest goalie in hockey history, and certainly outplayed Hrudey -- but, top-to-bottom, they were a better team.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. McSorley was a thug, and, on this occasion, he was a fool. And, yes, the series was a lot closer than its 5-game result would suggest. But he was not the sole reason the Kings lost the Finals. He wasn't even the biggest reason.

"Losing is a disease, as contagious as polio. Losing is a disease, as contagious as syphilis. Losing is a disease, as contagious as the bubonic plague. Ah, but curable."
-- the psychiatrist talking to the New York Knights, The Natural

It used to be that if someone's death was listed as being from "a long illness," it was code for "cancer." Later, once the word "cancer" stopped being so shocking, "a long illness" frequently meant "AIDS," especially if the deceased was an unmarried man, and especially especially if the obituary called him "flamboyant."

These days, if a cause of death is not listed, it's easy to presume it's from the Coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19. Though that hasn't been the case with everyone.

Just in the last 2 weeks, the world of sports has lost:

* Roy Steele, 87, from a longstanding digestive issue, on May 28. He was the public-address announcer for the Oakland Athletics from their arrival from Kansas City in 1968 to 2005,

* Curtis Cokes, 82, from heart failure, on May 29. He was the Welterweight Champion of the World from August 24, 1966 to April 18, 1969,

* Deibert Guzmán, 25, on May 30. He is believed to be the 1st soccer player to die from COVID-19, a native of the South American nation of Bolivia, who played for Beni in that country's 2nd division.

* Pat Dye, 80, from kidney problems made worse by COVID-19, on June 1. He coached Auburn to 3 Southeastern Conference Championships in the 1980s, and was also a college teammate of Fran Tarkenton at Georgia, but only played in the CFL, not in the NFL or the AFL;

* Lee Grosscup, 83, of undisclosed causes, on June 1. A career backup quarterback, he might have been the 1st player to play for both the Giants and the team that would become known as the Jets (originally the New York Titans), was on the Giants' roster for the 1959 and '61 NFL Championship Games, later broadcasting for the University of California,

* Wes Unseld, 74, of pneumonia, on June 2. A member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, he got the Baltimore/Washington Bullets into the NBA Finals in 1971, 1975, 1978 and 1979, winning in 1978, named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

* Johnny Majors, 85, of undisclosed causes, on June 3. A running back at the University of Tennessee, he finished 2nd in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1956, coached the University of Pittsburgh to the 1976 National Championship, before returning to Tennessee and leading them to 3 SEC Championships, nearly winning another National Championship in 1989.

* Pete Dademacher, 91, of undisclosed causes, on June 4. He won the Gold Medal in the Heavyweight boxing division at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and then carried the American flag in the Closing Ceremony. The next year, he faced fellow '56 Olympian Floyd Patterson for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, but lost. He also lost to notable fighters Zora Folley, Brian London, Archie Moore and Karl Mildenberger; but beat George Chuvalo and Carl "Bobo" Olson.

* Kurt Thomas, 64, from a stroke, on June 5. He was the men's World Gymnastics Champion in 1978 and '79, and was set to be one of the American stars at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, before President Carter's boycott. In 1985, he starred in Gymkata, a movie combining gymnastics and martial arts, becoming a cult favorite, a "so bad it's good" movie.

* Reche Caldwell, 41, shot during a robbery in Tampa, on June 6. A receiver, he had won the 2000 SEC Championship at Florida, then, played 6 seasons in the NFL, mostly for the San Diego Chargers.

* Ralph Wright, 72, of undisclosed causes, on June 7. A defender, he played for several teams in England, before coming to the North American Soccer League and playing for the New York Cosmos, the Miami Toros and the Dallas Tornado.

* Ken Riley, 72, of a heart attack, on June 7. One of the top cornerbacks in NFL history, he had 65 interceptions with the Cincinnati Bengals, and made 3 Pro Bowls. He should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He later won 2 Conference Championships as head coach at his alma mater, Florida A&M.

* Tony Dunne, 78, of undisclosed causes, on June 8. The left back helped Dublin soccer team Shelbourne win the FAI Cup, the Republic of Ireland's version of England's FA Cup, in 1960. He was signed by Manchester United, with whom he won the FA Cup in 1963, the Football League in 1965 and 1967, and the European Cup in 1968. He later helped Bolton Wanderers win the 2nd Division in 1978, and played the 1979 season with the Detroit Express in the NASL.

* Paul Rochester, 81, of undisclosed causes, on June 9. He played in all 10 seasons of the 1960s AFL, including as an All-Star with the 1961 Dallas Texans, an AFL Champion with the 1962 Texans and the 1968 Jets, and a winner of Super Bowl III with the Jets.

With his death, there are now 31 living players from the Jets' Super Bowl team: Joe Namath, Don Maynard, Bob Talamini, Matt Snell, Emerson Boozer, Jim Turner, Bake Turner, Pete Lammons, Mark Smolinski, Bill Mathis, Lee White, John Schmitt, Paul Crane, Randy Rasmussen, Dave Herman, Jeff Richardson, Gerry Philbin, Steve Thompson, Carl McAdams, Ralph Baker, Al Atkinson, John Neidert, Randy Beverly, John Dockery, Earl Christy, Jim Richards, Michael Stromberg, Bill Baird, Mike D'Amato, Cornell Gordon and Karl Henke.

* Lonnie Wheeler, 68, of a long-term illness, on June 9. A former sports columnist for the Cincinnati Post until that paper closed in 2007, he ghost-wrote the autobiographies of Baseball Hall-of-Famers Hank Aaron and Bob Gibson, and also wrote biographies of Hall-of-Famers Mike Piazza and, barely finished before his death, Negro League legend James "Cool Papa" Bell. With Gibson and Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson, he wrote Sixty Feet, Six Inches, as Mr. October and the closest thing to his pitching equivalent discussed various aspects of the game.

He also wrote Blue Yonder, about University of Kentucky basketball. Your required reading is Bleachers: A Summer at Wrigley Field, in which he covered the 1987 season, the last season of the Cubs' ballpark without lights.

* Harry Glickman, 96, of undisclosed causes, on June 10. A longtime sportswriter for Portland's paper The Oregonian, he was one of the founding owners of the Portland Trail Blazers, and was their general manager from 1987 to 1994, building a team that won 2 NBA Western Conference Championships.

* Claudell Washington, 65, of prostate cancer, on June 10. Known for good hitting, good fielding, and a rather long neck, the outfielder won the 1974 World Series as a rookie with the Oakland Athletics, and was an All-Star with them in 1975 and the Atlanta Braves in 1984. He never won another ring, but he did reach the postseason again with the A's in 1975 and the Braves in 1982.

Footage from a 1985 game at Wrigley Field was shown in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with a foul ball hit by Claudell being edited so that it looked like Ferris caught it. He was in another movie, Taking Care of Business, in 1990, allowing one more World Series appearance, with a fictional version of the California Angels. He played for both the Mets (in 1980) and the Yankees (including in 1988, when an upper-deck shot he hit at the Metrodome made the Yankees the 1st MLB team to have hit 10,000 home runs in their history).

The NBA has announced a plan to restart their season on July 30. The 22 teams that had not been eliminated from Playoff qualification at the March 11 suspension will play 8 more regular-season games. Then the top 16 teams will play a standard, if delayed, Playoffs, starting on August 17. If the Playoffs go to Game 7 of an NBA Finals, that will be played on October 13.

This is, of course, subject to change, but the league office, the team owners, and the players have agreed to the plan as stated above.

The New York Knicks have already been eliminated from Playoff eligibility, so their season is over. The Brooklyn Nets have not, so they will keep playing. If the current standings hold, they will be the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference.

If the current standings hold, the Houston Rockets would be the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. They would be seeking their 1st berth in the NBA Finals, and their 1st NBA Championship, since 1995.

While the Houston Oilers won the AFL Championship in 1960 and '61, thus going as far as the structure of pro football at the time allowed them to go, the Rockets were the 1st Houston team, and if you throw in the San Antonio Spurs the 1st South Texas team, to win a World Championship, taking back-to-back NBA titles in 1994 and '95, the years of Michael Jordan's "1st retirement."

The Rockets last won the NBA Championship on June 14, 1995. That's exactly 25 years. How long has that been?

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The Rockets have moved into a new arena, leaving The Summit for the Toyota Center in 2003. The Summit is now Lakewood Church Central Campus, the home "megachurch" for televangelist Joel Osteen, who had to be shamed into opening it for victims of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

The Houston Astros have moved from the Astrodome into a new ballpark, Minute Maid Park, and reached the Playoffs 10 times, winning the World Series in 2017 and losing it in 2019, and been exposed as cheaters. The Houston Dynamo have been play in MLS, and have moved into a new stadium, BBVA Stadium.

And the Houston Oilers have moved out of the Astrodome, to Nashville to become the Tennessee Titans, and have been replaced, in a new stadium, by the Houston Texans. That new stadium, currently named NRG Stadium, has now hosted 2 Super Bowls and 2 Final Fours.

All of the major league teams in the New York Tri-State Area have gotten new buildings, except for the Knicks and Rangers, and Madison Square Garden has been seriously renovated in that time. In fact, the Knicks are 1 of just 6 NBA teams not to have moved to a new arena since the Rockets' last title. The others are the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Utah Jazz, the Phoenix Suns, the Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Andy Pettitte had made his major league debut on April 29, Mariano Rivera his on May 23, and Derek Jeter his on May 29. The other eventual member of the Yankees'"Core Four," Jorge Posada, would debut on September 4.

The Rockets succeeded themselves as NBA Champions. The titleholders in the other sports were the New York Rangers, the San Francisco 49ers, and in baseball… well, officially, the Toronto Blue Jays, since there was no 1994 World Series. George Foreman was in his improbable 2nd reign as Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The Nets moved from the Meadowlands to Newark and then Brooklyn. The Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies began play the next season. The Grizzlies later moved to Memphis. The Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Charlotte Hornets became the New Orleans Hornets and then the New Orleans Pelicans. They were replaced in their previous hometown by the Charlotte Bobcats, who then received the rights to the Hornets name.

The Utah Jazz, the San Antonio Spurs, the Indiana Pacers, the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets, the Miami Heat, the Dallas Mavericks, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors had not yet reached the NBA Finals. The Spurs, the Heat, the Mavericks, the Cavaliers and the Raptors had never won an NBA Championship. The Golden State Warriors had not won a Championship, or even been to a Finals, since 1975. All of those facts have seen been rendered untrue.

The Rockets had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, who went on to be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Also playing in the NBA that season, and have since been elected, were Moses Malone, Robert Parish, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Joe Dumars, Dominique Wilkins, Patrick Ewing, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Chris Mullin, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton, Sarunas Marciulionis, Alonzo Mourning, Mitch Richmond, Dikembe Mutombo, Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, Dino Rajda and Vlade Divac.

The Rockets were coached by Rudy Tomjanovich, who should be in the Hall of Fame as a coach, but isn't, and was a pretty good player, too. Current Knick coach Mike Miller was an assistant coach at Texas State University. Current Net coach Jacque Vaughn was playing at the University of Kansas.

Barry Trotz of the Islanders was the head coach of the minor-league Portland Pirates in Maine. Alain Nasreddine of the Devils was playing for the Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. David Quinn of the Rangers was an assistant coach at Boston University.

Aaron Boone of the Yankees was playing in the Cincinnati Reds' minor-league system. Chris Armas of the Red Bulls was playing for the Long Island Rough Riders. Ronny Deila of NYCFC was playing for Odds Ballklubb in Skien, in his native Norway. Adam Gase of the Jets was in high school. Luis Rojas of the Mets and Joe Judge of the Giants were 13 years old. And Walt Hopkins of the Liberty was 10.

The Olympic Games have been held in America (twice), Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China and Canada. The World Cup has been held in France, Japan, Korea, Germany and South Africa -- and had never previously been held in Asia and Africa, or in a joint venture (2002 in Japan and Korea).

The European Cup/Champions League soccer tournament has been won by Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid (5 times), Manchester United (twice), Bayern Munich, AC Milan (twice), Porto, Liverpool (twice), Barcelona (3 times) and Internazionale Milano.

The idea that people of the same sex could get married, and receive all the rights and benefits of couples in "traditional marriage," was considered ridiculous. But then, so was the idea that corporations were "people," and entitled to the rights and protections thereof. There were 3 Justices on the Supreme Court then who are still on it now: Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Bill Clinton was in his 1st term as President. George W. Bush had just been inaugurated as Governor of Texas. George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and their wives, and Lady Bird Johnson were all still alive. (Reagan, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. Ford have since died.) Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and Mitt Romney had just lost his first race for public office, for the U.S. Senate seat of Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The Governor of Texas was George W. Bush, and the Mayor of Houston was Bob Lanier -- not the player of the same name in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The Governor of New York was George Pataki. The Mayor of New York City was Rudy Giuliani, and the Governor of New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman.

As for the current holders of those posts, respectively: Greg Abbott was on the Texas Supreme Court, Sylvester Turner was in the Texas House of Representatives, Andrew Cuomo was Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, Bill de Blasio was an aide to Congressman Charles Rangel, and Phil Murphy was running the European office of Goldman Sachs out of Frankfurt, Germany.

The holders of the Nobel Peace Prize were Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat -- and now we know how that worked out. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the Bishop of Auca in his native Argentina.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien, and of Britain John Major. The monarch was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed. Blackburn Rovers had just won an improbable Premier League title, and Everton had just won the FA Cup. There have since been 4 Presidents of the United States, 5 Prime Ministers of Britain and 3 Popes.

Major novels of 1995 included The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, Independence Day by Richard Ford, The Rainmaker by John Grisham, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Timothy Findley published a novel titled The Piano Man's Daughter. It was not about Alexa Ray Joel.

None of the Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Bridget Jones, Twilight or
Hunger Games novels had yet been published. And no one had yet heard of Robert Langdon or Lisbeth Salander.

Major films of the late Spring and early Summer of 1995 included New Jersey Drive (about carjacking, not the Devils' drive for the Stanley Cup), Die Hard with a Vengeance, Forget Paris (starring Billy Crystal as a basketball referee and Debra Winger as his wife, with several NBA cameos), The Bridges of Madison County, the Scottish pseudo-historical epic Braveheart, Disney's pseudo-historical cartoon version of Pocahontas, and Apollo 13.

Wrapping up filming was The American President, starring 51-year-old Michael Douglas, playing a widowed President dating an environmental activist played by 37-year-old Annette Bening, who was married to 58-year-old Warren Beatty. Douglas was not yet married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was then 25 and starring in Catherine the Great. Not an autobiography.

Pierce Brosnan's 1st outing as James Bond, Goldeneye, would premiere the following November. Dean Cain was playing Superman on TV, but Val Kilmer's turn as Batman on film had just proven to be a pathetic mess. And Sylvester McCoy was still the last man to play The Doctor.

Television shows that were about to air their final first-run episodes were Empty Nest, Blossom, Full House, Matlock and Northern Exposure. Newly-debuted were NewsRadio, Sliders and the entire WB and UPN networks (eventually to merge), including Star Trek: Voyager. Soon to debut were Ned & Stacey (the 1st series to star Debra Messing), Caroline in the City, JAG, MADtv, The Drew Carey Show, and a show only slightly more cartoonish than that one, Pinky and the Brain. And yet, it was the Yankees who ended up taking over the world.

The Number 1 song in America was "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" by Bryan Adams. The surviving members of the Beatles were finishing The Beatles Anthology. Michael Jackson released HIStory. Tupac Shakur got married... in prison.

Kourtney Kardashian and Pink were 16. Michelle Williams (both of them), Ben Savage, Kim Kardahsian, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Kelly Rowland, Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba were 14. Natalie Portman, Beyonce Knowles, Britney Spears, Sienna Miller and Kirsten Dunst were 13. Prince William, Matt Smith and Anne Hathaway were 12. Prince Harry and Khloe Kardashian were 10.

Lady Gaga was 9, Rob Kardashian Jr. 8, Kevin Jonas and Rihanna 7, 7, Joe Jonas 5, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson 4. So was Sarah Hyland, and the rest of the Modern Family kids had not yet been born. Nor had Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Louis Tomlinson was 3. Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Miley Cyrus and Zayn Malik were 2. The other One Direction singers, Liam Payne, Nial Horan and Harry Styles, had yet to reach a 2nd birthday. Justin Bieber had just had his 1st, so he wasn't a "Boyfriend," he was a "Baby." Halsey was 8 months old.

Inflation has been such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.68 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp was 32 cents. A New York Subway token was $1.25. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.20, a cup of coffee $1.74, a McDonald's meal $5.29, a movie ticket $4.35, a new car $17,900, and a new house $158,900. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 4,491.08.

The tallest building in the world was the Sears Tower in Chicago. The Internet was still new to most of us. Most of us had never heard of Microsoft or Netscape or America Online. There was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Instagram and no Pinterest. VHS videotapes were still the dominant way of recording and playing back movies and TV shows. Mobile phones were still roughly the size of the communicators on Star Trek. There were birth control pills, but no Viagra.

In the late Spring of 1995, the federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed. Singer Selena was shot and killed. Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in a horse-riding competition. Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady was shot down over Bosnia, and rescued 6 days later. And British troops were pulled off the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland for the 1st time in 26 years.

Harold Wilson, and Jonas Salk, and English soccer legend Ted Drake died. Gigi Hadid, and Missy Franklin, and Nicolas Pépé were born.

June 14, 1995. The Houston Rockets won their 2nd straight NBA Championship. They have never won another.

Will they do it this time? We can't be sure how any of the 22 teams still officially eligible for the 2020 NBA Championship will come back from the Coronavirus-induced layoff. But the Rockets are one of the 16 teams that will be in it, so they have a chance. Stay tuned.

June 14, 1870, 150 years ago:After 84 consecutive wins since assembling the 1st openly professional baseball team in 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings come to the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn -- which, until 1898, was a separate city from New York, then consisting only of Manhattan.

They were to face the top team in the New York area, the Brooklyn Atlantics. The biggest crowd in baseball history to that point, an estimated 20,000, came in to see it.

It was a different world. There really wasn't professional sports at this point. The 1st college football game had been played the previous November in New Jersey, and it was basically a 25-a-side soccer game. Soccer had barely been standardized, with England's Football Association establishing rules in 1863. Hockey was in its infancy. Basketball hadn't been invented yet. Boxing was an "underground" sport. Horse racing was big, as sports went. The Olympic Games weren't even an idea.

Connie Mack, later known as "The Grand Old Man of Baseball," was 7 years old. Jacob Ruppert, who would build Yankee Stadium and the 1st Yankee dynasty, was 2. John McGraw wouldn't be born for another 3 years.

There were 37 States in the Union, and 15 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Legally, women could only vote in one place in America, in the Wyoming Territory -- hence, when it gained Statehood in 1890, Wyoming became known as "The Equality State." There was no Food & Drug Administration, no banking insurance, and as far as legal protections for labor went, dream on.

The President of the United States was Ulysses S. Grant. Andrew Johnson was the only living former President. Rutherford B. Hayes was Governor of Ohio. James Garfield was in Congress from Ohio. Chester Arthur was the Chairman of the New York State Republican Committee. Grover Cleveland was a young lawyer in Buffalo, running for Sheriff of Erie County. Benjamin Harrison was a young lawyer in Indianapolis. William McKinley was the prosecuting attorney of Stark County, Ohio. Theodore Roosevelt was 11 years old, William Howard Taft 12, Woodrow Wilson 13, Warren Harding 4. Calvin Coolidge and after President since him had not yet been born.

There were still living veterans of the French Revolution, the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and the Napoleonic Wars. The last verified surviving veteran of the War of the American Revolution had died the year before. There was still a surviving member of the Lewis & Clark expedition.

Canada had only been semi-independent for less than 3 years. Its 1st Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, was still in office. The Prime Minister of Great Britain was William Ewart Gladstone, in his 1st tenure in that office, of what would prove to be 4. The monarch was Queen Victoria, great-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II. The Pope was Pius IX. The holder of the Nobel Peace Prize? There were no Nobel Prizes yet: Alfred Nobel was still alive.

Major novels of 1870 included The Eternal Husband by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Adventures of Harry Richmond by George Meredith, The Vicar of Bullahmpton by Anthony Trollope, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, and Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch -- a book whose title would give its name to a song by The Velvet Underground, and an author whose name would become synonymous with the enjoyment of receiving pain, "masochism." Edward Lear published Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets, a book of poems that included "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Vienna's Musikverein concert hall opened. Pyotr Tchiakovsky premiered his overture based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Richard Wagner debuted his opera The Valkyrie.

No one had yet heard of Sherlock Holmes, or Tarzan, or Phileas Fogg, or Allan Quatermain, or anybody that could later be called a "superhero."

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $19.57 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 6 cents. A new 2-room house would cost about $300. The price of a ride on the New York Subway, or of a gallon of gas, or of a McDonald's meal, or of a new car? I can't tell you, because those things didn't exist yet. Nor did the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

I can tell you that coffee was about 12 cents a pound. The average price of a work horse (equivalent to a tractor) was $150, and that of a "saddle horse" (equivalent to a car) was $200. The saddle itself would set you back another $30. A buggy, probably closer to a "car," would have been $75, but, again, you would have needed a horse to pull it; so, adding the work horse, and that's $225.

The tallest building in the world was the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, 481 feet high. America's 1st transcontinental railroad had been running for only a year. The telephone was still 6 years away; the phonograph, 7; the practical electric light bulb, 9; automobiles, 15; motion pictures, 24; the airplane, 33; radio broadcasting, 50; and network television, 77.

Antibiotics? Forget it: Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, wouldn't be born for another 11 years. Air conditioning? Sweat it out: Willis Carrier, its inventor, wouldn't be born for another 6. An understanding of how the universe worked? No chance: Albert Einstein wouldn't be born for another 9. Birth control, of any kind? Tough luck, sister: Margaret Sanger wouldn't be born for another 9.

Artificial organs or transplants? Who's kidding who: They were decades away. A decent study of mental health? Dream on: Sigmund Freud was 14 years old. Space travel? Even Jules Verne was just beginning to explore the idea in writing.

What else was going on in the world in the late Spring and early Summer of 1870? The Metropolitan Museum of Art was established. Georgia became the last former Confederate State readmitted to the Union. Canada created the Province of Manitoba. The Tianjin Massacre resulted in the murders of 57 Christians in China. And the Franco-Prussian War began, resulting in a humiliating defeat for France and the unification of Germany.

Charles Dickens, and Josef Strauss, and David Farragut died. Vladimir Lenin, and Edwin S. Porter, and Benjamin Cardozo were born.

That's what was going on in the world on June 14, 1870, when the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Brooklyn Atlantics played the 1st baseball game that could legitimately have been called "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

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Here were the lineups for this epic game:

Slowly but surely, the impact of the Coronavirus is being reduced, and things are starting to open up again.

In New Jersey, restaurants are permitted to open with properly-spaced outdoor seating. Next week, barbershops can reopen. Which is good, because my hair is now long and puffy enough to resemble that of a 1970s Arsenal player.

The above example: George Armstrong, who played with the North London team's 1st XI from 1962 to 1977. His hair is so long in this photo, it obscures the Elvis-esque sideburns he grew. He was only 5-foot-6, but a fantastic player, a key figure on their 1971 League and Cup "Double" team. Sadly, he is no longer with us: After coaching with the team for most of the 1990s, he collapsed at the team's training center in 2000, and died, only 56.

Today, Premier League action resumes in England, with games being played "behind closed doors," meaning no fans admitted, a.k.a. "ghost games." Arsenal, whose manager and former star player Mikel Arteta survived the virus, plays away to Manchester City. Major League Soccer returns on July 8.

The NBA will also soon restart, with teams already eliminated from Playoff competition having their seasons declared over, and the remaining 22 teams going into training camps, and then, starting on July 30, jockeying for seeds in a standard 16-team Playoff.

The NHL will also soon restart, with the top 24 teams -- the Devils not being one of them -- beginning training camps on July 10, and then playing in a staggered Playoff format, with the top 8 teams getting a 1st-round bye.

Both of these leagues usually have their Champions crowned by this time, and will see their Playoffs end later than ever before, possibly even in October, when their new seasons would usually start. We might not seen the 2020-21 season begin until Christmas, or even New Year's.

Football, at every level, looks like it's going to begin on time: College (and, in some States, high school) in the last week of August, and the pros and the high schoolers (at least, here in New Jersey) in the 1st week of September. Whether fans will be permitted to attend remains to be seen.

Thoroughbred horse racing's Triple Crown has not only been postponed, but had its usual order changed: The Belmont Stakes, usually the last of the 3 races, was postponed from June 6 to June 20 (this coming Saturday, definitely behind closed doors), the normally series-opening Kentucky Derby from May 2 to September 5, and the Preakness Stakes from May 16 to October 3.

The Olympic Games have been postponed until next year. So has the European Championship soccer tournament. Wimbledon, originally set to run from June 21 to July 5, was canceled for the 1st time since World War II. The French Open was set to run in Paris from May 24, to June 7, has been postponed to September 20 to October 4.

This will be after the U.S. Open. With the number of new COVID-19 cases continuing to drop, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York gave the U.S. Tennis Association the all-clear to hold the tournament, albeit behind closed doors, on schedule from August 31 to September 13.

And then there's baseball. Commissioner Rob Manfred, as with all previous Commissioners the tool of the team owners, has been shoveling variations on the same restart deal at the players' union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, over and over again, and the players have rejected all of them as completely unacceptable, because the plans mean the owners will not be honoring their side of the contracts.

Last week, Manfred says there was a 100 percent chance that we would have baseball this season. Yesterday, he said, he was "not confident."

The players make a lot of money. They are not the problem here. They are ready to honor their contracts. The owners are trying to screw them. It doesn't matter that the players make so much more than you do: They are still being screwed. You wouldn't put up with this from your boss, so why should the players put up with it from theirs, regardless of how much they're being paid? They are still being cheated.

One thing is for sure: It looks like the Yankees will be screwed again. But then, what did you expect? I told you that they haven't won a World Series with a Republican as President since 1958, and they still haven't. I told you to vote for Hillary.

*

So, with some kind of schedule once again available, I can, for the 1st time since March 8, update my countdowns. However, Trip Guides are seriously affected. Due to events beyond my control last Autumn, I decided to cut short the NFL ones, and to drop the NBA ones altogether. I still did them for the NHL, and got them done for 30 out of 31 teams before the shutdown, missing only the Minnesota Wild.

Ironically, Minnesota United was 1 of the 3 MLS teams I had already done them for, the others being my home team, the New York Red Bulls, and Real Salt Lake.

Not yet having revised MLB or MLS schedules, I will not do those for 2020. Hopefully, I will be able to do them in 2021.

As for football, the NFL and college games that would apply: These games will probably be played, but it's increasingly likely that they will be behind closed doors, so it would be pointless to do Trip Guides for them. Once I learn for sure, I will have to adjust my schedule accordingly.

According to the schedule I had laid out before my hip replacement surgery on February 19, I had predicted that I would be able to go back to work in 8 weeks, on April 13. Who was I kidding? I might be able to do a data entry job, but I'd still have to get to and from work, and, without a car, and the closest bus stop a mile from my house, that would have been damn near impossible at the time. It would be pretty hard now: It's still twice as far as I've yet walked with the cane.

At any rate, each of the following is tentative, and may not have anyone actually in attendance:

Days until Arsenal play again: 0. They play away to Manchester City, in Premier League action, at 8:15 PM London time, 3:15 PM New York time. They have also advanced to the Quarterfinals of the FA Cup, although they have been eliminated from the UEFA Europa League. So now, their only chance to get into next season's UEFA Champions League is to finish 4th or higher in the Premier League -- or 5th, if Man City's CL ban is upheld, which is by no means a certainty.

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 21, in the MLS is Back Tournament, which will be held entirely behind closed doors at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, which is part of the Walt Disney World Resort, in the Orlando suburb of Bay Lake, Florida. Although the schedule has not yet been finalized, they have been put in a group with Atlanta United and the 2 Ohio teams, the Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": Given that neither New York City FC, nor the Philadelphia Union, nor D.C. United, nor the New England Revolution are in the Red Bulls' group for the tournament, and who is likely to advance, is anybody's guess, then so is this number.

Days until the next North London Derby: 24, on Saturday, July 11, Arsenal's long-delayed 1st visit to the new Tottenham Stadium, adjacent to the site of the previous White Hart Lane. When they'll play their 1st game there in front of fans, most of them Spurs' mental acrobats, is anybody's guess, since the 2019-20 season is not yet finished. Usually, by this point, the next season's schedule -- or, as they would say in England, fixture list -- would have already been released.

Days until the Yankees' 2020 Opening Day: Unknown. MLB had been talking about a restart date of July 31, which would be 44 days from now, a decent time to have a Summer version of "Spring Training" to get ready. At this point, nobody knows.

Days until the Yankees' 2020 home opener: See the previous answer.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series begins: See the previous answer.

Days until the Democratic National Convention: 61, on Monday, August 17. It was set for the Fiserv Center in Milwaukee, the new home of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, a nod to the fact that Hillary Clinton "lost" Wisconsin by such a close vote last time. But the Convention may have to be "virtual." Joe Biden might be the 1st Presidential nominee to not give his acceptance speech on the Convention floor since Franklin Roosevelt was too ill to accept a 4th term in person in 1944.

Days until the Republican National Convention: 68, on Monday, August 24. The Republicans have already moved their convention from Charlotte to Jacksonville, since the Governor of North Carolina (Roy Cooper, a Democrat listening to the medical experts) refused to reopen the State; while the Governor of Florida (Rob DeSantis, a Republican listening to Donald Trump) is happy to risk lives for his lord and master at Mar-a-Lago.

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: 79, on Friday night, September 4, against arch-rival Old Bridge, at the purple shit pit on Route 9. 

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge football game: See the previous answer.

Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 80, on Saturday, September 5, at noon, home to Monmouth University, a Football Championship Subdivision School in West Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey. In other words, if they don't win this game overwhelmingly, especially now that Greg Schiano is back as head coach, it will look very, very bad.

Days until the New Jersey Devils play again: Unknown, since the 2020-21 NHL schedule has not yet been released.

Days until the New Jersey Devils next play a local rival: See the previous answer.

Days until the U.S. national soccer team plays again: Unknown, although the 2nd weekend and 3rd week in October is usually set aside for international games. So, if we presume October 10, a Saturday, then it's 115 days.

Days until the next Presidential election, when we can dump the Trump-Pence regime and elect a real Administration: 139, on November 3, 2020. Under 5 months.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State football game: 164, on Saturday, November 28, at home.

Days until a fully-Democratic-controlled Congress can convene: 200, on January 3, 2021. Under 10 months.


Days until Liberation Day: 217, at noon on January 20, 2021. A little over 7 months. Note that this is liberation from the Republican Party, not just from Donald Trump. Having Mike Pence as President wouldn't be better, just differently bad, mixing theocracy with plutocracy, rather than mixing kleptocracy with plutocracy.

Days until Euro 2020 begins, a tournament being held all over Europe instead of in a single host nation: 359, on Friday, June 11, 2021. Under 1 year.

Days until the next Summer Olympics begins in Tokyo, Japan: 401, on July 23, 2021. A little over 13 months.

June 21, 1970, 50 years ago: The World Cup Final is held before 107,412 fans at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. It was the 1st World Cup televised in color around the world, and, as a recent article stated, the way it was broadcast and merchandised suggested that it was closer in style and form to the most recent World Cup, in Russia in 2018, than it was to the one it followed, in 1966 in England.

June 24, 1995, 25 years ago today: My little hockey team grew up.

The National Hockey League approved the sale of the Colorado Rockies to an ownership group led by Dr. John McMullen, a naval engineer who was then also the owner of Major League Baseball's Houston Astros, on May 27, 1982. The NHL also approved the team's move from Denver to the Brendan Byrne Arena, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex, in East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey. On June 30, the new name of the team was announced: The New Jersey Devils.

On October 5, 1982, they played their 1st regular-season game, home to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it ended in a 3-3 tie. Three days later, they hosted the team that was geographically, but not yet emotionally, their rivals, the New York Rangers, and got their 1st win, 3-2.

Their early days were tough. They started their 2nd season 2-20. On November 19, 1983, they went to Edmonton to play the Oilers, who were on their way to their 1st Stanley Cup, and lost 13-4. Wayne Gretzky, now the best player in the sport, told the media after the game, "Well, it’s time they got their act together. They’re ruining the whole league. They had better stop running a Mickey Mouse organization, and put somebody on the ice."

It's hard to argue that he was wrong. Nevertheless, for those of us who were Devils fans from Day One, it pissed us off. From November 29 to December 17, we went on a pretty good run, going 5-3-2. On January 15, 1984, we had a rematch with the Oilers at the Meadowlands, and the place sold out. Many fans came wearing Mickey Mouse hats, the "ears" hats sold at Disney World. We lost, but this time, it was only 5-4. On January 27, we went back to Edmonton, and got a 3-3 tie.

It took until 1988 for the Devils to make the Playoffs for the 1st time -- not counting 1978 as the Rockies. We clinched in overtime of the last day of the regular season, then beat the crumbling New York Islander dynasty in the 1st round, then upset the Washington Capitals to make the Conference Finals, driving a superior Boston Bruin team to the full 7 games.

That series was highlighted -- or lowlighted, depending on how you look at it -- by a confrontation after Game 3. Devils head coach Jim Schoenfeld, formerly a take-no-shit defenseman for the Buffalo Sabres, had had it with referee Don Koharski, who seemed to give the Bruins every break. He yelled at Koharski in the tunnel, with fans able to see. Koharski fell, got up, and accused Schoenfeld of pushing him. Schoenfeld yelled back, "You fell, you fat pig! Have another doughnut! Have another doughnut!"

The Devils missed the Playoffs in 1989, but made it again in 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993, failing to win a round each time. In 1992, they lost to the Rangers in 7 games in the 1st round. In 1994, they beat the Buffalo Sabres, and then the Bruins, and faced the Rangers in an epic series. It went the full 7, and Game 7 went to double overtime, before Stephane Matteau scored to put the Rangers into the Stanley Cup Finals.

It was the greatest hockey game I've ever seen -- and my team lost it, to the team I hate the most. In that sport, anyway.

*

A defeat like that can crush a team. Or it can show them just how close they are, and remind them that they do not want to feel like that again. The 1994-95 season was delayed due to a labor dispute, and when the regular season was over, the Devils were the 5th seed in the NHL Eastern Conference.

Head coach Jacques Lemaire and assistant coach Larry Robinson had both been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame already, for their play with the 1970s Montreal Canadiens. Lemaire had won 8 Cups with them; Robinson, 6. They knew how to build a winner.

And general manager Lou Lamoriello was building one. In goal was Martin Brodeur, a Montreal native, whose father, Denis, had been Canada's goaltender at the 1956 Winter Olympics, and had long been the photographer for both the Canadiens and baseball's Montreal Exops. His backup was Chris Terreri, who had played at Providence College when Lamoriello was the head coach there.

The defense was led by Scott Stevens. Playing for the Capitals, Stevens had been one of the dirtiest players in the NHL. But he had matured, and figured out the difference between aggressive and dirty. The Devils acquired him in 1991, and he so impressed everyone that Bruce Driver willingly gave up the team captaincy the next season.

Driver had been with the Devils since the team's 2nd season, 1983-84. So had another defenseman, Ken Daneyko. So had right wing John MacLean, whose overtime goal in the last game in 1988 got the team its 1st Playoff berth.

In addition to Stevens, Driver and Daneyko, the defense included exciting young players Scott Niedermayer and Shawn Chambers, and a tough Swede -- yes, Don Cherry, they do exist -- named Tommy Albelin.

In addition to MacLean, the forwards included Neal Broten. At this point, Ken Morrow of the Islanders was the only member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics to have won the Stanley Cup. Broten, whose brothers Aaron and Paul had also played for the Devils, was looking to become the 2nd.

There was also Bobby Carpenter, who made the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school player in the Boston suburbs in 1981, a cover whose caption called him "THE CAN'T-MISS KID," and suggested that he might be the best American hockey player ever. He wasn't exactly hit with "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx," as he did make an All-Star Game. But this was his 14th season in the NHL, and aside from the 1990 Finals with his hometown Bruins, he had never gotten close to the Stanley Cup.

There were more connections to the Canadiens. Wingers Claude Lemieux and Stéphane Richer had played on the Habs' 1986 Stanley Cup winners, making them the only former Cup winners on the '95 Devils. Another winger, Tom Chorske, had also played in Montreal.

Claudie was a bit of a dirty player, but I loved him, for 3 reasons: He scored goals, he didn't take any shit, and he seemed to up his game against the 2 teams Devils fans hate the most: The New York Rangers (a.k.a. The Scum), and the Philadelphia Flyers (a.k.a. The Philth).

Wingers Mike Peluso and Bobby Holík, and center Randy McKay formed a forward line known as the Crash Line, the unit Lemaire sent out when he needed a little aggressiveness. Another winger was Bill Guerin, the 1st Hispanic player in NHL history, preceding future Devil Scott Gomez. And Jim Dowd, from the successful hockey program at Brick Township High School in Ocean County, was the 1st New Jersey native to play for the Devils.

On May 11, 1995, while the Devils were in the 1st round of the Playoffs, the NBC sitcom Seinfeld aired the episode "The Face Painter." Patrick Warburton played David Puddy, a mechanic who was dating Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Jerry Seinfeld (playing a fictional version of himself) had gotten tickets for Game 1 of a Playoff series with the Rangers at The Garden (suggesting that the episode took place the year before), and took Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) and Elaine, who took Puddy.

It turns out, Puddy is a Devils fan, from New Jersey, and not only is he wearing a Number 30 Martin Brodeur jersey, but he's painted his face in Devils colors, and he ends up making a spectacle of himself. In real life, Warburton was born in New Jersey, in Paterson, Passaic County, but grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

During the episode, a broadcaster announces that a Devils goal has been scored by Richer. Richer also scored 2 goals, including the overtime winner, in my 1st live NHL game, a 5-4 Devils win over the Rangers at The Garden on December 23, 1992. This guy hated the Rangers so much, he even scored against them on sitcoms.

Speaking of sitcoms: In 1993, on an episode of Living Single, East Orange native Dana Owens, a.k.a. Queen Latifah, became the 1st person to wear a Devils jersey on a scripted TV show. Her character, Khadijah James, wore Number 1, and the name on the back was the name of the magazine she published and edited: "FLAVOR."

Now, the Devils had to back up Puddy's claim: "Don't mess with the Devils, buddy! We're Number 1! We beat anybody! We're the Devils! The Devils! Haggggh!"

*

They faced the Bruins in the 1st round, and beat them in 5 games. The clincher, on May 14, 1995, was the last competitive sporting event at the Boston Garden, after 67 years as the home of the Bruins and 49 years as the home of the NBA's Boston Celtics, who had already been eliminated from their league's Playoffs.

*

June 24, 1995, 25 years ago today. This is what the world was like:

All of the major league teams in the New York Tri-State Area, including the Devils, have gotten new buildings, except for the Knicks and Rangers, and Madison Square Garden has been seriously renovated in that time. In fact, the Rangers are 1 of just 6 NHL teams not to have moved to a new arena since the Devils' 1st title. The others are the Calgary Flames, the Anaheim Ducks, the San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues.

The Devils were on the verge of succeeding the hated Rangers as NHL Champions. The titleholders in the other sports were the Houston Rockets, the San Francisco 49ers, and in baseball… well, officially, the Toronto Blue Jays, since there was no 1994 World Series. George Foreman was in his improbable 2nd reign as Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The Quebec Nordiques were about to move to Denver, giving the city an NHL team for the 1st time since the Rockies became the Devils 13 years earlier, under the name of the Colorado Avalanche. This would be followed by the original Winnipeg Jets becoming the Phoenix (later Arizona) Coyotes, the Hartford Whalers becoming the Carolina Hurricanes, the founding of the Nashville Predators to take the place of the Devils move that never happened, the founding of the Atlanta Thrashers who eventually became the new Winnipeg Jets, and the founding of the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Minnesota Wild, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Seattle franchise that will begin play in the 2021-22 season, but has not yet been named.

The Devils had (for the moment) not yet won their 1st Stanley Cup. Nor had the Nords/Avs, the Dallas Stars, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Whalers/'Canes, the Ducks, the Los Angeles Kings, the Washington Capitals or the St. Louis Blues. The Bruins had not won since 1972, the Blackhawks since 1961, the Wings since 1955.

The Nords/Avs had not yet reached their 1st Stanley Cup Finals. Nor had the Florida Panthers, the Caps, the Whalers/'Canes, the Lightning, the new Ottawa Senators, the Sharks, the Predators or the Golden Knights. The Blues hadn't made the Finals since 1970.

All of those facts have since been rendered untrue.

Current Devils coach Alain Nasreddine was playing for the Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Barry Trotz of the Islanders was the head coach of the minor-league Portland Pirates in Maine. David Quinn of the Rangers was an assistant coach at Boston University.

Mike Miller of the Knicks was an assistant coach at Texas State University. Aaron Boone of the Yankees was playing in the Cincinnati Reds' minor-league system. Chris Armas of the Red Bulls was playing for the Long Island Rough Riders. Ronny Deila of NYCFC was playing for Odds Ballklubb in Skien, in his native Norway. Jacque Vaughn of the Nets was playing at the University of Kansas. Adam Gase of the Jets was in high school. Luis Rojas of the Mets and Joe Judge of the Giants were 13 years old. And Walt Hopkins of the Liberty was 10.

Most of the defining hockey players of my childhood were retired: Bobby Orr, Ken Dryden, Phil Esposito, Bobby Clarke, Darryl Sittler, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Guy Lafleur, Bryan Trottier and, as mentioned, Jacques Lemaire and Larry Robinson. Trottier would be elected to the Hall of Fame in 1997, and the rest were already in. Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Mario Lemieux were still active.

Andy Pettitte had made his major league debut on April 29, Mariano Rivera his on May 23, and Derek Jeter his on May 29. The other eventual member of the Yankees'"Core Four," Jorge Posada, would debut on September 4.

The Winter Olympics had not yet allowed professional players in its hockey tournament, but would for the 1st time in 1998. The Olympic Games have been held in America (twice), Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China and Canada. The World Cup has been held in France, Japan, Korea, Germany and South Africa -- and had never previously been held in Asia and Africa, or in a joint venture (2002 in Japan and Korea).

The European Cup/Champions League soccer tournament has been won by Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid (5 times), Manchester United (twice), Bayern Munich, AC Milan (twice), Porto, Liverpool (twice), Barcelona (3 times) and Internazionale Milano.

The idea that people of the same sex could get married, and receive all the rights and benefits of couples in "traditional marriage," was considered ridiculous. But then, so was the idea that corporations were "people," and entitled to the rights and protections thereof. There were 3 Justices on the Supreme Court then who are still on it now: Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Bill Clinton was in his 1st term as President. George W. Bush had just been inaugurated as Governor of Texas. George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and their wives, and Lady Bird Johnson were all still alive. (Reagan, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. Ford have since died.) Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Joe Biden was in his 4th term as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, and Donald Trump was cheating on his 2nd wife, Marla Maples.

The Governor of New York was George Pataki. The Mayor of New York City was Rudy Giuliani, and the Governor of New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman. As for the current holders of those posts, respectively: Andrew Cuomo was Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, Bill de Blasio was an aide to Congressman Charles Rangel, and Phil Murphy was running the European office of Goldman Sachs out of Frankfurt, Germany.

The holders of the Nobel Peace Prize were Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat -- and now we know how that worked out. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the Bishop of Auca in his native Argentina.

There were still surviving veterans of the Easter Rising, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Mexican Revolution. And there were still survivors of the Johnstown Flood of 1889, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the General Slocum fire of 1904, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, the sinkings of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and the RMS Lusitania in 1915, and the construction crew of the Panama Canal.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien, and of Britain John Major. The monarch was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed. Blackburn Rovers had just won an improbable Premier League title, and Everton had just won the FA Cup. There have since been 4 Presidents of the United States, 5 Prime Ministers of Britain and 3 Popes.

Major novels of 1995 included The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, Independence Day by Richard Ford, The Rainmaker by John Grisham, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Timothy Findley published a novel titled The Piano Man's Daughter. It was not about Alexa Ray Joel.

None of the Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, Bridget Jones, Twilight or
Hunger Games novels had yet been published. And no one had yet heard of Robert Langdon or Lisbeth Salander.

Major films of the late Spring and early Summer of 1995 included New Jersey Drive (about carjacking, not the Devils' drive for the Stanley Cup), Die Hard with a Vengeance, Forget Paris
(starring Billy Crystal as a basketball referee and Debra Winger as his wife, with several NBA cameos), The Bridges of Madison County, the Scottish pseudo-historical epic Braveheart, Disney's pseudo-historical cartoon version of Pocahontas, and Apollo 13.

Wrapping up filming was The American President, starring 51-year-old Michael Douglas, playing a widowed President dating an environmental activist played by 37-year-old Annette Bening, who was married to 58-year-old Warren Beatty. Douglas was not yet married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was then 25 and starring in Catherine the Great. Not an autobiography.

Pierce Brosnan's 1st outing as James Bond, Goldeneye, would premiere the following November. Dean Cain was playing Superman on TV, but Val Kilmer's turn as Batman on film had just proven to be a pathetic mess. And Sylvester McCoy was still the last man to play The Doctor.

Television shows that were about to air their final first-run episodes were Empty Nest, Blossom, Full House, Matlock and Northern Exposure. Newly-debuted were NewsRadio, Sliders and the entire WB and UPN networks (eventually to merge), including Star Trek: Voyager. Soon to debut were Ned & Stacey (the 1st series to star Debra Messing), Caroline in the City, JAG, MADtv, The Drew Carey Show, and a show only slightly more cartoonish than that one, Pinky and the Brain. And yet, it was the Yankees who ended up taking over the world.

The Number 1 song in America was "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" by Bryan Adams. The surviving members of the Beatles were finishing The Beatles Anthology. Michael Jackson released HIStory. Tupac Shakur got married... in prison.

Kourtney Kardashian and Pink were 16. Michelle Williams (both of them), Ben Savage, Kim Kardahsian, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Kelly Rowland, Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba were 14. Natalie Portman, Beyonce Knowles, Britney Spears, Sienna Miller and Kirsten Dunst were 13. Prince William, Matt Smith and Anne Hathaway were 12. Prince Harry and Khloe Kardashian were 10.

Lady Gaga was 9, Rob Kardashian Jr. 8, Kevin Jonas and Rihanna 7, 7, Joe Jonas 5, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson 4. So was Sarah Hyland, and the rest of the Modern Family kids had not yet been born. Nor had Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Louis Tomlinson was 3. Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Miley Cyrus and Zayn Malik were 2. The other One Direction singers, Liam Payne, Nial Horan and Harry Styles, had yet to reach a 2nd birthday. Justin Bieber had just had his 1st, so he wasn't a "Boyfriend," he was a "Baby." Halsey was 8 months old.

Inflation has been such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.68 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp was 32 cents. A New York Subway token was $1.25. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.20, a cup of coffee $1.74, a McDonald's meal $5.29, a movie ticket $4.35, a new car $17,900, and a new house $158,900. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day before at 4,585.84.

The tallest building in the world was the Sears Tower in Chicago. The Internet was still new to most of us. Most of us had never heard of Microsoft or Netscape or America Online. There was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Instagram and no Pinterest. VHS videotapes were still the dominant way of recording and playing back movies and TV shows. Mobile phones were still roughly the size of the communicators on Star Trek. There were birth control pills, but no Viagra.

In the late Spring of 1995, the federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed. Singer Selena was shot and killed. Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in a horse-riding competition. Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady was shot down over Bosnia, and rescued 6 days later. And British troops were pulled off the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland for the 1st time in 26 years.

Harold Wilson, and Jonas Salk, and English soccer legend Ted Drake died. Gigi Hadid, and Missy Franklin, and Nicolas Pépé were born.

That's what the world was like on June 24, 1995, when the New Jersey Devils prepared to clinch their 1st Stanley Cup.

*

It was a Saturday. The temperature stayed in the 70s in daylight, and dropped into the 50s that night. I did not yet have a Devils jersey, but I had a shirt with red and black stripes, which I had worn to my 1st live NHL game, because it was Devils colors. They won that night, so I'd worn it to every live game I'd been to since. It didn't always work. But it felt right to wear it on this night, even though it had long sleeves and it was the 1st week of Summer.

That afternoon, the Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 10-2 at the original Yankee Stadium. The only home run of the game was hit by 1993 World Series hero Joe Carter, but Wade Boggs had 3 RBIs, and Dion James and Paul O'Neill 2 each, in support of starting and winning pitcher Melido Perez.

That night, while the Devils were playing Game 4, the Mets lost to the Atlanta Braves, 5-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Todd Hundley hit a home run in support of Dave Mlicki, but Ryan Klesko hit one in support of Braves starter John Smoltz. The Mets would not make the Playoffs that season. The Yankees would, but would not win a postseason series. The Braves would go on to win the World Series.

The Brendan Byrne Arena, as the Meadowlands arena was then known, had a hockey seating capacity of 19,040 -- convenient for mocking the Rangers, until they broke their "Curse of 1940." (For basketball, it was 20,089.) There was no way I was going to get inside: Getting to the arena was possible, but the scalpers would be charging prices far outside my price range.

So I set my VCR to record WNYW-Channel 5, the Fox station in New York, and decided to go to my original hometown, Bloomfield, in Essex County. With Route 3, which passes the Meadowlands Complex, being just to the north of town, this would put me reasonably close. I went to the Town Pub at 378 Broad Street, ordered dinner (this is one detail I don't remember), and, as the Fox broadcast began at 8:00, began ordering Red Dog beer (this, I do remember), because I'd gone to the Yankees' home opener 2 months earlier, and tried it then, and liked it.

Mike Emrick, the Devils' usual broadcaster, and former Rangers goalie John Davidson broadcast for Fox, but there was so much noise in the Town Pub that we couldn't hear them. As home teams did in the NHL at the time, the Devils took the ice wearing white jerseys at home, while the Wings did so in red. Just 1 minute and 8 seconds into the game, Broten scored. But only 55 game-seconds after that, Fedorov tied it up.

At 13:01 of the 1st period, Coffey scored a shorthanded goal to make it 2-1 Wings, and, for the 1st time since the final horn of Game 3, clinching on this night was in doubt. What we did not yet know was that the Devils' defense, led by Stevens, would be up to the task, and the Wings would not score another goal that counted for 104 days.

At 17:45, Shawn Chambers tied it back up, and the 1st period ended 2-2. After Fox came back from commercial, I heard the bar break out into boos, and I looked up to see Emrick and Davidson interviewing NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. I joined in.

The next day, back at home, I ran the tape back, and listened to the interview. The crowd at the Meadowlands, seeing the interview on the arena scoreboard, and believing that Bettman favored the Devils' alleged proposed move to Nashville, chanted, "Bettman sucks!" Emrick asked him about this, and he said, "Never let it go unsaid that hockey fans are passionate!"

The key moment of the game came at 7:56 of the 2nd period. The Devils attacked, and the puck came to Broten. Lefthanded, he tried to shovel the puck past Vernon, who blocked it. He tried a 2nd time, but whiffed on the puck. He tried a 3rd time, and this time, as the instant replay showed, the puck sort of jumped over Vernon's left shoulder, and in.

It had been 15 years since the native of Roseau, Minnesota participated in the "Miracle On Ice." Now, he had scored a Stanley Cup-winning goal.

The 2nd period ended with the score still 3-2 to the Devils. In the 3rd, Sergei Brylin hit a slap shot at 7:46 that seemed to clinch it. At 12:32, Chambers spun and hit a lefty shot that Vernon never saw. The Stanley Cup was in a room somewhere under the stands, and as we roared in that Bloomfield bar, we couldn't hear the goal horn, but Fox put a camera on the Cup.

New Jersey Devils 5, Detroit Red Wings 2. The emotions were flowing. Peluso, one of the tough guys of the era, his long stringy black hair making him look like a member of Mötley Crüe, looked even more so: He was crying over having achieved his dream. He wasn't the only Mike P. in North Jersey with tears of joy in his eyes that night.

As the seconds ticked down, I made sure I looked at my watch so I would always know the exact time that it happened. It was 11:09 PM. Don't bet me. The clock ran out, and, as I learned the next day when I ran the tape back, Emrick said some of the most beautiful words I've ever heard, words I couldn't possibly have heard with all the noise in the bar at 11:09:

The championship to New Jersey! The Devils win the Stanley Cup!

The perfect words for the moment. As Trenton radio station WKXW, 101.5 FM, liked to say, "New Jersey 101.5. Not New York. Not Philadelphia. Proud to be New Jersey." I dearly love New York City. I love Philadelphia, too. I don't like their hockey teams, but I love the cities. But I was born and raised in New Jersey, and raised to love my home State.

Now, New Jersey was World Champions, and a team called the Devils had put me in Heaven. Indeed, the official NHL highlight film for the Finals would be titled Heaven.

A red carpet was laid out from the players' tunnel to center ice, and a table placed on it. The Conn Smythe Trophy, named for the old-time Maple Leafs head coach and general manager, and given to the Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs, was put on the table. Bettman came out, and got booed again. He announced that the Trophy had been awarded to Lemieux. There were a few good choices, but he was the definitive choice.

Then the Stanley Cup was brought out, by 2 employees of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, men wearing tuxedos and white gloves. They put it on the table as the fans went wild, always dreaming of seeing the Cup in their building. Now, it was here.

Bettman started talking again, and got booed again. He praised McMullen, Lamoriello, Lemaire, and the team in general. Then he turned to the Captain, and said, "Scott Stevens, this is for you!"
The Commissioner always gives the Cup to the Captain. It is then up to the Captain to decide who gets it next. Stevens knew it should go to the 3 guys who had been there almost from the beginning: MacLean, then Driver, then Daneyko.

Given the role he would eventually occupy in hockey history, it might surprise younger fans to know that Brodeur didn't get it until halfway through. When it was his turn with the Cup, McKay nearly dropped it. (Following the 2nd win in 2000, Stevens gave it to McKay first, since he'd been going through a rough patch.) Lemaire got it last. He'd won 8 Cups as a Canadiens player. This made 9.
I'm not old enough to remember the 1969 World Series -- I was born 2 months later -- but the Devils''95 Cup win was similar: The team from the New York Tri-State Area had been laughed at for its first few years, then it made an unexpected run to the final, faced an absolutely loaded establishment team, and ended up toying with them, resulting in an unexpected, joyful win that was clinched at home.

But neither win was a "miracle": Both the '69 Mets and the '95 Devils outworked their opponents, and fully deserved it. One major difference: Lemaire was already in his sport's Hall of Fame. Gil Hodges, manager of the '69 Mets, still isn't in his. Also, Jacques chewed a lot more gum than Gil.

It was a long ride home. A bus from Bloomfield back to Penn Station in Newark. A train back to New Brunswick. It was too late to take a bus back to East Brunswick, but I had enough money for a taxi. I don't remember what time I got home. It didn't matter. I was brimming with joy.

There was no ticker-tape parade. The team just had a celebration in the parking lot, in front of the arena. That's another good thing about the team's 2007 move to the Prudential Center: If they ever do win another Cup, they can have a parade up Newark's Broad Street.

Did I say, "move"? Within a few days, it was announced that McMullen had no intention of selling the team, and Nashville had to wait until the 1998-99 season for the Predators to debut.

That red-and-black-striped shirt? I also wore it for the Devils' clinchers of the 2000 and 2003 Stanley Cups. And, while it's not Yankee colors, I thought, why not? I wore it for the Yankees' clinchers of the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009 World Series.

It hasn't always worked, though. It didn't work for the Devils in Game 6 or Game 7 of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals. It worked in Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, the Adam Henrique Game, but not Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. It didn't work for the Yankees for Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, or Game 6 of the 2003 World Series, or Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. And, while it's (sort of) Rutgers colors as well, it's only worked for their football team about half the time.

I still have the shirt. It's got a few small holes in it, and it doesn't fit me anymore, since I'm considerably heavier than I was in 1995. (Even by the 2009 Yankee win, it was too small for me.) I've joked about raising it to the ceiling in my bedroom, like a retired uniform number. But I will never throw it away.

Because it's a reminder of the night that my little hockey team grew up. Expansion team no more. "Mickey Mouse organization"? Get outta here with that crap. The New Jersey Devils had won a title. And would win another. And another. (Still waiting for another, though.)

*

Where are the '95 Devils now? The players are listed here by their uniform number, name, position, and current age. I give brief summaries of their careers, and list their current status, where known.

Dr. John McMullen, Owner, from Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey (where his next-door neighbor was Yogi Berra): He sold the team in 2000, shortly after their 2nd Cup win, and died on September 16, 2005, age 87. The Devils wore a "JM" memorial patch on their jerseys during the 2005-06 season.
His alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, named their hockey arena for him. After graduating from Annapolis, he served 15 years in the Navy, including World War II, and rose to the rank of Commander. His doctorate was in mechanical engineering. He also owned baseball's Houston Astros from 1979 to 1993, having been one of George Steinbrenner's "limited partners" in owning the Yankees from 1973 to 1979. As he put it, "Nothing is so limited as being one of George's limited partners."

Lou Lamoriello, General Manager, from the Providence suburb of Johnston, Rhode Island, 77: Having added Stanley Cups in 2000 and 2003, and unsuccessful trips to the Finals in 2001 and 2012, he finally stepped down as general manager in 2015. He coached the Devils for 50 games in 2005-06 and 3 games in 2006-07. He is now the president and general manager of the Islanders.
He was also the GM of the U.S. team that won the 1996 World Cup. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. His sons Chris and Tim also worked in the Devils' organization. He also has a daughter, Heidi.

Jacques Lemaire, Head Coach, from the Montreal suburb of LaSalle, Quebec, 74: Already a member of the Hall of Fame due to having won 8 Stanley Cups and scored 366 goals as a member of the Montreal Canadiens, he coached the Devils from 1993 to 1997, then became the 1st head coach and 1st general manager of the expansion Minnesota Wild, leading them to the Western Conference Finals in 2003, nearly putting them against the Devils in the Stanley Cup Finals. (Their goalie was his nephew, Manny Fernandez.)

He was an assistant coach on the Canadian team that won the 2010 Winter Olympics. Coached the Devils again in 2009-10, and came back for a 3rd tenure in 2010-11. He rejoined Lamoriello as a "special assignment coach" for the Devils, and followed him to Toronto and now the Islanders with that same title. In 2017, he was named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.

Larry Robinson, Assistant Coach, from the Ottawa suburb of Winchester, Ontario, 66: He was already a member of the Hall of Fame due to having won 6 Stanley Cups and 2 Norris Trophies as the NHL's top defenseman with the Canadiens. After the '95 Cup, he was immediately hired to coach the Los Angeles Kings, lasting 4 seasons. He coached the Devils to the 2000 Cup and the 2001 Finals, but was fired late in the 2001-02 season.
He was brought back as an assistant on the Devils team that won the 2003 Cup, under head coach Pat Burns. He became head coach again after Burns' cancer returned in 2005, but left in midseason due to concerns over his own health. He stayed in the Devils' organization until 2012, when he was hired as assistant coach and director of player development for the San Jose Sharks.

He is now a "senior consultant to hockey operations" for the St. Louis Blues. Their 2019 Stanley Cup win was the franchise's 1st, but his 10th. He was also named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players.

Jacques Caron, Assistant Coach, Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, 80: He remained the Devils' goaltending coach until he retired in 2013. He is now out of hockey. He tended goal in the NHL with L.A.,  the St. Louis Blues, and the Vancouver Canucks, his NHL arrival delayed until the 1967 expansion. He also played in the WHA with the Cleveland Crusaders and the Cincinnati Stingers.

Dennis "Red" Gendron, Assistant Coach, Berlin, New Hampshire, 62: Interestingly enough, his high school coach, for whom he later assisted, was named Albie Brodeur -- as far as I know, no relation to Martin. He was hired as a Devils coach after leading the University of Maine to the 1993 National Championship, he remained in the Devils' organization until 2004, before moving on. He is now back as the head coach at Maine, winning another National Championship in 2013.

3 Ken Daneyko, defenseman, from Edmonton, 56: He stayed with the Devils through all 3 Cups, his last game being a surprise inclusion by head coach Pat Burns in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. "Mr. Devil" immediately became a Devils' broadcaster, a post he still holds, and his uniform Number 3 was retired.

Although he was never truly a great player, his 20 seasons as a Devils player and 12 seasons and counting as a Devils broadcaster make him one of the most popular figures in team history.

4 Scott Stevens, defenseman, Kingston, Ontario, 56: He stayed with the Devils through all 3 Cups, including being awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy for Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs in 2000. Midway through the 2003-04 season, he sustained a concussion and missed the rest of the season. Despite the added recovery time of the 2004-05 lockout, he never played again, and retired.

In 22 seasons of play -- 8 in Washington, 1 in St. Louis and 13 in New Jersey -- he never had a season of negative plus-minus.  The 1st Devil to get his uniform number retired, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, and was named to the NHL's 100 Greatest Players.

In 2012, he returned to the Devils as an assistant coach. Midway through the 2014-15 season, he and Adam Oates were named co-head coaches, an experiment that lasted for the rest of the season. After spending some time in the Minnesota Wild organization, he is not currently involved in hockey in any official capacity.

6 Tommy Albelin, defenseman, Stockholm, Sweden, 56: He remained with the Devils for 1 more season, then played for the Calgary Flames before returning to New Jersey in 2001. In this 2nd go-round, he remained until 2006, and retired. He stayed with in the Devils organization, coaching at various levels, including as an assistant coach in the recent Oates-Stevens regime, before assuming his current position, an assistant coach with the Switzerland national team.

7 Chris McAlpine, defenseman, the Minneapolis suburb of Roseville, Minnesota, 48: Traded to St. Louis in 1996, he also played for the Tampa Bay Lightning, Atlanta Thrashers, and Chicago Blackhawks, before wrapping up his career with L.A. in 2003. He is now a player agent living in Minneapolis.

8 Mike Peluso, left wing, Pengilly, Minnesota, 54: The left side of "the Crash Line," he was traded to St. Louis after the 1996 season. He was playing for Calgary when a back injury ended his career early in the 1997-98 season. He later scouted his native Minnesota for the Edmonton Oilers.

Sadly, but inevitably, one of these players will be the 1st '95 Devil to die. Given the current state of his health, that is most likely to be Peluso. He has sued his former teams, including the Devils, for malpractice, for not taking his injuries seriously, following a concussion in 1993. He says he has suffered seizures, dementia, memory loss, anxiety and depression. In 2017, he was offered a settlement of $325,000, but turned it down. At this writing, the legal case is unresolved.

9 Neal Broten, center, Roseau, Minnesota, 60: As I said, his brothers Aaron and Paul also played for the Devils. Indeed, Aaron was the last member of the original 1982-83 Devils to still be with the team, although he was gone well before the '95 Cup.

Well, as it turned out, they had to wait a little longer than they thought.

Usually, the Premier League season begins on the 2nd Saturday and August, and lasts through late Summer, all through Autumn and Winter, and halfway through Spring, ending on the 2nd Sunday in May.

Liverpool Football Club even had a song about it. To the tune of Barry Sadler's "The Ballad of the Green Berets," invoking the bird on their crest, a cormorant that has been a symbol of the city since the 14th Century, and the man who kickstarted their glory days, 1959-74 manager Bill Shankly:

A Liverbird... upon their chest.
These are men... of Shankly's best.
A team that plays... the Liverpool way
and wins the cham...pionship in May.

Founded in 1892, LFC, a.k.a. the Mersey Reds, the Scousers and the Kopites, had won the top division of English soccer in 1901, 1906, 1922, 1923, 1947, 1964, 1966, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990. A record 18 titles.

They had also won the FA Cup (Football Association Cup) 7 times: 1965, 1974, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2001 and 2006 -- but only in 1986 did they win both, or "do The Double." They've won the Football League Cup a record 8 times: 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1995, 2001, 2003 and 2012.

They've won the UEFA Champions League 6 times, more than any other English team: 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005 and 2019. And they've won the UEFA Cup, the secondary European tournament, now known as the Europa League, 3 times: 1973, 1976 and 2001. In 2001, they won what remains a unique achievement, a "cup treble" of the FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup.

But 1989 saw the beginning of the end. The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster killed 96 people and injured hundreds of others at the start of an FA Cup Semifinal. They went on to win the Cup, but North London team Arsenal stopped them from winning The Double by beating them at their own stadium, Anfield, in the season's League finale, to win the title.

Liverpool won the title again in 1990, but that was it. From 1991 to 2013, 23 seasons, during which the Football League Division One was replaced by the Premier League for the 1992-93 season, the title would be won by either Manchester United or Arsenal 17 times. In 2009, Man U tied Liverpool with their 18th title. In 2011, they surpassed them with a 19th. In 2013, a 20th.

Liverpool fans insisted that their 5 European Cups, to United's 3, mattered more. Since the rest of England can't stand either team, most people didn't care which meant more.

When he took the manager's job at United, Alex Ferguson said, he wanted to "knock Liverpool off their fucking perch." He did. Although some say the man who really knocked them off their perch was Graeme Souness, a former star player at Liverpool who managed them badly in the 1990s.

Between 1990 and 2020, Liverpool managed to win 3 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 2 Champions Leagues (including last year's, making 6 overall), and a UEFA Cup. But not the Premier League. Not since it was still the old Division One had they won it.

They finished 2nd to Arsenal in 1991, a strong 3rd behind Man U and Newcastle United in 1996, a strong 3rd behind Arsenal and Man U in 1998, 2nd behind Arsenal in 2002, and 2nd behind Man U in 2009.

Then came 2 painful close calls. In 2014, they need just 10 points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw) in their last 4 games to win the title. But a slip by Steven Gerrard in a 2-0 loss against West London team Chelsea symbolized a collapse that gave Manchester City the title by 2 points.

In 2019, they only lost 1 game all season, but it was to Man City, and a goal that would have tied the game was ruled out by Video-Assisted Replay (VAR) -- by the slimmest of margins, but correctly. Between that loss, and too many draws, the lost the title by 3 points.

These were the kinds of losses that used to befall the Boston Red Sox (whose owners, Fenway Sports Group, now own Liverpool Football Club), the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the New York Rangers before they finally ended their droughts -- and still befall the New York Mets, the Cleveland Indians, the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

A common joke about this legendary team in this legendary port city goes as follows:

Q: What ship has never docked in Liverpool?
A: The Premiership.

Throughout the 2019-20 season, it looked like Liverpool would not only win the title, but match the 2003-04 Arsenal team by going unbeaten in League play, or "Invincible" -- and with a higher point total that would thus surpass the Arsenal Invincibles. But they did lose a League game -- to Hertfordshire team Watford, who still might end up getting relegated this season.

And then came the shutdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic. So the clincher that was expected to come in April, in May at the latest, had to wait.

Yesterday, Chelsea beat Manchester City 2-1. That meant that Man City could no longer catch Liverpool in the standings. After 31 games in the 38-game league season, Liverpool had clinched on June 25, 2020. In terms of number of games, it was the earliest clinching ever. But in terms of calendar date, it was the latest clinching ever.

Their last title... also was not clinched in May. It was clinched on April 28, 1990, when they beat West London team Queens Park Rangers 2-1, at home at the stadium named Anfield. Ian Rush (the man with the mustache in the above photo) scored in the 40th minute, and John Barnes (the black man at the right) added a penalty-kick goal in the 63rd.

April 28, 1990. That's 30 years and just under 2 months. How long has that been?

*

At the time, "English football" was a game where a "foreigner" was considered to be from somewhere else in the British Isles. Hardly anybody was from elsewhere in the world. Of those, most were from elsewhere in the British Commonwealth.

One such player was Bruce Grobbelaar, Liverpool's starting goalkeeper. He was from Rhodesia, and had served in their army during their civil war, whose result turned a white-ruled apartheid nation into the black-majority-ruled nation of Zimbabwe.

There is no evidence that Grobbelaar ever participated in war crimes. Indeed, during the Hillsborough Disaster of April 15, 1989, his military training kicked in, and he tried to help the victims, and the police stopped him from doing so. One of several reasons the police were villains that day.

Nor is there any evidence that Grobbelaar was as racist as the government he fought for: Liverpool were one of the earliest English soccer teams to encourage black players, including Barnes, born in Jamaica but playing for the English national team.

Liverpool had long relied on Scotsmen, including former manager Bill Shankly. (Despite having a Scottish surname, his longtime assistant and successor, Bob Paisley, was born and raised in England.) This also included their current manager, who was perhaps their greatest player ever, Kenny Dalglish. As a player, "King Kenny" had helped them win 7 League titles, an FA Cup (in 1986, as a player-manager, enabling the Mersey Reds to win what is still their only "Double"), and 3 Champions League titles. This was his 3rd title as their manager.

Other Scotsmen on the 1990 Liverpool team included defenders Alan Hansen and Gary Gillespie, and midfielder Steve Nicol. Liverpool also had a tradition of fine Irish players, including, at this time, defender Steve Staunton, midfielders Ray Houghton and Ronnie Whelan (then their Captain), and forward John Aldridge. From Northern Ireland, they had midfielder Jim Magilton. From Wales, they had forward Rush. Their English stars included the aforementioned left wing John Barnes, centreback Gary Ablett, right back Barry Venison, left back David Burrows, midfielder Steve McMahon, and forward Peter Beardsley.

But they were also among the earliest English teams to go onto the European Continent, particularly into Scandinavia. They signed defender Glenn Hysén from Sweden, and midfielder Jan Mølby from Denmark. They even had a player from Israel, forward Ronny Rosenthal.

The aforementioned Hillsborough Disaster led to the Taylor Report, which mandated, among other things, that all English stadiums be made all-seater. No more all-standing ends. Nearly every stadium was either replaced with a new one, or rebuilt section-by-section. Anfield had a record attendance of 61,905 in 1952, but after redevelopment, capacity was cut to about 35,000. Recent renovations and expansions have brought it back up to 53,394, and 61,000 is now the goal.

The top flight had 22 teams, and this was brought down to 20 early in the Premier League era. Liverpool's main rivals were Everton, who play at Goodison Park, just a mile away, on the other side of Stanley Park. Think of it this way: In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is at 81st Street and 5th Avenue, inside the eastern edge of Central Park. The American Museum of Natural History is at 81st Street and Central Park West. Now imagine that, instead of being the homes of museums, one of those locations is the home of the Yankees and the other is that of the Mets.

But Liverpool's biggest rival is Manchester United, 31 miles to the east. In 1992, having blown the last title in the old Division One, and not having won it since 1967 fans of Liverpool and other clubs taunted them by singing, "You'll never win the title!" The next season, the 1st under the Premier League banner, they won, beginning a string of 4 titles in 5 seasons, 8 in 11, and 13 in 21.

Liverpool had recently dropped Lancashire company Crown Paints as their shirt sponsor, for Milan, Italy-based appliance company Candy, famous for its washing machines. This would be replaced with Danish beer Carlsberg in 1992 and London-based bank Standard Chartered in 2011.

Current Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp was about to turn 23 years old, and a defender for Rot-Weiss Frankfurt in his native Germany -- or, should I say, West Germany, as reunification with East Germany would not be completed until the following September.

Ronaldo da Lima was 13 years old; Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, Gianluigi Buffon, Didier Drogba and Carles Puyol were 12; Tim Howard was 11; Andrea Pirlo and Ronaldinho were 10; Steven Gerrard and John Terry were 9; Iker Casillas, Hope Solo, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Landon Donovan were 8; and Carli Lloyd, Clint Dempsey and Franck Ribéry were 7.

Luis Robles, Wayne Rooney, Heather O'Reilly, Cristiano Ronaldo and Bradley Wright-Phillips were 5; Megan Rapinoe, Mario Gómez, Marta Vieira da Silva and Manuel Neuer were 4; Vincent Kompany, Olivier Giroud, Jamie Vardy and Luis Suárez were 3; Dax McCarty, Leonard Bonucci and Lionel Messi were 2; Sergio Agüero, Robert Lewandowski and Mesut Özil were a year and a half; Alexis Sánchez was 1; Alex Morgan was 10 months old, Garth Bale 9 months, Toni Kroos 4 months.

Liverpool's current Captain Jordan Henderson, defensive star Virgil van Dijk, forward Mohamed Salah and starting goalkeeper Alisson Ramses Becker hadn't been born yet. Nor had Aaron Ramsey, Eden Hazard, Antonie Griezmann, Jack Wilshere, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, Mario Götze, Paul Pogba, Harry Kane, Ada Hegerberg, Dele Alli, Christian Pulisic, Kylian Mbappé, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe.

Current New York Red Bulls manager Chris Armas had just graduated high school. Current New York City FC manager Ronny Deila was still in it. So were Aaron Boone of the Yankees, Jacque Vaughn of the Nets and Alain Nasreddine of the Devils.

Mike Miller of the Knicks was an assistant coach at Western Illinois University. Barry Trotz of the Islanders was a scout for the Washington Capitals. Adam Gase of the Jets was 12 years old. Luis Rojas of the Mets and Joe Judge of the Giants were 8. Walt Hopkins of the Liberty was 5. And David Quinn of the Rangers had put his hockey career on hold due to illness. (Quinn was born on July 30, 1966, the day England won the World Cup.)

Liverpool had dethroned Arsenal as League Champions, following Arsenal's 1988-89 season-finale shocker at Anfield. Liverpool were the current holders of the FA Cup, but were about to cede it to Manchester United. It would be United's 1st trophy under manager Alex Ferguson. A.C. Milan were about to win their 2nd straight European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League.

In North American major league sports, the defending World Champions were the Oakland Athletics in baseball, the San Francisco 49ers in football, the Detroit Pistons in basketball, and the Calgary Flames in hockey. The Heavyweight Champion of the World was James "Buster" Douglas, who had just knocked out the previously unbeaten Mike Tyson 6 months earlier, but was about to lose it to Evander Holyfield.

The Olympic Games have since been held in America twice, France, Spain, Norway, Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China, Canada, Britain and Russia. The World Cup has since been held in America, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.

The head of state for Canada, and Britain, was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed -- but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was about to lose her job as Leader of the Conservative Party, or the "Tories," to John Major, due to her support of an onerous poll tax. The Prime Minister of Canada was Brian Mulroney.

Britain's current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was then reporting on, of all things, the European Commission, for the national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, a paper so conservative it is known as the Torygraph. Canada's current PM, Justin Trudeau, had just graduated from high school.

The President of the United States was George H.W. Bush. His son George W., having failed spectacularly in business, had recently (with more than a little help from his "friends") bought the Texas Rangers. Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, their wives, and the widows of Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy were still alive.

Bill Clinton was about to be elected to a 5th term as Governor of Arkansas. Barack Obama was President... of the Harvard Law Review. Joe Biden was running for his 4th term as a U.S. Senator from Delaware. Donald Trump was in the process of divorcing 1st wife Ivana Zelníčková, so he could marry his mistress, Marla Maples. He was also going through one of his periodic bankruptcies, which the divorce certainly didn't help.

There were 26 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The idea that corporations were "people" and had the rights thereof was considered ridiculous -- but so was the idea that a person could legally marry a person of the same gender. Only 2 Justices then on the Supreme Court are still on it: Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.

The Governor of New York was Mario Cuomo, whose son, current Governor Andrew Cuomo, was Chairman of the New York City Homeless Commission, reporting to Mayor David Dinkins. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio was an aide to Dinkins. The Governor of New Jersey was Jim Florio. Current Governor Phil Murphy was working at Goldman Sachs.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was a bishop in Buenos Aires in his native Argentina. There have since been 5 Presidents of the United States, 7 Prime Ministers of Britain, and 3 Popes.

There were still living veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine Campaign, the Mexican Revolution, the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese War. There were still living survivors of the Johnstown Flood of 1889, the sinking of the General Slocum in 1904, and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Major novels of 1990 included Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard, The Bourne Ultimatum
by Robert Ludlum, and The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow. The last of these became a TV miniseries the next year, while the rest all became major feature films.

Stephen King was working on Needful Things. George R.R. Martin, frustrated that his screenplays and teleplays were getting cut, or dropped completely, decided to return to fantasy novels, and began the process that led to Game of Thrones. J.K. Rowling was on a long train trip from Manchester to London, when she got the idea that would become the Harry Potter series.

Major films of the Spring of 1990 included Pretty Woman, the 1st film version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cry-Baby, Ernest Goes to Jail, I Love You to Death, Miami Blues, and Q&A. Steven Spielberg was directing Hook, a story of a grownup Peter Pan (played by Robin Williams) returning to Neverland, and George Lucas helped him out on it.

TV series that had debuted late in the 1989-90 season included Twin Peaks, In Living Color and
Wings. Miami Vice, the revivals of Mission: Impossible and The Bradys, Mama's Family, ALF and Baywatch had recently aired their series finales.

The night that Liverpool last won the title, CBS would air the last episode of the Vietnam War-themed drama Tour of Duty. Soon, we would be able to watch the finales of My Two Dads, 227, Falcon Crest, and, most honored of all for the way it went out, Newhart.

Soon to debut was The Flash, starring John Wesley Shipp as DC Comics' Scarlet Speedster. Michael Keaton was reaping the benefits of the previous year's Batman film, Christopher Reeve was still thought of as Superman, Lynda Carter was still thought of as Wonder Woman, and Nicholas Hammond was still the most recent live-action Spider-Man.

Timothy Dalton had played James Bond in the previous year's Licence to Kill, but quit, and legal wrangling kept the 007 franchise in limbo for a while. So was Doctor Who, recently canceled with the last and Seventh Doctor having been Sylvester McCoy.

No one had yet heard of Deadpool, Buffy Summers, Fox Mulder, Ross Geller & Rachel Greene, Bridget Jones, Xena, Carrie Bradshaw, Jed Bartlet, Tony Soprano, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Rick Grimes, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan, Don Draper, Katniss Everdeen, Walter White or Richard Castle.

Sinéad O'Connor had the Number 1 song in America, with a cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2U." Paul McCartney was touring for his album Flowers In the Dirt. A tribute concert for the recently freed Nelson Mandela was held at the original Wembley Stadium in London. Gloria Estefan was recovering from injuries sustained in the crash of the Miami Sound Machine's tour bus. Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses married Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers, but they would divorce later in the year.

Digital Underground released their album Sex Packets, including their most familiar song, "The Humpty Dance." En Vogue released Born to Sing, Public Enemy Fear of a Black Planet, Johnny Gill and Wilson Phillips their self-titled debut albums, the Dead Milkmen Metaphysical Graffiti, and Paula Abdul Shut Up and Dance.

Kris Jenner was in the process of divorcing Robert Kardashian, so she could marry 1976 Olympic hero Bruce Jenner. None of the children of any of the 3 of them was famous yet. Shakira, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ryan Reynolds, Kerry Washington, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Tom Welling were 13 years old; Kanye West, Sean Murray and Stana Katic 12; Usher, Nelly Furtado, Katie Holmes, John Legend, Aaliyah, Heath Ledger and Kourtney Kardashian 11; Brandon Routh, Pink, and Cote de Pablo 10.

Kim Kardashian, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys 9, Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba were 9; Natalie Portman, Chris Evans, Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson and Britney Spears, Sienna Miller, Cobie Smulders and Hayley Atwell were 8; Kirsten Dunst, Cory Monteith, Jodie Whittaker, Elisabeth Moss, Matt Smith, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong'o were 7; Henry Cavill, Andrew Garfield, Lil Wayne, Amy Winehouse, Adam Driver and Emily Wickersham were 6; Khloé Kardashian, Katy Perry, Leona Lewis and Scarlett Johansson were 5.

Gal Gadot, Chrissy Teigen, Lily Allen, Lana Del Rey, T-Pain, Bruno Mars, Ciara, Janelle Monae and Lady Gaga were 4; Drake, Kesha, Robert Pattinson, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Lea Michele, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Naya Rivera, Rose Leslie, Rob Kardashian, Shay Mitchell and Caity Lotz were 3; Kate Nash, Wiz Khalifa, Tyler Hoechlin, Hilary Duff, Kevin Jonas, Rhianna, Jessie J and Robbie Amell were 2; Adele was a year and a half; Melissa Benoist and Emma Stone were 1; Daniel Radcliffe 9 months, Joe Jonas 8 months, Dakota Johnson 6 months, Taylor Swift 4 months, Grant Gustin 3 months, Kristin Stewart 19 days, Emma Watson 13 days.

And Iggy Azaelea, Ed Sheeran, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Arian Grande, Justin Bieber, all of the members of One Direction, and all of the Modern Family kids hadn't been born yet.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.96 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 25 cents, and a New York Subway ride $1.15. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.22, a cup of coffee $1.49, a McDonald's meal (Big Mac, fries, shake) $5.23, a movie ticket $4.23, a new car $15,045, and a new house $151,200. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day before (a Friday) at 2,645.05.

The tallest building in the world was the Sears Tower in Chicago. The World Wide Web was about to debut, but hardly anybody would know about it for a while. Mobile phones were still the size of the original Star Trek series' communicators. The Hubble Space Telescope had been launched, but it wasn't working, and would need to be repaired by a later shuttle mission. The 1st digital camera was sold in the U.S. The leading home video game system was the Sega Genesis. There were birth control pills, but no Viagra.

In the Spring of 1990, few Americans had heard of Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, or had reason to, because the government still considered both of them to be allies. The World Health Organization, an official unit of the United Nations, removed homosexuality from its list of diseases. Lithuania, then Estonia, and then Latvia declared their independence from the Soviet Union. Namibia declared its independence from South Africa.

The capitalist Yemen Arab Republic, a.k.a. Yemen, North Yemen, and Yemen (Sana'a) reunified with the socialist People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, a.k.a. South Yemen, Democratic Yemen, the South Arabian Federation, or Yemen (Aden).

Australia re-elected its Labour Party government, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Fernando Collor de Mello took office as the 1st democratically elected President of Brazil in 29 years. Free elections were held in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania, and the Communist Party was defeated in each.

Conservative parties won the elections in Greece, Colombia and Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, new President Violeta Chamorro became the 1st female head of state in the Americas to be elected in her own right. The opposition won in Burma, but the military dictatorship nullified the result and held on to power.

There were riots in the Brixton section of South London, for the 3rd time in 9 years, and these would extend to downtown's Trafalgar Square, known as the Second Battle of Trafalgar. The ferry
Scandinavian Star caught fire on its Norway-to-Denmark route, killing 158 people. A riot between soccer fans took place in Zagreb, Croatia, between fans of host Dinamo Zagreb and visiting Red Star Belgrade of Serbia, one of the early signs of the breakup of Yugoslavia.

In America, a protest against environmental damage was held outside the New York Stock Exchange on Earth Day. Another was held at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, complaining that the NIH's director of AIDS research was acting too slowly. The demonstrators were wrong: He was being careful, and he ended up getting it right. His name was Anthony Fauci. I was at both demonstrations, right about Wall Street greed, but wrong about Fauci.

An arson at the illegal Happy Land social club in The Bronx killed 87 people. An SR-71 blackbird set a transcontinental speed record, going from one coast to the other in 1 hour, 8 minutes and 17 seconds. Conservatives protested of an exhibit of the late Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. Michael Milken was sentenced to prison for stock fraud. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, but was later found to not be working.

Greta Garbo, and Sammy Davis Jr., and Jim Henson died. So did soccer legend Lev Yashin, and boxing champion Rocky Graziano. Kristen Stewart, and Emma Watson, and supermodel and baseball wife Hannah Davis Jeter were born. So were baseball star Starlin Castro, basketball star Paul George, and soccer star Miralem Pjanić.

April 28, 1990. Liverpool Football Club clinched the championship of the Football League Division One. It was the 18th time they had done so.

They have finally won their 19th. Their 1st in the Premier League era. After years of their fans claiming, "This is our year," their year finally came.

And, as with the "We've only won it five times"... I mean, six times... they'll never let us hear the end of it.

June 27, 2010, 10 years ago: The World Cup is played in South Africa, in its Round of 16. England have advanced to play Germany, in front of 40,510 at Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein.

England and Germany -- or, from 1945 to 1990, West Germany -- have one of the most storied rivalries in the history of international soccer. They had first played each other in 1899, although the 1st officially recognized match between the national teams was not until 1930, a draw in Berlin.

In 1935, a German team under Nazi rule came to London, accompanied by 8,000 of their fans, and a Nazi swastika flag flew along with the Union Jack over the venue, White Hart Lane. But there was no dirty play, and England won. In 1938, England went to Berlin, and the Foreign Office told the England players to give the Nazi salute as they lined up for the pregame ceremony. All but one went along with it. England won again. In 1954, a few months after West Germany won the World Cup, England won at Wembley Stadium in London. 

In 1966, they faced each other in the World Cup Final at Wembley. Manager Alf Ramsey invoked World Wars I and II to his the players: "If, on the morrow, the Germans beat us on our soil at our national game, we'd do well to remember that, twice this century, we have beaten them on their soil at theirs."

England thought they had the game won, but the Germans scored in the last minute to send the game to extra time. Geoff Hurst scored, and, ever since, everybody who doesn't like England has insisted that the goal hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced out, not going over the line, and shouldn't have been allowed. (I’ve seen that clip many times, and I’m convinced it went in.) Hurst scored again, and England won, 4-2.

West Germany got its revenge in the 1970 World Cup and in Euro 1972, knocking England out in the Quarterfinal each time. The next major meetings came in the 1990 World Cup in Italy and Euro 96 at Wembley. Both times, it was in the Semifinal. Both times, the game went to penalties. Both times, the Germans won and knocked the English out. Both times, the Germans won the Final, too.

England beat Germany in the Group Stage of Euro 2000. Later that year, the last event at the old Wembley Stadium, before it was demolished and replaced, was a 2002 World Cup Qualifier, which Germany won. The next year, England went to Berlin and shocked Germany 5-1. One of the first few events at the new Wembley was a 2007 friendly (exhibition game) between them, which Germany won.

Now, in the Round of 16 at the 2010 World Cup, the old rivals met again. German were good. But this was England's "Golden Generation," which was going to win it all:

* From Liverpool: Midfielder and Captain Steven Gerrard, centreback Jamie Carragher, right back Glen Johnson.

* From Manchester United: Forward Wayne Rooney and midfielder Michael Carrick.

* From Chelsea: Centerback John Terry, left back Ashley Cole, midfielders Frank Lampard and Joe Cole. (No relation: Joe is white, Ashley is black.)

* From Tottenham Hotspur: Centrebacks Ledley King and Michael Dawson, midfielder Aaron Lennon, and forward Peter Crouch (formerly of Liverpool) and Jermain Defoe.

* From Manchester City: Midfielders Gareth Barry and Shaun Wright-Phillips.

* From Aston Villa: Forward Emile Heskey (formerly of Liverpool), centerback Stephen Warnock Upson (ditto), and midfielder James Milner (later of Liverpool).

* From West Ham United: Centerback Matthew Upson and backup goalkeeper Robert Green.

* From Portsmouth: Starting goalkeeper David James (formerly of Liverpool and West Ham).

* And from Birmingham City, backup goalkeeper Joe Hart (later to star for Manchester City).

No players from Arsenal. The only Arsenal player selected was Theo Walcott, but he ended up missing the tournament due to injury. This was a pattern for the World Cup and the European Championships: The Gunners tended to not have their players selected, while the other team in North London, Tottenham, would have multiple players selected, and then England would flop.

Arsenal fans would end up divided: Those from England would say that England would have won had Arsenal players been selected, while those from elsewhere would be glad their players weren't tarred with the brush of failure.

So cocky were England that, upon finding out England's group for the tournament, right-wing national newspaper The Sun called it "EASY: England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks" (meaning the U.S.) and "Best English group since The Beatles."

The opener was against the U.S. on June 12, and manager Fabio Capello started Green in goal instead of the aging James. The result was a mishandling of a Clint Dempsey shot by Green that went into the net, resulting in a 1-1 draw. National newspaper the Daily Mirror, remembering England getting knocked out of the 1986 World Cup by a handballed goal that Diego Maradona of Argentina justified as being "by the hand of God," called it "Hand of Clod."

It got worse for England: They could only draw 0-0 with Algeria. They had to beat Slovenia to qualify for the knockout stage. They did, 1-0 -- but the U.S. stunned Algeria with a Landon Donovan goal in stoppage time, allowing them to top the Group via tiebreakers. The U.S. would play Ghana (and lose), while England had to face "Ze Germans" again. (Teams that finished 2nd in their Group each faced a team that had finished 1st in another Group, as Germany had.)

*

The shirt colors were the same as in the 1966 World Cup Final: England in red, Germany in white. A good omen? Not really: The Germans had worn white in the 1954 World Cup Final, the 1970 World Cup Quarterfinal (in which England wore red), the German leg of the Euro 72 Quarterfinal (in which England wore red -- in the English leg, England wore white, the Germans green), the 1974 World Cup Final, the 1990 World Cup Final, and the Euro 96 Semifinal (in which England wore gray), and won them all. (Then again, the Germans also wore white in the 1982 World Cup Final, and lost.)

England started James in goal; Johnson, Upson, Terry and Ashley Cole at the back; Milner, Lampard, Barry and Gerrard in midfield; and Defoe and Rooney up top. It didn't work: Miroslav Klose scored for Germany in the 20th minute, and Lukas Podolski made it 2-0 in the 32nd.

Upson scored in the 37th, to close it to within 2-1. Then in the 39th minute, Lampard blasted a shot past Manuel Neuer that seemed to tie it, and sent the England fans into a frenzy.

But the referee, Jorge Larrionda, waved it off. (He is a native of Uruguay, in South Africa, and World Cup rules state that a referee cannot be from the same continent as either of the teams.) It was the exact same reasoning that non-England fans say the 1966 extra-time goal should have been waved off: It hit the underside of the crossbar, and bounced out without going in.

Some have called this 2010 "ghost goal" Germany's revenge for the goal that should have been ruled out in the 1966 Final between England and West Germany.

The instant replay made it obvious: The ball was well over the line.

To this day, English fans swear that if the goal had been counted, England would have won the game, and would have gone on to win the World Cup. "After all, we invented the game, mate!" (Yeah, I'm a Rutgers fan. Rutgers played and won the 1st college football game in America, but that doesn't mean anything now.)

At any rate, Thomas Müller scored in the 67th and the 70th, and Germany won, 4-1. The English were outraged.

Germany went on to beat Argentina in the Quarterfinal, but lost the Semifinal to Spain, who beat the Netherlands to win the Cup.

*

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Jorge Larrionda for England Losing the 2010 World Cup

5. The Game Would Only Have Been Tied. There were 51 minutes left to play, plus stoppage time in each half. So, probably 55 minutes, in which England would have had to be a net 1-0 over Germany.

4. The Germans Were Better. Had the goal counted, instead of winning 4-1, Germany would have won 4-2. Any Englishman who says England would have won if Lampard’s goal had counted is deluded.

Manuel Neuer. Sami Khedira, Bastian Schweinsteiger. Mesut Özil. Lukas Podolski. Miroslav Klose. Thomas Müller. Philipp Lahm. Per Mertesacker. Toni Kroos. Jérôme Boateng. 11 of the 23 players on this team were back 4 years later, helping Germany win the World Cup, shellacking Brazil 7-1 in their national stadium in the Semifinal, and then beating Argentina in extra time of the Final.

Speaking of whom...

3. Argentina. Had England reached the Quarterfinal, they would have faced an Argentine team coached by old foe Diego Maradona, and including some of the world's top players: Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano, Ángel Di María, Juan Sebastián Verón, Carlos Tevez, Sergio Agüero, Gonzalo Higuaín, Gabriel Heinze, Nicolás Otamendi, Diego Milito, Javier Pastore.

Yes, Germany wiped Argentina out, 4-0. And, yes, in a fantasy sequence, an England that beat Germany should have beaten Argentina. But it doesn't necessarily work that way. 

And Argentina were already in England's heads, having knocked them out of the World Cup in 1986 on Maradona's "Hand of God," and again in 1998 on penalties. England Englund were not going to beat Argentina.

And even if they had... 

2. Spain. Had England reached the Semifinal, they would have faced a Spanish team that was incredibly dirty, loaded as they were with players from 2 of the cheatingest teams in world sport, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

They would have dove for penalties, and launched tackles on England that would have gotten their players sent off in England's Premier League, but, without English referees to protect them, play might simply have been waved on.

1. England Weren't Good Enough. They blew a lead against America. They couldn't beat Algeria. They barely beat Slovenia. The only finished 2nd in a Group in which they were the only team that had ever even reached the Semifinal (with the exception of the U.S. getting that far in the very 1st World Cup, in 1930).

Here's England's tournament record, since their 1966 triumph:

* Euro 68: Semifinals.

* 1970 World Cup: Quarterfinals, lost -- to West Germany.

* Euro 72: Quarterfinals, lost -- to West Germany.

* 1974 World Cup: Failed to qualify.

* Euro 76: Failed to qualify.

* 1978 World Cup: Failed to to qualify.

* Euro 80: Failed to qualify from the Group Stage -- 1 of the last 8 teams, so, effectively, the Quarterfinals.

* 1982 World Cup: Lost in the 2nd Group stage, making them 1 of the last 12 teams.

* Euro 84: Failed to qualify.

* 1986 World Cup: Quarterfinals.

* Euro 88: Finished last in their Group.

* 1990 World Cup: Semifinals, lost on penalties -- to Germany.

* Euro 92: Finished last in their Group.

* 1994 World Cup: Failed to qualify.

* Euro 96: Semifinals, lost on penalties -- to Germany.

* 1998 World Cup: Round of 16.

* Euro 2000: Eliminated in the Group Stage.

* 2002 World Cup: Quarterfinals. This is when that "Golden Generation" started to come in.

* Euro 2004: Quarterfinals, lost on penalties.

* 2006 World Cup: Quarterfinals, lost on penalties.

* Euro 2008: Failed to qualify.

* 2010 World Cup: Round of 16.

* Euro 2012: Quarterfinals, lost on penalties.

* 2014 World Cup: Finished last in their Group.

* Euro 2016: Round of 16 -- losing to Iceland.

* 2018 World Cup: Semifinals. By now, the "Golden Generation" had retired from international competition. Funny how England got further without them than they ever got with them.

The World Cup has been played 21 times, and England have won it exactly once, and then dubiously, at home. They've only been to that 1 Final. There were 3 times that they didn't qualify, and 3 other times they chose not to enter at all.

The European Championships have been played 15 times, and England have never even made the Final.

70 years, going back tongue 1st international tournament they entered, the 1950 World Cup (where they lost to the U.S.). 33 major tournaments. 1 Final.

That's the history. Except for one brief shining moment, it's kind of sad.

England's 1966 World Cup win is their version of America landing on the Moon, except we did it 6 times, from 1969 to 1972. Americans like to say, "If we can put a man on the Moon, why can't we (do something that seems comparatively simple)?" The English don't say, "If we can win the World Cup, why can't we... ?" Maybe they should.

Or, maybe not. After all, at this point, neither America nor England -- or the United Kingdom -- can put a man on the Moon, and neither nation can win the World Cup.

So shut yer bloody pieholes.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. Was Larrionda wrong? Yes. Was that the reason, or even the biggest reason, England didn't win the 2010 World Cup? No.

June 28, 1960, 60 years ago: John Albert Elway Jr. is born in Port Angeles, Washington. His father, better known as Jack Elway, was then the head coach of a high school football team there. Because his father moved around, John grew up in the Seattle suburb of Aberdeen, Washington; Missoula, Montana; Pullman, Washington; and the Los Angeles suburb of Granada Hills, California.

John became a star quarterback in high school, and went to Stanford University, a school known for producing legendary quarterbacks, including Frankie Albert, John Brodie, and 1970 Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett. Since John Elway, they've produced Andrew Luck.

Elway had the best pro career of any of them. He once held the record for most wins by a starting quarterback. He led the Denver Broncos to the AFC Championship in the 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons, but lost the Super Bowl each time. It took him until the 1997 season to get back, but, with a good running game backing up his passing attack for the 1st time, he won back-to-back Super Bowls, and then retired. He then built another Super Bowl winner as the Broncos' general manager.
The 1st round of the 1983 NFL Draft, on April 26, 1983, produced 6 quarterbacks. Elway was the 1st overall pick. Todd Blackledge of National Champion Penn State was chosen by the Kansas City Chiefs with the 7th pick, but his pro career was a disappointment. He has since become an admired broadcaster.

The Buffalo Bills picked Jim Kelly of the University of Miami 14th, and he made the Hall of Fame. The New England Patriots picked Tony Eason of Illinois 15th, and he got them into their 1st Super Bowl.

The New York Jets took Ken O'Brien of the University of California at Davis 24th, and he was a decent quarterback, but nothing more. For whatever reason, the man who might have been the most talented of the 6, Dan Marino of the University of Pittsburgh, fell to the 27th pick, and was taken by the Miami Dolphins, where he built a Hall of Fame career.

Only one of them, Elway, won a Super Bowl. Put together, they were 2-9 in Super Bowls -- take Elway out, and they were 0-6. (Kelly was 0-4 of that.)

Now, I come to the elephant in the room. With the 4th pick in the 1983 NFL Draft, the Denver Broncos picked... Chris Hinton, a guard from Northwestern University. The 1st pick belonged to the Baltimore Colts, and they picked Elway.

Elway refused to play for the Colts. Of North America's "Big Four" sports, the NFL is the league in which the players have the least amount of power. yet Elway refused to play for the Colts.

He was also a baseball player, and had already played in the New York Yankees' minor-league system. He told the Colts that if they drafted him, he would play baseball instead.

How good was he? Hard to tell. In 1982, playing for the Oneonta Yankees of the New York-Penn League, which is "short-season Class A ball," he was an outfielder, playing 42 games, batting .318 with 4 home runs and 25 RBIs. He was 22 years old.

If he had stuck with baseball, theoretically, he could have played for the Class A Fort Lauderdale Yankees in 1983, the Class AA Nashville Sounds in 1984, and the Class AAA Columbus Clippers in 1985, with a chance to ride the "Columbus Shuttle" and get called up to the big club that season, around or after his 25th birthday.

He had a better chance to advance in football, but baseball did give him some leverage.

He tried to take the high road. He said he wanted to remain on the West Coast, while Baltimore is on the East Coast. Somebody pointed out that the Yankees were on the East Coast, but Elway said, "They play baseball during the summertime." He wanted to avoid cold weather. (But he played in a few snowstorms for the Broncos.)

But he let it slip that, "I would be a garbage collector before I'd play for Baltimore." Hearing that, Terry Bradshaw, still the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers and a man who was 4-0 in Super Bowls, told him, "You should play baseball," and told the media, "He's not the kind of guy you win championships with." As it turned out, the 1st 14 years of Elway's pro career showed that Bradshaw knew what he was talking about.

The way history can change: One plan was to trade Elway's rights to the San Francisco 49ers for Joe Montana, who'd won the Super Bowl in the 1981 season, but had a bad 1982. The San Diego Chargers were negotiating a new contract with Dan Fouts, and thought that if they had Elway, that would make Fouts cave on his demands. Both of those teams were on the West Coast.

The Colts were 0-8-1 in the strike-shortened 1982 season. Their quarterbacks were:

* Mike Pagel, a rookie in 1982, starting all 9 games, with a completion percentage just over 50 percent, and 5 touchdowns against 7 interceptions. Like Elway, he was also a college baseball star, and helped Arizona State win the 1981 College World Series.

* Art Schlichter, a star at Ohio State, winning a Big 10 title, also a rookie in 1982, expected to win the starting job, but lost it to Pagel in training camp, and appeared in just 3 games, with a completion percentage under 46 percent, no touchdowns, 2 interceptions. He was already in the midst of the gambling addiction that would ruin his pro career and, eventually, put him in prison. And...

* David Humm, who led Nebraska to wins in the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls, and was Ken Stabler's backup on the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders' Super Bowl XI winners, but was 31 and had a grand total of 1 NFL start, which he lost. In 1982, he appeared in 2 games, with a completion percentage over 56 percent, no touchdowns, 1 interception.

Pagel wasn't panning out. Schlichter was bad news. Humm was fine as a backup, but not as a starter. The Colts drafted Elway because they needed a quarterback. If they didn't sign Elway, they were up the creek.

Ernie Accorsi, then their general manager (and later the GM who built 2 Super Bowl winners with the New York Giants), was sure that the 1984 Draft wouldn't be a good one for quarterbacks. He predicted that none would be taken in the 1st round.

He turned out to be right: Not until the 10th pick of the 2nd round was one taken, Boomer Esiason of Maryland, by the Cincinnati Bengals. In the 3rd round, the Giants chose Jeff Hostetler of West Virginia, while the Washington Redskins chose Jay Schroeder of UCLA. The Colts would still have been better off taking Esiason, Hostetler or Schroeder than sticking with Pagel, Schlichter and Humm.

On May 2, 6 days after the Draft, the Colts traded the rights to Elway to the Broncos for Hinton, quarterback Mark Herrmann, and the Broncos' 1st pick in the 1984 Draft, which turned out to be Ron Solt, a guard who'd protected Esiason at Maryland. Solt had a decent pro career. Hinton turned out to be one of the top offensive linemen of the 1980s.

The key, though, was Herrmann. He had starred at Purdue, winning Big 10 MVP in 1980 and MVPs in 3 minor bowl games. But as a pro, he didn't do much: He failed to challenge Pagel for the starting job, lasted just 2 years with the Colts, went to San Diego, then to the Los Angeles Rams, and then closed his career with 3 more seasons with the Colts, retiring in 1992.

Pagel led the Colts to a 7-9 season in 1983, a big improvement. But on March 29, 1984, team owner Bob Irsay moved them to Indianapolis. They hadn't made the Playoffs since 1977, and wouldn't again until 1987, wouldn't again until 1995, and would falter again before drafting Peyton Manning in 1998.

Elway's refusal to play for the Colts has often been blamed for the team's move. And it was seen, and sometimes still is, as a total diva move. Has he been treated too harshly for it?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame John Elway for Not Playing for the Baltimore Colts

5. The Shadow of Johnny Unitas. It's been 18 years since he died, and 47 years since he last took a snap in a regular-season game, but Johnny Unitas, who lifted the Colts to glory at the end of the 1950s and kept them there into the early 1970s, is still in the conversation for the title of Greatest Quarterback Who Ever Lived.
For that reason, his successor as Colt starting quarterback, Bert Jones, their starter from 1973 to 1981, couldn't do anything without it being measured against Johnny U. Pagel had the same problem. Elway would have as well.

That wasn't a problem after the Colts moved. People in Indianapolis knew who Unitas was, of course. But he never played for them. What did they care what he did in Baltimore? It did no good for Indianapolis, or for Indiana as a whole.

And once the Ravens arrived, people in Baltimore knew that this wasn't the Colts, so the next great Baltimore quarterback, whoever it turned out to be -- and you can debate whether Joe Flacco qualifies as having preceded Lamar Jackson in that regard -- he wasn't playing for the same team as Unitas.

It's why every potentially great Yankees player gets measured against Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and so on; but no potentially great Mets player gets measured against Willie Mays, because, while Mays ended his career with the Mets, his best years in New York were with the baseball Giants.

Elway would have known that playing for the Colts would have meant playing in the massive shadow of ol' Number 19. Whereas, in Denver, he was playing for a team that hadn't won a Super Bowl, or a title in the AFL before that. They'd had good quarterbacks: Frank Tripucka, Charley Johnson and Craig Morton. But the closest they'd gotten to a title was Morton leading them to the 1977 AFC Championship, and then losing Super Bowl XII. There was room for somebody to become the definitive greatest quarterback in Bronco history.

Thanks to Elway, there no longer is such room. Peyton Manning, who did play for the Colts, albeit in Indianapolis, knew that before going to Denver, but his legacy was already secure, so wasn't an issue.

4. Artificial Turf. From 1984 to 2007, the Colts played at the Hoosier Dome, renamed the RCA Dome in 1994. Since the Colts were going to move to Indianapolis no matter what Elway did, he would have ended up doing for most of his career what he never actually did: Play home games on artificial turf.

All those years in Denver, no matter how bad the grass was, it was still natural grass, and it was better for his body. He played his last game at the age of 38, and he was still good enough then to lead his team to a championship, and be named the Most Valuable Player of the Super Bowl. Do you think that would have been the case if he played all those years on the plastic stuff?

Okay, Peyton Manning was able to do it in Indianapolis. But I wonder what shape he's in now. In addition, for most of his career, the Colts were in the AFC South, where the road games were in Houston with its retractable roof, Jacksonville and Nashville, all with real grass.

For Elway's entire career, the Indianapolis Colts were in the AFC East, where the road games were at the Meadowlands, Foxboro and Orchard Park, all with artificial turf, and frequently with nasty weather. He would have played very few games on grass at all.

3. The Uncertainty. It's not just that the Colts were bad at the time. The organization knew it was going to play the 1983 season at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. But they didn't even know how much longer they were going to play in the Baltimore area.

Irsay had wanted out of Memorial for a long time. Its seating capacity, its parking facilities, and especially its office space were much too small. He had told the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland that if the Colts didn't get a new stadium, he would move the team. They called his bluff, and refused to fund a new stadium. It turned out, he wasn't bluffing.

After all, even if Elway had played the 1983 season for the Colts, he wouldn't have been playing the 1984 season, or any future season, in Baltimore. As long as he was with the Colts after that, it would have been in Indianapolis.

Does this contradict Reason Number 5? Or Reason Number 4? Not at all: In 1983, Elway didn't know the Colts were leaving Unitas' town. Apparently, neither did Accorsi: On a recent podcast, he said, "If he plays in Baltimore, the team never moves."

But Irsay had his mind made up: No funding for a new stadium from the City or the State, no more Baltimore Colts.

2. Frank Kush. The Colts' head coach at the time had previously coached Arizona State University from 1958 to 1979, 22 seasons. And he coached some pretty good players: Charley Taylor, Curley Culp and Mike Haynes are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. John Jefferson probably should be. Junior Ah You is in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. J.D. Hill, Benny Malone, Woody Green and Bob Breunig had good NFL careers.

But in all that time, he produced just 2 All-American quarterbacks: Danny White and Mark Malone. White was Roger Staubach's backup on the Dallas Cowboys for a few years. After Staubach retired, White got them to 3 straight NFC Championship Games -- and lost them all. Similarly, Malone was a backup to Terry Bradshaw on the Pittsburgh Steelers, and had to wait until the Hall-of-Famer retired. But he didn't do much as their starter.

Kush was a run-first coach. He might not have been the right head coach for a young quarterback. He certainly wasn't doing Mike Pagel or Art Schlichter any favors.

Then there was the story about how he lost his ASU job in 1979. A former player filed a lawsuit against the school, accusing Kush and his staff of mental harassment and physical abuse, including a punch in the mouth from Kush. Kush obstructed the investigation by telling his players not to talk to school officials, and it was this, rather than the accusations, that got him fired. He got 3 more pro coaching jobs in his lifetime, he never coached another college game. No other college would take a chance on him.

But it's worth noting that Kush was cleared of the abuse charges, although not of various violations that would get ASU put on probation. It's also worth noting that none of the players I mentioned have backed up the accusations with abuse mentions of their own.

And the most famous athlete who ever played for him has said nothing but good things about him. He was a black kid from just outside Philadelphia who came to Tempe on a football scholarship, and played for the freshman team in 1964, but was talked into switching to baseball. His name was Reggie Jackson.

But once a reputation is damaged, it can be hard to repair it. Especially when somebody with a big mouth continues to bad-mouth you:

1. Jack Elway. Like so many great athletes before and since, John Elway did pretty much what his family told him to do. Jack Elway had a playing career that ended with a knee injury in 1950, but he went into coaching, and became a highly respected high school coach in Washington State.

He went on to become head coach at San Jose State from 1979 to 1983, and then Stanford from 1984 to 1988. He also coached the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football in 1991 and '92. From then until 1999, thanks to a good word from his son, he served as a scout with the Broncos. He died in 2001.

Jack Elway did not like Frank Kush. Jack coached in the Pacific-8 Conference as an assistant at Washington State University (his alma mater) from 1972 to 1975. Arizona and Arizona State joined the league in 1978, making it the Pac-10. (It's now the Pac-12.) Before that, they were in the Western Athletic Conference. Jack didn't return to the Pac-10 until 1984, with Stanford. By that point, Kush was in Indianapolis with the Colts.

Only once did Jack Elway and Frank Kush ever coach against each other. It was September 22, 1973, when Washington State, with Jack on the staff of head coach Jim Sweeney, went to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, and took on Frank's Sun Devils, then ranked Number 13 in the country. ASU won, 20-9.

So, either something happened in that game that ticked Jack off; or something else happened, some other time, possibly the 1979 allegations. And this made Jack tell John never to play for Kush. (It shouldn't have been the other violations, because that wouldn't have mattered in the NFL.) And John listened to Jack, and told the Colts words to the effect of, "Hell, no, I won't go."

On that podcast I mentioned earlier, Ernie Accorsi said, "I think he would have played for the Colts. We would have made a coaching change." Maybe this could have placated Jack Elway.

There is a fascinating postscript. John's son, John Albert Elway III, known as Jack Elway like his grandfather, was an All-State quarterback at Cherry Creek High School in the Denver suburbs.

Jack signed to play for Dennis Erickson, who was the elder Jack Elway's offensive coordinator at San Jose State. He later became head coach at Idaho (where he won the Big Sky Conference in 1985), Wyoming, Washington State, Miami (where he won National Championships in 1989 and 1991 and 3 Big East titles), the Seattle Seahawks, Oregon State (where he won the Pac-10 in 2000), the San Francisco 49ers, and the school that the younger Jack Elway chose to attend, where Erickson had already won the 2007 Pac-10 title.

That school was the one where Frank Kush made his name: Arizona State. And the playing surface at Sun Devil Stadium had been named Frank Kush Field. (Kush died in 2017.)

After redshirting for his freshman season, 2009, Jack Elway realized that he was living out a dream that was not his own, and quit football. He graduated early with an economics degree, and went into the other family business: John has a string of car dealerships. But, again, there was the pressure of living up to what his father did. After 5 years, he quit that. He went back to Colorado, got into an argument with his girlfriend, and hit her. He pleaded down to a lesser charge, and was sentenced to probation.

Then, one day, he saw someone wearing an unusual baseball-style cap. His name was Geoff Muller, and, together, they turned his basement business into a company called Mint Tradition. It's a success, and he's happy.

How would the younger Jack Elway's life have been different if the elder Jack Elway had let John Elway think for himself, and accept being drafted by the Baltimore Colts? Hard to say. Jack and his sisters would still have been born, because John met his 1st wife, Janet Buchan, at Stanford, where she was a competitive swimmer. But maybe growing up in Indiana would have presented different opportunities to growing up in Colorado, and Jack would have left football and found his interest sooner.

VERDICT: Guilty. Yes, you can blame John Elway for not playing for the Baltimore Colts. Plenty of athletes have been drafted by teams they didn't initially want to play for, and it worked out anyway.

Besides, Kush only lasted 2 more years with the Colts. In 1985 and '86, the Colts were coached by Rod Dowhower. From 1986 to 1991, Ron Meyer, who got them to the Playoffs in 1987. They lost in the 1st round, 38-21 to the Cleveland Browns, who lost the AFC Championship Game to the Broncos.

If Elway had been quarterbacking the Indianapolis Colts in the 1987 season, would he have helped them beat the Browns? And then reach Super Bowl XXII? Would his Colts have been so easily battered by the Washington Redskins in that epic 2nd quarter? Maybe, maybe not.

But John Elway will always have a mixed reputation. Great athlete. Legendary quarterback. Struggled to turn individual success into team success. Finally got it done. Went out a back-to-back Champion.

But also, something of a spoiled brat, who was almost 23 years old, and maybe, just that once, shouldn't have listened to Daddy.