I had hoped to do one of these for the Jets' opponent in the Wild Card round of the NFL Playoffs. I had also hoped that it would be against a team for whom I haven't done a trip guide before.

However, the Jets took their win-and-we're-in chance and Jetsed it up, and even if they had won, they would have visited the Kansas City Chiefs, for whom I have done this. Indeed, of the AFC teams that made it, the only ones for whom I haven't are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos.

Alas... moving on...

The Brooklyn Nets visit the Detroit Pistons this coming Saturday night. The New York Knicks visit on February 4.

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

Saturday afternoon is forecast to be in the mid-40s, and Saturday night in the mid-30s. Most likely, you'll be staying overnight if you go, so let me add that Sunday's weather is set to be a little colder. They're also predicting a little rain for Saturday afternoon, but not a storm. At least they're not predicting snow: Keep in mind that Detroit is in the Midwest snowbelt, and it's worse in the suburbs than it is downtown where the other 3 teams now play.

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

There was a Nike commercial a few years back, in which young basketball players were seated, yoga-style, in front of a TV screen, on which their "master," a fat black man with a turban and sunglasses who looked nothing like an athlete, was dispensing wisdom. At the end, after the Swoosh logo was shown, the camera went back to one of the students, who asked, "But, Master, what if we behave badly?" And the Master lowered his shades, looked over them, and said, "You go to Detroit." This was in the early 1990s, when the Pistons had begun to fall from their 1989-90 "Bad Boys" championship teams, and going to Detroit was not a good option in any sport -- indeed, the only Detroit team doing well at the time was, strangely, the Lions, who were then a perennial Playoff team thanks largely to Barry Sanders.

I once saw a T-shirt that read, "I'm so bad, I vacation in Detroit." As I mentioned, I have. (I'm not saying I'm "bad," or a "hard man," just that I went.) Newark had a race riot 2 weeks before Detroit's. In May 1999, I saw Detroit, and I realized just how far back Newark had come, by seeing how far Detroit had not.

In the 1950 Census, Detroit was the 4th-largest city in America, after New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, with over 2 million people just within the city limits. "White flight" after the '67 riot has led to the Detroit metropolitan area having roughly the same number of people it had then, about 5.3 million, but within the city limits the number has dropped from over 2 million to just 680,000. The suburbs are beautiful, but the city itself is a hole, and good men (and a few bad ones) have busted their humps trying to get it back on its feet.

One of the good men who's tried is Mike Ilitch, probably the most famous American of Macedonian descent, who runs Little Caesar's Pizza, and owns the Tigers and Red Wings. He rebuilt the city's historic Fox Theater, put Little Caesar's headquarters in the building above it, and had Comerica Park built across the street. He, and many others, including Pistons Hall-of-Famer turned major area businessman Dave Bing, who served a term as Mayor, are trying, they really are. But Governor Rick Snyder, a Tea Party Republican, has ordered a State takeover of Detroit's finances. Apparently, he didn't learn the lesson of Hugh Carey, New York's Governor in 1975, who found another way to get New York City's finances back on their feet. In Detroit's case, as in every other place in which it's tried, austerity hasn't worked.

I should also note that Detroit is a border city. The Detroit River, connecting Lakes Huron and Erie, is one of the few places where you can cross from north to south and go from America to Canada. Windsor, Ontario -- the closest thing there is to a "South Detroit," making that line in the Journey song "Don't Stop Believin'" problematic -- is considerably safer, and, like Detroit itself, has a gambling casino. If you want to visit, you'll need to bring your passport. You can use either the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel or the Ambassador Bridge.

Tickets. Alone among the Detroit-area teams since the Lions moved back downtown into Ford Field, the Pistons are far from the city. Therefore, if you can get around the city and get a hotel near the arena, you won't have to deal with Detroit's reputation for crime and poverty.

The Pistons averaged only 15,266 last season, well below the Palace's capacity of 21,231 -- just 69 percent, or a little over 2/3rds full. This was probably due to the Pistons finishing last in the Central Division. It hasn't been all that long since they were a championship contender. But tickets shouldn't be too hard to get, especially since the Red Wings are underway and doing well. So among the crimes you won't have to deal with, most likely, is ticket scalping.

In the Lower Level, seats between the baskets go from $97 to $209, and behind them from $37 to $97. In the Upper Level, they're a bargain: $47 between the baskets, $20 behind them.

Getting There. It is 647 miles from Madison Square Garden to the Palace -- about 30 miles longer than from Midtown Manhattan to downtown Detroit. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.

Except... Wayne County Metropolitan Airport is 22 miles southwest of downtown, on the opposite side of the city. A taxi to downtown will set you back a bundle. There is a bus, SMART (Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) bus Number 125, that goes directly from the airport to downtown, but it will take an hour and 20 minutes. You're better off renting a car at the airport, which is southwest of the city, and then driving to the arena, which is northwest of the city -- a whopping 50 miles. They didn't really think when putting the Palace and the Silverdome where they did, far from both downtown and the airport. Sure, it was safe, and it was where a huge part of the fanbase was. But it wasn't convenient for anybody living in any other part of the Detroit area, or fans coming to watch their teams there.

Also, do you remember the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza had a girlfriend, played by a pre-Will & Grace Megan Mullaly (using her real voice, you'd never recognize her as W&G's Karen), and he had to accompany her to a funeral in her hometown of Detroit? "It's kind of an expensive flight," George said. This was not just George being his usual cheap self: At the time, over 20 years ago (wow, it's been that long), it was expensive, more expensive from New York to Detroit than it was to the further-away Chicago.

It's actually cheaper now, but not by much: A check of airline websites shows that, while flights can by had for under $700 round-trip, some (if you don't mind flying out and flying back in first thing in the morning) under $300, most will be more like $1,300 -- and you'll have to change planes, possibly in Chicago. That's right, you may have to overshoot Detroit to go to Detroit.

Too rich for your blood? The news gets worse: There is no good way to get to Detroit, and that's got nothing to do with the city's reputation. Forget the train. The only Amtrak route in and out of Detroit is to and from Chicago, which in the opposite direction.

The most direct route is the Lake Shore Limited, formerly known as the Twentieth Century Limited when the old New York Central Railroad ran it from Grand Central Terminal to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station. It leaves New York's Penn Station at 3:40 every afternoon, and arrives at Union Terminal in Toledo at 5:55 every morning. From there, you have to wait until 6:30 to get on a bus to Detroit's Amtrak station, arriving at 7:35. The station is at 11 W. Baltimore Avenue, at Woodward Avenue, 2 1/2 miles north of Comerica, so walking there is not a good option; the number 16 or 53 bus would take you down Woodward.

In reverse, the bus leaves Detroit at 9:45 PM, arrives in Toledo at 10:50, and then you have to hang around there until the Lake Shore Limited comes back at 3:20 AM, arriving back in New York at 6:23 PM. Total cost: $199. A lot cheaper than flying, but a tremendous inflammation in the posterior.

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

Compared to most of Detroit, the bus terminal, at 1001 Howard Street, is relatively new and quite clean. It was just about within walking distance of Tiger Stadium, which really helped me in 1999. It's also not a long walk to Ford Field, but I wouldn't recommend this. Better to take a cab, especially if you're getting a hotel. Round-trip fare: $150 if you make an advanced purchase, $209 if you're buying at Port Authority. So Greyhound is also far cheaper than flying, possibly cheaper (and definitely not much more expensive) than Amtrak, and less of a pain than Amtrak.

If you decide to drive, the directions are simple, down to, literally, the last mile. you'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. I point this out merely to help you avoid confusion, not because I-90 will become important -- though it is for "How to Be a Yankee Fan in Chicago" and some other cities. In Ohio, you'll take I-80's Exit 64, and get onto Interstate 75 North. This will take you into Michigan. Go past the exits for Detroit, to Exit 81. This will lead you onto Lapeer Road, a.k.a. Michigan State Route 24. The Palace will be on your left, very shortly.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 3 hours in Ohio and an hour and 15 minutes in Michigan. That’s 11 hours. Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and in the Cleveland suburbs, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Detroit, it should be about 12 and a half hours. There are a few hotel chains within a 10-minute drive.

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

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

The suburbs are nearly all-white; the city itself, nearly all-black. If there is another city on the planet that is so segregated, I'm not aware of it. The sales tax in the State of Michigan is 6 percent, and does not go up in either the City of Detroit, the County of Wayne in which Detroit sits, or the County of Oakland in which Auburn Hills sits.

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

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

Downtown also has the Detroit People Mover, a monorail system that is part of the suggestion of Detroit trying to get from 1928 to 2028 while jumping over the difficult years in between. Like the Washington and Montreal Metro (subway) systems, the company running it prides itself on the artwork in its stations.

It has a stop called Times Square, but it won’t look anything like the one in New York. It has a stop called Bricktown, but it won’t look anything like Brick Township, the sprawling Jersey Shore suburb off Exits 88 to 91 on the Garden State Parkway. It’s cheap, only 75 cents, and it still uses tokens, although it also accepts cash. Be advised, though, that it stops running at midnight, except on Fridays and Saturdays, when it runs until 2:00 AM. Bus fare is $1.50.

Auburn Hills is 37 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. This is farther than the Meadowlands and the Nassau Coliseum combined are from Midtown Manhattan, farther than Foxboro is from Boston, farther than the Bills' stadium is from downtown Buffalo, farther than Landover (home of the Redskins' stadium and the site of the former Bullets & Capitals arena) is from downtown D.C. or downtown Baltimore, even farther than Anaheim is from downtown Los Angeles.

Separated from Pontiac, where the Silverdome is located, and formed as a separate town in 1983, its population is listed as 21,412 -- roughly the same as the capacity of the Palace, which opened in 1988. Aside from the Pistons, Auburn Hills is best known as the site of the world headquarters of Chrysler Corporation. The Walter P. Chrysler Museum was there, but it closed in 2012, because it wasn't getting enough visitors.

Going In. Unlike the boxed-in parking at Tiger Stadium, one of the big reasons it was replaced, the Palace is surrounded by parking on 3 sides: A North Lot, a West Lot and a South Lot. Compared to most stadiums and arenas, parking is cheap, only $10.
The Pistons won the 1989, 1990 and 2004 NBA Championships here, and almost won another in 2005. The Detroit Shock won 3 WNBA Championships here, and, as a result, every time a title is won, the address changes: Currently, it’s “Six Championship Drive, Auburn Hills, MI 48326.” However, the Shock moved to Tulsa in 2010, so unless the NBA tries again with a new WNBA team, only the Pistons (theoretically) will be able to change the address to "Seven Championship Drive."

Unfortunately, the building’s best-known event isn’t a Pistons title or a rock concert, but the November 19, 2004 fight between the Pistons and the Indiana Pacers that spilled into the stands, becoming known as "the Malice at the Palace." Even the WNBA had a rare brawl there, between the Shock and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2008. Lapeer Road and Harmon Road, Auburn Hills, off I-75.

Don’t even think about trying to reach it by public transportation: You’d need 2 buses and then a half-hour walk. There may be express bus available from downtown Detroit, but I haven't been able to find a reference to it.

Most fans will enter at either the North Tower or the South Tower. These are just names, and don't look any more like skyscrapers than do the 4 "corner" escalator towers at Madison Square Garden. These "towers" also have concession stands, as you'll see in a moment. You can also enter at the West Atrium. The arena and court are laid out north-to-south.
Food. When I visited Tiger Stadium in its final season, 1999, it had great food, including the very best ballpark hot dog I've ever had. This is, after all, Big Ten Country, where college football tailgate parties are practically a sacrament. Granted, the Pistons are not a football team. But do they ever provide, and not just the usual stadium or arena fare.

There's Sub Station at Section 118, featuring a Meatball Sub, an Italian Sub, a Turkey Sub, Root Beer Floats, Waffle Cones, Hot Fudge Sundaes, Brownie Sundaes and Fresh Baked Cookies. If Cookie Monster finds out about this, he may want Sesame Street to trade him from New York to Detroit.

The Meijer Fresh Stand, named for a salad company, is at Section 120, selling salads, fruit cups and veggie cups. At the other end of the health-food spectrum, in the arena's North Tower, there is the North Tower Burger Bar, featuring a "Classic Cheese Burger" (why they don't write "cheeseburger" as one word, I don't know), a Bacon Boursin Burger and a Santa Fe Burger. Also in the North Tower is a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant and a Crown Royal Bar, featuring not just the eponymous Canadian whisky, but barbecue sandwiches (pulled pork, pulled chicken and brisket) and loaded tater tots. The North Tower also has Frozen Daiquiri and Margarita stands.

Hungry Howie's Pizza is at Section 123. Mac Mania is at Section 106, serving macaroni & cheese dishes, including Creamy Cheddar, Buffalo Chicken, Smoked Bacon. There's a Grilled Andouille Sausage stand at 107, a Taco stand at 119, a Nacho Grande stand at 123, Dippin Dots carts at 108 and 120, and a Gluten Free stand at 125. And, since Detroit (if not Auburn Hills) does border Canada and calls itself "Hockeytown" (at which Montreal and Toronto must laugh), the Palace, as does Joe Louis Arena, has a Tim Horton's stand.

As you might guess, in Detroit, probably the American city best known for having Polish people, there is plenty of kielbasa to be had. But nothing mentioned of the other major ethnic groups that Detroit is known for, Greek or Arab -- though, in the case of the latter, this may be understandable in a post-9/11 world, especially since Detroit is a border city (even if the Palace is 33 miles from the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel).

Team History Displays. The arena's very address, 6 Championship Drive, is a testament to its history, although half of those titles, 3, are WNBA titles won by the now-gone Detroit Shock (all coached by Pistons legend Bill Laimbeer). Championship Drive extends west from the north-south Lapeer Road/M-24, leading into the arena parking lots. So does another street referring to the arena's history, Isiah Thomas Drive -- although those of you who are Knicks fans may want to ignore that name.

The Shock's 2003, 2006 and 2008 WNBA Championship banners still hang in the Palace rafters, as do the Pistons' NBA Championship banners for 1989, 1990 and 2004; their Eastern Conference Championship banners for 1988, 1989, 1990, 2004 and 2005; and their Central Division Championship banners for 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. (They won the 2004 NBA title without having won their Division in the regular season.)
Their is no notation of the Pistons' Fort Wayne era (1941-57), even though they reached the NBA Finals in 1955 and '56, and their 1944 and '45 National Basketball League titles made them, essentially, the world champions of professional basketball in those seasons. They note neither championships nor retired numbers from those days. And, yes, there was an auto/war vehicles plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so the "Pistons" name made sense long before they arrived in the Motor City.

The Pistons have 10 banners honoring team legends. Longtime team owner William Davidson (who built the Palace) and general manager Jack McCloskey have banners without numbers on them. Chuck Daly, who coached the Pistons to their 1st 2 titles, has the Number 2 retired for him.

From before their 1st title, the Pistons have honored Number 15, center Bob Lanier; and Number 21, Dave Bing, who served a term as Mayor of Detroit.

From the 1989 and 1990 World Championship teams, a.k.a. the Motor City Bad Boys, these numbers are retired: 4, guard Joe Dumars; 10, forward Dennis Rodman; 11, guard Isiah Thomas; 15, guard Vinnie Johnson; and 40, center Bill Laimbeer. (Greg Monroe was wearing 10 when the number was retired for Rodman, who gave him permission to keep wearing it as long as he remains with the Pistons. So far, the Number 44 of Rick Mahorn remains available.)

From the 2004 World Championship team, which Dumars built as general manager, Ben Wallace's Number 3 will be retired on January 16, and Chauncey Billups' Number 1 will be retired on February 10. This will make 12 honorees.
Bing, Lanier, Thomas, Rodman, Dumars, Daly, George Yardley, Bailey Howell, Dave DeBusschere (later acquired by the Knicks), Adrian Dantley, and 2004 title-winning coach Larry Brown (still the only man to coach both an NCAA and an NBA Champion) have been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame based at least in part on what they did with the Pistons in Detroit. So have a few other players from the team's Fort Wayne days. While Dick Vitale did coach the Pistons (and the University of Detroit Mercy), and he has been elected to the Hall, it was based on his broadcasting career, not on his coaching. (He was a decent college coach, but awful in the NBA.)

Worst Baseball Hall of Fame vote ever. A travesty in Cooperstown.

I have no problem with electing Ken Griffey Jr. He hit 630 home runs. Only 3 men have ever hit more honestly: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. And that's before we get into his defense, frequently good, sometimes magnificent. If not for injuries, he might have had more home runs than anyone, ever, honest or otherwise.

But they didn't elect Tim Raines, who stole over 800 bases, and won 2 World Series with the Yankees.

They didn't elect Jeff Bagwell, one of the best hitters of his generation, and a man who's never been seriously connected to performance-enhancing drugs.

They didn't elect Mike Mussina, who won 270 games while pitching in the 5-man rotation era. If 5/4 = 1.2, then 270 x 1.2 = 324. That should be much more than enough to get in. He did this despite being a righthanded pitcher, pitching his home games in Camden Yards in Baltimore and the old Yankee Stadium, both with short porches in right field that made them very friendly to lefthanded hitters, thus unfriendly to righthanded pitchers.

They didn't elect Trevor Hoffman, the former all-time leader in saves, and still the all-time leader among National League pitchers.

*

Now, I come to the elephant in the room: Those players who have been accused of performance-enhancing drugs.

The names include Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield... and Roger Clemens. One day, when they're eligible, they will also include Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. (I'm not including Jason Giambi, because, even with PEDs, he doesn't have the numbers to get in. Nor does Luis Gonzalez.)

Only one has ever had his day in court and beaten the rap: Clemens.

Clemens, as anyone over the age of 20 remembers, has a history with Mike Piazza, the other man elected today along with Griffey.

I will not defend Clemens having hit Piazza in the head with a pitch. I will, however, use it to remind everyone that, when Roger Clemens was trying to throw an object at someone, he actually hit that person.

Roger Clemens did not throw a broken piece of a bat at Mike Piazza in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series. Anybody who says he did is a liar. Including, in that clip, notorious Yankee Haters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. If Clemens had truly meant to throw it at Piazza, Piazza would have been hit. Even McCarver said it was only "near Piazza," and Buck admitted it was "two feet away." It was not "a blatant act."

It was Piazza who freaked out (or should that be "froke out"?), Piazza who exhibited "roid rage." It was Clemens who kept his cool and then got Piazza out, much as he would do 3 years later to outed steroid user Ramirez after that disgusting display by the Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2003 American League Championship Series.

Roger Clemens was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. He denied it. He was inducted. His accuser didn't have the goods. Piazza has been accused, and, indeed, has confessed. (And this is from a pro-Mets blog.)

You cannot vote for Piazza and not Clemens, and remain intellectually honest. If Piazza belongs, all the accused belong, including Clemens. But if Clemens doesn't belong, none of them do, including Piazza.

Of course, the Yankee Doodle Double Standard will continue. Someday, Ortiz will be elected, and A-Rod will be denied. Possibly in the same election.

God only knows if they'll elect Manny, who angered many people with his shoving an old man. But then, in the same contretemps where Manny challenged Clemens, Pedro Martinez actually grabbed an old man by the head, and threw him to the ground, and he's in. I guess the voters think it's okay to do anything, as long as it's the Yankees who get hurt.

Mike Piazza does not belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame until Roger Clemens is in. Simple as that, baby.

Therefore, this vote, both for Piazza, and against Clemens -- and against Bagwell, against whom the accusations aren't even remotely serious; and against Raines, Mussina and Hoffman, against whom there has never been a PED charge -- is a travesty.

And who are the 3 voters -- he got 437 out of 440 -- who voted against Griffey? And why? Did they think he was using PEDs? They need to stand up and speak.

This Sunday, the New Jersey Devils will travel to play the Minnesota Wild, along with the Columbus Blue Jackets 1 of the 2 newest teams in the NHL, debuting in 2000.

The Devils and the Wild -- not "Wildcats,""Wild Dogs,""Wild Things" or "Wild (anything else)," just "Wild" -- are linked by 2 people. Jacques Lemaire was the 1st head coach to take the Devils to the Stanley Cup, and the 1st head coach the Wild ever had. Then, there's Zach Parise. Yeah, let's not talk about him. Zach, ya coulda made us proud...

Before You Go. The game will be played indoors, but you'll only be indoors for 4 hours at most. This is Minnesota, and this is our winter. Their winter lasts from Halloween to Easter.

So you should consult the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press websites for their forecasts. They're predicting colder weather than we usually ever get in New Jersey: Single digits for Sunday afternoon, and below zero for nighttime. Bundle the heck up! They're predicting snow for earlier in the week, so there will probably still be snow on the ground. Be advised.

Minnesota is in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. The Wild are averaging 19,027 fans per home game. That's over a sellout every game. So getting tickets will be tough.

In the lower level, the 100 sections, Wild tickets run $102 to $108 between the goals and $78 to $139 behind them. In the upper level, the 200 sections, they go $52 to $110 between and $58 to $84 behind.

Getting There. It’s 1,199 road miles from Times Square in New York to Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis (the spot where Mary Tyler Moore threw her hat in the air in the opening sequence of her 1970-77 CBS sitcom), and 1,184 miles from the Prudential Center to the Xcel Energy Center. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.

If you order early, you could get a round-trip flight for a little over $600. More likely, you'll have to pay at least $800. When you get there, the Number 55 light rail takes you from the airport to downtown in under an hour, so at least that is convenient.

Bus? Not a good idea. Greyhound runs 3 buses a day between Port Authority and Minneapolis, all with at least one transfer, in Chicago and possibly elsewhere as well. The total time, depending on the number of stops, is between 26 and 31 hours, and costs $462 round-trip, although it can be dropped to $398 with advanced purchase. The Greyhound terminal is at 950 Hawthorne Avenue, at 9th Street North, just 3 blocks from Nicollet Mall, 2 from the Target Center arena, and from there just across the 7th Street overpass over Interstate 394 from Target Field.

Train? An even worse idea. Amtrak will make you leave Penn Station on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40 PM Eastern Time, arrive at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Central Time, and then the Empire Builder, their Chicago-to-Seattle run, will leave at 2:15 PM and arrive in St. Paul (not Minneapolis) at 9:53 PM. From there, 730 Transfer Road, you’d have to take the Number 16 or 50 bus to downtown Minneapolis. And it’s $569 round-trip.

If you decide to drive, it’s far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. You'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. From this point onward, you won’t need to think about I-80 until you head home; I-90 is now the key, through the rest of Ohio and Indiana.

Just outside Chicago, I-80 will split off from I-90, which you will keep, until it merges with Interstate 94. For the moment, though, you will ignore I-94. Stay on I-90 through Illinois, until reaching Madison, Wisconsin, where you will once again merge with I-94. Now, I-94 is what you want, taking it into Minnesota and the Twin Cities, with Exit 242D being your exit for downtown St. Paul, and Exit 233A for downtown Minneapolis.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 and a half hours in Indiana, an hour and a half in Illinois, 2 and a half hours in Wisconsin, and half an hour in Minnesota. That’s 17 hours and 45 minutes. Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and just after you enter both Ohio and Indiana, outside Chicago and halfway across Wisconsin, and accounting for traffic in New York, the Chicago suburbs and the Twin Cities, it should be no more than 23 hours, which would save you time on both Greyhound and Amtrak, if not on flying.

Once In the City. Like the baseball Twins (who arrived in 1961), the NFL Vikings (also 1961), the NBA Timberwolves (1989) and the departed NHL North Stars (1967-1993), the Wild (2000) are called "Minnesota," because they didn't want to slight either one of the "Twin Cities."

Well, these "twins" are not identical: They have different mindsets, and, manifesting in several ways that included both having Triple-A teams until the MLB team arrived, have been known to feud as much as San Francisco and Oakland, Dallas and Fort Worth, Baltimore and Washington, if not as much as Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Minneapolis has about 400,000 people, St. Paul 300,000, and the combined metropolitan area about 3.8 million, ranking 15th in the U.S. -- roughly the combined population of Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island -- or that of Manhattan and Queens. Denver is the only metropolitan area with teams in all 4 sports that's smaller. And, despite being the smaller city, St. Paul is the State capital.

"Minneapolis" is a combination of the Dakota tribal word for water, and the Greek word for city. It was founded in 1867 with the name St. Anthony Falls. St. Paul, founded in 1854, is also named for an early Christian saint. In Minneapolis, Hennepin Avenue separates the numbered Streets from North and South, and the Mississippi River is the "zero point" for the Avenues, many (but not all) of which also have numbers. In St. Paul, Wabasha Street separates East and West, and while there's no North and South, address numbers rise as you get further north of the River.

Each city once had 2 daily papers, now each is down to 1: Minneapolis had the Star and the Tribune, merged in 1982; St. Paul the Pioneer and the Dispatch, merged into the Pioneer Press and Dispatch in 1985, with the Dispatch name dropped in 1990. Today, they are nicknamed the Strib and the Pi Press.

The sales tax in the State of Minnesota is 6.875 percent. It's 7.775 percent in Minneapolis' Hennepin County, and 7.625 percent in St. Paul's Ramsey County. Bus and Light Rail service is $2.25 per ride during rush hours, $1.75 otherwise.
Going In. The Xcel Energy Center, which opened in 2000, is in downtown St. Paul, about 9 miles from downtown Minneapolis. The official address is 199 W. Kellogg Blvd., at W. 7th Street. The Number 94 bus goes straight there, in about 25 minutes. The the Green Line light rail goes from Nicollet Mall to St. Paul Central Station. From there, it's a 15-minute walk to the arena. Total travel time: About 40 minutes.
Because the arena is the westernmost part of a complex that includes the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, the Saint Paul RiverCentre and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, you won't be entering from the east. Due to where the parking lots are, if you drove in, you are most likely to enter from the north. Parking is just $6.00.

The rink at "The X" is laid out east-to-west. The Wild attack twice toward the east goal. In 2004, it was named by ESPN as the best overall sports venue in the U.S. In 2010, a Wild game at The X was listed as the 3rd-best stadium experience in North America, according to ESPN the Magazine. First on the list went to the Twins and Target Field. (Minnesota fans should like both examples, but not the one that was listed 2nd: The Green Bay Packers.)
The XEC hosted the 2008 Republican Convention that nominated John McCain for President and Sarah Palin for Vice President. She probably loved the hockey part, but, unlike Mary Richards, she can only turn on a small part of the world with her smile, and she's not gonna make it after all.

It is also a veritable home and hall of fame for hockey in Minnesota, the most hockey-mad State in the Union, including the State high school championships that were previously held at the St. Paul Civic Center, which stood on the same site from 1973 to 1998. That arena hosted the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association from 1973 to 1977. The Fighting Saints had played their first few home games, in late 1972, at the St. Paul Auditorium.

Elvis sang at the Civic Center on October 2 and 3, 1974, and April 30, 1977. The Civic Center is also where Bruce Springsteen and Courteney Cox filmed the video for Bruce’s song “Dancing In the Dark.”
Food. Considering that Minnesota is Big Ten Country, you would expect their hockey arena to have lots of good food, in particular that Midwest staple, the sausage. They don't disappoint. According to their website:

A wide selection of food is available ranging from carved sandwiches, wraps, cheese steak sandwiches, fajitas, brick oven pizza, walleye baskets, boneless buffalo chicken wings, specialty baked potatoes and specialty BBQ, but there are also arena favorites – popcorn, hot dogs, bratwurst, hamburgers, personal pan pizzas and chicken tenders. Visit the many Levy Restaurants concession stands on the 100 and 200 level concourses and make dining out at the arena fun and easy. 

Team History Displays. As 1 of the NHL's 2 newest teams, the Wild don't have much in the way of championship banners. There isn't one mentioning their run to the 2003 NHL Western Conference Finals, under Lemaire. But there is one for their 2008 Northwest Division Championship.
No one who's played for them has yet been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Lemaire has, but, of course, he was elected as a player before he ever coached them, or even us. Their only retired number is 1, in honor of the Minnesota Fans, a reaction to the slap in the face of Norm Green moving the North Stars to Dallas in 1993. (There is no representation in The X for their achievements.) They do, uniquely among NHL teams, have banners for all 30 teams in the league, including the Devils, as you can nearly see in this photo.
Stuff. The Hockey Lodge Store is in the arena's southeast corner, at Gate 1. It sells Wild, North Stars and University of Minnesota hockey-related items. They also have stores at the Maplewood Mall and the Southdale Center in Edina, both in the Twin Cities' suburbs, and in Duluth, 150 miles northeast of the Twin Cities.

As one of major league sports' newest teams (only the Houston Texans and the Charlotte Bobcats/new Hornets were founded more recently), there aren't many books about the Wild. The best book about Twin Cities hockey is George Rekela's 2014 work A History of Professional Hockey in Minnesota: From the North Stars to the Wild. And the only video I could find about the team was the 2004 production Minnesota Wild: The State of Hockey.

During the Game. Because of their Midwest/Heartland image, Wild fans like a “family atmosphere.” Therefore, while they don’t like the Chicago Blackhawks (regional rivals) or the Dallas Stars (the former Minnesota North Stars, stolen from them), they don't have any special animus for the Devils.

You might not like Zach Parise, but, remember, he chose the Wild not for money or for a supposed better chance at the Stanley Cup, but to be close to his dying father, former Islander and North Star Jean-Paul Parise. So don't give Zach a hard time. If you avoid that, and don't say anything complimentary about the Green Bay Packers, the University of Wisconsin, the Dallas Stars (the hockey team that used to be the Minnesota North Stars) or Norm Green (the owner who moved them), you'll be all right.

Like the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Colorado Avalanche (but not, as yet, the Devils), the Wild occasionally wear "third jerseys" that look like what they might have worn had they existed in the "Original Six Era." These are not "throwback" jerseys, they are "fauxbacks."

James Bohn signs the National Anthems before Wild games. Their goal song is "Crowd Chant" by Joe Satriani. Their mascot is a... creature called Nordy, apparently tapping into the "northern-ness" of Minnesota. And he seems to have an M for Minnesota as a fur marking on his forehead.

After the Game. Minneapolis and St. Paul's are fairly safe as cities go. As long as you don't go out of your way to antagonize anybody, you should be all right as you make your way out of the arena and back to your car, or to your hotel.

If you're looking for a postgame meal, or just a pint, Eagle Street Grill, an Italian restaurant named Cossetta, an Irish-themed pub named Patrick McGovern's, Downtowner Woodfire Grill, and Burger Moe's are all on 7th Street West, southwest of The X, within 2 blocks.

If you want to be around other New Yorkers, I’m sorry to say that listings for where they tend to gather are slim. But I have one listing for a place that seems to cater to football Giants fans: O'Donnell's Irish Pub, in Minneapolis at 700 1st Avenue North at 7th St.

Another restaurant that may be of interest to New York baseball fans is Charley's Grill, at 225 3rd Avenue South at 2nd Street.  It was popular among visiting players from other American Association cities when they came to play the Millers and the Saints. Legend has it that, when the Yankees gathered for spring training in 1961, they were trying to figure out which restaurants in the new American League cities were good, and someone who'd recently played for the Denver Bears mentioned Charley's. But Yogi Berra, who'd gone there when the Yanks' top farm team was the Kansas City Blues, said, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Well, someone must still be going there, because it's still open.  (That Yogi said the line is almost certainly true, but the restaurant in question was almost certainly Ruggiero's, a place in his native St. Louis at which he and his neighbor Joe Garagiola waited tables.)

Sidelights. Minnesota’s sports history is long, but very uneven. Teams have been born, moved in, moved around, and even moved out. But there are some local sites worth checking out.

* Site of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome and U.S. Bank Stadium. Home of the Twins from 1982 to 2009, the University of Minnesota football team from 1982 to 2008, and the NFL’s Vikings from 1982 to 2013, that infamous blizzard and roof collapse in 2010 brought the desire to get out and build a new stadium for the Vikes to the front burner, and it finally led to action. Until then, there were threats that the Vikes would move, the most-mentioned possible destinations being Los Angeles and San Antonio.

The Twins won the 1987 and 1991 World Series at the Metrodome – going 8-0 in World Series games in the Dome, and 0-6 in Series games outside of it. The Vikings, on the other hand, were just 6-4 in home Playoff games there – including an overtime defeat in the 1998 NFC Championship Game after going 14-2 in the regular season.

From October 19, 1991 to April 6, 1992, the Metrodome hosted 3 major events in less than 6 months: The World Series (Twins over Atlanta Braves), Super Bowl XXVI (Washington Redskins over Buffalo Bills), and the NCAA Final Four (Duke beating Michigan in the Final). It also hosted the Final Four in 2001 (Duke won that one, too, over Arizona).

In May 2012, faced with the serious possibility of the Vikings moving without getting a suitable stadium, the Minnesota State legislature approved funding for a new stadium for the Vikings, to be built on the site of the Metrodome and on adjoining land.

In a piece of poetic justice, just as the damn thing was (with considerable ballyhoo) built and completed ahead of schedule and under budget, so did the demolition take place. The people of Minnesota seemed to be proud of its having been built on the cheap and on time, but it served its purpose, to keep the Twins and Vikings from moving for a generation, and now replacement stadiums are achieving the same purpose.

Billy Martin, who hated the place, had the best word on it, though the awkward wording of it may have been inspired in part by his pal Yogi Berra: "It's a shame a great guy like HHH had to be named after it." (Billy's first managing job was with the Twins, at the Met in 1969.)

U.S. Bank Stadium is scheduled to open in time for the 2016 NFL season. It will host Super Bowl LII in February 2018, and the 2019 NCAA Final Four. 900 South 5th Street at Centennial (Kirby Puckett) Place. Metrodome station on Light Rail.

* Target Field. Home of the Twins since 2010, it gives Minnesota's baseball team its 1st true ballpark after a half-century of waiting, rather than the Bloomington ice tray and the Homerdome. The official address is 1 Twins Way, along 3rd Avenue N., between 5th and 7th Streets. It has its own stop on the light rail system.

* Mall of America and sites of Metropolitan Stadium and the Metropolitan Sports Center. In contrast to their performance at the Metrodome, the Vikings were far more successful at their first home, while the Twins were not (in each case, playing there from 1961 to 1981).

The Vikings reached 4 Super Bowls while playing at The Met, while the Twins won Games 1, 2 and 6 of the 1965 World Series there, but lost Game 7 to the Los Angeles Dodgers on a shutout by Sandy Koufax. (So the Twins are 11-1 all-time in World Series home games, but 0-9 on the road.) The Vikings were far more formidable in their ice tray of a stadium, which had no protection from the sun and nothing to block an Arctic blast of wind.

In fact, the Met had one deck along the 3rd base stands and in the right field bleachers, two decks from 1st base to right field and in the left field bleachers, and three decks behind home plate. Somebody once said the stadium looked like an Erector set that a kid was putting together, before his mother called him away to dinner and he never finished it. At 45,919 seats, it had a capacity that was just fine for baseball; but at 48,446, it was too small for the NFL.

Prior to the 1961 arrivals of the Twins and Vikings, the Met hosted the Minneapolis Millers from 1956 to 1960, and 5 NFL games over the same stretch, including 4 “home games” for the Packers. (Viking fans may be sickened over that, but at least University of Minnesota fans can take heart in the University of Wisconsin never having played there.)

The experiments worked: The Met, built equidistant from the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul, in the southern suburb of Bloomington, was awarded the MLB and NFL teams, and Midway Stadium, built in 1957 as the new home of the St. Paul Saints (at 1000 N. Snelling Avenue in the city of St. Paul, also roughly equidistant from the two downtowns), struck out, and was used as a practice field by the Vikings before being demolished in 1981.

The NHL’s Minnesota North Stars played at the adjoining Metropolitan Sports Center (or Met Center) from 1967 to 1993, before they were moved to become the Dallas Stars by owner Norm Green, earning him the nickname Norm Greed. The Stars reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1981 and 1991, but never won the Cup until 1999 when they were in Dallas.

The Beatles played at Metropolitan Stadium on August 21, 1965 -- making 1 of only 3 facilities to host an All-Star Game, a Finals and a Beatles concert in the same year. (The others were the Boston Garden and Maple Leaf Gardens in 1964.) Elvis Presley sang at the Met Center on November 5, 1971 and October 17, 1976.

8000 Cedar Avenue South, at 80th Street -- near the airport, although legends of planes being an issue, as with Shea Stadium and Citi Field, seem to be absent. A street named Killebrew Drive, and the original location of home plate, have been preserved. A 45-minute ride on the Number 55 light rail (MOA station).

* Site of Nicollet Park. Home of the Millers from 1912 to 1955, it was one of the most historic minor-league parks, home to Ted Williams and Willie Mays before they reached the majors. With the Met nearing completion, its last game was Game 7 of the 1955 Junior World Series, in which the Millers beat the International League Champion Rochester Red Wings. A few early NFL games were played there in the 1920s. A bank is now on the site. Nicollet and Blaisdell Avenues, 30th and 31st Streets. Number 465 bus.

* Site of Lexington Park. Home of the Saints from 1897 to 1956, it wasn’t nearly as well regarded, although it did close with a Saints win over the arch-rival Millers. The site is now occupied by retail outlets. Lexington Parkway, University Avenue, Fuller & Dunlap Streets.

* Target Center. Separated from Target Field by I-394 and 2nd Avenue, this arena has been home to the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves since the team debuted shortly after its 1989 opening. The T-Wolves have only made the Western Conference Finals once, and are probably best known as the team Kevin Garnett and GM (and Minnesota native) Kevin McHale couldn’t get over the hump, before Garnett went to McHale’s former team, the Boston Celtics.

The Minnesota Lynx also play here, and have become the WNBA’s answer to the San Antonio Spurs, winning league titles in odd-numbered years: 2011, 2013 and 2015. 600 N. 1st Avenue at 6th Street.

* University of Minnesota. Coming from downtown, you would take the Green Line light rail to Stadium Village stop to reach the UM campus. TCF Bank Stadium, home of the Golden Gophers and, for the last 2 seasons, the Vikings is at 420 SE 23rd Avenue.

The stadium opened in 2009, allowing the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers to play home games on campus as they did at Memorial Stadium from 1924 to 1981. Their alumni were sick of playing in the cold, so when the Metrodome opened for the Twins and Vikings in 1982, they wanted in (figuratively and literally). But, even during winning seasons (which have been few and far between since the 1960s), attendance was lousy. So an on-campus facility was built.

Before moving in for the 2014 and '15 seasons, the Vikings played a home game there in 2010, following a snow-caused collapse of the Metrodome roof. The Vikings lost to the Chicago Bears, and it turned out to be Brett Favre's last NFL game. It's also hosted an outdoor game for UM hockey, and this coming February 21, it will play host to the Wild against the Chicago Blackhawks. It hosted a match between soccer teams Manchester City of England and Olympiacos of Athens, Greece.

Across Oak Street from the open west end of the stadium are the basketball and hockey venues. Williams Arena opened in 1928, has hosted UM basketball ever since, UM hockey from then until 1993, and the 1951 NCAA Final Four. Mariucci Arena opened in 1993, and has hosted UM hockey ever since. Memorial Stadium was across University Avenue from Williams Arena. The UM alumni center and swimming venue were built on the site.

* Site of Minneapolis Auditorium. Built in 1927, from 1947 to 1960 this was the home of the Minneapolis Lakers – and, as Minnesota is “the Land of 10,000 Lakes” (11,842, to be exact), now you know why a team in Los Angeles is named the Lakers. (The old Utah Jazz coach Frank Layden said his team and the Lakers should switch names, due to L.A.'s "West Coast jazz" scene and the Great Salt Lake: "Los Angeles Jazz" and "Utah Lakers" would both make more sense.)

The Lakers won the National Basketball League Championship in 1948, then moved into the NBA and won the Championship in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953 and 1954. In fact, until the Celtics overtook them in 1963, the Minneapolis Lakers were the most successful team in NBA history, and have still won more World Championships than all the other Minnesota major league teams combined: Lakers 5, Twins 2, the rest a total of 0. (Unless you count the Lynx, who make it Lakers 5, everybody else 5.)

They were led by their enormous (for the time, 6-foot-10, 270-pound) center, the bespectacled (that’s right, he wore glasses, not goggles, on the court) Number 99, George Mikan. The arrival of the 24-second shot clock for the 1954-55 season pretty much ended their run, although rookie Elgin Baylor did help them reach the Finals again in 1959. Ironically, the owner of the Lakers who moved them to Los Angeles was Bob Short – who later moved the “new” Washington Senators, the team established to replace the team that moved to become the Twins.

The Auditorium hosted the NCAA Final Four (although it wasn't yet called that) in 1951, won by Kentucky. Elvis sang there early in his career, on May 13, 1956. The Auditorium was demolished in 1989, and the Minneapolis Convention Center was built on the site. 1301 2nd Ave. South, at 12th Street. Within walking distance of Target Field, Target Center and the Metrodome.

* Minnesota United. Currently playing in the new version of the North American Soccer League, this team will join Major League Soccer in either the 2017 or 2018 season. They currently play at the 10,000-seat National Sports Center in Blaine, 18 miles north of Minneapolis, but plan to move to a 20,000-seat stadium to open in downtown St. Paul in 2018.

* Museums. The Twin Cities are very artsy, and have their share of museums, including one of the five most-visited modern art museums in the country, the Walker Art Center, at 1750 Hennepin Avenue. Number 4, 6, 12 or 25 bus. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is at 2400 3rd Avenue South. Number 17 bus, then walk 2 blocks east on 24th Street. The Science Museum of Minnesota is at 120 W. Kellogg Blvd. in St. Paul, across from the Xcel Center.

Minnesota is famous for Presidential candidates that don’t win. Governor Harold Stassen failed to get the Republican nomination in 1948, and then ran several more times, becoming, pardon the choice of words, a running joke. Senator Eugene McCarthy opposed Lyndon Johnson in the Democratic Primaries in 1968, but lost his momentum when Robert Kennedy got into the race and LBJ got out, then ran in 1976 as a 3rd-party candidate and got 1 percent of the popular vote.

Vice President Walter Mondale was the Democratic nominee in 1984, losing every State but
Minnesota in his loss to Ronald Reagan. In the 2012 election cycle, the moderate former Governor Tim Pawlenty and the completely batty Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ran, and neither got anywhere.

Most notable is Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Elected Mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 and 1947, he became known for fighting organized crime, which put a price on his head, a price it was unable to pay off.  In 1948, while running for the U.S. Senate, he gave a speech at the Democratic Convention, supporting a civil rights plank in the party platform, a movement which culminated in his guiding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Senate as Majority Whip. He ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy, then was elected LBJ’s Vice President in 1964.

He won the nomination in 1968, but lost to Richard Nixon by a hair. He returned to the Senate in 1970, and ran for President again in 1972, but lost the nomination to George McGovern. He might have run again in 1976 had his health not failed, as cancer killed him in 1978 at age 66. His wife Muriel briefly held his Senate seat.

Not having been President (he's come closer than any other Minnesotan ever has), he has no Presidential Library, but there is the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, 301 19th Avenue South, only a short walk from the Dome that would be named for him. Hubert and Muriel are laid to rest in Lakewood Cemetery, 3600 Hennepin Avenue. Number 6 bus.

The tallest building in Minnesota is the IDS Center, at 80 South 8th Street at Marquette Avenue, rising 792 feet high. The tallest in the State outside Minneapolis is Wells Fargo Place, at 30 East 7th Street at Cedar Street in St. Paul, 472 feet.

Nicollet Mall is a pedestrians-only shopping center that stretches from 2nd to 13th Streets downtown. At 7th Street, in front of Macy's, in roughly the same location that Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards threw her hat in the air in the opening to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, is a statue of "Mare" doing that. It was the first in a series of statues commissioned by TV Land that now includes Jackie Gleason outside Port Authority, Henry Winkler in Milwaukee, Bob Newhart in Chicago, Andy Griffith and Ron Howard in Raleigh, Elizabeth Montgomery in Salem, Massachusetts and Elvis in Honolulu. However, the show had no location shots in Minneapolis.

The sitcom Coach, which aired on ABC from 1989 to 1996, was set at Minnesota State University. At the time, there was not a real college with that name. But in 1999, Mankato State University was renamed Minnesota State University, Mankato; and in 2000, Moorhead State University became Minnesota State University, Moorhead.

The University of Minnesota was originally a model for the school on the show, but withdrew its support: Although some game action clearly shows the maroon and gold of the Golden Gophers, the uniforms shown in most scenes were light purple and gold. In one Season 1 episode, the Gophers are specifically mentioned as one of the Screaming Eagles' opponents, suggesting that Minnesota State might have been in the Big Ten. Show creator Barry Kemp is a graduate of the University of Iowa -- like Wisconsin, a major rival of the Gophers -- and most of the exterior shots you see of the campus were filmed there. In addition, the main character, Hayden Fox, was named after then-Iowa coach Hayden Fry. No scenes were actually shot in Minnesota, not even Hayden's oft-snowy lake house.

St. Paul is the capital of the State of Minnesota. The Capitol Building is at University Avenue and Capital Blvd. It's a half-hour ride from downtown on the Number 94 bus (named because most of its route is on I-94).

*

Bob Wood, a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and a graduate of Michigan State University, wrote a pair of sports travel guides: Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks, about his 1985 trip to all 26 stadiums then in MLB; and Big Ten Country, about his 1988 trip to all the Big Ten campuses and stadiums. (Penn State, Nebraska, and soon-to-be members Rutgers and Maryland were not yet in the league).

The Metrodome was the only stadium that featured in both books, although if either were updated to reflect current reality, it would feature in neither. In Big Ten Country, Wood said, “Now, don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like Minneapolis. How can you not like Minneapolis?... No, Minneapolis is lovely. It’s the Metrodome that sucks!”

Thankfully, the Metrodome is gone, the Vikings will soon play in a new stadium on the site, the Twins also play in a new stadium that actually feels like a ballpark, and, from what I understand, Minneapolis and St. Paul are still terrific cities, including for sports. A Giants or Jets fan should definitely take in a game against the Vikings there.

This coming Tuesday night, the Devils will be playing the Blues in St. Louis. Named for W.C. Handy's song "Saint Louis Blues," the Blues are 1 of 3 teams in major league sports to be named after a song.

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

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

It has lived long: The Blues have never seriously considered moving out of St. Louis, nor have they ever been seriously targeted for being moved, unlike the NFL Cardinals and the NBA Hawks (both long gone now), the NFL Rams (they may be headed back to St. Louis), and even the baseball Cardinals were nearly lost in the early 1950s and were targeted again in the late 1950s by cities hedging their bets against losing out on the expansion sweepstakes.

However, that long history works against them when you realize that, in 48 seasons (47 if you don't count the canceled 2004-05), they've never won the Stanley Cup.

Before You Go. While the Gateway City can get brutally hot in the summers, this is January. The website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is predicting high 20s for Tuesday afternoon and low 10s for the evening. The arena is a little bit inland from the river, so wind might not be an issue like it would be if you were going to see an event outdoors at Busch Stadium. Still, bundle up.

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

Tickets. While the Cardinals always sell well, even in off years, the Blues are averaging 17,988 fans per home game this season. That would have been 800 seats over a sellout at the old Saint Louis Arena, but at the Scottrade Center, it's only 94 percent of capacity. So getting tickets for a Blues game might not be all that hard, especially against the Devils, who aren't exactly a regional rival like Chicago, Detroit or Minnesota.

Blues tickets are cheap compared to the Devils, Scum and Philth. Center Ice Premier seats are $222. The Plaza End is the west side, the Blue Chip End is the east side. Plaza Center seats are $112, Plaza End Low rows are $89, Plaza End High rows are $65. Blue Chip Low rows are $67, Blue Chip High rows are $51. The upper level is called the Mezzanine, and Center Low rows are $95, Center Middle rows are $79, End Low rows are $41, and End High rows are $31.

Getting There. The Scottrade Center is 941 miles from the Prudential Center. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.

If you order tickets from American Airlines now, and you don't mind flying early in the morning on Tuesday (the day of the game) and back home Wednesday, you can get a flight out of Newark Airport, change planes at Chicago, and then to at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, for under $400, maybe even under $300. Otherwise, you're looking at closer to $1,200.

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

Bus? Not a good idea. Greyhound runs 8 buses a day between Port Authority and St. Louis, and only 4 of them are without changes. The average time of these trips is around 24 hours, and costs $400 round-trip, although this can drop to as little as $211 with advanced purchase. The Greyhound terminal is at Union Station, downtown at 430 S. 15th Street.

Speaking of Union Station, Amtrak is an even worse option. You'll have to take Amtrak out of New York's Penn Station, not Newark's. You could board the Lake Shore Limited at Penn Station at 3:40 Eastern on Sunday afternoon, arriving at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 Central on Monday morning, transfer to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 in the afternoon, and be at St. Louis' Union Station at 7:21 that night. If you try to take the same trip the next day, you'll arrive in St. Louis just 2 blocks from the arena, at 1820 Market Street, but about 20 minutes late for puck-drop. So you'd have to leave on Sunday. The trip would take 26 hours and 36 minutes. Longer than the bus, but cheaper, and you get to be in Chicago for 4 hours, which is cool. It would be $1,084 round-trip -- maybe 3 times as much as a plane!

If you decide to drive, it’s far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. You’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike, and take Interstate 78 West across New Jersey, and at Harrisburg get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which at this point will be both I-70 and I-76. When the two Interstates split outside Pittsburgh, stay on I-70 west. You’ll cross the northern tip of West Virginia, and go all the way across Ohio (through Columbus), Indiana (through Indianapolis) and Illinois. When you cross into Missouri, Exit 9 will be for the Sports Complex.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour in New Jersey, 5 hours in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Illinois, and 15 minutes in Missouri before you reach the exit for your hotel. That’s going to be nearly 17 hours. Counting rest stops, preferably 6 of them, and accounting for traffic in both New York and St. Louis, it should be about 24 hours.

Once In the City. St. Louis, settled by the French in 1764 and named for Louis IX, the Crusader King, the only monarch of France to have been canonized as a Saint, has a history out of proportion to its size. There's a mere 320,000 within the city limits, about half of what it was in 1950. But, like a lot of cities, especially in the Midwest, the "white flight" went to the suburbs, keeping the population of the metropolitan area roughly the same, in this case 2.9 million. Or, roughly, the population of Brooklyn alone.

Market Street divides the city's north and south street addresses, and on the east-west streets, the numbers increase westward from the Mississippi River. The sales tax in the State of Missouri is 4.225 percent, but it's over double that in St. Louis City: 8.49 percent. And St. Louis City is independent of St. Louis County, a confusion we usually don't have, because nobody outside County courthouses and Manhattan Borough Hall refers to Manhattan Island as "New York County."

Metrolink light rail has a $2.25 base fare, and the Metro buses are $2.00.  A Day Pass for the entire system is $7.50. If you're staying for the entire series, a Weekly Pass is $25. Do yourself a favor: Do not, even on Metrolink, go across the river into East St. Louis, Illinois. The joke is that the crime rate has dropped because there's nothing left to steal.
Going In. The official address of the Scottrade Center is 1401 Clark Avenue, 7 blocks west of Busch Stadium. The stretch of Clark outside the arena is also known as Brett Hull Way. Parking is $27.50. The rink is laid out east-to-west, with the Blues attacking twice toward the west end, a.k.a. the Plaza End. Flags representing the 30 NHL teams crown the center scoreboard. It is served by the Union Station and Civic Center stops on Metrolink.
The arena opened in 1994 as the Kiel Center, in honor of the previous building on the site, and then the Savvis Center, after a company that would go bust in the tech bubble, before Internet stock-trading company Scottrade took over. The building also hosts the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, known as "Arch Madness" instead of "March Madness."
The previous building was built in 1934, as the Municipal Auditorium, and in 1943 was renamed for the late Mayor Henry Kiel, who got it built. St. Louis University played its home basketball games there for its program's entire existence, 1934 to 1991, before moving temporarily to the Arena and then to the Scottrade Center, before opening its new on-campus Chaifetz Arena in 2008. The NBA's Hawks played there from their 1955 move from Milwaukee until their 1968 move to Atlanta, winning the Western Conference title in 1957, '58, '60 and '61 and the NBA Title in 1958.

Food. According to the arena's website:

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

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

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

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

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

Team History Displays. Alone among the teams that came into the NHL prior to 1970 -- unless you count the California Golden Seals, now defunct -- the Blues have never won the Stanley Cup. With the way the divisions were set up after the 1967 expansion, at first guaranteeing one of the "Second Six" a berth in the Finals for the 1st 3 seasons, the Blues reached the Finals in 1968, 1969 and 1970. This was the 1st head coaching job, and the 1st achievement, for Scotty Bowman, who went on to win more Cups than any other coach, 9 (but none in St. Louis).

But they got swept all 3 times, by the Montreal Canadiens the 1st 2 times and the Boston Bruins the last. They have not made the Finals since. They have been around for 49 years, and have never won so much as a single game in the Stanley Cup Finals. Indeed, in the 46 years since they last reached the Finals, they have only made it to the NHL's last 4 once, in 2001, and won a grand total of 1 game in the Conference Finals (under any name) since their defenseman Noel Picard tripped up Bobby Orr of the Bruins as he scored the Cup-winner in overtime of Game 4 in 1970.

Despite making the Playoffs in every completed season since 1979-80, they've only won 1 Playoff series since 2002 (in 2012). So while they've usually been good, they've never really been great.

As a result of this, and of that 1967-74 2-Division setup, they can't hang a banner for a Conference Championship, much less a Stanley Cup. They do hang banners for 9 Championships in their Division: 1968 and 1969 in the Western, 1977 and 1981 in the Smythe, 1985 and 1987 in the Norris, and 2000, 2012 and 2015 in the Central. They also hang a banner for winning the President's Trophy, emblematic of the best record in the regular season, in the 1999-2000 season. But that's it.
They hang banners with retired numbers on them, but those don't tell the full story. Their 1st retired number was 3, for defenseman Bob Gassoff, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1977, after just 3 seasons with the team.

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

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

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

Their other honorees have been more fortunate. From the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, they honored Number 11, left wing Brian Sutter (1 of the 6 NHL-playing Sutter Brothers); and Number 24, center Bernie Federko. From the 1990s, they honored Number 16, right wing Brett Hull; and Number 2, defenseman Al MacInnis. Although Wayne Gretzky only played for the Blues for a few weeks in 1996, they hang a banner with his Number 99 on it, to acknowledge that it's been retired for the entire league. And broadcaster Dan Kelly is honored with a banner, with a shamrock (he was Irish) in place of a number.

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

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

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

The Number 7 is not given out anymore, but is not officially retired, nor does it hang in the rafters along with the unretired 5 and 14. Instead, a mural honoring Berenson, Unger, Mullen and Tkachuk is in the lower seating bowl.
Gretzky, Federko, Hull, MacInnis, Mullen, Bowman and Kelly have been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Berenson has not, although I suspect they're waiting for him to retire as head coach at the University of Michigan, a post he's held for 32 seasons. They shouldn't hold their breath: Despite having recently turned 76, he shows no signs of wanting, or needing, to retire.

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

Others who played for the Blues and are in the Hall, but are better known for having played for other teams, are goalie Grant Fuhr, defenseman Guy Lapointe, centers Adam Oates and Dale Hawerchuk, and 5 who played for the Devils: Centers Peter Stastny and Doug Gilmour, defenseman Phil Housley, left wing Brendan Shanahan, and the man the Devils got as compensation when the Blues signed Shanny away from us in 1991: Scott Stevens. Emile Francis, the longtime Ranger coach and GM, later held those positions with the Blues, and is in the Hall. Defenseman Chris Pronger, newly inducted to the Hall for a career that included 9 strong seasons with the Blues, may be next to get his number retired, 44.

The St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame is located at Busch Stadium, 7 blocks away at 700 Clark Avenue. It honors 10 Blues figures: Federko, MacInnis, Unger, Berenson, Hull, Sutter, Kelly, Hall, Bowman and Bob Plager. It also includes baseball Cardinals, football Cardinals, Rams, Hawks, University of Missouri sports legends, and local high school stars who made it big elsewhere.

There is a Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, but it's all the way across the State in Springfield. Federko is the only Blues player yet inducted.

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

Stuff. The True Blues Authentic Team Store has outlets at the northeast and southwest corners and the east entrance of the Scottrade Center. While there, you can buy pretty much anything you can get at any other team's store.

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

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

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

Charles Glenn is the regular National Anthem singer for the Blues, concluding with, "...and the home... of the... Bluuuues!" There is a "Let's Go Blues" theme song. Their goal song is "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited, and they have a "Power Play Dance." There's an old guy in Section 314 who waves a towel around, and is known only as the Towel Guy.

Louie -- obviously, named for the city of St. Louis -- is the team's current mascot. He was introduced on October 10, 2007, and on November 3, 2007, the fans voted on his name on the Blues website. Louie is a Blue Polar Bear (fitting in with the whole hockey-as-winter-sport idea), and wears a Blues jersey with his name on the back and the Number 00.

For years, the Blues played "When the Saints Go Marching In" as their goal song, played live on the organ, not a recorded version. They got rid of it at the start of the 2014-15 season, and the fans were not happy. So it was restored for this season.

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

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

If you want to be around other New Yorkers, I’m sorry to say that I can find no listings for where they tend to gather. Even those sites that show where expatriate NFL fans watch games in cities other than their own came up short.

Sidelights. St. Louis likes to think of itself as a great sports city, and as "the best baseball town in America." Yeah, right. But check these sites out:

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

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

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

The new Busch Stadium hasn't yet hosted football, but it hosted a soccer game between English clubs Chelsea and Manchester City in the summer of 2013. 700 Clark Avenue at 8th Street.

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

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

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

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

The Dome is at 6th Street & Broadway, 9 blocks north of Busch Stadium. Metrolink to Convention Center.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Arena opened in 1929 across Oakland Avenue from Forest Park. At 14,200 seats, it was then one of the largest arenas outside the Northeast Corridor, and in terms of floor space only the recently-built "old" Madison Square Garden was larger.

It was the home of several minor league hockey teams until the NHL expansion of 1967 brought in the Blues. In 1977, the Arena had been expanded to 17,188 seats, and with Ralston Purina then being majority owners of the Blues, their "Checkerboard Square" logo was plastered everywhere, and the building was renamed the Checkerdome until 1983. It hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1973 (Bill Walton hitting 21 of 22 shots for UCLA over Memphis State) and 1978 (Jack Givens' Kentucky defeating Mike Gminski's Duke).

But it was seen as being inadequate for a modern sports team, and the Blues moved out in 1994. The Arena was demolished in 1999, and apartments and a Hampton Inn are on the site today. 5700 Oakland Avenue at Parkview Place. Metrolink to Central West End, then Number 59 bus.

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

 * St. Louis Walk of Fame. Honoring famous people from the St. Louis area, including from across the river in southern Illinois, these plaques run from 6150 to 6699 Delmar Blvd. Of the 128 current honorees, 25 are connected to sports: Cardinals figures Rickey, Hornsby, Dean, Musial, Schoendienst, Gibson, Brock, Ozzie Smith, Caray, Garagiola, Buck and Costas; the Browns' Sisler; the Negro Leagues' Bell; St. Louis native and New York baseball legend Berra; football Cardinals Dierdorf and Jackie Smith (as yet, no Rams); Hawks Pettit and Macauley (as yet, no Blues); boxers Henry Armstrong and Archie Moore; tennis stars Dwight Davis and Jimmy Connors; track legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee; and bowler Dick Weber. Metrolink to Delmar station.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to the best source I can find, there have been 7 TV shows set in St. Louis. The only recent one is Defiance, a postapocalyptic show now entering its 2nd season, for which a damaged Arch is a landmark. So if you're looking for locations in the city that have been on TV, guess what, the Arch itself and Busch Stadium are your best bets.

*

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

The Cincinnati Bengals have made the NFL Playoffs in each of the last 5 seasons, and in 7 of the last 11. That's actually a pretty good record.

But they are 0-7 in Playoff games in that time. That's bad.

Last night's, coming back from 15-0 down to the Pittsburgh Steelers, only to lose their cool and then the game 18-16 in the last minute, was the worst of the bunch. I saw one guy online say that it was the 2nd-worst loss in the history of Cincinnati sports, behind only the Bengals' loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII. (They also lost to the Niners in Super Bowl XVI, but that wasn't nearly as bad.)

When you consider that professional sports in Cincinnati goes back to the 1869 Red Stockings, that's pretty bad. The current Cincinnati Reds franchise has been around since 1882, and while they have won 5 World Series, they've also lost 4. They haven't won a World Championship since October 20, 1990.

The Cincinnati Royals left town in 1972, and the city hasn't had an NBA team since. They've never had an NHL team. And the Bengals?

The Bengals have never won a World Championship. Their last Playoff win was right after the Reds' last title. It was on January 6, 1991, in the Wild Card round, at Riverfront Stadium. They beat the Houston Oilers, 41-14. They then went on to lose in the Divisional round, to the Los Angeles Raiders, 20-10. The Super Bowl was won by the Giants over the Buffalo Bills.

Indeed, in only 3 of their 49 season have the Bengals won postseason games: In 1990-91, and in their AFC Championship seasons of 1981-82 and 1988-89.

January 6, 1991. That's 25 years and 4 days. A quarter of a century. How long has that been?

*

The Bengals' founding owner and 1st head coach, Paul Brown, was still alive. (He would die 7 months later.) Their head coach was Sam Wyche, who just turned 71, and is now the offensive coordinator at a high school in South Carolina. Their starting quarterback was Norman Julius "Boomer" Esiason. Their top receiver was Cris Collinsworth. Both are now better known as broadcasters than they ever were as players. This is mainly because, while good, they were not good enough to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Anthony Munoz was. Name another team whose greatest player ever was an offensive tackle.

Both the team they beat and the team that subsequently eliminated them have since moved: The Oilers moved to Nashville and became the Tennessee Titans, and the Raiders moved back to Oakland.

The Bengals have moved into Paul Brown Stadium, the Reds have moved into Great American Ballpark, and Riverfront Stadium has been demolished. Indeed, of the 28 stadiums that hosted NFL games that season, only 6 are still in use: Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Qualcomm (then Jack Murphy) Stadium in San Diego, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Ralph Wilson Stadium outside Buffalo, the Superdome in New Orleans, and Sun Life (then Joe Robbie) Stadium in Miami.

(If the Chargers move to Los Angeles for next season, it will be to the Los Angeles Coliseum, which the Raiders were then using, so this number will not change. The Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks are both playing on the same site that they used in the 1990-91 season, but in new stadiums. This will also be true for the Minnesota Vikings next season.)

There was an NFL team in Houston, but it wasn't the Texans. There was no team in Oakland, or St. Louis, or Carolina, or Jacksonville, or Baltimore.

The Buffalo Bills, the San Diego Chargers, the Atlanta Falcons, the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Seattle Seahawks, the Arizona Cardinals, the New Orleans Saints, and the Colts since moving to Indianapolis had not yet reached their 1st Super Bowl. The Bucs, the Hawks, the Saints, the Indianapolis version of the Colts, the Denver Broncos, the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots had not yet won their 1st Super Bowl. All of these facts have now been rendered untrue.

Ray Lewis was in high school. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were in junior high school. Tony Romo was 11 years old, Eli Manning had just turned 10, Troy Polamalu was 9, Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick were 8, Aaron Rodgers was 7, Clay Matthews was 4 (and his father Clay and his uncle Bruce were both active NFL stars), Sam Bradford and current Bengals starting quarterback Andy Dalton were 3, Russell Wilson was 2, Cam Newton and Rob Gronkowski were 20 months old, Andrew Luck was 16 months, and Johnny Manziel and Marcus Mariota weren't born yet.

Current Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis was the linebackers coach for, of all teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who've ended his 2005 and 2015 seasons ignominiously. Among current head coaches in the New York Tri-State Area, Tom Coughlin of the Giants was coaching the Giants' receivers, Terry Collins of the Mets was managing in the Los Angeles Dodgers' minor-league system, Lionel Hollins of the Nets was an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns, Alain Vigneault of the Rangers was coaching the "major junior" Hull Olympiques, Todd Bowles of the Jets was a cornerback for the Washington Redskins, Joe Girardi of the Yankees had just completed his 2nd season as a major league player with the Chicago Cubs, Jack Capuano of the Islanders was playing for the minor-league Milwaukee Admirals, and Derek Fisher of the Knicks and John Hynes of the Devils were both in high school.

(Actually, Coughlin has resigned, and Hollins was fired today, so both the Giants and the Nets currently have vacancies.)

The defending World Champions were the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, the Reds in MLB, the Detroit Pistons in the NBA, and the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL. Between them, these teams have won exactly 1 World Championship since (the 2004 Pistons). Indeed, they are 1-3 in finals between them in the last 25 years. West Germany had just won the World Cup, and had also just reunited with East Germany. A.C. Milan had just won their 2nd straight European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League. No team has won back-to-back titles in that tournament since. The Heavyweight Champion of the World, for the 1st time, was Evander Holyfield, whose son is now playing football for the University of Georgia.

Speaking of college football, Heisman Trophy winners Marcus Allen, Herschel Walker, Mike Rozier, Doug Flutie, Vinny Testaverde, Tim Brown, Barry Sanders and Andre Ware were then active in the NFL. Technically, so was Bo Jackson, but an injury meant that his football career was over. He did, however play again in MLB.

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, France, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa and Brazil.

The Mayor of Cincinnati at the time was David S. Mann, who has since left office and returned to the City Council. Current Mayor John Cranley was in high school. The Governor of Ohio at the time was Dick Celeste, who later served as U.S. Ambassador to India and a college president. He was about to hand the office over to Governor-elect George Voinovich, who has since served in the U.S. Senate. Celeste and Voinovich are now both retired from public life. Current Governor (and Presidential candidate) John Kasich had just been sworn in for a 5th term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The President of the United States was George Bush -- the father, who was about to turn Operation Desert Shield into Operation Desert Storm and push Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. The son had just bought the Texas Rangers. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, their wives, and the widows of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were still alive. Bill Clinton had just been sworn in for a 5th term as Governor of Arkansas, and was preparing a run for President. Hillary Clinton, of course, was the State's First Lady. Barack Obama had just begun work at a Chicago law firm. Donald Trump was in the process of divorcing Ivana and marrying his mistress, Marla Maples. Neither of these women, of course, is the current Mrs. Trump.

The Governor of the State of New York was Mario Cuomo. The Mayor of the City of New York was David Dinkins. The Governor's son and the current Governor, Andrew Cuomo, was serving under Dinkins as Chairman of the New York City Homeless Commission. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio was an aide to Dinkins. The Governor of New Jersey was Jim Florio. Current Governor Chris Christie was practicing law for a firm based in Cranford, New Jersey.

The Pope was John Paul II. The Prime Minister of Canada was Brian Mulroney, and of Britain, the newly-installed John Major. The British monarch was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed. Liverpool were the holders of the Football League title, their 18th championship, then a record. They have never won England's top flight again, under any name. Manchester United were the holders of the FA Cup, the 1st major trophy they had won under manager Alex Ferguson. There would be more.

Douglas Coupland coined the expression that defined people born between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, myself included, in the title of his novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Alexandra Ripley published Scarlett, the authorized sequel to Gone With the Wind. Tom Clancy published the Jack Ryan novel The Sum of All Fears, John Grisham The Firm, and Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho, later turned into a film in which Christian Bale became the kind of man his later character, Batman, would have pursued and caught. None of the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire novels had yet been written.

Major films then in theaters included Edward Scissorhands, Awakenings, Kindergarten Cop and The Godfather Part III. Major TV shows that had premiered the preceding fall included the CBS version of The Flash with John Wesley Shipp, Evening Shade, Dream On, Beverly Hills 90210 (iconically), and Cop Rock (ignominiously). Blossom had debuted the day before. Madonna's horrible "Justify My Love" was the Number 1 song in America.

This coming Thursday night, the New Jersey Devils visit Denver to play the Colorado Avalanche.

Before You Go. The Denver Post is predicting mid-40s for Thursday afternoon, and low 20s for the evening. Although the mountain air leads to a lot of snow, no precipitation of any kind is forecast for this week. Still, keep the thin air in mind, and don't exert yourself too much.

Denver is in the Mountain Time Zone, so you’ll be 2 hours behind New York time. And there’s a reason it’s called the Mile High City: The elevation means the air will be thinner. Although the Rocky Mountain region is renowned for outdoor recreation, if you’re not used to it, try not to exert yourself too much. Cheering at a sporting event shouldn’t bother you too much, but even if the weather is good, don’t go rock-climbing or any other such activity unless you’ve done it before and know what you’re doing.

Tickets. When the Avs arrived in 1995, and immediately won the Stanley Cup, the Rocky Mountain region went nuts, having never before won a World Championship in any sport. They stayed good for 10 years, and attendance remained great. Then they fell apart, and people saw how well Colorado fans supported a non-winner. They've made the Playoffs just once in the last 5 seasons, and average home attendance this season is down to 16,341 per game -- not terrible, but a little under 91 percent of capacity. So tickets will almost certainly be available.

Tickets in the lower level are $163 between the goals and $97 behind them. In the upper level, they're $57 between and just $23 behind.

Getting There. It’s 1,779 miles from Times Square in New York to the Denver plaza that contains the State House and the City-County complex, and 1,767 miles from Prudential Center to the Pepsi Center. You’re probably thinking that you should be flying.

The good news: Flying to Denver, considering how far it is, is relatively cheap. You can get a round-trip flight for Thursday morning, and buy it today, for a little over $600, depending on what time you want to fly. More likely, it'll be around $800, but that's still a decent price per mile.

The bad news: It won’t be nonstop. While Stapleton Airport was a major change-planes-here spot for going to the West Coast and Las Vegas, the new Denver International Airport isn’t. You want to fly there, you’ll have to change planes, most likely in either Chicago or Dallas.

Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited leaves Penn Station at 3:40 PM Tuesday, arrives at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Wednesday (that’s Central Time). The California Zephyr leaves Chicago at 2:00 PM Wednesday and arrives at Denver’s Union Station at 7:15 AM (Mountain Time) Thursday. The return trip would leave Denver at 7:10 PM Friday, arrive in Chicago at 2:50 PM Monday, leave Chicago at 9:30 PM Monday, and get back to New York at 6:35 PM Tuesday. The round-trip fare is $496.

Conveniently, Union Station is at 1700 Wynkoop Street at 17th Street, just 3 blocks from Coors Field. The front of the building is topped by a clock, framed by an old sign saying UNION STATION on top and TRAVEL by TRAIN on the bottom.
Greyhound allows you to leave Port Authority Bus Terminal at 4:00 PM Tuesday, and arrive at Denver at 10:50 AM on Thursday, a trip of just under 45 hours, without having to change buses. That 44:50 does, however, include layovers of 40 minutes in Philadelphia, an hour and a half in Pittsburgh, an hour in Columbus, an hour in Indianapolis, 2 hours in St. Louis, and half an hour in Salina, Kansas; plus half-hour meal stops in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kansas. Round-trip fare is $406, but you can get it for $338 on advanced-purchase. You can get a bus back at 7:10 PM Sunday and be back in New York at 3:50 PM Tuesday. The Denver Bus Center is at 1055 19th Street.

If you actually think it’s worth it to drive, get someone to go with you, so you’ll have someone to talk to, and one of you can drive while the other sleeps. You’ll be taking Interstate 80 most of the way, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, before taking Interstate 76 from Nebraska to Colorado, and then Interstate 25 into Denver. (An alternate route: Take the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Turnpikes to Interstate 70 and then I-70 through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado into downtown Denver. It won’t save you an appreciable amount of time over the I-80 route, though.)

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Illinois, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Iowa, 6 hours in Nebraska, and 3 hours and 15 minutes in Colorado. Including rest stops, and accounting for traffic (you’ll be bypassing Cleveland and Chicago, unless that’s where you want to make rest stops), we’re talking about a 40-hour trip.

Even if you’re only going for one game, no matter how you got there, get a hotel and spend a night. You’ll be exhausted otherwise. Trust me, I know: Trains and buses are not good ways to get sleep.

Once In the City. Founded in 1858 as a gold rush city, and named for James W. Denver, then Governor of the Kansas Territory, from which Colorado was separated, Denver is a State capital and city of 630,000 people, in a metro area of 3.2 million -- roughly the population of Brooklyn and Staten Island combined. It's easily the biggest city in, and thus the unofficial cultural capital of, the Rocky Mountain region.

Broadway is the main north-south drag, separating East addresses from West. But the northwestern quadrant of the street grid is at roughly a 45-degree angle from the rest of the city, and this area includes the central business district, Union Station and the ballpark.

The sales tax in the State of Colorado is 2.9 percent, however, the City of Denver adds a 3.62 percent sales tax, for a total of 6.52 percent. The Denver Post is a good paper, but don't bother looking for the Rocky Mountain News: It went out of business in 2009. Bus and light rail service in Denver is run by the Regional Transportation District (RTD), and goes for $2.25 for a single ride, and $6.75 for a DayPass.
Going In. The Pepsi Center -- the arena has always had that name since it opened -- is across Cherry Creek from downtown, about 2 miles northwest of City Hall. The intersection is 11th Street & Auraria Parkway, but the mailing address is 1000 Chopper Circle, in honor of Robert "Chopper" Travaglini, the beloved former trainer (and amateur sports psychologist) of the NBA's Nuggets, who share the arena. Chopper was actually a Jersey Boy, albeit from Woodbury on the Philly side. He died in 1999, age 77, right before the new arena opened. Chopper Circle is an extension of Wewatta Street.
Pepsi Center/Elitch Gardens station on the RTD light rail. If you're coming in that way, you'll probably enter from the west gate, the Grand Atrium. If you're driving, parking starts at just $5.00. The rink is laid out east-to-west, and the Avs attack twice toward the east end.
In addition to hosting the Avs and the Nugs, the Pepsi Center has also hosted NCAA Tournament basketball games, the NCAA's hockey "Frozen Four," and the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Food. Being a “Wild West” city, you might expect Denver to have Western-themed stands with “real American food” at its arena. Being in a State with a Spanish name, in a land that used to belong to Mexico, you might also expect to have Mexican food. And you would be right on both counts.

Unfortunately, the team and arena websites don't include charts showing where the concession stands are. The arena website does mention specialty restaurants:

The Shock Top Lodge is a restaurant that seats 325 guests, 250 in the restaurant and 75 at the bar, and is open to all ticketholders.
Team History Displays. The Nuggets' banners are at the east end of the arena, and the Avalanche's banners at the west end. There are also banners for the Arena Football League's Colorado Mammoths -- which, like the Avs, the Nugs, MLS' Colorado Rapids, the NFL's St. Louis (for the moment) Rams, and English soccer's Arsenal Football Club, is owned by Walton of Walmart infamy in-law Stan Kroenke.

Despite the Avs' brief history, they have plenty of banners: 9 for Division titles in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2014; 2 for President's Trophies in 1997 and 2001; 2 for Western Conference Championships in 1996 and 2001; and 2 for Stanley Cups in 1996 and 2001. There is no notation for what the franchise won as the Quebec Nordiques, and, since the original, hockey version of the Colorado Rockies made the Playoffs just once in 6 seasons before moving to become the Devils, there is nothing to hang for them anyway.
They've also retired 5 uniform numbers. From the 1996 Stanley Cup winners, they've retired 19 for center Joe Sakic, 21 for center Peter Forsberg, 33 for goaltender Patrick Roy (now the team's head coach) and 52 for defenseman Adam Foote.

All of these players were still there for the 2001 Stanley Cup win (although Forsberg was injured for the Playoffs). And, in case the 2,001 times that Gary Thorne and ABC Sports mentioned it wasn't enough to jam it into your memory for all time, the Avs had added Number 77, defenseman Ray Bourque. (Interestingly enough, both times the Avs won the Cup, the Devils won it the season before. But this pattern did not hold in 2003-04.)
Prior to the team's move to become the Avalanche, the Quebec Nordiques had retired 3 for defenseman Jean-Claude Tremblay, 8 for left wing Marc Tardif, 16 for left wing Michel Goulet, and 26 for center Peter Stastny (who, of course, also played for the Devils). Each of these numbers was returned to circulation, and Peter's son Paul Stastny, now with the St. Louis Blues, wore his father's Number 26 with the Avs.

This is the Avs' 20th Anniversary season, and they've named a 20th Anniversary Team. From the 1996 Cup team, they chose Roy, Sakic, Forsberg, Foote, defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh, left wing Valeri Kamensky, right wings Adam Deadmarsh and our old friend Claude Lemieux, and center Stephane Yelle.

From the 2001 Cup team, they chose Roy, Sakic, Forsberg, Foote, Bourque, Yelle, defenseman Rob Blake, left wing Alex Tanguay, right wing Milan Hejduk, and centers Stephen Reinprecht and Chris Drury.

From after, but not including, 2001, they've chosen goalie Semyon Varlamov, defensemen John-Michael Liles and Erik Johnson, left wing Gabriel Landeskog, and centers Paul Stastny and Matt Duchene.

Stuff. Altitude Athletics is located in the Grand Atrium at the arena's west end. It sells Avs, Nugs, Rapids and Mammoths merchandise -- but not the Rams or The Arsenal, as these teams are located nowhere near Denver. They may sell cowboy hats with team logos on them, to tie in with the State's Western heritage.

There are books available about the team, but, being Devils fans, you won't want to be reminded of how they plowed into the Meadowlands, off Exit 16W (as in 16 wins to get through the Playoffs), and took the Cup away from us. That story is told in the Denver Post's official retrospective, 

Mission 16W: Colorado Avalanche: 2000-'01 Stanley Cup Champions. Of course, Bourque is in the center of the cover, holding up the Cup, flanked by photos of Sakic and Roy.

From Claude Lemieux's unacceptable hit on Kris Draper in Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals, Detroit Red Wings fans have hated the Avs in general and Claudie in particular. They met in 5 Playoff series in 7 seasons from 1996 to 2002, and mixed in there was a regular-season nasty brawl in Detroit on March 26, 1997, in which Claudie was targeted by the Wings. Denver Post hockey writer Adrian Dater and then-Wings coach Scotty Bowman have collaborated on Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings v. Colorado Avalanche: The Inside Story of Pro Sports' Nastiest and Best Rivalry. 

Of course, the Wings' real arch-rivals are the Chicago Blackhawks, as the Hawks' 2010s renaissance has reminded everyone. Wings-Avs was like Mets-Braves, Knicks-Heat and 49ers-Cowboys, in that it was only a rivalry for a brief time, and no longer really matters, especially now that the Wings have been moved to the Eastern Conference. It's also worth noting that Claudie had a nasty reputation even before 1996. Indeed, when he was introduced before Game 1 of the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals in Detroit, no Devils player was booed harder.

The Avs haven't yet released a 20th Anniversary DVD, but highlight packages for the 1996 and 2001 Cup wins are be available. The '96 version is titled The Colorado Avalanche Landslide; the '01, Mission Accomplished (again, playing on the theme of Bourque's 22-year quest for the Cup, failing 20 times with the Boston Bruins and once for the Avs before finally doing it).

During the Game. Coloradans love their sports, but they’re not known as antagonistic. Although the Jets came within a half of derailing a Bronco Super Bowl in 1999 (1998 season), and the Devils came within a game of short-circuiting their Stanley Cup run in 2001, the people of the Centennial State don’t have an ingrained hatred of New Yorkers. As long as you don’t wear Kansas City Chiefs or Oakland Raiders gear, you’ll probably be completely safe. (But, as always, watch out for obnoxious drunks, who know no State Lines.)

Jake Schroeder is the Avs' regular National Anthem singer. The Avs take the ice to "Scalped," an old surf-rock instrumental by Dick Dale. (Shouldn't the L.A. Kings use a surf-rock song? I guess nobody ever thought to invent "ski-rock.") Their goal song is "Born to Rage" by the Swedish DJ duo Dada Life. (From ABBA to Ace of Base to Dada Life, Sweden has never learned how to make good music.) If the Avs win, they'll play "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Sometimes, the Avs will wear jerseys with "COLORADO" in descending diagonal block letters, much like the hated Rangers. This is an attempt to show how they might have dressed had they existed in the old days, not a "throwback" uniform, but a "fauxback."

Despite sometimes featuring a shoulder patch of a Sasquatch/Bigfoot footprint, the Avs' mascot is Bernie the St. Bernard, emblematic of rescuing people trapped in alpine avalanches. He even has a keg around his neck, although from a distance, Avs fans, trained on Broncomania, could easily mistake it for a football. His theme song is "Atomic Dog," by Plainfield, New Jersey native George Clinton and his "P-Funk Empire."
After the Game. Denver has had crime issues, and just 3 blocks from Coors Field is Larimer Street, immortalized as a dingy, bohemian-tinged, hobo-strewn street in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. But that scene was written in 1947. The Pepsi Center is, essentially, an island in a sea of parking. LoDo (Lower Downtown) has become, with the building of Coors Field and the revitalization of Union Station, a sort of mountain Wrigleyville, and thus the go-to area for Denver nightlife. So you’ll probably be safe.

Across Chopper Circle from the arena is Brooklyn's at the Pepsi Center, a typical sports bar. If you want something a little more substantial, a Panda Express is on the other side of the arena, across Elitch Circle.

LoDo is loaded with bars that will be open after the game, including Scruffy Murphy’s at Larimer & 20th, and an outlet of the Fado Irish Pub chain at Wynkoop & 19th. But the only baseball-named place I can find anywhere near Coors is Sandlot Brewery, at 22nd & Blake, outside the park’s right-field corner.

Perhaps the most famous sports-themed restaurant near Denver is Elway’s Cherry Creek, a steakhouse at 2500 E. 1st Avenue in the southern suburb of Cherry Creek. Bus 83L. It’s owned by the same guy who owns John Elway Chevrolet in another southern suburb, Englewood.

About a mile southeast of Coors Field, at 538 E. 17th Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood (not sure why a southern, rather than northern, neighborhood is called “Uptown”), is The Tavern, home of the local New York Giants fan club. I can find no corresponding place for Jets fans, but if you’re a Yankees, Mets or Knicks fan, you can probably find some New Yorkers at The Tavern.

Sidelights. Sports Authority Field at Mile High, formerly Invesco Field at Mile High, has been the home of the NFL's Denver Broncos since 2001. Everyone just gives it the same name as the old facility: "Mile High Stadium." It includes the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, and the Broncos’ Ring of Fame.

It was built on the site of the McNichols Sports Arena, home to the NBA’s Denver Nuggets from 1975 to 1999, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche from 1995 to 1999, and the first major league team called the Colorado Rockies, the NHL team that became the Devils, from 1976 to 1982. It hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1990, with UNLV (the University of Nevada at Las Vegas) clobbering Duke. (The University of Colorado, in Boulder, made the Final Four in 1942 and 1955, although it wasn't yet called the Final Four.  No other Colorado-based school has made it, and none has won a National Championship -- not in basketball, anyway.)

When the time came to play the final concert at McNichols, the act that played the first concert there was brought back: ZZ Top. This fact was mentioned on a Monday Night Football broadcast, leading Dan Dierdorf to note the alphabetic distinction of the long red-bearded men, and say, “The first one should have been ABBA.” Which would have been possible, as they were nearly big in the U.S. at the time. However, the fact that the arena only lasted 24 years, making it not that hard for the act that played the first concert there to also play the last, says something about America's disposable culture.

The old stadium was just to the north of the new stadium/old arena. The current address is Mile High Stadium Circle, but the old intersection was W. 20th Avenue & Bryant St. (2755 W. 17th Avenue was the mailing address.) It was built in 1948 as Bears Stadium, an 18,000-seat ballpark.

When the American Football League was founded in 1960, it was expanded to 34,000 seats with the addition of outfield seating. The name was changed to Mile High Stadium in 1966, and by 1968 much of the stadium was triple-decked and seated 51,706. In 1977 – just in time for the Broncos to make their first Super Bowl run and start “Broncomania” – the former baseball park was transformed into a 76,273-seat horseshoe, whose east stands could be moved in to conform to the shape of a football field, or out to allow enough room for a regulation baseball field. The old-time ballpark had become, by the standards of the time, a modern football stadium.

The biggest complaint when the Rockies arrived in 1993 wasn’t the thin air, or the condition of the stadium (despite its age, it was not falling apart), but the positioning of the lights: Great for football fans, but terrible for outfielders tracking fly balls. But it was only meant to be a temporary ballpark for the Rockies, as a condition for Denver getting a team was a baseball-only stadium. What really led to the replacement of Mile High Stadium, and its demolition in 2002, was greed: The Broncos' desire for luxury-box revenue.

At Bears/Mile High Stadium, the Broncos won AFC Championships in 1977, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1997 and 1998, winning the Super Bowl in the last 2 years after losing the first 4 in blowouts.  (They've now won an AFC title at the new stadium, but not a Super Bowl.) The Denver Bears won Pennants while playing there in 1957 (as a Yankee farm team), 1971, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983 and 1991 (winning the last one under the Denver Zephyrs name).

The U.S. national soccer team played a pair of games at Mile High Stadium in the 1990s, and beat Mexico at the new stadium in 2002 (the only game they've played there so far). While the 2008 Democratic Convention was held at the Pepsi Center, Senator Barack Obama gave his nomination acceptance speech outdoors in front of 80,000 people at New Mile High Stadium.

The Red Lion Hotel Denver and the Skybox Grill & Sports Bar are now on the site of the old stadium. At McNichols, the Nuggets reached the ABA Finals in 1976, and the Avalanche won the 1996 Stanley Cup (albeit clinching in Miami). Elvis Presley sang at McNichols on April 23, 1976.

The new stadium, and the site of the old stadium and arena, are at Mile High Station on the light rail C-Line and E-Line.

Coors Field has been home to the Rockies since it opened in 1995. 2001 Blake Street (hence the team's nickname, the Blake Street Bombers) at 20th Street, 3 blocks from Union Station, accessible by light rail.

The Nuggets, known as the Denver Rockets until 1974, played at the Denver Auditorium Arena, at 13th & Champa Streets, from their 1967 inception until McNichols opened in 1975. It was also the home of the original Nuggets, who played in the NBA from 1948 to 1950.

It opened in 1908, and its seating capacity of 12,500 made it the 2nd-largest in the country at the time, behind the version of Madison Square Garden then standing. It almost immediately hosted the Democratic National Convention that nominated William Jennings Bryan for President for the 3rd time – although it’s probably just a coincidence that the Democrats waited exactly 100 years (give or take a few weeks) to go back (it’s not like Obama didn’t want to get it right the 1st time, as opposed 0-for-3 Bryan).

The Auditorium Arena hosted Led Zeppelin’s 1st American concert on December 26, 1968. It was demolished in 1990 to make way for the Denver Performing Arts Complex, a.k.a. the Denver Center. Theatre District/Convention Center Station on the light rail’s D-Line, F-Line and H-Line.

The Denver area's Major League Soccer team, the Colorado Rapids, plays at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. The U.S. national team has played there twice, winning both times. 6000 Victory Way. Number 48 bus to 60th Avenue & Dahlia Street, then Number 88 bus to 60th & Monaco. Then they make you walk 10 blocks on 60th to get to the stadium.

The Beatles played Red Rocks Amphitheatre in suburban Morrison on August 26, 1964. It is still in business, and a Colorado Music Hall of Fame is a short walk away. 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, 10 miles west of downtown. Sorry, no public transportation.

Elvis played 2 shows at the Denver Coliseum on April 8, 1956, and 1 each on November 17, 1970 and April 30, 1973. Built in 1951, it still stands, seating 10,500, and is best known for concerts and the National Western Stock Rodeo. 4600 Humbolt Street at E. 46th Avenue, off Interstate 70, 3 miles northeast of downtown. Apparently, no public transportation to there, either.

Denver has some renowned museums, including the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (their version of the Museum of Natural History) at 2001 Colorado Blvd. at Montview Blvd. (in City Park, Number 20 bus), and the Denver Art Museum (their version of the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History), at 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway at Colfax Avenue (across I-25 from Mile High Stadium, Auraria West station on the C-Line and E-Line).

Denver’s history only goes back to a gold rush in 1859 – not to be confused with the 1849 one that turned San Francisco from a Spanish Catholic mission into the first modern city in the American West. The city isn’t exactly loaded with history.

There’s no Presidential Library – although Mamie Doud, the eventual Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower, grew up there, and her house is now a historic site. Mamie and “Ike” were married there, their son John (a future General, Ambassador and military historian) was born there, and the Eisenhowers were staying there when Ike had his heart attack in 1955. The house is still in private ownership, and is not open to the public. However, if you’re a history buff, or if you just like Ike, and want to see it, it’s at 750 Lafayette Street, at 8th Avenue. The Number 6 bus will get you to 6th & Lafayette.

After his heart attack, Ike was treated at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center in nearby Aurora, 12 years after Senator John Kerry, nearly elected President in 2004 and now Secretary of State, was born there. It’s not a Presidential Birthplace, because Kerry narrowly lost. It is now the University of Colorado Hospital. The Fitzsimmons Golf Course is across Montview Boulevard – it figures that Ike would be hospitalized next to a golf course! 16th Avenue & Quentin Street. Number 20 bus from downtown.

Denver doesn't have as many tall buildings as the nation's bigger cities, nor are they as interesting, architecturally. The tallest building in the State of Colorado is Republic Plaza, 714 feet high, at 17th Street & Tremont Place downtown.

The University of Colorado is in Boulder, 30 miles to the northwest. At Market Street Station, 16th & Market, take the BV Bus to the Boulder Transit Center, which is on campus. The ride should take about an hour and 20 minutes. Colorado State University is in Fort Collins, 65 miles up Interstate 25 north, and forget about reaching it by public transportation. The U.S. Air Force Academy is outside Colorado Springs, 60 miles down I-25.  As with Fort Collins, you'd need Greyhound. Unlike CSU, you might not be able to just go there: Some of the area is restricted.  It is, after all, a military base.

A few TV shows have been set in Denver, but you won't find their filming locations there. The old-time Western Whispering Smith and the more recent one Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman were set in old Colorado, but filmed in Southern California.

Probably the most famous show set in Colorado is South Park, and that's a cartoon, so forget seeing anything from that. Not quite as cartoonish was Mork & Mindy, set in Boulder. The McConnell house actually is in Boulder, at 1619 Pine Street. But don't try to copy the opening-sequence scene with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber on the goalposts at the University of Colorado's Folsom Field. You could fall, and end up saying, "Shazbot!"

The most famous show ever set in Colorado was Dynasty, ABC's Excessive Eighties counterpart to CBS' Dallas, starring John Forsythe as Blake Carrington, an oilman and a thinly-veiled version of Marvin Davis, who nearly bought the Oakland Athletics from Charlie Finley in 1978 with the idea of moving them to Mile High Stadium, but the deal fell through. Right, you don't care about Blake, all you care about is the catfights between the 2nd and 1st Mrs. Carrington's: Krystle (Linda Evans) and Alexis (Joan Collins). The Carrington mansion seen in the opening credits is in Beverly Hills, but the building that stood in for the headquarters of Denver Carrington is at 621 17th Street, while the one that stood in for Colbyco is at 1801 California Street.

*

Denver had been considered a potential destination for Major League Baseball many times: The Continental League planned a team for there for 1961, it was a finalist for expansion teams in 1969 and 1977, and, as I said, the A's came within inches of moving there for the 1978 season. When they finally got a team in 1993, they were embraced as perhaps no expansion team has ever been embraced -- even more than the Mets themselves in 1962. And, the way it's worked out, the Rockies' first-ever game was against the Mets (a Met win at Shea), and their first game at Coors was against the Mets (a Rockies win in 11 innings).

The Rockies have seen the bloom come off the rose, but they've also seen some real success. The experience of Coors Field should be a good one. Have fun!

Five men who were born or raised in New Jersey have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Newark's Billy Hamilton, Salem's Leon "Goose" Goslin, Carteret's Joe Medwick, Paterson's Larry Doby, and Orange's Monte Irvin.

They're all gone now.

Monford Merrill Irvin was born on February 25, 1919 in Haleburg, Alabama. At the age of 8, he moved with his family to Bloomfield, Essex County -- where my own parents lived when I was born, making it my 1st hometown -- outside Newark. Two years later, they moved to neighboring Orange.

His father drove a milk wagon, and young Monte helped him out, building up his strength by lifting large milk cans, the kind that Harry Houdini made famous by getting locked into and then escaping from them.

He starred in baseball, football, basketball and track, in the latter setting a State high school record for the javelin throw. He earned a football scholarship to the University of Michigan, then as now one of the game's most storied programs, and, at a time when few schools were willing to do so, accepted students and athletes regardless of race. But he turned it down because he didn't have enough money to move to Ann Arbor.

Instead, he accepted a scholarship to historically-black Lincoln University, outside Philadelphia. Like another future member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Casey Stengel, he studied to be a dentist. But he quit the football program because he coach essentially told him to choose between the game and his medical training. His luck turned when Negro League baseball teams began to scout him.

In 1938, he signed with the Newark Eagles, practically a hometown team, as a 2nd baseman. He led the Negro National League in batting in 1940 and '41, then joined Azules de Veracruz (Veracruz Blues) and won the Mexican League batting title in 1942.

He then missed the entirety of the 1943 and '44 seasons and most of '45, serving in World War II with the U.S. Army's engineers, building bridges. "The black troops were treated better in Europe than they were in the U.S.," he said. "They got a taste of freedom over there." But he also said that many of the returning white soldiers realized that it was stupid to have black men fighting for their country and not be able to play in the major leagues.

Near the end of the 1945 season, he returned to the Eagles, and continued to star for them until 1948, winning another batting title in 1946, and earning the nickname "Mr. Murder." (How many rappers would pay big money to have that as a nickname?) His double play partner was his fellow New Jerseyan, Paterson's Larry Doby.

He was some observers' pick to be the 1st black player in modern baseball. Indeed, Branch Rickey, then president and part-owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is alleged to have told him that he could be the first. But after 3 years away, he didn't think he could play well enough to uphold what would have to be an incredibly high standard, and Rickey kept searching until he found Jackie Robinson, who'd served in the Army but had never gone overseas and had been discharged in time to play the entire 1945 season with the Kansas City Monarchs.

In 1947, Robinson became the 1st black player in the major leagues since the 1880s. Doby was signed by the Cleveland Indians, and became the 1st black player in the American League. Others followed, such as Roy Campanella and Irvin's Newark teammate (and Jefferson, New Jersey native) Don Newcombe with the Dodgers, and Satchel Paige with the Indians.

Before the 1949 season, despite being 30 years old, Irvin was signed by the Dodgers' arch-rivals, the New York Giants. After half a season with their farm team, the Jersey City Giants, he was called up.

*

On July 8, 1949, the Giants fielded their 1st 2 black players -- appropriately enough, at Ebbets Field against the Dodgers, with Robinson, Campanella and Newcombe all playing. Hank Thompson led off and played 2nd base, Irvin's usual position, and went 0-for-3 but played errorless ball. He would later be moved to 3rd base and become an important role player.

In the top of the 8th, wearing Number 7, Irvin came to bat for the 1st time, pinch-hitting for pitcher Clint Hartung. He drew a walk off Rex Barney, who had relieved Newcombe. He was stranded, and was not placed in the field, and the Dodgers won the game, 4-3.  

That 1st season, he was mostly used in right field. In 1950, given the Number 20, he was switched to left field, the position he would play for most of his major league career, and at which he may have had the best arm in New York City baseball history, at least until Dave Winfield came along; it was, at the least, on a par with the best right field arm in New York, belonging to the Dodgers' Carl Furillo, a.k.a. the Reading Rifle.

In 1951, Irvin batted .312, hit 24 home runs, and led the National League with 121 RBIs as the Giants won the Pennant, coming from 13 1/2 games behind the Dodgers on August 11 to win a 3-game Playoff on Bobby Thomson's home run. The Giants would lose the 1951 World Series to the Yankees, despite taking a 2 games to 1 lead. In Game 1, just as Robinson would do 4 years later, Irvin stole home plate. Unlike Robinson, where there's a dispute and catcher Yogi Berra insisted until his death last year that he was out, Irvin was unquestionably safe.

Irvin was named an All-Star for the only time in 1952, despite missing a big chunk of the season with a broken ankle. He became a mentor to the Giants' young star, Willie Mays. "In my time, when I was coming up, you had to have some kind of guidance," Mays later said. "And Monte was like my brother... I couldn't go anywhere without him, especially on the road... It was just a treat to be around him. I didn't understand life in New York until I met Monte. He knew everything about what was going on, and he protected me dearly."

Together, Irvin and Mays, along with such players as Thompson, Whitey Lockman, Alvin Dark, Don Mueller, Dusty Rhodes, Sal Maglie and Johnny Antonelli, the Giants won the World Series in 1954, beating Doby and the Indians in 4 straight, after losing the '51 Series to the Yankees.

Going into the 1955 season, Irvin was 37, and still looked to be a productive hitter, Unfortunately, favoring his injured ankle gave him a back injury, and was limited to just 51 games. Like his contemporaries Hank Greenberg, Ralph Kiner and Al Rosen, the bad back would shorten his career. After the season, the Chicago Cubs chose him in the Rule 5 Draft, and he played for them in 1956, wearing Number 39, alongside fellow ex-Negro Leaguer Ernie Banks.

He played his last major league game on September 30, 1956, exactly the way he came in: He pinch-hit for a pitcher who had gone 0-for-3, drew a walk, got stranded at 1st base, didn't play in the field, and his team lost the game. The main differences are the inning in which it happened (this time, the 9th), and the site (this time, at home). The Cubs lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2 at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs let him go, and, thinking he still had some good ball left in him, he went west, to the Pacific Coast League, to the Los Angeles Angels -- ironically, recently purchased from the Cubs by the Dodgers, to pave the way for the Dodgers' move west. But after 4 games, his back injury was too severe, and he hung up his spikes at age 38. Robinson had also just retired, while Doby would last in the majors until 1959.

Irvin had what amounted to just 6 full seasons in the major leagues, and only 6 more in the Negro and Mexican Leagues combined. He missed 3 prime years (when he was 24, 25 and 26 years old) due to The War, and probably would have played at least a couple of years longer than he did if not for his back injury. His career totals include a batting average of .293, an on-base percentage of .383, a slugging percentage of .475, an OPS+ of 125, and 99 home runs. Although Negro League records remain woefully incomplete, what we have shows a sizzling career batting average of .358.

"My only regret," he would later say, "is that I didn't get a shot at 19, when I was a real ballplayer."

*

Irvin married a woman named Dorinda, better known as Dee. They had 2 daughters, now named Pamela Fields and Patricia Gordon.

After retiring as a player, he worked for Rheingold beer, which in 1962 became an initial, and longtime, sponsor of the expansion Mets. You might remember their jingle (which Irvin didn't write):

My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer.
Look for Rheingold wherever you buy beer.

Maybe his work for Rheingold got the Mets' attention, because in 1967 they hired him as a scout. In '67 and '68, he was one of the men who helped build the "Miracle" team that won the 1969 World Series.

In 1969, new Commissioner Bowie Kuhn hired him as a public relations specialist for Major League Baseball, making him he 1st black man to work for the MLB office. In this capacity, he filled in for Kuhn (whose claim of a previous commitment in Cleveland was massively lame) when Hank Aaron, who also got his start in the Negro Leagues (and turned out to be the last ex-Negro Leaguer still active), hit his record-breaking 715th career home run on April 8, 1974. Irvin retired in 1984 at the same time as Kuhn, but still accepted the occasional work for the MLB office.

In 1973, the Special Committee on the Negro Leagues elected Irvin to the Baseball Hall of Fame, based on his performance both in the Negro Leagues and in the majors. He has also been elected to the Sports Hall of Fames of Alabama (even though he didn't live there for very long) and New Jersey.

In 2010, even though he never played a major league game in San Francisco, the Giants retired his Number 20. That fall, before Game 1 of the World Series, he and the Giants' other living Hall-of-Famers threw out ceremonial first balls: Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry.
Irvin lived the last few years of his life in a retirement community in Houston. He died there last night, of natural causes, at the age of 96.

This past June, he and Mays were among the Giants old-timers invited to come to the White House as Barack Obama, America's 1st black President, honored the Giants for their World Series win the preceding October. Mays had met Obama before, but Irvin hadn't. It was his last public appearance.

*

With Irvin's death...

* There are no more living Baseball Hall-of-Famers from New Jersey. Even if Mike Trout is elected, he's still a young player, so that day is a long way off.

* There are no more living HOFers who were elected on the basis of what they did in the Negro Leagues. Mays and Hank Aaron are still alive, but each was elected solely on his major league achievements.

* Mays is now the last living Hall-of-Famer elected at least partly on the basis of his performance for the New York edition of the Giants.

* Mays, Newcombe and Ralph Branca, who gave up Thomson's homer, are the last living men who played in The Bobby Thomson Game on October 3, 1951.

* Mays and Antonelli are the only living members of the 1954 World Champion New York Giants, and Mays is the only living player from the September 29, 1954 game in which he made The Catch -- much as Don Larsen is now the only living player from his perfect game 2 years later.

* The oldest living player is Mike Sandlock, a former Boston Braves catcher, who turned 100 last October. (Irvin had been the 7th-oldest.)

* The oldest living Hall-of-Famer is Bobby Doerr, the Boston Red Sox 2nd baseman of the 1940s and the last living player who appeared in a major league game in the 1930s, now approaching his 98th birthday. (Irvin had been the 2nd-oldest.)

* The oldest living ex-Cub is Red Adams, a pitcher who appeared in 8 games for them in 1946, now 94.

* The oldest living ex-Giant is Gil Coan, a left fielder, mostly for the Washington Senators, who closed his career with the Giants in 1956, now 93.

* And there are 23 living men who played for the Giants in New York. In alphabetical order, they are: Joey Amalfitano, Johnny Antonelli, Jackie Brandt, Eddie Bressoud, Pete Burnside, Foster Castleman, Gil Coan, Ray Crone, Joe Garagiola, Billy Gardner, Harvey Gentry, Joe Margoneri, Willie Mays, John "Windy" McCall, Mike McCormick, Ron Samford, Red Schoendienst, Daryl Spencer, Wayne Terwilliger, Ozzie Virgil Sr., Bill White (the future Yankee broadcaster and National League President), Al Worthington and Roy Wright.

With the announcement of the elections of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza, it is time to update this list. (Ford Frick Award winner Graham McNamee never broadcast for any single team.)

A player is counted as a Hall-of-Famer with the team if he played at least 4 seasons with them. Teams are ranked in order of most HOFers.

If there is a tie, it will be broken by which team has more players, as opposed to those who were elected in other categories. If there is still a tie, then I go to which has more non-broadcasters. If it's still a tie, which has more players whose contributions were mostly with that club. If it's still a tie, which team has played fewer seasons will be ranked ahead -- since, for example, 5 HOFers is more impressive for a team that's been around since 1977 than it would be for one that's been around since 1961.

Teams that no longer exist in that form will be listed in italics and in the position where they would be ranked if they still did.

Players are listed in chronological order of when they arrived at the club, then managers, then broadcasters.

1. New York Yankees, 39: It almost works out to 1 for every Pennant the team has won:

Clark Griffith (the team's first manager, elected as a pitcher and he was still a solid pitcher while he was their manager), Willie Keeler, Jack Chesbro, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Earle Combs, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Johnny Mize, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Enos Slaughter, Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs.

Also, managers Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Joe Torre; owner Jacob Ruppert; executives Ed Barrow and George Weiss; broadcasters Mel Allen, Red Barber, Joe Garagiola, Jerry Coleman (played for the Yankees but elected as a broadcaster, first for the Yankees, then for the Padres) and Tony Kubek (played for the Yankees but elected as a broadcaster).

Bucky Harris managed the Yankees to the 1947 World Championship, but was only their manager for 2 seasons (1947 & '48), so I'm not counting him with the Yankees. In this case, according to the rule I set, I have to count Rickey Henderson as a Yankee. If Lou Piniella is ever elected as a manager, I wouldn't be able to count him as a Yankee HOFer, since he wouldn't be elected as a player and only managed them for 3 seasons.

Rizzuto was also a longtime broadcaster. Lee MacPhail was elected for what he did as American League President, not as Yankee general manager. Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill are now eligible, and Don Mattingly will, in a few years, become eligible once again, through the Veterans' Committee -- but in all 3 cases, let's not kid ourselves. And then there's Roger Clemens: Even if he does get in, would you want to count him as a Yankee? George Steinbrenner, now being dead, is now eligible through the Veterans' Committee.

2. St. Louis Cardinals, 30: Charlie Comiskey (played for them before managing and owning teams elsewhere), Jake Beckley, Roger Bresnahan, Rogers Hornsby (won a World Series as their player-manager), Jesse Haines, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Jim Bottomley, Charles "Chick" Hafey, Burleigh Grimes, Frankie Frisch (elected as a player, won a World Series as their player-manager), Dizzy Dean, Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, Enos Slaughter, Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst (elected as player, also managed them to a title), Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, Steve Carlton (7 seasons), Bruce Sutter, Ozzie Smith.

Also, Miller Huggins (manager, also played several years for the Cards), Billy Southworth (manager, also played for them), Whitey Herzog (manager-executive), Tony LaRussa (manager), Branch Rickey (executive), Harry Caray (broadcaster), Jack Buck (broadcaster), Joe Garagiola (broadcaster).

Jesse Burkett won a batting title with the Cards, but only played 3 seasons with them, so he just misses qualifying. On the other hand, Cepeda didn't even play 3 full seasons with the Cards, but his tenure included the 1967 title and the 1968 Pennant, and he, as much as Gibson, was a symbol of that team, and he may be better remembered as a Cardinal than as a Giants, so I'm bending the rule for him. Leo Durocher was a good player for the Cards, but was elected as a manager and never managed them, so he doesn't qualify here.

Jim Edmonds is not yet eligible. Mark McGwire is eligible, but he's not getting in. Surprisingly, longtime owner Gussie Busch has never been elected.

New York Giants, 26: Roger Connor, Buck Ewing, Tim Keefe, Mickey Welch, John Montgomery Ward, Roger Bresnahan, Christy Mathewson, Joe McGinnity, George Davis, Richard "Rube" Marquard, Dave Bancroft, Ross Youngs, Frankie Frisch, George "Highpockets" Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Travis Jackson, Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Johnny Mize, Monte Irvin, Willie Mays, Hoyt Wilhelm.

Also, John McGraw (manager, also played for them), Leo Durocher (manager), Russ Hodges (broadcaster).

Casey Stengel played for the Giants, but was elected as a manager, so I can't count him as a Giant HOFer.  

Counting all figures who played or managed at least one game for the Giants, in New York and San Francisco, they have 76, more than any other team; however, many of those were with the club only briefly. But even by my definitions, they are ahead of the arch-rival Dodgers.

3. Chicago Cubs, 27: Adrian "Cap" Anson, Mike "King" Kelly, Clark Griffith (elected as a pitcher for them, later a manager and owner elsewhere), Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance (elected as a player but should have been elected as a manager instead), Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler, Lewis "Hack" Wilson, Charles "Gabby" Hartnett (also managed them to a Pennant), Rogers Hornsby, Billy Herman, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Ferguson Jenkins, Bruce Sutter, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Greg Maddux (spent enough time with them).

Also, Al Spalding (elected as an executive but was also a great pitcher), Frank Selee (manager), Joe McCarthy (manager, managed them to a Pennant before going to the Yankees), Leo Durocher (manager), Jack Brickhouse (broadcaster), Harry Caray (broadcaster).

Sammy Sosa is eligible, but he's not getting in. Lee Smith is eligible, but now that he's no longer the all-time saves leader, the biggest reason for electing him is gone. If Lou Piniella is elected as a manager, I'll have to count him as a Cub HOFer, since he managed them for 4 seasons.

Lou Boudreau was a beloved broadcaster for the Cubs after his playing and managing career, but never played or managed for them, and so I can't count him as a Cub HOFer. Santo was also a longtime broadcaster. Surprisingly, longtime owner Phillip K. Wrigley is not in.

4. Pittsburgh Pirates, 23: James "Pud" Galvin, Vic Willis, John "Honus" Wagner, Fred Clarke (elected as a player, also won Pennants as their manager), Jack Chesbro, Jake Beckley, Max Carey, Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler, Waite Hoyt (5 seasons with them), Harold "Pie" Traynor (also managed them), Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner ("Big Poison" and "Little Poison," though Lloyd was actually taller), Joseph "Arky" Vaughan, Al Lopez (elected as a manager but was an All-Star catcher for the Pirates), Ralph Kiner, Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Bert Blyleven.

Also, Bill McKechnie (manager), Barney Dreyfuss (owner), Branch Rickey (executive), Bob Prince (broadcaster).

Blyleven was only a Pirate for 3 seasons, but I'm bending the rule because he was a key cog on their last World Championship team in 1979. Barry Bonds is eligible, but who's kidding who?

Boston Braves, 22: Harry Wright (player and manager), George Wright, Al Spalding, Jim "Orator" O'Rourke, James "Deacon" White, Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourne, Mike "King" Kelly, John Clarkson, Charles "Kid" Nichols, Cy Young, Hugh Duffy, Tommy McCarthy (he and Duffy were known as "the Heavenly Twins"), Billy Hamilton, Vic Willis, Jimmy Collins, Johnny Evers, Walter "Rabbit" Maranville, Dave Bancroft.

Also, Frank Selee (manager), Bill McKechnie (manager, though with no success with the Braves), Casey Stengel (ditto, also played for Braves), Billy Southworth (manager).

5. Boston Red Sox, 22: Jimmy Collins (elected as a player but also managed them to the first World Series title in 1903), Cy Young, Tris Speaker, Harry Hooper, Babe Ruth (6 seasons with Sox before going to Yanks), Herb Pennock (7 seasons before Yanks), Red Ruffing (also 7 seasons before Yanks), Joe Cronin (elected as a player, but also managed them to the 1946 Pennant, though unlike Collins had already retired as a player; was also longtime AL President), Rick Ferrell, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Bobby Doerr, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Dennis Eckersley, Wade Boggs, Pedro Martinez.

Also, Dick Williams (manager, no relation to Ted), Tom Yawkey (owner), Curt Gowdy (broadcaster).

I am bending the rule slightly for Dick Williams, who only managed 3 seasons for the Red Sox, but 1, 1967, was the most important season in the club's modern history. Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling are eligible, although I don't know if they will ever get in, despite being members of the 3,000 Strikeout Club, and Clemens is also a member of the 300 Win Club.

At age 97 and having debuted in the major leagues in 1937, Doerr is now the oldest and earliest living member of the Hall of Fame. Luis Aparicio played 3 seasons for the Red Sox, so by my rule he is not eligible to be counted with them. Eckersley, however, played 7 seasons with them, so I have to count him with them, and with their living HOFers for as long as he lives.

It was long suspected that owner Jean Yawkey would become the first woman elected to the Hall of Fame, but Effa Manley, who owned the Negro Leagues' Newark Eagles, is in, while Mrs. Yawkey is still out.

6. Chicago White Sox, 21: Ed Walsh, George Davis, Eddie Collins, Ray Schalk, Red Faber, Ted Lyons, Luke Appling, Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio, Early Wynn, Hoyt Wilhelm, Goose Gossage (5 years with them), Carlton Fisk, Frank Thomas, Al Lopez (manager), Tony LaRussa (manager), Charlie Comiskey (owner), Bill Veeck (owner), Jack Brickhouse (broadcaster), Bob Elson (broadcaster), Harry Caray (broadcaster).

Although Clark Griffith pitched for them in their first 2 seasons and won the first American League Pennant as their manager, those 2 seasons are not enough to qualify with the White Sox. Although Tom Seaver notched his 300th victory with the Pale Hose, he pitched for them in just 3 seasons, and can't be counted as one of their HOFers.

Brooklyn Dodgers, 21: Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley, Richard "Rube" Marquard, Zack Wheat, Burleigh Grimes, Charles "Dazzy" Vance, Joseph "Arky" Vaughan, Billy Herman, Joe Medwick, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Ned Hanlon (manager), Wilbert Robinson (manager), Leo Durocher (elected as a manager but was also a good player), Walter Alston (manager), Branch Rickey (owner), Walter O'Malley (owner), Red Barber (broadcaster), Vin Scully (broadcaster).

Casey Stengel played 6 seasons for the Dodgers, and was good, but not Hall of Fame good.  He managed 3 seasons for them; in spite of their poor performance under him, had he managed them for 1 more season, he would still qualify as one of theirs under my rule.  Dick Williams played 5 seasons for them, but was elected as a manager and never managed the Dodgers.  Owner Charles Ebbets is not in.

7. Cincinnati Reds, 18: Bid McPhee, Jake Beckley, Joe Kelley, Sam Crawford, Edd Roush, Eppa Rixey, Ernie Lombardi, Frank Robinson, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver (6 seasons with Reds), Barry Larkin, Ken Griffey Jr., Bill McKechnie (manager), Sparky Anderson (manager), Red Barber (broadcaster), Marty Brennaman (broadcaster).

Pete Rose, of course, is ineligible. John Franco is not yet in, but if he gets in, he pitched enough seasons with the Reds to qualify for this list. If Lou Piniella is elected as a manager, I'll count him as a Reds HOFer: He only managed them for 3 seasons, but 1 was a World Championship season. Miller Huggins played several years for the Reds, but was elected as a Yankee manager.

Longtime owner Powel Crosley and GM Bob Howsam should be in, but they're not. Waite Hoyt broadcast for the Reds, and was beloved in that role, but has not been given the Ford Frick Award, so I can't count him with the Reds.

And while 2 members of the first openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Harry and George Wright -- the other Wright Brothers who "invented" something important in American life -- that team was not the same team as the current Reds franchise, which began in the old American Association of 1882 and joined the NL in 1892.

8. Cleveland Indians, 16: Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, Elmer Flick, Addie Joss, Tris Speaker (elected as player but also managed them to a title), Stan Coveleski, Joe Sewell, Earl Averill, Bob Feller, Lou Boudreau, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, Early Wynn, Gaylord Perry, Al Lopez (manager), Bill Veeck (owner), Jimmy Dudley (broadcaster).

Satchel Paige reached the majors with the Indians, but only pitched 2 seasons for them; although I can count him with 3 different Negro League teams on this list, I can't count him with any major league team. Indeed, that fact is the reason I've included the Negro League teams on this list, along with moved and defunct major league teams.

Jim Thome will probably make it, but, barring a major shift in voters' attitudes, Manny Ramirez is probably out of luck.

9. Philadelphia Phillies, 16: Billy Hamilton, Ed Delahanty, Sam Thompson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Eppa Rixey, Dave Bancroft, Chuck Klein, Richie Ashburn, Robin Roberts, Jim Bunning, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Harry Wright (manager), Pat Gillick (executive), By Saam (broadcaster), Harry Kalas (broadcaster).

Ashburn was also a longtime broadcaster for the Phils. If Curt Schilling and Jim Thome get in, they can be counted with the Phillies. Pete Rose, of course, is ineligible.

10. Detroit Tigers, 15: Sam Crawford, Ty Cobb, Harry Heilmann, Henry "Heinie" Manush, Charlie Gehringer, Goose Goslin, Hank Greenberg (the last 3 nicknamed the "G-Men" in those early days of the FBI), Mickey Cochrane (elected as a player, also managed them to 2 Pennants), Hal Newhouser, George Kell, Al Kaline, Jim Bunning, Hughie Jennings (manager, also played for the team), Sparky Anderson (manager), Ernie Harwell (broadcaster).

Jack Morris, Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker are all eligible, but it's doubtful that any of them will ever get in. Ivan Rodriguez is not yet eligible, and while he's never been publicly revealed to be a steroid user, he's been seriously suspected, so it's a big question mark as to whether he'll ever get in.

Kaline and Kell were also longtime broadcasters. Longtime owners Frank Navin, Walter Briggs and John Fetzer are not yet in. Former executive Will Harridge is in, but for what he did as President of the AL, so I can't count him as a Tiger HOFer.

Philadelphia Athletics, 13: Eddie Plank, Rube Waddell, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Chief Bender, Eddie Collins, Herb Pennock, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, George Kell, Connie Mack (owner-manager), By Saam (broadcaster).

11. Baltimore Orioles, 12: Brooks Robinson, Hoyt Wilhelm, Robin Roberts (4 seasons with O's), Luis Aparicio, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Roberto Alomar, Earl Weaver (manager), Chuck Thompson (broadcaster), Jon Miller (broadcaster).

Although he won his only World Series with the Orioles, we don't usually associate Aparicio with them, but he did play 5 seasons with them, so, by my own rule, I've got to count him here. Same with Robin Roberts, who played 4 seasons in Baltimore. Rafael Palmeiro is eligible, but he's not getting in.

Frank Cashen should be in as an executive. Dick Williams played enough seasons with the O's to qualify, but was elected as a manager and never managed them, so he doesn't qualify as an O's HOFer.
Washington Senators, 11: Walter Johnson, Bucky Harris (elected as a manager but was also a great player), Sam Rice, Henry "Heinie" Manush, Goose Goslin, Joe Cronin (elected as a player but also managed them to a Pennant), Rick Ferrell, Early Wynn, Clark Griffith (owner), Arch McDonald (broadcaster), Bob Wolff (broadcaster). 

No, you can't count Ted Williams as a manager.

12. Los Angeles Dodgers, 10: Duke Snider (played 5 seasons for them in L.A.), Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Don Sutton, Mike Piazza, Walter Alston (manager), Tommy Lasorda (manager), Walter O'Malley (owner), Vin Scully (broadcaster), Jamie Jarrin (broadcaster).

Steve Garvey is not getting in. Pedro Martinez started out with the Dodgers, but only played 2 seasons for them.

13. New York Mets, 10: Tom Seaver, Gary Carter, Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine (5 seasons), Pedro Martinez (4 seasons), Casey Stengel (manager, 4 seasons), Joe Torre (manager), Lindsey Nelson (broadcaster), Bob Murphy (broadcaster), Tim McCarver (broadcaster).  So that's 3 broadcasters, 3 managers, and 4 players.

Still, you didn't realize the Mets had so many, did you? And that's without counting Ralph Kiner, who was elected as a Pirates' player, not as a Mets' broadcaster. Nor can you count Richie Ashburn, Duke Snider, Warren Spahn, Willie Mays or Nolan Ryan -- and why would you want to count Eddie Murray, Rickey Henderson or Roberto Alomar as Mets?

I had previously counted Yogi Berra, but while he managed them for 4 seasons, including winning a Pennant, he was elected to the Hall as a player, not as a manager, and so I can't count him as a Met HOFer. As for Torre: Yes, he managed in 4 seasons for them. They were awful then, and there wasn't much he could do about it, but he now counts as a Met Hall-of-Famer. Although I notice that, unlike Yogi and Willie, he wasn't invited to the farewell ceremony at Shea Stadium in 2008.

Frank Cashen should be in as an executive. If John Franco is ever elected, you can count him.

Chicago American Giants (Negro Leagues), 8: Andrew "Rube" Foster (also manager and owner), Bill Foster (a.k.a. Willie Foster, Rube's brother), Cristobal Torriente, Pete Hill, George "Mule" Suttles, John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, Willie Wells.

Kansas City Monarchs (Negro Leagues), 8: Jose Mendez, Leroy "Satchel" Paige, James "Cool Papa" Bell, Wilber "Bullet" Rogan, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, Andy Cooper (also manager), Hilton Smith, J.L. Wilkinson (owner).

Bell played 3 seasons for them, but because Negro League players bounced around as much as international soccer players do, and also like club soccer there were often loan deals involved, I'll bend my 4-season rule. John "Buck" O'Neil, 1st baseman and manager, is not in the Hall of Fame, a terrible oversight, especially given that his contributions to the game include what he did in the last 15 or so years of a very long life.

Jackie Robinson played his first season in professional baseball, 1945, with the Monarchs. They were also the first pro team of Ernie Banks. But neither was elected on the basis of anything he did in Kansas City.

14. Oakland Athletics, 8: Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Dick Williams (manager), Tony LaRussa (manager), Lon Simmons (broadcaster).

Mark McGwire is eligible, but he's not getting in. Owner Charlie Finley is eligible, but I don't think he'll ever get in, either. I am bending the rule slightly for Williams, who only managed 3 seasons for the A's, but got them into the postseason in all 3, including 2 World Championships.

15. Atlanta Braves, 8: Hank Aaron, Phil Niekro, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Bobby Cox (manager), Joe Torre (managed them in between Cox's 2 tenures there, also a player), Milo Hamilton (broadcaster).

Fred McGriff, Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones will be listed with them if they are elected. Don Sutton broadcasts for the Braves, but can't be counted among their HOFers. Former owners Bill Bartholomay and Ted Turner are not in, nor do I ever expect them to be elected.

16. San Diego Padres, 8: Dave Winfield, Ozzie Smith, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Dick Williams (manager), Jerry Coleman (broadcaster), Dick Enberg (broadcaster).

Yes, the Wizard and the Goose each played 4 seasons in Mission Valley. Considering how many they have in a comparatively short history, you shouldn't also count Willie McCovey, Gaylord Perry or Roberto Alomar. Longtime owner Ray Kroc, who saved the team from being moved to Washington in 1974, is not in. Steve Garvey, who is not my Padre, is not getting in.

Homestead Grays (Negro Leagues), 7: Cumberland "Cum" Posey (pitcher, then manager, then owner), Smokey Joe Williams, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, James "Cool Papa" Bell, Jud Wilson, Ray Brown.

Oscar Charleston and Judy Johnson each played 2 seasons for them, but I'm not willing to bend the rules THAT much. Gibson was known as the Black Babe Ruth, Leonard as the Black Lou Gehrig, and together they were known as the Thunder Twins or the Dynamite Twins. Williams was sometimes known as Cyclone Joe, sometimes as Smokey Joe (but never as Smokin' Joe, like boxer Frazier).

As for Posey, "Cum" was short for "Cumberland," and it is possible that, like James "Pud" Galvin, his nickname was not considered sexually explicit in his time. As an athlete, he was probably better in football, and Wendell Smith, the leading black sportswriter of the between-the-wars years and a winner of the Hall's Taylor Spink Award for media work, called him "the smartest man in Negro baseball and certainly the most successful."

Newark Eagles (Negro Leagues), 7: George "Mule" Suttles, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, James "Biz" Mackey (also manager), Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Effa Manley (owner, the only woman in the Baseball Hall of Fame). Don Newcombe also played for the Eagles, and if his service there is counted, I believe that it makes him worthy of election to the Hall, but he hasn't been elected.

17. San Francisco Giants, 7: Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Lon Simmons (broadcaster), Jon Miller (broadcaster).

Milwaukee Braves, 4: Warren Spahn, Eddie Matthews, Hank Aaron, Red Schoendienst. Joe Torre began his playing career with them, but can't be counted here.

21. Milwaukee Brewers, 4: Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Rollie Fingers, Bob Uecker (broadcaster). No, you can't count Hank Aaron, because, while he played 14 seasons in Milwaukee, only 2 of those were for the Brewers. And I hope former owner, now Commissioner, Bud Selig is never elected, but he probably will be.

22. Texas Rangers, 4: Ferguson Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, Nolan Ryan, Eric Nadel (broadcaster). Bert Blyleven pitched just 2 seasons for them. Ivan Rodriguez is not yet eligible. Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez are, but who's kidding who? No, you can't count Ted Williams as a manager. And I sure hope former owner George W. Bush is never elected; since the team won nothing while he was in control, that seems safe.

23. Toronto Blue Jays, 4: Roberto Alomar, Pat Gillick (executive), Tom Cheek (broadcaster), Tony Kubek (broadcaster). No, you can't count Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor or Frank Thomas. Or Roger Clemens, if he ever gets in.

Lincoln Giants/Brooklyn Royal Giants (Negro Leagues), 3: Louis Santop, Smokey Joe Williams, John Henry "Pop" Lloyd. Imagine that, a Brooklyn team called the Giants. What the heck, from 1944 to 1948, the NFL had a Boston Yanks (defunct); and, in the 1961-62 season, the NBA had a Chicago team called the Packers (today's Washington Wizards).

Cuban Giants (Negro Leagues, based in New York), 3: Frank Grant, Sol White, Pete Hill. Unlike the later Cuban Stars and New York Cubans, both also based in New York, this 1880s-90s team had no Cubans: They were called "Cuban" so their all-black roster would be better accepted. Grant has been called the best black player of the 19th Century.


Indianapolis ABCs (Negro Leagues), 3: Oscar Charleston, Ben Taylor, James "Biz" Mackey (also managed them). A later team, the Indianapolis Clowns, was the first professional team of Hank Aaron.

Philadelphia Giants (Negro Leagues), 3: Sol White, Pete Hill, John Henry "Pop" Lloyd.

Philadelphila Hilldale (Negro Leagues), 3: Martin DiHigo, James "Biz" Mackey (also managed them), William "Judy" Johnson.


Cleveland Spiders (NL, 1887-1899), 2: Cy Young and Jesse Burkett.

Detroit Wolverines (NL, 1881-1888), 2: Sam Thompson, Ned Hanlon (elected as a manager but played 8 seasons for them). Dan Brouthers and Deacon White played 3 seasons for them.

26. Miami Marlins, 2: Felo Ramirez and Dave Van Horne (both broadcasters). If Gary Sheffield gets in, he can be counted as a Marlin, but I don't think he's getting in. No, you can't count Miami native Andre Dawson, although he did close his career with the club and is now working in their front office. So is Tony Perez, who briefly managed the team, but you can't count him, either.

Baltimore Black Sox (Negro Leagues), 2: Jud Wilson, Ben Taylor. This team is not to be confused with the Elite Giants.

Washington/Baltimore Elite Giants (Negro Leagues), 2: James "Biz" Mackey (also manager), Roy Campanella. And that's pronounced EE-light, not the usual Eh-LEET.

Birmingham Black Barons (Negro Leagues), 2: George "Mule" Suttles, Satchel Paige. Willie Mays played his first professional season, 1948, for the Black Barons, but only that 1 season, so he can't be counted here.

Kansas City Stars (Negro Leagues), 2: James "Cool Papa" Bell, Willard Brown.

New York Cubans (Negro Leagues), 2: Martin DiHigo, Alex Pompez. Although DiHigo and Pompez were also involved with the Cuban Stars, and that team was also based in New York, it was not the same team as the New York Cubans. Like several of the Negro League owners, Pompez got some funding from the black organized crime bosses of the era, and eventually turned state's evidence to avoid prison. He later worked as an unofficial scout for the New York/San Francisco Giants, helping to sign Hispanic stars like Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, and the Alou brothers.

Philadelphia Stars (Negro Leagues), 2: James "Biz" Mackey (also manager), Jud Wilson.

27. Arizona Diamondbacks, 1: Randy Johnson. If Curt Schilling gets in, he can be counted with them.

28. Washington Nationals, 1: Frank Robinson, their first manager, was already in the Hall long before MLB returned to D.C., but he did manage for them for 5 years, 1 more than my rules require. But you can't count the HOFers from this franchise's previous incarnation, the Montreal Expos.

Bacharach Giants (Negro Leagues), 1: John Henry "Pop" Lloyd.  This team played its home games in Atlantic City, and were named for Harry Bacharach, who was that city's Mayor on and off from 1912 to 1935. He was played by John Rue on the TV series "Boardwalk Empire." Lloyd stayed in Atlantic City after he retired, died there, and a youth baseball facility there is named for him.

Harrisburg Giants (Negro Leagues), 1: Oscar Charleston.

San Antonio Black Bronchos (Negro Leagues, pronounced like Broncos), 1: Smokey Joe Williams.

29. Tampa Bay Rays, none: If Fred McGriff gets in, he can be counted with them. Wade Boggs cannot. Nor, if he is ever elected as a manager, can Lou Piniella.

30. Colorado Rockies, none: If Larry Walker gets in, he can be counted with them.

Kansas City Athletics, none: No player in the Hall of Fame was with the A's in their K.C. tenure for at least 4 seasons.

With the new elections, and the deaths of some including Yogi Berra and Monte Irvin, it is time to update this list.

A player is counted as a Hall-of-Famer with the team if he played at least 4 seasons with them. Teams are ranked in order of most HOFers.

1. St. Louis Cardinals, 10: Red Schoendienst (elected as player, also managed them to a title), Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Orlando Cepeda, Steve Carlton (7 seasons), Bruce Sutter, Ozzie Smith, Whitey Herzog (manager-executive), Tony LaRussa (manager), Joe Garagiola (broadcaster).

2. New York Yankees, 9: Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Joe Torre (manager); Joe Garagiola (broadcaster) and Tony Kubek (broadcaster).

3. Baltimore Orioles, 8: Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Roberto Alomar, Jon Miller (broadcaster).

4. Cincinnati Reds, 8: Frank Robinson, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver (6 seasons with Reds), Barry Larkin, Ken Griffey Jr., Marty Brennaman (broadcaster).
5. Boston Red Sox, 7: Bobby Doerr, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, Dennis Eckersley, Wade Boggs, Pedro Martinez.

6. Atlanta Braves, 7: Hank Aaron, Phil Niekro, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Bobby Cox (manager), Joe Torre (managed them in between Cox's 2 tenures there, also a player).
7. Chicago Cubs, 6: Billy Williams, Ferguson Jenkins, Bruce Sutter, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Greg Maddux.

8. New York Mets, 6: Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine (5 seasons), Pedro Martinez (4 seasons), Joe Torre (manager), Tim McCarver (broadcaster).



10. Los Angeles Dodgers, 6: Sandy Koufax, Don Sutton, Mike Piazza, Tommy Lasorda (manager), Vin Scully (broadcaster), Jamie Jarrin (broadcaster).

11. Oakland Athletics, 5: Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Tony LaRussa (manager).
15. Philadelphia Phillies, 4: Jim Bunning, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Pat Gillick (executive).

19. Seattle Mariners, 3: Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., Pat Gillick (executive).

20. Toronto Blue Jays, 3: Roberto Alomar, Pat Gillick (executive), Tony Kubek (broadcaster).

21. Kansas City Royals, 3: George Brett, Whitey Herzog (manager), Denny Matthews (broadcaster).

Montreal Expos, 3: Andre Dawson, Pedro Martinez, Dave Van Horne (broadcaster).
22. Minnesota Twins, 2: Rod Carew, Bert Blyleven.

23. Pittsburgh Pirates, 2: Bill Mazeroski, Bert Blyleven. They drop from 4th to 23rd.

24. Miami Marlins, 2: Felo Ramirez and Dave Van Horne (both broadcasters).

25. Cleveland Indians, 1: Gaylord Perry. 115 seasons, 1 living HOFer.

26. Detroit Tigers, 1: Jim Bunning. 115 seasons, 1 living HOFer.

New York Giants, 1: Willie Mays.

Brooklyn Dodgers, 1: Vin Scully (broadcaster).

Washington Senators, 1: Bob Wolff (broadcaster). 

27. Arizona Diamondbacks, 1: Randy Johnson.

28. Washington Nationals, 1: Frank Robinson (manager).

29. Tampa Bay Rays, none.

30. Colorado Rockies, none.

Why would you want to go to Arizona? Well, if you're a New Jersey Devils fan, they're playing the Arizona Coyotes (formerly the Phoenix Coyotes, and before that the original Winnipeg Jets) this coming Saturday afternoon.

You may not have many more chances to see the Coyotes in their current form, at their current home. With the Islanders now ensconced in Brooklyn, and the Atlanta Thrashers having become the new Winnipeg Jets, the 'Yotes are now the NHL most likely to move. How likely? They've been in danger of it since at least 2009, and their arena lease got legally terminated last year. A new agreement keeps them in place at least through next season, but they could well be playing elsewhere when the 2017-18 season begins.

I also just realized something while writing this post: The current Phoenix hockey team is called the Coyotes, and the old one, playing there in the World Hockey Association from 1974 to 1977, was called the Roadrunners. Coyote and Roadrunner. "Meep meep!"

Before You Go. AZcentral.com, the website for Phoenix's largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic, is predicting mid-60s for Saturday afternoon, and mid-40s for the evening. So the legendary Arizona "dry heat" won't be an issue. Still, once you get on the plane, you'll want to ditch your winter coat.

Arizona's infamous Daylight Savings Time issue has been settled, and this isn't the DST time of year anyway. So you'll be on Mountain Standard Time, 2 hours behind New Jersey and New York City. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

If you're thinking of making a side trip into Mexico, you should know that it's a 4-hour drive at the least. No public transportation. You'll need a passport, and you'll also need Mexican driving insurance, which you might be able to get at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix. In other words, it's not really worth the trip.

Tickets. The Coyotes are averaging 13,421 fans per home game this season, an increase of less than 100 over the season before. Only the Islanders and the Carolina Hurricanes are averaging less. And, at 78 percent of their arena's seating capacity, only the 'Canes are averaging less. For comparison's sake, the Devils, much maligned for their attendance issues, are averaging 14,414, 82 percent. Now who's "a Mickey Mouse operation on the ice," former Coyotes owner Wayne Gretzky?

Getting tickets will not be hard: You could probably show up at the arena box office 5 minutes before puck-drop, and get any ticket you can afford.

With the law of supply and demand, Coyotes tickets are among the cheapest in the NHL. Seats in the lower level, the 100 sections, are $290 behind the benches, $63 between the goals, and $58 behind them. In the upper level, the 200 sections, seats are $37 behind the benches, $26 between the goals and $21 behind them.

Getting There. It’s 2,458 miles from Times Square downtown Phoenix, and 2,444 miles from the Prudential Center in Newark to the Gila River Arena in Glendale. In other words, if you’re going, you’re flying.

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

But, if you really, really want to... You’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation’s first superhighway, opening in 1940.

The Turnpike will eventually be a joint run between I-76 and Interstate 70. Once that happens, you’ll stay on I-70, all the way past Pittsburgh, across the little northern panhandle of West Virginia, and then across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, into Missouri.

 At St. Louis, take Exit 40C onto Interstate 44 West, which will take you southwest across Missouri into Oklahoma.  Upon reaching Oklahoma City, take Interstate 40 West, through the rest of the State, across the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, into Arizona.  At Flagstaff, take Interstate 17 South, which will take you into Phoenix. Take Interstate 10 West to Exit 133B, which will lead you to State Route 101. Take Exit 6 to the arena/stadium complex

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours and 30 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Indiana, another 2 hours and 45 minutes in Illinois, 5 hours in Missouri, 6 hours in Oklahoma, 3 hours in Texas, 6 hours and 15 minutes in New Mexico, and 5 hours and 30 minutes in Arizona. That’s about 42 hours. Counting rest stops, you're probably talking about 55 hours.

That’s still faster than Greyhound, averaging around 68 hours, including a 1:45 bus-change in Richmond, a 1:15 stopover in Charlotte, an hour's bus-change in Atlanta, an hour's stopover in Birmingham, a 45-minute stopover in Jackson, Mississippi, an hour's stopover in Shreveport, a 1:30 bus-change in Dallas (that's right, changing buses 3 times each way), and a 1:15 stopover in El Paso.

It's $478 round-trip ($398 with advanced purchase), and to get to Phoenix by Saturday morning, you'll have to leave today, by 5:15 PM. The station is at 2115 East Buckeye Road, adjacent to Sky Harbor International Airport. Number 13 bus to downtown. 

The way Amtrak has it set up now, it's so convoluted that I can't even recommend looking it up.

Flights, usually changing in Charlotte, Chicago or Dallas, are actually among the cheapest to any big-league city, and, if ordered ahead of time, can be had for about $920.

Once In the City. While the Coyotes (as do MLB's Diamondbacks and the NFL's Cardinals, but not the NBA's Suns) have the State name as their geographic identifier -- apparently from a Native American word meaning "small spring" -- they play in Arizona's State capital, Phoenix.

Jack Swilling, a Confederate veteran who founded the place in 1867, accepted the suggestion of a fellow settler, an Englishman named Lord Duppa: Since it was on the site of a previous Indian civilization, it should be named Phoenix, for the mythical bird that rose from its own ashes. The city was incorporated in 1881, making it the youngest city in American major league sports.

Home to just 100,000 people in 1950, Phoenix saw huge growth in the 2nd half of the 20th Century, thanks in large part to the growth of the air-conditioning industry: 440,000 by 1960, 580,000 by 1970, 800,000 by 1980, and it surpassed the 1 million mark in the early 1990s.

All this made it an expansion target: The Suns arrived in 1968, the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals in 1988 (after the Philadelphia Eagles had to quash a moving-there rumor earlier in the decade), and the first Winnipeg Jets in 1997 (after the WHA had the Phoenix Roadrunners in the 1970s). Today, Phoenix is home to 1.5 million people, with 4.4 million in its metropolitan area.

The sales tax in Arizona is 5.6 percent, but it's 8.3 percent within the City of Phoenix. Central Avenue is the source street for east-west house numbers; oddly, the north-south streets are numbered Streets to the east, and numbered Avenues to the west. Washington Street divides addresses into north and south. A single ride on Phoenix buses and Valley Metro Rail is $2.00, with an All-Day Pass a bargain at $4.00. 

Going In. The Glendale Sports & Entertainment District, in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, consists of The University of Phoenix Stadium, home to the Arizona Cardinals since 2006; and the Gila River Arena, home to the Coyotes since 2003.

The complex is about 17 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix. The official address of the stadium is 1 Cardinals Drive, and that of the arena is 9400 W. Maryland Avenue. Number 8 bus from downtown to 7th & Glendale Avenues, then transfer to Number 70 bus, to Glendale and 95th Avenue, then walk down 95th. If you drive in, parking starts at $10.

New York Tri-State Area sports fans know the stadium as the place where the Giants derailed the New England Patriots' bid for the NFL's first 19-0 season. The Cardinals defeated the Philadelphia Eagles there in January 2009 to advance to Super Bowl XLIII. The stadium is also home to the Fiesta Bowl. (There is an actual University of Phoenix, on the ground, not just on the Internet. But that's not here.) It's hosted 3 matches of the U.S. soccer team.

The rink is laid out north-to-south. The Coyotes attack twice toward the south end.
Since the Suns' arena is downtown, the Coyotes' arena doesn't get many concert tours. It averages 14 non-hockey events a year -- so, not counting any Playoff games the Coyotes host, that's 55 dates a year, out of 365 days (366 in leap years such as 2016). Not good. The stadium may be a moneymaker, but the arena is not.

The reason the Coyotes left the downtown arena in the first place is because its retrofit meant losing about 2,000 seats for hockey, resulting in poor revenue, but they don't control this arena, either, and aren't making much money off it. Hence, they may still have to move. If they do, the Glendale Entertainment District might as well just move the arena's concert operations to the stadium and tear the arena down.

Food. As a Southwestern city, you might expect Phoenix to have Mexican, Spanish, Western and Southwestern food themes. Which is the case. Tortilla Flats stands are on the Plaza Concourse outside of sections 102 and 230. Chuckwagon Grill, specializing in burgers, has locations on the Plaza Concourse outside of sections 109 and 212. Koko Pollo (chicken) is on the Plaza Concourse outside of section 204.

They also have Papa John's Pizza outside sections 115 and 219; the Yotes Head Pub at 103; Big City Reds Center Ice (hot dogs and chili) at 111, 122, 202 and 2014; Boars Head Deli at 110 and 120; Vienna Beef (hot dogs) at 114 and 217; AZ Cheesesteaks and Sausages at 119 and 227; Taste of Belgium (drinks including Stella Artois beer) at 122; End Cap Bars at 102, 110, 114 and 120; Dreyers Ice Cream (not Breyers) at 111 and 122; and Dippin Dots at 102, 110, 204 and 219.

Team History Displays. As one of the newer teams (due to their move), the Coyotes don't have a lot of history, and they don't hang banners for what they won as the original Winnipeg Jets. Their only championship banner is for their 2012 Pacific Division Championship, when they were still known as the Phoenix Coyotes, the name they used from 1996 to 2014. 

This is the only division title the Jets/Coyotes franchise has won in the NHL. Their last one before that was in 1979, when they won the last World Hockey Association Championship. The 2011-12 season is also the only time they've reached the last 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. (The Jets won 3 WHA titles in 4 trips to the Finals.)

The Coyotes don't have retired numbers, except for the Number 99 retired through the entire NHL for Wayne Gretzky, who was the team's main owner . Instead, they have Honored Numbers, which they display on the Coyotes Ring of Honor.

Center Keith Tkacuk, Number 7, and defenseman Tepp Numminen, Number 27, spanned both Winnipeg and Phoenix. Center Jeremy Roenick, Number 97, is the only one featured who played for the franchise only in Phoenix, never in Winnipeg. Left wing Bobby Hull, Number 9; center Dale Hawerchuck, Number 10; and right wing Thomas Steen, Number 25, all played for them only in Winnipeg, never in Phoenix.

Hull and Steen had their numbers retired in Winnipeg, but they were unretired in Phoenix. Still, those numbers have remained unworn, with 1 brief exception: Bobby's son, Brett Hull, briefly played for the Coyotes and wore 9.
Only 2 members of the Hockey Hall of Fame have ever played for the Coyotes since their move to Arizona: Mike Gartner, for 2 seasons, 1996-98; and Brett Hull, briefly, in 2005. (No, Roenick has not yet been elected.)

Stuff. The Coyotes' Den is located in the northwest corner of the arena, by Gate 3. You can find the usual team-themed stuff there. Perhaps, due to Arizona's Western heritage, you can find cowboy hats with the team's logo on them.

With hardly any history, there's no team highlight DVDs, and the only book I could find about the team was Laura Winters' entry for them in the NHL's Inside the NHL series, published last year.

During the Game. Wearing Devils gear in Ariona will not endanger your safety. As a franchise only in their 20th season, the Coyotes don't really have a rivalry yet; and if they did, it wouldn't be with the Devils. For the most part, Arizona fans are okay, not making trouble for fans of teams playing the NFL Cardinals, NBA Suns or MLB's Diamondbacks, either. In fact, their biggest rivalry is intrastate: The University of Arizona vs. Arizona State University. It's a heated rivalry... but it's a dry heat.

The Coyotes hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular singer. The goal song is "Howlin' for You" by the Black Keys.


The mascot is Howler the Coyote. He wears uniform Number 96, in honor of the team's 1996 arrival. He seems to think the Coyotes do have a rivalry, with the Anaheim Ducks. And he does kind of look like Wile E. Coyote, albeit not nearly as thin and with shorter ears.
After the Game. Be advised that outgoing traffic from this game may run into incoming traffic for the NFL Playoff game in which the Cardinals will host the Green Bay Packers.

Phoenix does have crime issues, but you should be safe as long as you stay downtown. What's more, the arena is in the suburbs. It's incredibly unlikely that Coyote, and the fact that the Devils aren't rivals to them helps.

This is a matinee, so the Westgate Mall, to the north across Coyotes Blvd., will be open after the game if you want to do some postgame dining or shopping. A McFadden's is outside the arena at the northwest corner, and a Saddle Ranch Chophouse at the northeast corner.

As for anything New York-friendly, the closest I can come at this time is a place called Tim Finnegan's, the local Jets fan hangout, but that's 11 miles north of downtown, at 9201 North 29th Avenue. It appears that the local football Giants fan club meets at Loco Patron, at 1327 E. Chandler Blvd., but that's 21 miles south.

I've read that a Yankee Fan hangout is at LagerFields Sports Grill, at 12601 N. Paradise Village Pkwy. W., 14 miles northeast of downtown. Alas, I can find nothing Mets-specific in the area.

Sidelights. Phoenix's sports history is relatively brief, and not very successful. But there are some notable locations.

* Chase Field and Talking Stick Resort Arena. The capital of Arizona sports is 2 buildings separated by 2 blocks and the Jefferson Street Garage, which provides parking for both.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have played since their 1998 inception at Chase Field, a retractable-roof stadium, originally named Bank One Ballpark, and having that name during what remains the Diamondbacks' only World Series thus far, 2001. It looks like a big airplane hangar, without much atmosphere. True, there is that pool in the right-center-field corner... but what's a pool doing at a ballpark?

The Talking Stick Resort Arena, previously known as the US Airways Center and the AmericaWest Arena for a previous airline, it is 2 blocks west of Chase Field, at 2nd & Jefferson. The Suns have played here since 1992, and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury since 1997. The Coyotes played here from 1996 to 2003.

The arena's address is 201 E. Jefferson Street, and the ballpark's is 401 E. Jefferson Street. Both buildings can be reached on Metro Light Rail via the Jefferson Street & 3rd Street station.

* Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The Grand Canyon State's 1st home to big-league sports, opening in 1965, was home to the Suns from their 1968 arrival until 1992, and to the World Hockey Association's Phoenix Roadrunners from 1974 to 1977.

Elvis Presley sang at the Coliseum on September 9, 1970, and again on April 22, 1973. Early in his career, on June 9, 1956, he sang at a grandstand at the adjoining Arizona State Fairgrounds. (While individual ex-Beatles have performed in Arizona, the band as a whole did not do so on any of their 3 North American tours.)

The Coliseum still stands, and is part of the State Fairgrounds. 1826 W. McDowell Road. Northwest of downtown. Number 15 bus to 15th & McDowell, then 3 blocks west.

* Phoenix Municipal Stadium. This ballpark was home to the Phoenix Giants/Firebirds from its opening in 1964 until 1991, and is the current spring training home of the Oakland Athletics, the Diamondbacks' Rookie League team, and Arizona's State high school baseball championship. 5999 E. Van Buren Street. East of downtown, take the Light Rail to Priest Drive/Washington station, then a short walk up Priest.

* Scottsdale Stadium. This stadium was home to the Firebirds in their last years, 1992 to 1997. Its seating capacity of 12,000, 4,000 more than Phoenix Municipal, was meant to showcase the Phoenix area as a potential major league market. It's the San Francisco Giants' spring training site, and replaced a previous stadium on the site that dated to 1956, used as a spring training home for the Giants, A's, Red Sox, Orioles and Cubs -- sometimes all at the same time.

Because it was the Cubs' spring training home, thus leading to Phoenix becoming "Chicago's Miami," where retirees from the city tend to go (paging Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post & ESPN's Pardon the Interruption & NBA coverage), it was where former Cub catcher Randy Hundley hosted the very first baseball fantasy camp. As Met fans, you might remember Randy's furious reaction to Tommie Agee scoring on a controversial umpiring call at home plate at Shea in September 1969. You might also remember Randy's son, former Met catcher Todd Hundley.

7408 E. Osborn Road, at Drinkwater Boulevard. Northeast of downtown. Light Rail to Veterans Way/College station, then transfer to Number 72 bus to Osborn, then walk 2 blocks east.

* Arizona State University. The University of Arizona is 114 miles away in Tuscon, but ASU is just a 24-minute Light Rail ride from downtown. The station is at 5th Street & Veterans Way, and is 2 blocks away from Sun Devil Stadium and the Wells Fargo Arena (formerly the ASU Activity Center), home to their football and basketball teams, respectively.

Sun Devil Stadium was built in 1958, and ASU still plays there rather than move to the larger, more modern (but well off-campus) University of Phoenix Stadium. The Cardinals played there from 1988 to 2005, and the Fiesta Bowl was held there from 1971 to 2006. The Dallas Cowboys treated it as a second home field when they played the Cardinals (mainly because there always seemed to be more Cowboy fans there), and won Super Bowl XXX there, when the world learned A) it was possible for the Pittsburgh Steelers to lose a Super Bowl, and B) Terry Bradshaw was smart compared to Neil O'Donnell. It also hosted 2 U.S. soccer team matches in the 1990s.

Packard Stadium, opened in 1974, is home to the ASU baseball program, one of the most successful college baseball teams, east of the stadium and arena, at Rural Road and Rio Salado Parkway. The Sun Devils have won 5 National Championships, most recently in 1981. Their legends include Reggie Jackson, Barry Bonds, and current stars Dustin Pedroia and Andre Ethier. Notable ASU and Met alumni include Gary Gentry, Duffy Dyer, Lenny Randle, Craig Swan, Hubie Brooks, Paul Lo Duca and Ike Davis.

The US Airways Center, Wells Fargo Arena, University of Phoenix Stadium, and the University of Arizona's McKale Center have all hosted NCAA basketball tournament games, but, as yet, the State of Arizona has never hosted a Final Four -- although the University of Phoenix Stadium certainly could. UA has been in the Final Four in 1988, 1994, 1997 and 2001, winning it all in 1997; but ASU has never gotten any closer than the Sweet 16, in 1995.

* Arizona Science Center. Phoenix is not a big museum center. And while there have been Native Americans living in Phoenix for thousands of years, and Spaniards/Mexicans for hundreds, its Anglo history is rather short. No Arizonan has ever become President (although Senators Barry Goldwater and John McCain got nominated), so there's no Presidential Library or Museum. And it doesn't help history buffs that the city only goes back to 1867, and Statehood was gained only in 1912. But the Science Center is at 4th & Washington, just a block from the ballpark. And Arizona State has a renowned Art Museum.

The tallest building in Phoenix, and in all of Arizona, is the Chase Tower, bounded by Central Avenue and Van Buren, 1st and Monroe Streets. That it's only 483 feet, and that no taller building has been built in the city since it opened in 1972, says something about this city, but I'm not sure what. But the city seems to be intent on growing outward, not upward.

Television shows set in Phoenix, or anywhere in Arizona, are few and far between. The High Chaparral, another Western created by Bonanza creator David Dortort, ran on NBC from 1967 to 1971, and is fondly remembered by some.

But the best-remembered show is Alice, starring Linda Lavin as one of several waitresses at fictional Mel's Diner, running on CBS from 1976 to 1985. Although the show was taped in Hollywood (Burbank, actually), that once-famous "14-ounce coffee cup" sign is still used outside a real working diner in Phoenix. It was Lester's, until the owner agreed to change the name to "Mel's Diner" for the publicity. Today, it's Pat's Family Diner, at 1747 NW Grand Avenue, 2 miles northwest of downtown. Number 15 bus to 15th Avenue & Pierce Street, and then walk one block east to Grand, Pierce, and 12th. There are also still-in-business diners in Ohio and Florida that use the same sign design. "Pickup!"

Movies set in modern-day Arizona usually show the Grand Canyon or the Hoover Dam. Notable on this list is Thelma & Louise, in which Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon drive a 1966 Ford Thunderbird into the Canyon rather than be captured by the FBI, enacting a distaff version of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. National Lampoon's Vacation and Natural Born Killers also used Arizona as a backdrop.

The vast majority of movies set in Arizona have been Westerns, including the 1957 and 2007 versions of 3:10 to Yuma, the 1950 film Broken Arrow (not the later John Travolta film of the same title), Fort Apache (not the later Paul Newman film set in The Bronx), Paul Newman's Hombre, Johnny Guitar, A Million Ways to Die In the West, No Name On the Bullet, and all the films based on the 1881 Earps vs. Clantons gunfight, including My Darling Clementine in 1946, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1957, Tombstone in 1993 and Wyatt Earp in 1994.

If you're a Western buff, and you want to see the site of the legendary gunfight, the official address is 326 East Allen Street, Tombstone, AZ 85638. Reenactments are held daily. Be advised, though, that it's 184 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix, a 3-hour drive, and ain't no Greyhound or Amtrak service, stranger. It's also just 50 miles from the Mexican border.

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If you go to Phoenix to see the Devils play the Coyotes, you won't be subjected to Arizona's usual intense heat, and you can probably see a hockey game relatively cheap. Have fun!

Tonight, the Devils play in Denver, the city from whence they came in 1982, against the Colorado Avalanche, the team formerly known as the Quebec Nordiques.

There is a movement to bring the NHL back to Quebec City. So far, it hasn't succeeded. I hope it will.

Until then, you can imagine what it was like to visit, in this post I found in my archives, from March 1, 1995, leading up to our March 6 contest, our last visit to Quebec City.

(Not really. I barely knew the Internet existed at that point. Humor me. Updates are in italics.)

Note that, while I know there's an accent mark, all that copying-and-pasting of "Québec," and then fixing the font, was too much of a pain in the ass to do.

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Before You Go. Quebec City is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to turn your watch back. But it's in Canada, which is not only a lot colder (so bundle up), but a foreign country. If you have a passport, bring it. If not, you'll need a copy of your birth certificate.

As of June 1, 2009, you have to have a valid, up-to-date passport to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. You should also bring your driver's license (or other State-issued photo ID). If you don't have a valid passport, you will need a valid photo ID and a copy of your birth certificate in order to get the passport. This is not something you want to mess with. Canadian Customs officials do not fuck around: They care about their national security, too.

Do yourself another big favor: Change your money before you go. There are plenty of currency exchanges in New York City, including one on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. There are also a few in New Jersey: Travelex has exchange centers at Newark Liberty International Airport, and at 4 malls: Garden Sate Plaza in Paramus, Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, Menlo Park Mall in Edison and Bridgewater Commons. 

Leave yourself $50 in U.S. cash, especially if you’re going other than by plane, so you’ll have cash on your side of the border. 

Make sure you call your bank and tell them you’re going. After all, Canada may be an English-speaking country (at least co-officially, with French, although Quebec is French-first), and a democracy (if a parliamentary one), and a country with teams in America's major leagues, but it is still a foreign country. If your bank gets a record of your ATM card making a withdrawal from any country other than the U.S., it may freeze the card, and any other accounts you may have with them. So be sure to let them know that you will, in fact, be in Canada for a little while.

Quebec City is the capital of the Province of Quebec, and the epicenter of Quebec nationalism. In Montreal, most people you will meet can, and are willing to, speak English. In Quebec City, it's French all the way: They are very paranoid about protecting the French language, and many people won't even speak to you in English, even if they can. You won't see many bilingual signs, either. So a working knowledge of French will help. A lot.

Seven months later, on October 30, 1995, the Province held a soveriegnty referendum, 15 years after solidly losing one. This time, it was defeated by the slimmest of margins. The Quebec independence movement came so close to getting what it wanted, a mandate from the people to do it, but didn't. The movement has significantly waned since, and I don't expect another referendum anytime soon.

Tickets. The Colisee de Quebec seats 15,399, making it one of the smaller arenas in the NHL. And this is the Province of Quebec, the most hockey-mad place on Earth. Getting tickets will be tough.

I don't know what ticket prices for a Nords game were in 1995. I don't know what prices are for a Remparts game at the new Centre Videotron are, and it wouldn't matter anyway, since they'd be less than for NHL games.

Getting There. It's 517 miles from Times Square to downtown Quebec City, and 512 miles from the Meadowlands to the Colisee. It's one of those tricky distances: Too far to get there any way other than flying, but so close that the stuff you gotta do to get in and out of the airports won't save you as much time as you think. Air Canada runs flights from Newark to Quebec City's Jean Lesage International Airport, but not nonstop: You'll have to change planes in either Montreal (understandable) or Toronto (considerably less understandable, since it's in the opposite direction).

Greyhound runs buses there, and Amtrak and its Canadian equivalent, VIA Rail, operate rail service, though, in each case, you'll have to transfer in Montreal.

It's 518 miles between the new arenas, the Prudential Center here and the Videotron Centre there. Posting fares for Air Canada, Greyhound or Amtrak & VIA Rail is pointless, since they're not going to be the same as they were when the Nordiques were still in town.
If you're driving, then, depending on from where in New Jersey you're leaving, take either the Garden State Parkway or Route 17 up to Interstate 87. It will be concurrent with the New York State Thruway until you reach Albany. Remain on I-87 as it becomes the Adirondack Northway, all the way up to the border at Champlain, New York and Lacolle, Quebec.

When you get to the border, you'll be asked your citizenship, and you'll have to show your passport and your photo ID. You'll be asked why you're visiting Canada. 

If you're bringing a computer with you (counting a laptop, but probably not counting a smartphone), you don't have to mention it, but you probably should. Chances are, you won't be carrying a large amount of food or plants; if you were, depending on how much, you might have to declare them.

Chances are, you won't be bringing alcohol into the country, but you can bring in ONE of the following items duty-free, and anything above or in addition to this must have duty paid on it: 1.5 litres (53 ounces) of wine, or 8.5 litres (300 ounces or 9.375 quarts) of beer or ale, or 1.14 litres (40 ounces) of hard liquor. If you have the slightest suspicion that I'm getting any of these numbers wrong, check with Canada Customs, either by mail or at the Canadian consulate in New York. Better yet, don't bring booze in. Or out.

Of course, within a short time after this would have been posted had there been blogs in 1995, you could have checked the Canada Customs website, which is what you should do if you're going now. 

As for tobacco, well, you shouldn't use it. But, either way over the border, you can bring up to 200 cigarettes, 50 cigars, and 200 grams (7 ounces) of manufactured tobacco. 

If you've got anything in your car (or, if going by bus or train, in your luggage) that could be considered a weapon, even if it's a disposable razor or nail clippers, tell them. And while Canada does have laws that allow you to bring in firearms if you're a licensed hunter (you'd have to apply for a license to the Province where you plan to hunt), the country has the proper attitude concerning guns: They hate them. They go absolutely batshit insane if you try to bring a firearm into their country. Which, if you're sane, is actually the sane way to treat the issue.

And if you can speak French, don't try to impress the Customs officials with it. The locals might appreciate that you're trying to speak to them in their primary language, but they won't be especially impressed by any ability to speak it, and any such ability won't make it any easier for you to get through Customs.

When crossing back into the U.S., in addition to what you would have to declare on the way in (if you still have any of it), you would have to declare items you purchased and are carrying with you upon return, items you bought in duty-free shops or (if you flew) on the plane, and items you intend to sell or use in your business, including business merchandise that you took out of the United States on your trip. There are other things, but, since you're just going for hockey, they probably won't apply to you. Just in case, check the Canadian Customs website I linked to above.

As for Cuban-made cigars, forget it: They are illegal to possess on American soil. You want to buy one in Canada, that's legal, but you gotta smoke it there.

In 2015, President Obama loosened the embargo so that you can import up to $100 worth of Cuban-made tobacco per traveler.
After going through Customs, I-87 will become Autoroute 15, which will take you into the Montreal
area. Get on Autoroute 30, which will take you to the Trans-Canada Highway. Exit 315 will get you into Quebec City.
If you make 3 rest stops, counting Customs, where they will have a restroom and vending machines -- and if you don’t do anything stupid at Customs, such as fail to produce your passport, or flash a weapon -- the trip should take about 9 hours. Though that could become 10, because Montreal traffic is pretty bad, though not as bad as Toronto, which is every bit as bad as traffic in New York, Boston and Washington.

Once In the City. Quebec is the largest of Canada's 10 Provinces by area, and 2nd to Ontario in population. The name comes from an Algonquin word meaning "where the river narrows," the river in question being the St. Lawrence, which takes in the outflow of the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and on which both of the Province's major cities sit, Montreal and Quebec City (Ville de Québec in French). Actually, the city sits between 2 rivers, the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles.

Quebec City is the oldest major city in North America, first settled by Jacques Cartier (who soon thereafter first settled Montreal) in 1535, and founded as a city on July 3, 1608 by Samuel de Champlain. That makes it 16 years older than New Amsterdam/New York, 22 years older than Boston, 34 years older than Montreal, and 74 years older than Philadelphia. It was under the governance of France from 1608 to 1759, of Britain from then until 1867, and of Canada ever since, despite the sovereignty movement's efforts.

At the time, that meant it was French for 39 percent of its history, British for 28, and Canadian for 33. Now, it's been French for 37, British for 26, and Canadian for 37 -- a plurality, but not yet a majority.

It's home to about 460,000 people, but, because Canadian cities (the big 3, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, being exceptions) don't really have extensive suburbs, the metropolitan area is small, only about 750,000 people, and that, along with Canadian taxes, the U.S.-Canada currency exchange rate, and the perceived obsolescence of the Colisee are why the Nordiques are in danger of moving, despite being, for the moment, very good both on the ice and at the box office.

Today, the city is home to about 520,000 people, and the metro area to 770,000. Whether the passion for hockey and the brand-new arena will be enough to get a new team, either expansion or moved, and sustain it, remains to be seen.

The city's newspapers include Le Soleil (The Sun) and Le Journal de Quebec (The Journal), but both print only French editions. Avenue de Salaberry divides street addresses into East and West (Est et Ouest), and while there's no North and South (Nord et Sud) addresses, address numbers on north-south streets increase heading away from the St. Charles and toward the St. Lawrence, the opposite of how it's done in Montreal. Also like Montreal, the streets are on diagonals, and not exactly north-east-south-west. The city has a bus service, but no subway or subway-like service, having done away with trams and streetcars decades ago.

Over 20 years on, they're considering a light rail service, but nothing official has been done about it yet.

Going In. Located 3 1/2 miles northwest of downtown, Le Colisee de Quebec is located at 250 Blvd. Wilfrid-Hamel, at Avenue du Colisee. Take the Number 3 bus from D'Youville to des Allies, and from there, it's less than a 10-minute walk.

The original Colisee was built in 1930, but burned down on March 15, 1949. It was rebuilt and opened on December 8, 1949. Because the biggest hockey star in the city at that point was Jean Beliveau of the Quebec Citadelles, the Colisee became known as the House That Beliveau Built.

The Colisee was home to the Citadelles in that 1st season, 1949-50, and then the Quebec Aces (with Beliveau until 1953) in the Quebec Senior Hockey League, and then the American Hockey League, from 1950 to 1971. The Quebec Ramparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League played there from 1969 to 1985, with Guy Lafleur as their 1st star before, like Beliveau, he moved on to the Canadiens. And the Quebec Nordiques debuted there in the World Hockey Association in 1972, moving to the NHL in 1979.

The 1949 Colisee seated just over 10,000, until the Nords' admission to the NHL required an expansion. When the 1981-82 season began, it seated 15,250, and has been set at 15,399 since 1987.

The rink is aligned from northwest to southeast. The Nordiques attack twice toward the southeast goal.
Food. The Colisee, like most old arenas, has 1 level of concourse for 2 or more levels of seats. This is poor design, as we have seen at the not-so-old Meadowlands. Concession stands are generic, and both they and bathrooms will have very long lines. Get to the game early, and take care of both your input and your output before pregame introductions.

Team History Displays. The Colisee honors all of Quebec City's hockey history, hanging banners for:

* The 1912 and 1913 Quebec Bulldogs, the only Stanley Cups won in the city.

* The 1944 Quebec Aces, winners of the Allan Cup, Canada's amateur championship.

* The 1952 Quebec Aces, winners of the Alexander Cup, led by Beliveau.

* The 1971 Quebec Remparts, winners of the Memorial Cup, junior hockey's championship, led by Lafleur.

* The 1977 Quebec Nordiques, winners of the WHA Championship, the Avco Cup.

* The 2006 Quebec Ramparts, winners of the Memorial Cup, coached (and part-owned) by Quebec City's native son Patrick Roy.

* Lesser titles won by the Remparts.

The Nordiques have retired 3 numbers: 3, for defenseman Jean-Claude Tremblay, who played for them throughout their WHA years after starring for the Canadiens; 8, for left wing Marc Tardif, another ex-Canadien who played on their 1977 title team, and into the NHL years; and 26, for center Peter Stastny, who, along with his brothers Anton and Marian defected from Czechoslavakia and played for the Nords. Peter, of course, went from the Nords to the Devils. His Number 26 was retired this past February 26.

The Remparts have retired 1 number, Number 4, for Guy Lafleur, who returned to Quebec City to wrap up his playing career with the Nordiques.

Just after this article would have been posted, on March 16, 1995, the Nords retired a 4th number, 16, for left wing Michel Goulet. All 4 of their numbers were put back into circulation by the Avalanche.

Since the Nords left, the Remparts have also retired 12, for left wing Simon Gagne; 22, for right wing Alexander Radulov; and 44, for defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic. Gagne, now retired, starred for the Philadelphia Flyers. Vlasic now plays for the San Jose Sharks, but has never become a star. Radulov was a journeyman in North America, getting the occasional "cup of coffee" with the Nashville Predators, but has reached stardom in his native Russia, serving as Captain of the country's most history-laden hockey team, CSKA Moscow.

During the Game. The rivalry between the Nordiques and the Canadiens, split along various lines -- linguistic, historical (the Habs are the game's most successful team, the Nords hardly successful at all), Quebec nationalism vs. Canadian nationalism, a city that's both Provincial capital and provincial hating the city both big and big-business vs. a cosmopolitan city that hates the Provincial government -- is the nastiest in the NHL. Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs? Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins? Rangers vs. Islanders? Rangers vs. Devils? Devils vs. Flyers? Philadelphia vs. Pittsburgh? Detroit vs. Chicago? Please: This is true hatred, which reached its peak in a 1984 Playoff fight known as the Good Friday Massacre (La Bataille Vendredi Saint) at the Montreal Forum.

But Nordiques fans have no reason to dislike people from New Jersey. Sure, head coach Jacques Lemaire, assistant coach Larry Robinson, and players Claude Lemieux, Stephane Richer, Tom Chorske and Martin Brodeur all have Montreal connections, and might get booed. But we're New Jersey, not Provincial rival Montreal, or national cultural capital Toronto, or even seat of federal government Ottawa. We're not even Canadian. They don't hate us, because that would be pointless. So as long as you don't given any indication of liking the Habs, the Leafs, or the Ottawa Senators, your safety will not be an issue.

All arena announcements will be in French -- not English. Lucie Blachette sings the National Anthem. Unlike in Montreal, here, "O, Canada" is sung entirely in French. The mascot is a big blue apelike thing. We New Jerseyans can appreciate his name: Badaboum, pronounced "Ba-da-boom," like the Italian-American expression that usually begins "Ba-da-bing."

Nordiques fans are passionate. These people are more French than North American, and their songs and chants, very well organized, can make the Colisee sound like a European soccer stadium. But, as I said, they won't attack you. They're more "ultra" than "hooligan."

After the Game. Win, lose or tie, no one is going to take their frustrations of the game out on you, as long as you don't provoke anyone. Keep to yourself, and they'll do the same.

The Colisee is tucked away in a residential area, and there aren't any notable postgame eateries or bars nearby. To get a postgame meal, or even just a pint, you'll have to get back downtown.

Sidelights. Quebec City's sports history is nearly all about hockey. They've never had a team in MLB, or the NBA, or even in the CFL. But there have been minor-league baseball teams.

The Quebec Athletics played in 1940, '41 and '42, folding due to the manpower shortage of World War II. A new team played as the Quebec Alouettes in 1946, '47 and '48, and as the Quebec Braves in 1949, '50 and '51. The Quebec Indians were a Cleveland farm team from 1958 to 1970, and the Quebec Canravals, appropriately, were a farm team of the Montreal Expos from 1971 to 1977, playing their last 2 seasons as the Quebec Metros.

But the city has been without baseball since then. All of these teams played at Stade Municipal, which opened in 1939. It seats 4,800 people, and is known for short fences: 315 feet to both foul poles, 380 to center field. 1938 Rue de Cardinal Maurice Roy, at Rue de la Croix-Rouge (Red Cross), about a mile and a half northwest of downtown. Number 28 bus to Croix-Rouge, then a 15-minute walk.

In 1999, the Quebec Capitales began play in the Northern League, an independent league, moving to the Northeast League and now to the Can-Am League. They've won Pennants in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 -- 6 Pennants, including 5 in a row. In 2015, they made the Playoffs again, but lost to our own New Jersey Jackals. They have also used Stade Municipal since their inception.

Because of its small metropolitan area, Quebec City would rank 30th in the NHL, ahead of only Winnipeg; 7th in the CFL, ahead of Winnipeg, Hamilton and Saskatchewan, and far below any NFL team; and easily dead last in either MLB or the NBA. While a CFL team has been considered, the only team it's ever got a chance of getting is a revived Nordiques in the NHL.

Quebec city is home to the main campus of the Universite du Quebec (its Montreal campus is known as UQAM), and to Universite Laval. But they don't play college football or basketball on what we would call a Division I level.

The Citadelle of Quebec, on the Plains of Abraham, was the colonial capital of New France, and the place where the Battle of Quebec ended on September 13, 1759 -- the day that ensured that Canada would be ruled by Britain, not France, but also set up the ways Britain paid for this "French and Indian War," which resulted in the American Revolution. This makes it, along with Saratoga, Yorktown, Buena Vista and Gettysburg, one of the most important battles ever fought on North American soil. (Fort McHenry was mainly a naval battle.)

It is not only a museum, but an active Canadian Forces base. 1 Côte de la Citadelle, in the Historic District of Old Quebec, within walking distance of downtown. The entire Old Quebec district is worth walking around, because there just aren't any American cities with buildings approaching 400 years old -- most don't even have very many that are 200 years old.

Quebec's other major museum is the Musee de la Civilisation. It is both a historical and a natural history museum. Think the New York Historical Society and its neighbor, the Museum of Natural History, in one complex. 85 Rue Dalhousie, downtown.

The Chateau Frontenac is a hotel that was built on the site of the residence of Britain's colonial governors. In 1943, it hosted the Quebec Conference, a meeting of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada and Winston Churchill of Britain to discuss Allied military policy in World War II. 1 Rue des Carrieres, downtown.

The tallest building in Quebec City is Edifice Marie-Guyart, 579 feet tall counting its antenna. Built in 1972, its architecture is typical of North American skyscrapers of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, and, as Dick Smothers would say, That was not a compliment. 1035 Rue de la Chevrotiere, at Blvd. Rene-Levesque. The Provincial Parliament is adjacent, at 1045 Rue des Parlementaires, at Blvd. Rene-Levesque.

Most movies and TV shows set in Quebec City would be familiar only to Canadians, and not to Americans. The most notable TV show set there is Lance et Compte -- a rough translation of "He Shoots, He Scores" -- about a fictional hockey team, Le Nationale, whose uniforms had a QN logo reminiscent of the ON used by the Ottawa Nationals of the WHA. It aired on CBC from 1986 to 1989, and a revival series has aired on French-language TVA since 2004. Interestingly enough, one of the actors on the original series was named Marc Messier. (No relation to ol' Lex Luthor himself.)

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Postscript: The Nordiques beat the Devils, 6-3. On April 30, the last game between the teams under those names was played at the Meadowlands, and the Devils won, 4-2. Within 2 months, the Devils had won their 1st Stanley Cup, and the Nordiques had moved to Denver.

May the NHL once day return to Quebec City.

The list of great Yankee relief pitchers did not start with Mariano Rivera. Before him, there was John Wetteland, and Dave Righetti, and Rich "Goose" Gossage, and Albert "Sparky" Lyle.

In the old days, there was Wilcy Moore, and Johnny Murphy, and Joe Page.

In between -- although I suppose we now have to include this occasionally-remembered-in-color period with "the old days" -- there was Luis Arroyo.

Luis Enrique Arroyo was born on February 18, 1927 in Peñuelas, Puerto Rico. Just 5-foot-8 and 175 pounds when he reached the major leagues, the man known as "Tite" while growing up was a "little lefty" even by the standards of that time.

He pitched in Caribbean leagues until he was 21, then was signed by U.S. minor league teams. After winning 21 games for Greensboro in the Carolina League in 1949, he was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1948. But due to his not having been discovered until then, and missing the entire 1952 and '53 seasons serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he didn't make his major league debut until April 20, 1955, at the age of 28.

In that debut, he started for the Cardinals against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field. The 1st batter he faced was Johnny Temple, and he got him to fly out to center field. He pitched 7 2/3rds innings, and combine with Herb Monford on a 5-hit shutout, as the Cards beat the Reds 4-0. Interestingly enough, the losing pitcher would also be a factor in a later Yankee World Championship: 1977 pitching coach Art Fowler.

He was named to the All-Star team that year, but early the next season he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He struggled, they turned him into a reliever, and he spent the entire 1958 season in the minor leagues. Had they handled him better, he could have pitched for the Pirates against the Yankees in the 1960 World Series. Instead, it was the other way around.

After the 1958 season, the Bucs traded him to the Cincinnati Reds. They didn't seem to know what to do with him, either. If they had, he could have pitched for the Reds against the Yankees in the 1961 World Series. Instead, it was the other way around.

On July 20, 1960, he was 33 years old, a lefthanded relief pitcher, with a career record of 18-22, 2 career saves (not that anybody knew what a "save" was at that point), and hadn't started a game in 3 years. He seemed to be washed up. The Yankees made the Reds an offer, and the Reds took the money.

This made Luis Arroyo the 1st Puerto Rican to play for the Yankees. In what may have been Casey Stengel's last masterstroke, he turned Arroyo into a great reliever. Using a screwball, a devastating pitch when thrown by a lefty (as proved previously by Carl Hubbell and later by Fernando Valenzuela), he went 5-1 with a 2.88 ERA and 7 saves down the stretch, and the Yankees won the Pennant. He only pitched briefly in the World Series, unsuccessfully bailing out Art Ditmar in the 2nd inning of Game 5.

But he was just getting warmed up. So much is made of 1961 being a magical year for Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, "The M&M Boys," and for Whitey Ford, and for new manager Ralph Houk, hired after the poorly-handled, ungracious but timely firing of Stengel, that people tend to forget what a great closer the Yankees had in the man called "Señor Smoke." (He did have a good fastball, in addition to the screwball.)

He went 15-5, had a 2.19 ERA, a 1.109 WHIP, pitched in a major league-leading 65 games, finished a MLB-leading 54, and set a new MLB record (again, not that anyone cared at the time) with 29 saves. He did this in 119 innings, or, as Joe Girardi would call it, "Two and a half years' worth of relief pitching." He made the All-Star Game, having now done so in both Leagues.

The Yankees won 109 games, the most of any New York-based baseball team between 1927 and 1998 -- the most of any major league team in any city between 1954 and 1969. What used to be known as "Five O'Clock Lightning," late Yankee homers (though games no longer started at 3:00), benefited the team, and Arroyo in particular, on many occasions. "There were times," he said in an interview for the 1987 videotape New York Yankees: The Movie, "when I would come in with the game tied, or we were losing, and somebody would hit one out, and I become the winning pitcher."

He mopped up in Game 2 of the World Series, the only game the Reds won. But in Game 3, back at Crosley Field where he made his MLB debut, Houk brought him in after the Reds had tied the game in the 8th inning. He held the tie, and in the 9th, Maris hit a home run (unofficially, his 62nd of the season), and Arroyo was the winning pitcher in a 3-2 Yankee win. He did not pitch again in the Series, because Ford and Jim Coates (Whitey had to leave due to an injury) combined for a shutout in Game 4 (as Whitey had pitched one in Game 1), and the Yanks won Game 5 in a blowout. Arroyo had his World Series ring.

But early in the 1962 season, he injured his arm, and at 35, he was through as a quality pitcher. He went 1-3 and saved 7 games, but Marshall Bridges became the new Yankee closer. The Yankees won the Series again, and he got another ring, but he did not appear in the Series. After an ineffective and painful 1963 season, resulting in another Pennant but one with which he had little to do, he was released, and at 36 he never threw another professional pitch.

He finished his career with a record of 40-32, 22-10 as a Yankee. His 45 career saves, 43 as a Yankee, now look like a single season's worth. But, for a brief time, he was the best relief pitcher in baseball.

He became a scout for the Yankees, and a regular Old-Timers' Day visitor. He did not attend the closing ceremony at the old Yankee Stadium in 2008, but was introduced before the 1st game at the new Stadium the next spring.
He was diagnosed with cancer last month, and died yesterday, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, at the age of 88.

For the moment, I don't have information about his survivors, except that his death was announced by his daughter, named Milagros (Spanish for "miracles").

There was no intimidating music when Luis Arroyo came in to close out games for the 1961 New York Yankees, who are still on the short list for the title of "the greatest team in baseball history."

He didn't need "Enter Sandman" or any other entry song. He had Mantle, Maris, Yogi Berra, Moose Skowron, Elston Howard, whoever was the starting pitcher that day, and his own fastball and screwball.

I'm not saying Luis Arroyo was better than Mariano Rivera. But for one brief shining moment, he was the best there was and what he and Mo did.

With Arroyo's death, there are now 9 living members of the 1961 World Champion New York Yankees: Whitey Ford, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Hector Lopez, Ralph Terry, Bud Daley, Jim Coates, Billy Gardner and Jack Reed.

Even though neither the Giants nor the Jets made the NFL Playoffs, I'm going to do Trip Guides for the teams that did, but for whom I haven't yet done them. One of them is the Arizona Cardinals, who beat the Green Bay Packers last night, and would host the NFC Championship Game if the Seattle Seahawks beat the Carolina Panthers today.

Before You Go. Check AZcentral.com, the website for Phoenix's largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic, for the weather. Because of the legendary Arizona "dry heat," the Cardinals usually got few home games in September, leading to some slow starts that led to them missing the Playoffs. But the new stadium has a retractable roof, so that won't be an issue. Still, if the Giants or Jets are playing there in November or December (or, if the Giants make the Playoffs, in January), once you get on the plane, you'll want to ditch your winter coat.

Arizona's infamous Daylight Savings Time issue has been settled, so you'll be on Mountain Standard Time, 2 hours behind New Jersey and New York City. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

If you're thinking of making a side trip into Mexico, you should know that Phoenix to the border is a 4-hour drive at the least. No public transportation. You'll need a passport, and you'll also need Mexican driving insurance, which you might be able to get at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix. In other words, it's not really worth the trip.

Tickets. The Cardinals averaged 64,185 fans per home game this season, about 98 percent of capacity. That's what happens when your stadium can beat the weather. That's also what happens when your stadium gives you advantage: That breeds winning, which breeds more fan participation. So getting tickets could be hard.

Cardinal tickets are among the cheapest in the NFL. Seats in the Main Level, the 100 sections, are $113 on the sidelines and $70 in the end zone. In the Terrace Level, the 400 sections, they're $63 on the sidelines and $30 in the end zones.

Getting There. It’s 2,458 miles from Times Square downtown Phoenix, and 2,453 miles from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford to the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. In other words, if you’re going, you’re flying.

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

But, if you really, really want to... You’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation’s first superhighway, opening in 1940.

The Turnpike will eventually be a joint run between I-76 and Interstate 70. Once that happens, you’ll stay on I-70, all the way past Pittsburgh, across the little northern panhandle of West Virginia, and then across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, into Missouri.

 At St. Louis, take Exit 40C onto Interstate 44 West, which will take you southwest across Missouri into Oklahoma.  Upon reaching Oklahoma City, take Interstate 40 West, through the rest of the State, across the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, into Arizona.  At Flagstaff, take Interstate 17 South, which will take you into Phoenix. Take Interstate 10 West to Exit 133B, which will lead you to State Route 101. Take Exit 6 to the arena/stadium complex

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours and 30 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Indiana, another 2 hours and 45 minutes in Illinois, 5 hours in Missouri, 6 hours in Oklahoma, 3 hours in Texas, 6 hours and 15 minutes in New Mexico, and 5 hours and 30 minutes in Arizona. That’s about 42 hours. Counting rest stops, you're probably talking about 55 hours.

That’s still faster than Greyhound, averaging around 68 hours, including a 1:45 bus-change in Richmond, a 1:15 stopover in Charlotte, an hour's bus-change in Atlanta, an hour's stopover in Birmingham, a 45-minute stopover in Jackson, Mississippi, an hour's stopover in Shreveport, a 1:30 bus-change in Dallas (that's right, changing buses 3 times each way), and a 1:15 stopover in El Paso.

It's $478 round-trip ($398 with advanced purchase), and to get to Phoenix by Saturday morning, you'll have to leave today, by 5:15 PM. The station is at 2115 East Buckeye Road, adjacent to Sky Harbor International Airport. Number 13 bus to downtown. 

The way Amtrak has it set up now, it's so convoluted that I can't even recommend looking it up.

Flights, usually changing in Charlotte, Chicago or Dallas, are actually among the cheapest to any big-league city, and, if ordered ahead of time, can be had for about $920.

Once In the City. While the Cardinals (as do MLB's Diamondbacks and the NHL's Coytes, but not the NBA's Suns) have the State name as their geographic identifier -- apparently from a Native American word meaning "small spring" -- they play in Arizona's State capital, Phoenix.

Jack Swilling, a Confederate veteran who founded the place in 1867, accepted the suggestion of a fellow settler, an Englishman named Lord Duppa: Since it was on the site of a previous Indian civilization, it should be named Phoenix, for the mythical bird that rose from its own ashes. The city was incorporated in 1881, making it the youngest city in American major league sports.

Home to just 100,000 people in 1950, Phoenix saw huge growth in the 2nd half of the 20th Century, thanks in large part to the growth of the air-conditioning industry: 440,000 by 1960, 580,000 by 1970, 800,000 by 1980, and it surpassed the 1 million mark in the early 1990s.

All this made it an expansion target: The Suns arrived in 1968, the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals in 1988 (after the Philadelphia Eagles had to quash a moving-there rumor earlier in the decade), and the first Winnipeg Jets in 1997 (after the WHA had the Phoenix Roadrunners in the 1970s). Today, Phoenix is home to 1.5 million people, with 4.4 million in its metropolitan area.

The sales tax in Arizona is 5.6 percent, but it's 8.3 percent within the City of Phoenix. Central Avenue is the source street for east-west house numbers; oddly, the north-south streets are numbered Streets to the east, and numbered Avenues to the west. Washington Street divides addresses into north and south. A single ride on Phoenix buses and Valley Metro Rail is $2.00, with an All-Day Pass a bargain at $4.00. 

Going In. The Glendale Sports & Entertainment District, in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, consists of The University of Phoenix Stadium, home to the Arizona Cardinals since 2006; and the Gila River Arena, home to the Coyotes since 2003.

The complex is about 17 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix. The official address of the stadium is 1 Cardinals Drive, and that of the arena is 9400 W. Maryland Avenue. Number 8 bus from downtown to 7th & Glendale Avenues, then transfer to Number 70 bus, to Glendale and 95th Avenue, then walk down 95th. If you drive in, parking starts at $10.

New York Tri-State Area sports fans know the stadium as the place where the Giants derailed the New England Patriots' bid for the NFL's first 19-0 season. The Cardinals defeated the Philadelphia Eagles there in January 2009 to advance to Super Bowl XLIII. The stadium is also home to the Fiesta Bowl. (There is an actual University of Phoenix, on the ground, not just on the Internet. But that's not here.) It's hosted 3 matches of the U.S. soccer team.

The field is laid out not quite north-to-south, and can be rolled out of the stadium, to get some sun 

while the roof is closed. 

Food. As a Southwestern city, you might expect Phoenix to have Mexican, Spanish, Western and Southwestern food themes. Which is the case. Grande Rojo and Touchdown Tortilla stands are both on the east side of the Main Level concourse.

They also have stands for Club Burger (customizable hamburgers), Tacho (nachos with tater tots), Indian Fry Bread Tacos (this being Arizona, I'm presuming that, in this case, "Indian" means "Native American" rather than "South Asian"), Fry Bread Dessert (a Southwest take on that great Middle Atlantic States standard, funnel cake), Pig Wings (right, the Cards will win the Super Bowl when pigs fly... actually, it's pork shanks mixed with tater tots), Fajita Sausage (trying to mix the franchise's Midwestern heritage with their Southwestern residence, maybe?) and Not-Your-Average Sundae (ice cream in a cone made of cinnamon crisp, making it look like a giant nacho).

Team History Displays. The Arizona Cardinals have not won the NFL Championship since December 28, 1947. That's 69 years and 2 cities ago: Chicago (1920 to 1959) and St. Louis (1960 to 1987). They reached the NFL Championship Game again the next year, but lost the 1948 title to the team they beat for the 1947 title: The Philadelphia Eagles. They also won the NFL Championship, very controversially, in 1925.

There is no representation in the stadium for these achievements. Nor is there for the NFC East Championships they won in St. Louis in 1974 and '75, nor for the Wild Card berth they reached in St. Louis in 1982. Nor for the Wild Card berths they've won in Arizona in 1998 and 2014. But they do have them, hanging in the stadium's south "Red Zone," for their 2008 NFC and NFC Western Division Championships and their 2009 NFC West title. Presumably, next year, they'll hang new banners for the 2015 NFC West title and, if they advance, the NFC title and the Super Bowl.
The Cardinals have 5 retired numbers. Only 1 is from their Arizona years, and that 1 is tragic: Number 40, Pat Tillman, the safety from Arizona State who left the NFL to enlist in the U.S. Army after the 2001 season, and was killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2004.

From their St. Louis period, they retired 8 for Larry Wilson, one of the greatest safeties of all time; and 88 for J.V. Cain, a tight end who died of an undetected congenital heart defect -- on his 28th birthday, no less -- at the Cardinals' 1979 training camp.

From their Chicago period, they retired 77 for Stan Mauldin, a two-way tackle who suffered a heart attack and died during a 1948 game; and 99 for Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg, a two-way halfback who'd led the University of Pittsburgh to the 1937 National Championship. Both were members of the Cards''47 NFL Champs.

The Cards have a Ring of Honor at UofP Stadium. It honors 15 men:

* From Chicago: Owner Charles Bidwill, coach Jimmy Conzelman, quarterback John "Paddy" Driscoll, two-way back Marshall Goldberg, two-way back Ernie Nevers, two-way back Charlie Trippi, running back Ollie Matson and cornerback Dick "Night Train" Lane. All but Goldberg are also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

* From St. Louis: Safety Larry Wilson, offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf and cornerback Roger Wehrli. All 3 are in the Hall of Fame.

* From Arizona: Quarterback Kurt Warner, cornerback Aeneas Williams, and safeties Pat Tillman and Adrian Wilson. Williams is in the Hall of Fame.
Stuff. The AZone, the Arizona Cardinals Team Store, is located on the ground floor between Gate 2 and the box office. You can find the usual team-themed stuff there. Perhaps, due to Arizona's Western heritage, you can find cowboy hats with the team's logo on them.

In 2010, Sara Gilbert (not the Roseanne actress now on CBS' The Talk) wrote The Story of the Arizona Cardinals, and that's as close as you're going to get to a good history of the team. They haven't won a Super Bowl, so there's no commemorative DVD, however the NFL did put out a DVD for their 2008 NFC Championship season, their only appearance in an NFL championship game (under any name) since Dewey didn't actually defeat Truman.

During the Game. Wearing Giants or Jets gear in Arizona will not endanger your safety. The Cardinals' rivals are the Dallas Cowboys (understandably, both in terms of geography and taste), the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks and the (fill in the city) Rams, their NFC West opponents. Arizonans may not be fond of New Yorkers, but they didn't give us a hard time during the 2001 World Series or Super Bowl XLII, and they won't do it during a Giant or Jet visit.

For the most part, Arizona fans are okay, not making trouble for fans of teams playing the NFL Cardinals, NBA Suns or MLB's Diamondbacks, either. In fact, their biggest rivalry is intrastate: The University of Arizona vs. Arizona State University. It's a heated rivalry... but it's a dry heat.
The Cardinals hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular singer. Their fight song is "The Arizona Cardinals Are Charging" -- I wonder how the San Diego (for the moment) Chargers feel about that. Their mascot is Big Red the Cardinal, a name that goes back to their St. Louis days, when the team was known as the Big Red.

The south end zone is known as the Red Zone, and it is there that they put their most vocal fans, simulating a college football student section or the "end" at an English soccer game.

After the Game. Phoenix does have crime issues, but you should be safe as long as you stay downtown. What's more, the arena is in the suburbs. It's incredibly unlikely that Cardinal fans will bother you, and the fact that the Giants and Jets aren't rivals to them helps.

If the game is a matinee, the Westgate Mall, to the north across Coyotes Blvd., will be open after the game if you want to do some postgame dining or shopping. A McFadden's is outside the arena at the northwest corner, and a Saddle Ranch Chophouse at the northeast corner.

As for anything New York-friendly, the closest I can come at this time is a place called Tim Finnegan's, the local Jets fan hangout, but that's 11 miles north of downtown, at 9201 North 29th Avenue. It appears that the local football Giants fan club meets at Loco Patron, at 1327 E. Chandler Blvd., but that's 21 miles south.

I've read that a Yankee Fan hangout is at LagerFields Sports Grill, at 12601 N. Paradise Village Pkwy. W., 14 miles northeast of downtown. Alas, I can find nothing Mets-specific in the area.

Sidelights. Phoenix's sports history is relatively brief, and not very successful. But there are some notable locations.

* Chase Field and Talking Stick Resort Arena. The capital of Arizona sports is 2 buildings separated by 2 blocks and the Jefferson Street Garage, which provides parking for both.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have played since their 1998 inception at Chase Field, a retractable-roof stadium, originally named Bank One Ballpark, and having that name during what remains the Diamondbacks' only World Series thus far, 2001. It looks like a big airplane hangar, without much atmosphere. True, there is that pool in the right-center-field corner... but what's a pool doing at a ballpark?

The Talking Stick Resort Arena, previously known as the US Airways Center and the AmericaWest Arena for a previous airline, it is 2 blocks west of Chase Field, at 2nd & Jefferson. The Suns have played here since 1992, and the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury since 1997. The Coyotes played here from 1996 to 2003.

The arena's address is 201 E. Jefferson Street, and the ballpark's is 401 E. Jefferson Street. Both buildings can be reached on Metro Light Rail via the Jefferson Street & 3rd Street station.

* Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The Grand Canyon State's 1st home to big-league sports, opening in 1965, was home to the Suns from their 1968 arrival until 1992, and to the World Hockey Association's Phoenix Roadrunners from 1974 to 1977.

Elvis Presley sang at the Coliseum on September 9, 1970, and again on April 22, 1973. Early in his career, on June 9, 1956, he sang at a grandstand at the adjoining Arizona State Fairgrounds. (While individual ex-Beatles have performed in Arizona, the band as a whole did not do so on any of their 3 North American tours.)

The Coliseum still stands, and is part of the State Fairgrounds. 1826 W. McDowell Road. Northwest of downtown. Number 15 bus to 15th & McDowell, then 3 blocks west.

* Phoenix Municipal Stadium. This ballpark was home to the Phoenix Giants/Firebirds from its opening in 1964 until 1991, and is the current spring training home of the Oakland Athletics, the Diamondbacks' Rookie League team, and Arizona's State high school baseball championship. 5999 E. Van Buren Street. East of downtown, take the Light Rail to Priest Drive/Washington station, then a short walk up Priest.

* Scottsdale Stadium. This stadium was home to the Firebirds in their last years, 1992 to 1997. Its seating capacity of 12,000, 4,000 more than Phoenix Municipal, was meant to showcase the Phoenix area as a potential major league market. It's the San Francisco Giants' spring training site, and replaced a previous stadium on the site that dated to 1956, used as a spring training home for the Giants, A's, Red Sox, Orioles and Cubs -- sometimes all at the same time.

Because it was the Cubs' spring training home, thus leading to Phoenix becoming "Chicago's Miami," where retirees from the city tend to go (paging Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post & ESPN's Pardon the Interruption & NBA coverage), it was where former Cub catcher Randy Hundley hosted the very first baseball fantasy camp. As Met fans, you might remember Randy's furious reaction to Tommie Agee scoring on a controversial umpiring call at home plate at Shea in September 1969. You might also remember Randy's son, former Met catcher Todd Hundley.

7408 E. Osborn Road, at Drinkwater Boulevard. Northeast of downtown. Light Rail to Veterans Way/College station, then transfer to Number 72 bus to Osborn, then walk 2 blocks east.

* Arizona State University. The University of Arizona is 114 miles away in Tuscon, but ASU is just a 24-minute Light Rail ride from downtown. The station is at 5th Street & Veterans Way, and is 2 blocks away from Sun Devil Stadium and the Wells Fargo Arena (formerly the ASU Activity Center), home to their football and basketball teams, respectively.

Sun Devil Stadium was built in 1958, and ASU still plays there rather than move to the larger, more modern (but well off-campus) University of Phoenix Stadium. The Cardinals played there from 1988 to 2005, and the Fiesta Bowl was held there from 1971 to 2006. The Dallas Cowboys treated it as a second home field when they played the Cardinals (mainly because there always seemed to be more Cowboy fans there), and won Super Bowl XXX there, when the world learned A) it was possible for the Pittsburgh Steelers to lose a Super Bowl, and B) Terry Bradshaw was smart compared to Neil O'Donnell. It also hosted 2 U.S. soccer team matches in the 1990s.

Packard Stadium, opened in 1974, is home to the ASU baseball program, one of the most successful college baseball teams, east of the stadium and arena, at Rural Road and Rio Salado Parkway. The Sun Devils have won 5 National Championships, most recently in 1981. Their legends include Reggie Jackson, Barry Bonds, and current stars Dustin Pedroia and Andre Ethier. Notable ASU and Met alumni include Gary Gentry, Duffy Dyer, Lenny Randle, Craig Swan, Hubie Brooks, Paul Lo Duca and Ike Davis.

The US Airways Center, Wells Fargo Arena, University of Phoenix Stadium, and the University of Arizona's McKale Center have all hosted NCAA basketball tournament games, but, as yet, the State of Arizona has never hosted a Final Four -- although the University of Phoenix Stadium certainly could. UA has been in the Final Four in 1988, 1994, 1997 and 2001, winning it all in 1997; but ASU has never gotten any closer than the Sweet 16, in 1995.

* Arizona Science Center. Phoenix is not a big museum center. And while there have been Native Americans living in Phoenix for thousands of years, and Spaniards/Mexicans for hundreds, its Anglo history is rather short. No Arizonan has ever become President (although Senators Barry Goldwater and John McCain got nominated), so there's no Presidential Library or Museum. And it doesn't help history buffs that the city only goes back to 1867, and Statehood was gained only in 1912. But the Science Center is at 4th & Washington, just a block from the ballpark. And Arizona State has a renowned Art Museum.

The tallest building in Phoenix, and in all of Arizona, is the Chase Tower, bounded by Central Avenue and Van Buren, 1st and Monroe Streets. That it's only 483 feet, and that no taller building has been built in the city since it opened in 1972, says something about this city, but I'm not sure what. But the city seems to be intent on growing outward, not upward.

Television shows set in Phoenix, or anywhere in Arizona, are few and far between. The High Chaparral, another Western created by Bonanza creator David Dortort, ran on NBC from 1967 to 1971, and is fondly remembered by some.

But the best-remembered show is Alice, starring Linda Lavin as one of several waitresses at fictional Mel's Diner, running on CBS from 1976 to 1985. Although the show was taped in Hollywood (Burbank, actually), that once-famous "14-ounce coffee cup" sign is still used outside a real working diner in Phoenix. It was Lester's, until the owner agreed to change the name to "Mel's Diner" for the publicity. Today, it's Pat's Family Diner, at 1747 NW Grand Avenue, 2 miles northwest of downtown. Number 15 bus to 15th Avenue & Pierce Street, and then walk one block east to Grand, Pierce, and 12th. There are also still-in-business diners in Ohio and Florida that use the same sign design. "Pickup!"

Movies set in modern-day Arizona usually show the Grand Canyon or the Hoover Dam. Notable on this list is Thelma & Louise, in which Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon drive a 1966 Ford Thunderbird into the Canyon rather than be captured by the FBI, enacting a distaff version of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. National Lampoon's Vacation and Natural Born Killers also used Arizona as a backdrop.

The vast majority of movies set in Arizona have been Westerns, including the 1957 and 2007 versions of 3:10 to Yuma, the 1950 film Broken Arrow (not the later John Travolta film of the same title), Fort Apache (not the later Paul Newman film set in The Bronx), Paul Newman's Hombre, Johnny Guitar, A Million Ways to Die In the West, No Name On the Bullet, and all the films based on the 1881 Earps vs. Clantons gunfight, including My Darling Clementine in 1946, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1957, Tombstone in 1993 and Wyatt Earp in 1994.

If you're a Western buff, and you want to see the site of the legendary gunfight, the official address is 326 East Allen Street, Tombstone, AZ 85638. Reenactments are held daily. Be advised, though, that it's 184 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix, a 3-hour drive, and ain't no Greyhound or Amtrak service, stranger. It's also just 50 miles from the Mexican border.

*

If you go to Phoenix to see the Devils play the Coyotes, you won't be subjected to Arizona's usual intense heat, and you can probably see a hockey game relatively cheap. Have fun!

Even though neither the Giants nor the Jets made the NFL Playoffs, I'm going to do Trip Guides for the teams that did, but for whom I haven't yet done them. One of them is the Denver Broncos, who are playing the Pittsburgh Steelers as I type this.

Before You Go. Check the website of the Denver Post for the weather. Denver weather is unpredictable, as it sits with the Rocky Mountains to the north, south and west, and the open prairie to the east. They can get snow early. I once saw a Monday Night Football game on TV in which the Broncos hosted the Green Bay Packers: It was October and there was a blizzard. The Packers and their fans probably thought they were getting away from winter weather by leaving Green Bay!

Denver is in the Mountain Time Zone, so you’ll be 2 hours behind New York time. And there’s a reason it’s called the Mile High City: The elevation means the air will be thinner. Although the Rocky Mountain region is renowned for outdoor recreation, if you’re not used to it, try not to exert yourself too much. Cheering at a sporting event shouldn’t bother you too much, but even if the weather is good, don’t go rock-climbing or any other such activity unless you’ve done it before and know what you’re doing.

Tickets. Contrary to popular belief, Broncomania did not begin with their run to the AFC Championship in 1977. Indeed, they haven't played to an unsold seat since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 -- 45 straight seasons. They averaged 76,922 fans per game this season, a sellout. Tickets will be hard to come by.

On the Field Level, the 100 sections, tickets are $155 on the sidelines and $95 in the end zones. The Plaza Level, the 300 sections, is bought out by club seats on the sidelines, and it's also $95 in the end zones. On the Upper Level, the 500 sections, it's $77 on the sidelines, $65 in the corners and $50 in the north end zone, with the south end zone being open and having no seats at that level.

Getting There. It’s 1,779 miles from Times Square in New York to the Denver plaza that contains the State House and the City-County complex, and 1,772 miles from MetLife Stadium to Sports Authority Field. You’re probably thinking that you should be flying.

The good news: Flying to Denver, considering how far it is, is relatively cheap. You can get a round-trip flight for a Saturday, going in for a Sunday game, and returning on Monday, for a little over $600, depending on what time you want to fly. More likely, it'll be around $800, but that's still a decent price per mile.

The bad news: It won’t be nonstop. While Stapleton Airport was a major change-planes-here spot for going to the West Coast and Las Vegas, the new Denver International Airport isn’t. You want to fly there, you’ll have to change planes, most likely in either Chicago or Dallas.

Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited leaves Penn Station at 3:40 PM Friday, arrives at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Saturday (that’s Central Time). The California Zephyr leaves Chicago at 2:00 PM Saturday and arrives at Denver’s Union Station at 7:15 AM (Mountain Time) Sunday. The return trip would leave Denver at 7:10 PM Sunday (so this would only work for a Sunday afternoon game, not a Sunday, Monday or Thursday night game), arrive in Chicago at 2:50 PM Monday, leave Chicago at 9:30 PM Monday, and get back to New York at 6:35 PM Tuesday. The round-trip fare is $496.

Conveniently, Union Station is at 1700 Wynkoop Street at 17th Street, just 3 blocks from Coors Field. The front of the building is topped by a clock, framed by an old sign saying UNION STATION on top and TRAVEL by TRAIN on the bottom.
Greyhound allows you to leave Port Authority Bus Terminal at 4:00 PM Friday, and arrive at Denver at 10:50 AM on Sunday, a trip of just under 45 hours, without having to change buses. That 44:50 does, however, include layovers of 40 minutes in Philadelphia, an hour and a half in Pittsburgh, an hour in Columbus, an hour in Indianapolis, 2 hours in St. Louis, and half an hour in Salina, Kansas; plus half-hour meal stops in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kansas. Round-trip fare is $406, but you can get it for $338 on advanced-purchase. You can get a bus back at 7:10 PM Sunday and be back in New York at 3:50 PM Tuesday. The Denver Bus Center is at 1055 19th Street.

If you actually think it’s worth it to drive, get someone to go with you, so you’ll have someone to talk to, and one of you can drive while the other sleeps. You’ll be taking Interstate 80 most of the way, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, before taking Interstate 76 from Nebraska to Colorado, and then Interstate 25 into Denver. (An alternate route: Take the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Turnpikes to Interstate 70 and then I-70 through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado into downtown Denver. It won’t save you an appreciable amount of time over the I-80 route, though.)

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Illinois, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Iowa, 6 hours in Nebraska, and 3 hours and 15 minutes in Colorado. Including rest stops, and accounting for traffic (you’ll be bypassing Cleveland and Chicago, unless that’s where you want to make rest stops), we’re talking about a 40-hour trip.

Even if you’re only going for one game, no matter how you got there, get a hotel and spend a night. You’ll be exhausted otherwise. Trust me, I know: Trains and buses are not good ways to get sleep.

Once In the City. Founded in 1858 as a gold rush city, and named for James W. Denver, then Governor of the Kansas Territory, from which Colorado was separated, Denver is a State capital and city of 630,000 people, in a metro area of 3.2 million -- roughly the population of Brooklyn and Staten Island combined. It's easily the biggest city in, and thus the unofficial cultural capital of, the Rocky Mountain region.

Broadway is the main north-south drag, separating East addresses from West. But the northwestern quadrant of the street grid is at roughly a 45-degree angle from the rest of the city, and this area includes the central business district, Union Station and the ballpark.

The sales tax in the State of Colorado is 2.9 percent, however, the City of Denver adds a 3.62 percent sales tax, for a total of 6.52 percent. The Denver Post is a good paper, but don't bother looking for the Rocky Mountain News: It went out of business in 2009. Bus and light rail service in Denver is run by the Regional Transportation District (RTD), and goes for $2.25 for a single ride, and $6.75 for a DayPass.
Going In. Although it's the Jets who are the Broncos' fellow original AFL team, it is the Giants that have a connection with the Broncos' new stadium. The Giants were the opposing team when the Broncos opened it on Monday Night Football, with John Elway carrying the game ball onto the field, with several other Bronco greats escorting him. The Broncos won. The date was September 10, 2001. Less than 9 hours after the game ended, New York and the world changed forever.

Originally named Invesco Field at Mile High, it was renamed Sports Authority Field at Mile High in 2011, for the sporting goods chain based in the Denver suburb of Englewood. (Not to be confused with the Bergen County, New Jersey town of the same name.) Most people usually just call it "Mile High Stadium," which the old one was named from 1966 until it closed in 2000. Before that, it was Bears Stadium, named for the old minor-league baseball team that played there from its opening in 1948 until 1992.

The new stadium, and the site of the old stadium and arena, are at Mile High Station on the light rail C-Line and E-Line. The official address is 1701 Mile High Stadium Circle, and it is 2 miles west of downtown Denver. If you're driving in, parking is $15 or $20. Tailgating is encouraged.

Like its predecessor, Mile High Stadium, Sports Authority Field is a horseshoe with the south end as the open end, and the natural grass field is laid out north-to-south.

In addition to the Broncos, the new stadium hosted the final day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, including the acceptance speech that helped launch Senator Barack Obama to the Presidency.
It was built on the site of the McNichols Sports Arena, home of the Nuggets from 1975 to 1999, the NHL version of the Colorado Rockies from 1976 to 1982 (when they moved to become the New Jersey Devils), and the Avalanche from 1995 to 1999, which was built across from the south end zone of the old Mile High Stadium.

McNichols It hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1990, with UNLV (the University of Nevada at Las Vegas) clobbering Duke. (The University of Colorado made the Final Four in 1942 and 1955, although it wasn't yet called the Final Four. No other Colorado-based school has made it, and none has won a National Championship -- not in basketball, anyway.)
At McNichols, the Nuggets reached the ABA Finals in 1976, and the Avalanche won the 1996 Stanley Cup (albeit clinching in Miami). Elvis Presley sang at McNichols on April 23, 1976. When the time came to play the final concert at McNichols, the act that played the first concert there was brought back: ZZ Top. This fact was mentioned on a Monday Night Football broadcast, leading Dan Dierdorf to note the alphabetic distinction of the long red-bearded men, and say, “The first one should have been ABBA.” Which would have been possible, as they were nearly big in the U.S. at the time.

However, the fact that the arena only lasted 24 years, making it not that hard for the act that played the first concert there to also play the last, says something about America's disposable culture.

2755 W. 17th Avenue was the mailing address of Mile High Stadium. It was built in 1948 as Bears Stadium, an 18,000-seat ballpark. When the American Football League was founded in 1960, it was expanded to 34,000 seats with the addition of outfield seating. The name was changed to Mile High Stadium in 1966, and by 1968 much of the stadium was triple-decked and seated 51,706.

In 1977 – just in time for the Broncos to make their first Super Bowl run and start “Broncomania” – the former baseball park was transformed into a 76,273-seat horseshoe, whose east stands could be moved in to conform to the shape of a football field, or out to allow enough room for a regulation baseball field. The old-time ballpark had become, by the standards of the time, a modern football stadium.

The biggest complaint when the baseball version of the Colorado Rockies debuted in 1993 wasn’t the thin air, or the condition of the stadium (despite its age, it was not falling apart), but the positioning of the lights: Great for football fans, but terrible for outfielders tracking fly balls. But it was only meant to be a temporary ballpark for the Rockies, as a condition for Denver getting a team was a baseball-only stadium. What really led to the replacement of Mile High Stadium, and its demolition in 2002, was greed: The Broncos' desire for luxury-box revenue.

At Bears/Mile High Stadium, the Broncos won AFC Championships in 1977, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1997 and 1998, winning the Super Bowl in the last 2 years after losing the first 4 in blowouts.  (They've now won an AFC title at the new stadium, but not a Super Bowl.) The Denver Bears won Pennants while playing there in 1957 (as a Yankee farm team), 1971, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1983 and 1991 (winning the last one under the Denver Zephyrs name).

MLS' Colorado Rapids played home games at the old stadium from 1996 to 2001, and actually played the last event there. They played at the new stadium from 2002 to 2006, when their new soccer-specific stadium opened in the suburbs.

The U.S. national soccer team played a pair of games at Mile High Stadium in the 1990s, and beat Mexico at the new stadium in 2002 (the only game they've played there so far). While the 2008 Democratic Convention was held at the Pepsi Center, Senator Barack Obama gave his nomination acceptance speech outdoors in front of 80,000 people at New Mile High Stadium.

The Red Lion Hotel Denver and the Skybox Grill & Sports Bar are now on the site of the old stadium.

Food. Being a “Wild West” city, you might expect Denver to have Western-themed stands with “real American food” at its arena. Being in a State with a Spanish name, in a land that used to belong to Mexico, you might also expect to have Mexican food. And you would be right on both counts. Here are some of the options available:

Team History Displays. The Broncos have won the AFC Western Division 15 times, including the last 5 season: 1977, '78, '84, '86, 87, '89, '91, '96, '98, 2005, '11, '12, '13, '14 and '15. They have won the AFC Championship 7 times: 1977, '86, '87, '89, '97, '98 and 2013. And they won Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, in the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons. Displays for these titles are in the south end zone.

The Broncos have retired 3 uniform numbers: 7 for John Elway, 18 for Frank Tripucka, and 44 for Floyd Little. But there is no display for these. Rather, the Broncos have a Ring of Fame on display at the stadium, honoring 28 men:

* From the 1960s: Owner Gerald Phipps, quarterback Frank Tripucka, running back and kicker Gene Mingo, receiver Lionel Taylor, defensive end Rich "Tombstone" Jackson and safety Goose Gonsoulin.

* From the 1970s, but before the Broncomania season: Quarterback Charley Johnson and running back Floyd Little.

* From the 1977 AFC Championship season that began Broncomania and the Orange Crush nickname: Phipps, quarterback Craig Morton, receivers Haven Moses and Rick Upchurch, defensive end Paul Smith, linebackers Randy Gradishar and Tom Jackson, safety Billy Thompson, and kicker Jim Turner.

* From the 1986, 1987 and 1989 AFC Championships: Tom Jackson, Wright (both holdovers into 1986 only), owner Pat Bowlen, head coach Dan Reeves, quarterback John Elway, linebacker Karl Mecklenburg, and safeties Dennis Smith and Steve Atwater (who arrived in 1989).

* From the 1997 and 1998 World Champions: Bowlen, Elway, Atwater, running back Terrell Davis, receiver Rod Smith, tight end Shannon Sharpe, center Tom Nalen and offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman (left after 1997). As yet, they have not had the guts to induct dirty linebacker Bill Romanowski -- or any other defensive player from those teams, save Atwater.

Bowlen is still the owner, and Elway is now the general manager, having built the 5-time defending AFC West Champions.

The stadium also includes the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, which has inducted the following Broncos: The aforementioned Bowlen, Davis, Elway Gonsoulin, Gradishar, Rich and Tom Jackson (no relation), Little, Mecklenburg, Morton, Moses, Phipps, Reeves, Sharpe, Taylor, Thompson, Upchurch and Wright; plus the following individuals not yet in the Ring of Fame: Team founder Bob Howsam, original quarterback Frank Tripucka, 1977 head coach Red Miller, 1977 running back Otis Armstrong, 1997-98 kicker Jason Elam, and 1997-98 linebacker Alfred Williams.

Stuff. The Denver Bronco Stadium Store is on the ground floor at the stadium's open south end. They may sell cowboy hats with team logos on them, to tie in with the State's Western heritage.

Elway and former Bronco executive Jim Saccomano -- not to be confused with the never-seen but oft-mentioned Seinfeld character Bob Saccomano -- collaborated on Denver Broncos: The Complete Illustrated History, published in 2013, before Peyton Manning took them to Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands. Mike Klis published Mile High Magic - The 25 Greatest Moments in Denver Broncos History this past fall. And the NFL produced the DVD Denver Broncos: The Complete History in 2006. (Obviously, it is no longer complete.)

During the Game. Coloradans love their sports, but they’re not known as antagonistic. Although the Jets came within a half of derailing a Bronco Super Bowl in 1999 (1998 season), and the Devils came within a game of short-circuiting their Stanley Cup run in 2001, the people of the Centennial State don’t have an ingrained hatred of New Yorkers. As long as you don’t wear Kansas City Chiefs or Oakland Raiders gear, you’ll probably be completely safe. (But, as always, watch out for obnoxious drunks, who know no State Lines.)

The Broncos hold auditions for singing the National Anthem, instead of having a regular singer. They still use their original 1960 fight song, "The Mighty Broncos March," which calls them "The Pride of the West."

Sometimes, the Broncos will wear purple jerseys at home, as they usually have since the 1997 season. Sometimes, they'll wear orange, as they did before that. Rarely will they wear white, as the Giants and Jets sometimes do, and other teams sometimes choose (including Philadelphia, Washington and Dallas).

A home game tradition is the "Incomplete Chant." When the opposing team throws an incomplete pass, the stadium announcer will state, "Pass thrown by (the opposing quarterback), intended for (the intended receiver) is..." at which time the fans complete the chant by saying "IN-COM-PLETE!!" This is followed by the "sad trombone" sound effect.

After the Game. Denver has had crime issues, and just 3 blocks from Coors Field is Larimer Street, immortalized as a dingy, bohemian-tinged, hobo-strewn street in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. But that scene was written in 1947. The Pepsi Center is, essentially, an island in a sea of parking. LoDo (Lower Downtown) has become, with the building of Coors Field and the revitalization of Union Station, a sort of mountain Wrigleyville, and thus the go-to area for Denver nightlife. So you’ll probably be safe.

To the west of the stadium, between Mile High Stadium Circle and Federal Blvd., there's a Burger King, a Kentucky Fried Chicken, a Pizza Hut, a Denny's, and Atmosphere Ultra Lounge.

LoDo is loaded with bars that will be open after the game, including Scruffy Murphy’s at Larimer & 20th, and an outlet of the Fado Irish Pub chain at Wynkoop & 19th. But the only baseball-named place I can find anywhere near Coors is Sandlot Brewery, at 22nd & Blake, outside the park’s right-field corner.

Perhaps the most famous sports-themed restaurant near Denver is Elway’s Cherry Creek, a steakhouse at 2500 E. 1st Avenue in the southern suburb of Cherry Creek. Bus 83L. It’s owned by the same guy who owns John Elway Chevrolet in another southern suburb, Englewood.

About a mile southeast of Coors Field, at 538 E. 17th Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood (not sure why a southern, rather than northern, neighborhood is called “Uptown”), is The Tavern, home of the local New York Giants fan club. I can find no corresponding place for Jets fans, but if you’re a Yankees, Mets or Knicks fan, you can probably find some New Yorkers at The Tavern.

Sidelights. The Pepsi Center -- the arena has always had that name since it opened -- is across Cherry Creek from downtown, about 2 miles northwest of City Hall. The intersection is 11th Street & Auraria Parkway, but the mailing address is 1000 Chopper Circle, in honor of Robert "Chopper" Travaglini, the beloved former trainer (and amateur sports psychologist) of the NBA's Nuggets, who share the arena. Chopper Circle is an extension of Wewatta Street.

Pepsi Center/Elitch Gardens station on the RTD light rail. If you're coming in that way, you'll probably enter from the west gate, the Grand Atrium. If you're driving, parking starts at just $5.00.
Coors Field has been home to the Rockies since it opened in 1995. 2001 Blake Street (hence the team's nickname, the Blake Street Bombers) at 20th Street, 3 blocks from Union Station, accessible by light rail.

The Nuggets, known as the Denver Rockets until 1974, played at the Denver Auditorium Arena, at 13th & Champa Streets, from their 1967 inception until McNichols opened in 1975. It was also the home of the original Nuggets, who played in the NBA from 1948 to 1950.

It opened in 1908, and its seating capacity of 12,500 made it the 2nd-largest in the country at the time, behind the version of Madison Square Garden then standing. It almost immediately hosted the Democratic National Convention that nominated William Jennings Bryan for President for the 3rd time – although it’s probably just a coincidence that the Democrats waited exactly 100 years (give or take a few weeks) to go back (it’s not like Obama didn’t want to get it right the 1st time, as opposed 0-for-3 Bryan).

The Auditorium Arena hosted Led Zeppelin’s 1st American concert on December 26, 1968. It was demolished in 1990 to make way for the Denver Performing Arts Complex, a.k.a. the Denver Center. Theatre District/Convention Center Station on the light rail’s D-Line, F-Line and H-Line.

The Denver area's Major League Soccer team, the Colorado Rapids, plays at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. The U.S. national team has played there twice, winning both times. 6000 Victory Way. Number 48 bus to 60th Avenue & Dahlia Street, then Number 88 bus to 60th & Monaco. Then they make you walk 10 blocks on 60th to get to the stadium.

The Beatles played Red Rocks Amphitheatre in suburban Morrison on August 26, 1964. It is still in business, and a Colorado Music Hall of Fame is a short walk away. 18300 W. Alameda Parkway, 10 miles west of downtown. Sorry, no public transportation.

Elvis played 2 shows at the Denver Coliseum on April 8, 1956, and 1 each on November 17, 1970 and April 30, 1973. Built in 1951, it still stands, seating 10,500, and is best known for concerts and the National Western Stock Rodeo. 4600 Humbolt Street at E. 46th Avenue, off Interstate 70, 3 miles northeast of downtown. Apparently, no public transportation to there, either.

Denver has some renowned museums, including the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (their version of the Museum of Natural History) at 2001 Colorado Blvd. at Montview Blvd. (in City Park, Number 20 bus), and the Denver Art Museum (their version of the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History), at 100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway at Colfax Avenue (across I-25 from Mile High Stadium, Auraria West station on the C-Line and E-Line).

Denver’s history only goes back to a gold rush in 1859 – not to be confused with the 1849 one that turned San Francisco from a Spanish Catholic mission into the first modern city in the American West. The city isn’t exactly loaded with history.

There’s no Presidential Library – although Mamie Doud, the eventual Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower, grew up there, and her house is now a historic site. Mamie and “Ike” were married there, their son John (a future General, Ambassador and military historian) was born there, and the Eisenhowers were staying there when Ike had his heart attack in 1955. The house is still in private ownership, and is not open to the public. However, if you’re a history buff, or if you just like Ike, and want to see it, it’s at 750 Lafayette Street, at 8th Avenue. The Number 6 bus will get you to 6th & Lafayette.

After his heart attack, Ike was treated at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center in nearby Aurora, 12 years after Senator John Kerry, nearly elected President in 2004 and now Secretary of State, was born there. It’s not a Presidential Birthplace, because Kerry narrowly lost. It is now the University of Colorado Hospital. The Fitzsimmons Golf Course is across Montview Boulevard – it figures that Ike would be hospitalized next to a golf course! 16th Avenue & Quentin Street. Number 20 bus from downtown.

Denver doesn't have as many tall buildings as the nation's bigger cities, nor are they as interesting, architecturally. The tallest building in the State of Colorado is Republic Plaza, 714 feet high, at 17th Street & Tremont Place downtown.

The University of Colorado is in Boulder, 30 miles to the northwest. At Market Street Station, 16th & Market, take the BV Bus to the Boulder Transit Center, which is on campus. The ride should take about an hour and 20 minutes. Colorado State University is in Fort Collins, 65 miles up Interstate 25 north, and forget about reaching it by public transportation. The U.S. Air Force Academy is outside Colorado Springs, 60 miles down I-25.  As with Fort Collins, you'd need Greyhound. Unlike CSU, you might not be able to just go there: Some of the area is restricted.  It is, after all, a military base.

A few TV shows have been set in Denver, but you won't find their filming locations there. The old-time Western Whispering Smith and the more recent one Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman were set in old Colorado, but filmed in Southern California.

Probably the most famous show set in Colorado is South Park, and that's a cartoon, so forget seeing anything from that. Not quite as cartoonish was Mork & Mindy, set in Boulder. The McConnell house actually is in Boulder, at 1619 Pine Street. But don't try to copy the opening-sequence scene with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber on the goalposts at the University of Colorado's Folsom Field. You could fall, and end up saying, "Shazbot!"

The most famous show ever set in Colorado was Dynasty, ABC's Excessive Eighties counterpart to CBS' Dallas, starring John Forsythe as Blake Carrington, an oilman and a thinly-veiled version of Marvin Davis, who nearly bought the Oakland Athletics from Charlie Finley in 1978 with the idea of moving them to Mile High Stadium, but the deal fell through. Right, you don't care about Blake, all you care about is the catfights between the 2nd and 1st Mrs. Carrington's: Krystle (Linda Evans) and Alexis (Joan Collins). The Carrington mansion seen in the opening credits is in Beverly Hills, but the building that stood in for the headquarters of Denver Carrington is at 621 17th Street, while the one that stood in for Colbyco is at 1801 California Street.

*

Denver sports has been defined by the Broncos, their 1st major league sports team, for over half a century. The Broncos have been an iconic sports franchise in America from the Autumn of '77 onward. They're usually at least good, sometimes great. Now -- the game I cited at the beginning of this piece having ended -- they are 1 win away from their 8th Super Bowl.

A Bronco game can be a very loud, very exciting experience. Hopefully, the 2016 NFL season will feature either the Giants or the Jets going to Denver. Who knows, maybe the Jets will play a Playoff game out there. This guide should have you ready for any of these events.

Ben McAdoo has been named the 18th head coach in the 92-season history of the New York Giants football team. (The season beginning in September 2016 will be their 92nd season.)

Who is he, and is he the right hire for the team?

Benjamin Lee McAdoo was born on July 9, 1977 -- meaning that he was born after Giants Stadium opened, after the Chris Chambliss home run, after Tom Seaver was traded, and after the Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin shouting match in the Fenway Park dugout. When "The Miracle of the Meadowlands" happened, he was 16 months old. When Bill Parcells coached his 1st game in charge of the Giants, he was 6. When the Giants won their 1st Super Bowl, he was 9.

He's only 38, yet he's already got a gray goatee. Actually, with that hair, and that face, if he shaved the mustache and the goatee, he'd look like Castle star Nathan Fillion.

The head coach of the Giants is 7 1/2 years younger than I am. Holy cow, I am old.

He was born in Homer City, Pennsylvania, a town 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, with a population (according to the 2010 Census of 1,707. That's coal country, and it's football country. He graduated from Homer Center High School in 1995 -- wow, the head coach of the Giants graduated from high school in Bill Clinton's 1st term, that is staggering -- and went to nearby Indiana University of Pennsylvania, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Jimmy Stewart's hometown (although he went to Princeton).

While still attending "IUP," he became an assistant football coach at Homer Center, and then at Indiana Area High School. He became a graduate assistant at Michigan State University in 2001, offensive line and tight ends coach at Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2002, and a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh in 2003.

He moved on to the pros: Offensive quality control coordinator (whatever that means) for the New Orleans Saints in 2004, offensive line coach and offensive quality control coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers in 2005, and then his 1st long-term job, as tight ends coach with the Green Bay Packers in 2006. In this role, he earned a Super Bowl ring following Super Bowl XLV in 2011. In 2012, the Packers made him quarterbacks coach.

In 2014, the Giants hired him as offensive coordinator, where he worked closely with the line, the receivers, the running backs, and, of course, quarterback Eli Manning. With Tom Coughlin "retiring" (yeah, surrrre, he retired, just like Casey Stengel retired from he Yankees in 1960), McAdoo was promoted in his place (Ralph Houk to Coughlin's Stengel).

Pros: He's young -- and the big argument against Coughlin the last few years was that he was old and out of touch. He's been a winner: He has a ring. He already knows the Giants' setup. The players trust him.

Cons: This is his first head coaching job. And while he's coached in the New York Tri-State Area for 2 years, this will be the first time he's had real pressure, the first time he'll be in the fishbowl. Don't tell me a first-year coach will be immune to criticism: That was proven incorrect by Ray Handley with the 1991 Giants and Rich Kotite with the 1995 Jets.

Almost certainly, this guy's first head coaching job should have been somewhere else first, someplace without a massive media presence. In other words, not New York, not Philadelphia, not Boston, not Washington, not Chicago, not San Francisco, not Los Angeles. (Well, L.A. doesn't have an NFL team... for the moment.) Nor a city that's smaller, but where the football team means everything: Not Pittsburgh, not Cleveland, not Denver... Maybe Green Bay, since his ring and most of his Playoff experience is with them.

He could be the next Jim Fassel or Tom Coughlin. But he could also be the next Ray Handley -- or, if you're old enough to remember, the next Joe Walton.

Cue the Star Wars line: "I've got a bad feeling about this."

This Saturday night, the Devils will be in the capital of the Province of Manitoba to play the reborn Winnipeg Jets.

If this were a World Hockey Association game in the 1970s... well, it wouldn't be that big, since we'd be the New York Raiders and we'd stink.

Before You Go. Winnipeg is in Manitoba. Manitoba is in Canada. In the entire National Hockey League, only Edmonton and Calgary have arenas further north. It's late January. It's going to be cold. The website for the Winnipeg Free Press is predicting 25 degrees for daylight and single digits for night. That's Fahrenheit. Don't look at the Celsius numbers, the ones you're used to are cold enough. Bundle up.

Winnipeg is in Canada, so you're going to need to have, and bring, a valid passport. It's also in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York and New Jersey. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Do yourself another big favor: Change your money before you go. There are plenty of currency exchanges in New York City, including one on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue.

Leave yourself $50 in U.S. cash, especially if you’re going other than by plane, so you’ll have usable cash when you get back to your side of the border. At this writing, the exchange rate is US$1.00 = C$1.46, while C$1.00 = US 68 cents, so, for the moment, it really favors us.

Tickets. At 15,016, the MTS Centre has the smallest capacity of any current NHL arena, smaller than even the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. But the fans in Winnipeg are so thrilled to have their Jets back that they've sold out every seat since the re-premiere. Getting tickets might be tough.

The prices I'm citing are in Canadian dollars. Seats in the lower bowl, the 100 sections, are $123 and $139 between the goals, $101 behind them. Seats in the mezzanine, the 200 sections, are $123 between the goals and $85 behind them. Seats in the upper level, the 300 sections, are $69 between the goals and $58 behind them, with the last few rows behind the goals going for $42.

Getting There. It's 1,654 miles from Times Square to the Manitoba Legislative Building (the Province's capitol building). Knowing this, your first instinct will be to fly. Air Canada offers round-trip flights from Newark to Winnipeg for as little as $780. Unfortunately, you'd have to change planes in Toronto.

You can't get from New York to Winnipeg directly by train, either. You have to change trains in Toronto. Amtrak, however, runs just one train, the Maple Leaf, in each direction each day between New York and Toronto, in cooperation with Canada’s equivalent, VIA Rail. This train leaves Pennsylvania Station at 7:15 AM and arrives at Union Station at 7:42 PM, a trip of 12 hours and 22 minutes – 9:10 of it in America, 32 minutes of it at Customs (4:25 to 4:57 PM) and 2:45 of it in Canada. The return trip leaves Toronto at 8:20 AM, reaches the border at 10:22, and gets back to Penn Station at 9:45 PM.

Likewise, VIA Rail has just 1 train a day from Toronto to Winnipeg, leaving Toronto at 10:00 PM (giving you 2 hours and 18 minutes to make the change) and taking 35 hours to get to Winnipeg, arriving at 8:00 AM. It then leaves Winnipeg at 10:30 PM and arrives in Toronto at 9:30 AM 2 days later. In other words, had I done this properly, this would have been your itinerary (all times local):

Leave New York 7:15 AM Thursday
Arrive Toronto 7:42 PM Thursday (2 hour, 18 minute layover)
Leave Toronto 10:00 PM Thursday
Arrive Winnipeg 8:00 AM Saturday
Game in Winnipeg 6:00 PM Saturday
Game ends around 8:30 PM Saturday (2 hours to make train)
Leave Winnipeg 10:30 PM Saturday
Arrive Toronto 9:30 AM Monday (22 hour, 50 minute layover)
Leave Toronto 8:20 AM Tuesday
Arrive New York 9:45 PM Tuesday

Winnipeg's Union Station is at 123 Main Street at Broadway.

And the price? From Toronto to Winnipeg and back, a mere C$577.43. Or US$395.50. With the New York to Toronto fare of $252 added on, the total is $647.50. Plus, you're going to want to get a hotel after a long train ride, and do you really want to have only around an hour to get from the arena to the station -- especially when the game could go to overtime or a shootout? So you'll need to pay for the equivalent of 2 nights in a hotel. So unless you're rich, both the plane and the train are out.

How about the bus? Greyhound does serve Canada. You could start out from Port Authority at 11:30 AM Thursday; get a snack during a 40-minute layover in Syracuse, starting at 4:40 PM; arrive at Buffalo at 8:55 PM, and use the 40-minute layover for a late, quick dinner; cross the border at Fort Erie, outside Buffalo, at 9:55 PM; reach Toronto at 12:15 AM Friday; transfer to your Winnipeg-bound bus at 1:00 AM; have breakfast at Sudbury, Ontario at 6:00 AM; have lunch at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario at 11:30 AM; grab a quick dinner at Schreiber, Ontario at 7:30 PM; get a snack at Thunder Bay, Ontario at 10:25 PM; and finally reach Winnipeg, the only stop in Manitoba, at 7:35 AM Saturday.

That's 45 hours: Not only is Ontario huge, but you'll be going around 3 of the 5 Great Lakes: Ontario, Huron and Superior. At least it'll only cost you $430, $394 with advanced-purchase. You could, theoretically, get the 10:00 PM bus back to Toronto on Saturday night, Sunday breakfast in Thunder Bay, Sunday lunch in Schreiber, Sunday dinner in Sault Ste. Marie, reach Toronto at 5:50 AM Monday, have breakfast, get on the 8:00 AM bus back to New York, have lunch in Buffalo, have a snack in Syracuse, and be back at Port Authority in time for dinner at 7:50 PM Monday -- beating the train by nearly 2 hours and over $200.

Or maybe driving would be better. Keep in mind, it's better to do this with 2 people, so 1 can drive while the other sleeps. And you'll both need passports. And make sure your companion isn't someone who would say or do some wiseass thing at Customs, like answer the question, "Do you have anything to declare?" with, "I declare that I'm proud to be an American."

The most direct route bypasses Buffalo, Hamilton and Toronto -- in fact, it doesn't go through Ontario at all.

You'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. From this point onward, you won’t need to think about I-80 until you head home; I-90 is now the key, through the rest of Ohio and Indiana.

Just outside Chicago, I-80 will split off from I-90, which you will keep, until it merges with Interstate 94. For the moment, though, you will ignore I-94. Stay on I-90 through Illinois, until reaching Madison, Wisconsin, where you will once again merge with I-94. Now, I-94 is what you want, taking it into Minnesota and the Twin Cities.

However, unless you want to make a rest stop actually in Minneapolis or St. Paul, you're going to bypass them entirely. Take Exit 249 to get on Interstate 694, the Twin Cities' beltway, until you merge with Interstate 494 to reform I-94. Crossing Minnesota into North Dakota, you'll take Exit 349B to get on Interstate 29 North. At Pembina, North Dakota, you'll reach Customs.

Assuming you have everything in order and don't do anything stupid, you'll be allowed to cross over into Emerson, Manitoba, and your highway will continue as Manitoba Route 29. This will soon flow into Manitoba Route 75, the Lord Selkirk Highway. Upon crossing Route 300, it will become Manitoba Route 42. Take that to Manitoba Route 62, and that will take you into downtown Winnipeg.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 and a half hours in Indiana, an hour and a half in Illinois, 2 and a half hours in Wisconsin, 4 and a half hours in Minnesota, 2 hours and 45 minutes in North Dakota, and a shade over an hour in Manitoba. That’s 24 hours and 30 minutes.

Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and just after you enter both Ohio and Indiana, outside Chicago, halfway across Wisconsin, outside the Twin Cities, outside Grand Forks, and counting Customs, which should have a bathroom and vending machines, it should be no more than 33 hours, which would save you time on both Greyhound and Amtrak, if not on flying.

Once In the City. The name Winnipeg comes from the Western Cree words for "muddy waters." The region was a trading center for aboriginal peoples (usually called "First Nations" in Canada, rather than "Indians" or "Native Canadians") before the arrival of Europeans. French traders built the first fort on the site in 1738. A settlement was later founded by the Selkirk settlers in 1812, the nucleus of which was incorporated as the City of Winnipeg in 1873.

Since Canada is in the British Commonwealth, there are some subtle differences. Every measurement will be in the metric system. Dates are written not as Month/Day/Year, as we do it, but as Day/Month/Year as in Britain and in Europe. So the game is played for us on "January 23, 2016," but for them on "23 January 2016" -- we write it as 1/23/16, they write it as 23/01/16.

They also follow British custom in writing time: This game is scheduled to start at 6:00 PM, and will be listed as 1800. (Those of you who have served in the military, you will recognize this as, in the words of M*A*S*H's Lt. Col. Henry Blake, "all that hundred-hours stuff.") And every word we would end with -or, they will end with -our; and some (but not all) words that we would end with -er, they end with -re, as in "MTS Centre."

Another thing to keep in mind: Don't ask anyone where the "bathroom" is -- ask for the "washroom." This difference was a particular pet peeve of mine the first time I visited Toronto, although it wasn't a problem in Montreal as I knew the signs would be in French.

Every measurement will be in the metric system: Temperatures will be in Celsius, not Fahrenheit; distances will be in "kilometres," not miles (including speed limits, so don't drive 100 thinking it's miles); and gas prices will be per "litre," not per gallon (so don't think you're getting cheap gas, because a liter is a little more than a quart, so multiply the price by 4, and you'll get roughly the price per gallon, and it will be more expensive than at home, not less). Better to get gas at one of your rest stops before going into Canada.

Manitoba's sales tax is 13 percent -- in 2010, this replaced the former Provincial sales tax of 5 percent and the federal GST (Goods & Services Tax) of 8 percent. In other words, the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted Canadians to think he'd killed the hated GST, when, in fact, Manitobans are paying pretty much the same taxes that they did before. See how stupid it is to vote for conservative candidates? It doesn't work in any country, as Canada recently admitted by dumping Harper and his Tories for Justin Trudeau and his Liberals.

The Red River divides street addresses into east and west, and the Assiniboine River divides the city into north and south. Winnipeg doesn't have a subway, and its buses are $2.50 cash and $2.15 for a prepaid ticket. Again, that's in Canadian dollars, making it cheaper than New York's MTA or New Jersey Transit.

Going In. The MTS Centre is downtown. The official address is 300 Portage Avenue, at Donald Street. If your hotel is downtown, you can walk there, and you won't need a bus. If you drove all the way in, and aren't staying in Winnipeg overnight, most parking in downtown Winnipeg is $10 or less.
The arena is named for Manitoba Telecom Services, and opened in 2004, having been built in the hopes of attracting a moved or expansion team to the former city of the team now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In the meantime, the minor-league Manitoba Moose played at the old Winnipeg Arena from 1996 to 2004, and at the MTS Centre from 2004 to 2011.

One of the first events held there was the 2005 Juno Awards, Canada's equivalent of the Grammys. After a few preseason exhibition games, including one by the ex-Jets (then named the Phoenix Coyotes), the Atlanta Thrashers made the move, and played their 1st regular-season home game as the new Winnipeg Jets on October 9, 2011.
The rink is laid out north-to-south. The Jets attack twice toward the south end.

Food. Centerplate operates the arena's concessions. Among the chains with stands there are Subway and that hockey-connected must-have of Canada, Tim Hortons. The arena also has The Exchange Restaurant & Beer Market, and the Observation Deck Bar & Buffet.

Team History Displays. In their 1st 3 seasons, the new Jets didn't make the Playoffs. They did make it in Year 4, last season, but got swept in the 1st Round by the Anaheim Ducks. But they do hang banners for the old Jets' WHA Championships of 1976, 1978 and 1979. The old Jets won nothing in the NHL, not even a Division title, so there's nothing to hang.
Along the side of the east stands, in front of the luxury boxes, the Jets show the retired numbers of the old Jets: 9, left wing Bobby Hull; 10, center Dale Hawerchuk; 25, right wing Thomas Steen; and 27, defenseman Teppo Numminen. Wayne Gretzky's universally-retired 99 is also up there.

These numbers were kept semi-retired by the Arizona Coyotes, who also added the 7 of center Keith Tkachuk, whose number, as yet, isn't shown at the MTS Centre. Ben Ciarot is wearing 7 for the new Jets. (The Coyotes also added the 97 of center Jeremy Roenick, who never played for the Jets/Coyotes franchise in Winnipeg.)

Left wing Evander Kane wore 9 with the Atlanta Thrashers, and, when they became the new Jets, he asked Hull for permission to continue wearing it. He got it. He's now gone, but Andrew Copp wears it now. Also unworn at the moment is the 13 with which Teemu Selanne began in Winnipeg. The Coyotes haven't retired it, but the Ducks have retired 8 for him.

While the Thrashers didn't have any officially retired numbers, they had withdrawn 37 from circulation following the car crash death of Dan Snyder. The Thrashers/Jets franchise doesn't have it retired, but neither is it currently being worn.

Oddly, True North Enterprises, which had owned the Moose, have kept the Moose's banners up: The retired Number 12 of Mike Keane, a Winnipeg native whose first pro team was the Winnipeg Monarchs of junior hockey, and played the last 5 seasons of his career after 16 years in the NHL, Stanley Cups in 1993 with the Montreal Canadiens, 1996 with the Colorado Avalanche, and 1999 with the Dallas Stars; Division Championships in 2007 and 2009, the 2009 regular-season league title and the 2009 Conference Championship.

The Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame is located at the MTS Centre. Its inductees include original Jets founder Ben Hatskin; old Jets Hull, Hawerchuk, Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson (the last 2 being ex-Rangers) and Randy Carlyle; and Manitoba-born NHL legends, including Terry Sawchuk, Bobby Clarke, and ex-Rangers Murray Murdoch, Babe Pratt, Ivan "Ching" Johnson, Art Coulter, Bryan Hextall, Alex Shibicky, Chuck Rayner, Andy Bathgate, Pete Stemkowski and coach Fred Shero. (Hextall's sons, Bryan Jr. and Dennis, have also been elected; Bryan Jr.'s son Ron has not yet been.)

Stuff. The Jets Gear Authentic Team Store calls itself "the best place in Winnipeg to pick up authentic Winnipeg Jets merchandise. With 3 locations to serve you, and open year-round, we're looking forward to outfitting every Winnipeg Jets fan."

There aren't yet any good books about the revived Jets, but there are some about the old ones. Curtis Walker and Timothy Gassen wrote Winnipeg Jets: The WHA Years Day By Day. And Curtis Walker wrote the next chapter: Coming Up Short: The Comprehensive History of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets (1979-1996).

Videos on the Jets are in short supply. The only one I could find on Amazon.com was a rivalry piece on the WHA version of the Jets and the Houston Aeros, Bobby Hull vs. Gordie Howe. Between them, in the 7 seasons the WHA existed, one of those teams was in the Finals every season -- and, in 1976, they both were, as the Jets' ended the Aeros' 2-year dominance of the league.

During the Game. You do not need to fear wearing Devils gear to a Jets game at the MTS Centre. Their rivals are the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Ottawa Senators, the Edmonton Oilers (due to the WHA connection) and, to a lesser but understandable extent, the Arizona Coyotes. They don't care any more about the Devils than they would about any other team. You will be safe.

Stacey Nattrass is the Jets' regular singer for the National Anthems. She teaches music at a local high school. The Jets use Primal Fear's "Higher Power" as their fight song and the Isley Brothers'"Shout!" as their goal song.

Jet fans are noted for their creative chants. When the Buffalo Sabres came in with Ryan Miller, the goalie for the U.S. team that finished 2nd to Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Winnipeggers showed some Hoser pride by chanting, "SIL-ver ME-dal!" When the Washington Capitals came in with Alexander Ovechkin, they invoked the other chosen superstar of this generation of NHL players, the Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby, and chanted,"CROS-by's BET-ter!" When the San Jose Sharks came in last year, having just stripped Joe Thornton of the captaincy, they chanted, "WHO'S your CAP-tain?"

The Winnipeg White Out is a hockey tradition that dates back to 1987, when fans were asked to wear white clothing to home Playoff games, creating a very intimidating effect and atmosphere. It was created as a response to the "C of Red" created by fans of the Calgary Flames, who the Jets were facing in the 1st round of the Playoffs. The Jets eliminated the Flames in 6 games, and fans wore white for every home playoff game thereafter. Marketing for the team during the Playoffs referred to the "charge of the white brigade." Fans of the now relocated AHL Manitoba Moose (now the St. John's Ice Caps in St. John's, Newfoundland) also continued this tradition, as did fans of the continuing Jets/Coyotes franchise in Phoenix.

True North Enterprises, which owns the Jets and the MTS Centre, kept the Moose' mascot, Mick E. Moose. Obviously a play on "Mickey Mouse," he had averaged over 100 community appearances per season for the past 15 years in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba. Slight modifications to the costume were made, including a Jets jersey with Number 00 on the back, and a vintage leather aviator helmet, one that far preceded jet airplanes.

After the Game. Winnipeg is a city, but it's a Canadian city. You're going to be safer than in most American cities. And while Canadians like to drink, the fact that the Devils and the Jets have no rivalry means that, if you behave yourself and don't antagonize anyone, the home fans will do the same.

The MTS Centre is downtown, so there are plenty of places to get a postgame meal or drink. A bar named Tavern United and a Japanese restaurant named Samurai are across Hargrave Street on the arena's west side. A restaurant called The Allen is across Donald Street on the arena's east side, although it looks more like "fine dining" than "postgame meal" territory.

There is unlikely to be a bar in Winnipeg that caters to expatriate or visiting New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. Your best bet is to look for red or white Devils jerseys, see which fans look like they've been there before, presume that they know what they're doing, and follow them.

Sidelights. Despite Winnipeg's hockey struggles after leaving the WHA, they've actually got a decent sports history.

There was a 3-building complex at 1430 Maroons Road, at the corner of Empress Street. This included the Winnipeg Arena, Winnipeg Stadium and the Polo Park horse racing track.

The Arena was home to the Winnipeg Warriors of the Western Hockey League from its opening in 1955 until 1961, the Winnipeg Jets of the Western Canada Hockey League from 1967 to 1972, the orginal WHA/NHL Jets from 1972 to 1996, and the Manitoba Moose of the International Hockey League and the American Hockey League from 1996 to 2004, when the MTS Centre Opened.

It also hosted Game 3 of the 1972 Canadian-Soviet "Summit Series," even though Winnipeg was, at the time, not an NHL city, and was, in fact, pandering to the WHA. This was awkward because Team Canada only included players from the NHL, barring defectors to the WHA like Bobby Hull, Bernie Parent and Gerry Cheevers. That, plus Bobby Orr's injury, made the series a down-to-the-last-minute-of-the-last-game affair; had Hull been allowed and Orr able to play, the legend of the great Red Army team might have been strangled in the crib.

Like the Colisee de Quebec, 10,000 seats was enough for the WHA, but not for the NHL. So, like their WHA bretheren the Nordiques, they expanded their Louis St. Laurent-era arena to 15,000 seats. Unfortunately, also like the Nords, the Jets found the NHL rough going from 1979 onward, losing the core of their WHA dynasty in a dispersal draft, and setting a league record in 1980-81 for longest winless streak: 30 games (23 losses, 7 ties), and earning the nickname "Loseipeg." Also like the Nords, they got better in the 1980s, and made the Playoffs again in the 1990s. But, again, like the Nords, it was too late, as the combination of a bad exchange rate and an outdated arena led to them moving. Like Winnipeg, Quebec City now has a new arena, too, so, like the Jets, the Nords could come back, too.

Winnipeg Stadium stood at 1465 Maroons Road, and was home to the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1953 to 2012. The Bombers have won 10 Grey Cups, 7 of them on Maroons Road: 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1984, 1988 and 1990. It was also home to baseball's Winnipeg Whips in 1970 and '71. Another baseball team, the Winnipeg Goldeyes, played there from 1954 to 1964, as a farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals, winning Northern League Pennants in 1957, 1959 and 1960. The new version of the Goldeyes played there from 1994 to 1998.

The Stadium seated about 33,000 at its peak, although temporary seating for the 1991 Grey Cup raised it to 51,985. In 2000, a hotel chain bought the naming rights, and it became Canad Inns Stadium for the rest of its existence.

The Arena and the Stadium did not share space with Polo Park for long. Polo Park hosted thoroughbred racing from 1925 to 1956, and was demolished shortly thereafter. The Polo Park Mall opened in 1959. Today, an industrial site sits across Maroons Road from the mall, where the Arena and the Stadium once stood. Bus 11 from downtown.

Today, the Blue Bombers play at Investors Group Field. Opening in 2013 on the campus of the University of Manitoba, it is a 33,500-seat facility that can be expanded to 40,000. It hosted the 2015 Grey Cup (Edmonton beat Ottawa), and 7 games of the 2015 Women's World Cup, including the U.S.' win over Australia and draw with Sweden en route to winning the Cup.

Taylor Swift played its 1st concert, but its 1st sold-out concert was by then 71-year-old Paul McCartney. (For comparison's sake: When Taylor Swift was born in 1989, Paul was 47, on one of his biggest tours and was still making the U.S. Top 40. Taylor should be so lucky in 2036.) The King and Queen of recent pop music, Jay-Z and Beyonce, played it in 2014, 1 of only 2 Canadian venues on their tour (the other being the Rogers Centre in Toronto).

315 Chancellor Matheson Road at University Crescent, about 6 miles south of downtown. Number 60 bus.

Prior to the construction of Winnipeg Stadium, the Blue Bombers played at Osborne Stadium from 1935 to 1952, winning the Grey Cup in 1935, 1939 and 1941. A baseball team called the Winnipeg Reo Rods also called it home. Opened in 1932, with just 7,800 seats it was too small for CFL play. It was demolished in 1956, and the Great-West Life Assurance Building now stands on the site. 60 Osborne Street at Granite Way, across from the Manitoba Legislative Building.

The current version of the Winnipeg Goldeyes has played at Shaw Park since it opened in 1999. Formerly named CanWest Global Park, it seats 7,461, making it ideal for independent leagues like the current version of the American Association (not to be confused with the longtime Triple-A league or the 1880s major league of the same name).

These Goldeyes have won 9 division titles, and Pennants in 1994 and 2012, making for 5 Pennants for Winnipeg baseball teams. "The Fishbowl" stands at 1 Portage Avenue East, at Waterfront Drive along the Red River. Number 1 or 10 bus from downtown.

From 1909 to 1955, Winnipeg's hockey center (or, should I say, "centre") was Shea's Auditorium. For many years, it held Canada's only artificial ice surface between Toronto and Vancouver. The University of Winnipeg Library now stands on the site, although their hockey rink, the Duckworth Centre, is adjacent. 515 Portage Avenue, 6 blocks west of the MTS Centre. In other words, when the new arena opened in 2004, Winnipeg hockey was coming home, even if it took the Jets a little longer.

Winnipeg has won the Stanley Cup 3 times. Did you know that? But it was a really long time ago. In fact, they've gone longer without winning the Cup than any city that has actually won it: 114 years. The Winnipeg Victorias won it in 1896, 1901 and 1902. The Victorias played at the Winnipeg Auditorium, at Garry Street and York Avenue, downtown. The Auditorium was destroyed by a fire in 1926. A bank and a parking deck now stand on the site of the greatest achievement in the history of Manitoba sports.

The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame is at 145 Pacific Avenue at Lily Street. Number 20 bus.

Minneapolis is both the closest MLB city and the closest NBA city to Winnipeg: 456 miles away. Don't count on Winnipeg ever getting a team in either league: It would rank dead last in metropolitan area population. It already ranks last in the NHL, and still would if Quebec City returns, although not if Hamilton, Ontario gets a team as it has tried to do for the last 30 years. Even in the CFL, the Blue Bombers, at least in terms of metro population, have a "Borg ranking": 7 of 9, ahead of only the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Regina-based Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Like most major (or major-wannabe) cities, Winnipeg has museums. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is at 85 Israel Asper Way, at York Avenue, across Pioneer Avenue from Shaw Park. Number 1 or 10 bus. Across Asper Way and the railroad tracks is the Winnipeg Railroad Museum. The Manitoba Planetarium and Science Gallery is at 190 Rupert Avenue at Main Street. Number 20 bus.

Adjacent to the Museum for Human Rights is The Forks, named for the splitting of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Because of this confluence, it was a meeting place for early Aboriginal peoples (Indians/Native Canadians/First Nations), European fur traders, hunters, riverboat and railway workers, and Manitoba's immigrants.

The complex now includes the Forks Market, in effect Winnipeg's South Street Seaport, Reading Terminal Market, Harborplace or Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. 1 Forks Market Road, at Israel Asper Way. The Manitoba Children's Museum is also part of the complex, at 45 Forks Market Road. Number 1 or 2 bus.

Arthur Meighen, who served briefly twice (1920-21 and for a few weeks in 1926), is the only Prime Minister of Canada to have represented a riding (district) in Manitoba, in his case the nearby town of Portage La Prairie. There is no historical site in his honor, though.

The tallest building in Winnipeg is 201 Portage, standing a mere 420 feet at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street, 3 blocks from the MTS Centre. It looks nice, but it's no skyscraper.

Any TV shows set in Winnipeg would only be shown on Canadian television, and wouldn't be familiar to Americans. There have, however, been major films that you would recognize shot in and around Winnipeg. Many of these have been westerns or more recent period pieces that take advantage of the surrounding prairies, such as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (set in 1882 Missouri) and Capote (set in 1959 Kansas while Truman Capote was researching the murders that became the basis of his book In Cold Blood). Other movies with scenes filmed in Winnipeg include K-19: The Widowmaker, Shall We Dance, The Constant Gardener and The Haunting in Connecticut (despite the title).

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Winnipeg is not very big city, far away, with little to attract the local hockey fan besides hockey. But once you're there, it turns out to be a much more interesting place.

After 21 seasons in the Gateway City, the St. Louis Rams are going back to Los Angeles.

It's about time, too. "St. Louis Rams" simply didn't look right.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the St. Louis Rams for Moving Back to Los Angeles

5. Identity. Los Angeles was not he Rams' 1st home. They played in Cleveland from 1936 to 1945. But the Forest City was completely uninterested in them.

Even when they won the 1945 NFL Championship Game, against the Washington Redskins, a team led by the greatest quarterback the game had ever seen to that point, Sammy Baugh, they got just 32,178 fans into Cleveland Municipal Stadium -- meaning there were about 53,000 empty seats. For comparison's sake: The 1944 title game, between the Giants and the Green Bay Packers at the Polo Grounds in New York, drew 46,016; the 1946 title game, also at the Polo Grounds, between the Giants and the Bears, drew 58,346, a sellout.

True, the Rams were still suffering from the effects of World War II: A lot of players, and a lot of fans, were still in the armed forces in December 1945. But for a championship game against Slingin' Sammy, they should have gotten more than 33,000 fans.

In contrast, the Rams regularly put 80,000 fans into the Los Angeles Coliseum, topping out at 102,385 for a 1957 game against their arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers. That was an NFL regular season record that stood until 2005. (Restoring the Rams-49ers rivalry, which didn't make sense when it was St. Louis vs. San Francisco, also helps.)
The Rams were L.A.'s 1st major league sports team, preceding the Dodgers by 12 years, the Lakers by 14, the Angels by 15, and the Kings by 21. They won the NFL Championship in 1951, and reached the Championship Game 4 times in their 1st 10 seasons out there.

From the 1940s into the 1970s, their players, such as Bob Waterfield (who married actress Jane Russell), Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, David "Deacon" Jones, Merlin Olsen and Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier, frequently appeared in movies and on TV shows filmed in L.A. This helped to build their identity as L.A.'s team, as Hollywood's team, before Walter O'Malley pandered to the studios and got Frank Sinatra (a Dodger fan in Brooklyn who went west before they did) and other Hollywood celebrities to come first to the Coliseum, and then to Chavez Ravine.

The Rams were still drawing well in L.A. in 1979, when Georgia Frontiere, having already talked her husband, team owner Carroll Rosenbloom, into doing it, moved them down the freeway to Anaheim following her husband's death. Apparently, she didn't like going into the ghetto: The Coliseum and the University of Southern California campus it abuts are on the edge of South Central.

It was Anaheim that doomed the Rams: The expanded stadium was no good for either baseball or football, and the crowds stopped coming. So in 1994, she decided to move the Rams to her hometown of St. Louis. But aside from the brief "Greatest Show On Turf" era, 1999 to 2004, the Rams were never popular in St. Louis. When she died in 2008, and her children sold the team to Stan Kroenke in 2010, the team was successful neither on the field nor at the box office, and there was no reason for Kroenke to keep them in St. Louis.
As with the Raiders (who want to move back to Los Angeles 20 years after going back to their original hometown of Oakland), the Rams are going home.

4. The Stadium Situation. The Edward Jones Dome opened in downtown St. Louis in 1995, but was designed before Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, and rewrote the rules for stadium and arena construction. Suddenly, they had a brand-new stadium that was obsolete. Why? Not enough luxury boxes.

The lease was also an issue. The good news was, unlike the City of San Diego with the Chargers, the City of St. Louis was willing to build the Rams a new stadium. The bad news was, it was going to be well north of downtown. Bad location. And the Rams still wouldn't be owning their own stadium.

The City of Los Angeles, through the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, owns the Coliseum (and the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena), but Kroenke has already made a deal to build a new stadium on the site of the now-demolished Hollywood Park racetrack, near the Forum in Inglewood. So the Rams will only have to play the 2016, '17 and '18 seasons in a stadium built next to a ghetto in 1923. They'll probably still bring in more fans and make more money than they would have if they'd stayed in St. Louis.

And, in 2019, they'll have a stadium they own and operate. If something happens that they don't like, instead of whining that it isn't getting fixed, they'll have the money and the authority (but also the obligation) to fix it. If there's one thing NFL team owners like having more than money, it's control. Kroenke married into the Walton family of Walmart infamy, so money wasn't the biggest issue with the team being in St. Louis: Control was.

3. St. Louis Is Not a Football Town. In 2014, the Rams averaged 57,018 fans per home game. Only the Minnesota Vikings did worse, and that was because they were groundsharing with the University of Minnesota while a new stadium was built on the site of the Metrodome. UM's stadium only seats a shade over 52,000 people, so the Vikings could have sold many more seats.

In 2015, the Rams did even worse than the Vikings: 52,402. They only filled the Edward Jones Dome to 80 percent of capacity. The next-worst in the NFL was the Raiders, who only got the Oakland Coliseum 86 percent filled.

To make matters worse, St. Louis-area fans don't even seem to care that the team is leaving. In October, the NFL owners met at a St. Louis hotel. With the threat of moving to L.A. having hung in the air pretty much for Kroenke's entire 5-year ownership, thus the move not being a surprise, how many fans showed up to tell the owners not to approve the move? About 1,500. That's right: One thousand, five hundred. I've been to high school soccer games with bigger crowds. And that's the biggest protest I could find on Google.

(The NFL owners voted 30 to 2 to allow the move. Even Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers, who also wants to move to L.A., possibly to share the Inglewood stadium with the Rams, voted for it. The only ones to vote against it? Understandably, Mark Davis of the Raiders. Less understandably, Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals: Apparently, he thinks that the Rams being in L.A. will mean less money for team owners.)

St. Louis is not a pro football town. When the NFL Cardinals were in St. Louis, they filled Sportsman's Park from 1960 to 1965, but it only seated 31,000 people. Busch Memorial Stadium seated about 54,000 for football, but from 1966 to 1987 -- with brief exceptions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s when the Cards made the Playoffs -- they didn't fill it then, either. The Cards moved to Arizona, and even when they couldn't get 50,000 into Sun Devil Stadium (let alone the 64,000 that now regularly fills the University of Phoenix Stadium), owner Billy Bidwill never regretted the move.

St. Louis is not a college football town, either. The University of Missouri's Faurot Field is 126 miles from the Edward Jones Dome. And that's the closest Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) school. The next-closest such team is the University of Illinois (which, of course, is not in Missouri), and their Memorial Stadium is 173 miles away.

Nor is St. Louis known for producing great football players. Go ahead: Name a great football player who came from within a 50-mile radius of the Gateway Arch. The best is probably Jimmy Conzelman, a St. Louis native who played at the city's Washington University, and won NFL Championships as a player with the 1920 Decatur Staleys (who became the Chicago Bears the next year) and the 1928 Providence Steam Roller (who went out of business 3 years later). He coached the Cardinals to the 1947 title, but that was in Chicago, not St. Louis. And he's been dead since 1970. Go ahead: Name another. I can't.

St. Louis is not a football town.

2. Los Angeles IS a Football Town. Before the Rams and the Raiders, the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) packed the Coliseum time after time, and not just against each other.

USC averaged 75,358 fans for its 7 games at the Coliseum in 2015. That's at a very old stadium with few modern amenities and issues with parking and neighborhood safety. And in a season where they went 8-6, were on probation, and ended up firing their coach in mid-season. (They still managed to reach the Pac-12 Championship Game, although they lost it.)

UCLA has played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena since 1982, but, going 8-5 overall, they averaged 66,807 in their 6 games at the Rose Bowl. That's a stadium in a much safer area, but it's even older (by a few months) and with just as outdated facilities. When they played each other at the Coliseum? 83,602.

And both programs have gotten fat off local talent. I could only name one great NFL player from St. Louis, and Conzelman (perhaps unfairly) isn't in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I found a site that listed the Top 10 football players to come from Los Angeles and its environs. Check out these names, whom I have listed here in chronological order: Glenn Davis, Ron Mix, Mike Haynes, Anthony Munoz, James Lofton, Ronnie Lott, Warren Moon, John Elway, Bruce Matthews, and Tony Gonzalez.

That's 8 Pro Football Hall-of-Famers, 1 who will be (Gonzalez), and a College Football Hall-of-Famer and Heisman Trophy winner (Davis), who played 2 seasons in the NFL, probably would have played more if not for his Army commitment, and got the Rams into the NFL Championship Game both years (the Rams lost to the Cleveland Browns in 1950 and beat them in 1951).

Oh, yes, Los Angeles is a football town.

1. Money. Look at market size. The Los Angeles metropolitan area has about 18.4 million people. If the Rams have it all to themselves (as they do, for the moment), then, considering that New York, whose Tri-State Area has about 23.5 million, is split (not evenly, but for the sake of argument, let's presume that it is) between Giant fans and Jet fans, the Rams will have the largest market in the NFL. If the Raiders or Chargers come in, then they'll have half as many in their share: 9.2 million. That would make the Rams and the Raiders or Chargers the 4th and 5th biggest teams, behind the 2 NYTSA teams and the Chicago Bears (just under 10 million).

Contrast that with St. Louis: They have just 2.9 million. Before this move, they were ranked 20th among the NFL's 32 markets. Throw in the Canadian Football League, which includes Toronto and Montreal, and St. Louis would have ranked 22nd out of 41 professional football markets in North America. Portland, Oregon and Orlando, Florida don't have NFL teams, and their metro areas have more people than St. Louis. Sacramento isn't far behind.

St. Louis also has Major League Baseball's Cardinals, who are by far the most popular team in town; and the NHL's Blues, who are more popular in St. Louis and its vicinity than the Rams, despite not reaching the Stanley Cup Finals since the Kent State Massacre (May 1970), or even the Conference Finals since before 9/11 (May 2001).

The baseball Cardinals are a beloved, iconic franchise. The Blues are doing very well at the box office. Both have venues they own, control, and sell out on a regular basis. They're not going anywhere. But St. Louis lost the NBA's Hawks to Atlanta in 1968, right after getting the Blues, proving they couldn't hold 4 major league teams. They lost the football Cardinals in 1987, and have now lost the Rams, proving yet again that they can't even hold 3.

Somebody recent said, "How bad can St. Louis be, if it can produce Yogi Berra?" Good question. It's not a bad city. But it's not a football town.

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The case for the prosecution is that the Rams shouldn't be moved, because it's a betrayal of their loyal St. Louis fans.

The case for the defense is that the Rams' fans in St. Louis aren't especially loyal, that their truly loyal fans are back in Los Angeles, and that they'll have a better deal in their own stadium in Inglewood in the Autumn of 2019, even if they have to play 3 seasons in the Coliseum first.

My verdict: Not Guilty. Let the Rams go home.

As I type this, the NFC Championship Game is being played in Charlotte, between the Carolina Panthers and the Arizona Cardinals.

The AFC Championship Game was won by the Denver Broncos over the New England Patriots. This time, the cheating didn't work. The Broncos will face the Panthers-Cards winner in Super Bowl 50 in 2 weeks, at Levi's Stadium outside San Jose.

Neither the Giants nor the Jets played away to Carolina this season, but this is as good a time as any to do this trip guide.

Before You Go. Being in the South, it's going to be warmer in Charlotte than in New York. If the game is in September it could be very hot. October, probably not. November or December, prepare as you would for an October football game at the Meadowlands. Check the website of the The Charlotte Observer, the Carolinas' largest newspaper, after you order your tickets.

Charlotte is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fiddle with your timepieces. It is in North Carolina, a former Confederate State, but you won't need your passport or to change your money.

Tickets. The Panthers averaged 74,056 fans per game last season. That's close to a sellout, so your chances of getting a ticket improve the earlier you order.

To make matters worse, most of the seats were bought up when the stadium opened in 1996, and have been renewed every year, through personal seat licenses (or, as they call them, Permanent Seat Licenses, still abbreviated to PSL). According to their website:

A limited number of single-game tickets to each of the Carolina Panthers home games for the 2016 season will go on sale later this summer. You can guarantee your seats for each home game without the hassle of buying single-game tickets each year through the purchase of a Permanent Seat License (PSL).

They recommend ordering their the NFL Ticket Exchange, powered by Ticketmaster, the official resale marketplace of the NFL.

Getting There. It’s 634 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown Charlotte. It's in that tricky range: A bit too close to fly, a bit too far to go any other way.

If you're going to drive, take the New Jersey Turnpike/I-95 all the way from New Jersey to Petersburg, Virginia. Exit 51 will put you on I-85 South, and that will take you right into Charlotte.


Greyhound has 7 buses a day leaving from Port Authority to Charlotte, but only 2 of them are no-changeover routes. It costs as much as $130 round-trip (though it can be as low as $53 on advanced purchase). The station is at 601 W. Trade Street, 9 blocks west of the arena.


Once In the City. Although both North Carolina and South Carolina were named for the King of England at the time of their initial settlements, King Charles I, Charlotte was named for a Queen, the wife of King George III. For this reason, the city is known as the Queen City of the Southeast. (Cincinnati is the Queen City of the Midwest, and Seattle the Queen City of the Northwest.)

Founded in 1755, Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country, with a city population of about 810,000, making it the largest city in the Carolinas and the 5th-largest city in the South (the 2nd-largest behind Jacksonville if you don't count Texas), and a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million, ranking it 24th among the 32 NFL markets.

The street grid isn't north-south-east-west, at least not geographically. Rather, it's on a diagonal. However, Trade Street separates street addresses from north and south, and Tryon Street separates them from east and west. Their centerpoint intersection is sometimes known as "Trade & Tryon,""Independence Square" or just "The Square."

The Charlotte Area Transportation System (CATS) runs buses, the LYNX Blue Line light rail system, and the CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar service. The fare is $2.20.

The sales tax in North Carolina is 4.75 percent, but it rises to 7.25 percent in Charlotte.

Going In. The official address of Bank of America Stadium is 800 S. Mint Street, at Graham Street. The nearest stop on LYNX is Stonewall, 4 blocks away. Most likely, you'll be going in through the arena's north or east gates.
If you drive in, parking can be had for as little as $5.00. This being the South, tailgating is encouraged, with some suggestions. Many fans set up tents like at college games, which is what the Carolinas had to go on until 1995: UNC, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest in the North; USC (only Carolinians use those initials for anything other than the Los Angeles school) and Clemson in the South. If you want to tailgate, reserve a spot online in advance.

The stadium opened in 1996, and was named Carolinas Stadium in the planning stage and Ericsson Stadium until 2004. The Panthers and the stadium have been owned since their inception by Jerry Richardson, a wide receiver on the Baltimore Colts' 1959 (but not 1958) NFL Championship team. He is thus only the 2nd former NFL player to be the controlling owner of an NFL team, the 1st being league and Chicago Bears founder George Halas. He turns 80 this year, and both of his sons stepped away from their roles in the team (and one has since died), so it's been reported that he wants the team sold to a buyer who will keep the team in Charlotte.

The field is natural grass, and is aligned east-to-west -- or, more precisely from a literal geographic standpoint, northwest-to-southeast.
The stadium has hosted the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Game since 2010, understandable given Charlotte's size and centralized location within the league. The city usually also hosts the ACC's basketball tournament. Since 2002, it has hosted the Belk Bowl. Five times, East Carolina University has played home games there. The North Carolina-North Carolina State game was played there in 1998 and 1999, and North Carolina and South Carolina opened their 2015 seasons there.

When the Democratic Convention was held in Charlotte in 2012, the Party was considering moving the acceptance speeches of President Obama and Vice President Biden outdoors to the stadium, as had been done in Denver in 2008, but a rainy forecast put the kibosh on that, and so they stayed indoors at the Time Warner Cable Arena.

Food. This is the South, tailgate party country, and North Carolina is among the places in this country particularly known for good barbecue. And while the NBA's Hornets are a little vague on details of their concessions, the Panthers have apparently figured out that football fans care about food, and they've gone to the other extreme: Very, very detailed. So much so that I decided to just post the link. Enjoy. (Yes, lots of barbecue.)

Team History Displays. The Panthers haven't yet won a Super Bowl (though, at this writing, they're 2 wins away), but they came very close in 2004 (and the New England Patriots may have had to cheat to beat them).

They've got a decent record in their relatively brief history, having made the Playoffs 7 times in their 21 seasons (1 out of every 3). They won the NFC Western Division in 1996, only their 2nd season of operation, and got to the NFC Championship Game. Since realignment, they've won the NFC South in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2015. They reached Super Bowl XXXVIII (the longest Roman numeral in Super Bowl history) in the 2003-04 season, and another NFC Championship Game in 2005-06. Now, they're in it for a 4th time -- 1 out of every 7 seasons, not bad at all. In spite of this, there are no notations for these achievements at the stadium. Maybe if they win Super Bowl 50, they'll put up a display.

Nor do they have any officially retired numbers, although the 51 of the late Sam Mills, who played and coached for them (and graduated from New Jersey's Long Branch High School and Montclair State University), is not currently being worn. He and former team executive Mike McCormack are the only men yet inducted into the Carolina Panthers Hal of Honor, and they are honored with life-sized bronze statues outside the stadium.

The only Panthers personnel yet elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame have been McCormack; Reggie White, who played his final season with the team; and Bill Polian, the team's 1st general manager. However, all were elected mainly for what they did with other teams: McCormack for playing as an offensive tackle with the 1950s Cleveland Browns; White, as a defensive end for the 1980s Philadelphia Eagles and the 1990s Green Bay Packers; and Polian as the GM for the 1990s Buffalo Bills and the 2000s Indianapolis Colts.

Stuff. The Carolina Panthers Team Store is on the ground floor of the stadium, at the east corner at Mint & Graham Streets. It has the usual team-related doodads available.

As 1 of the NFL's 4 newest teams, and without a Super Bowl win, the Panthers don't have many books written about them. In 1996, Joe Menzer and Bob Condor wrote The Carolina Panthers: The First Season of the Most Successful Expansion Team in NFL History. (Jet fans may remember that the Panthers got their 1st-ever win thanks to some horrible playing by then-Jet quarterback Bubby Brister.) In the leadup to this year's Playoffs, the quickie book Fifteen and 1: An Unofficial and Unfiltered History of Professional Football in Carolina was published by Phil Blattenberger and Brad Mills (no relation to the baseball player and manager of the same name, or to Sam Mills), but if the Panthers do finish the job, they'll need a rewrite.

“I’m in hell!” – Morgan Freeman
“Worse: You’re in Texas!” – Chris Rock
-- Nurse Betty

The Brooklyn Nets on this coming Friday night, and the New York Knicks on March 30, will travel to face the Dallas Mavericks, in what Texas native Molly Ivins – frequently sarcastically – called The Great State.

An example of her writing: “In the Great State, you can get 5 years for murder, and 99 for pot possession.” (I once sent the late, great newspaper columnist an e-mail asking if it could be knocked down to 98 years if you didn’t inhale. Sadly, she never responded.)

If there is one thing that fans of 31 out of the 32 NFL teams can agree on, it's that they hate the Cowboys. Or, as is said from New York to San Francisco, from Seattle to Miami, and especially in Philadelphia and Washington, "Dallas Sucks!"

That hatred is considerably reduced in basketball. Aside from fans of the other Texas teams, the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs, and possibly the Oklahoma City Thunder, I don't think anybody particularly hates the Mavericks. Their owner, Mark Cuban, maybe... although, in my book, he's the best thing about Dallas, because he angers people who deserve to be made angry.

Before You Go. It's not just The South, it's Texas. This is the State that elected George W. Bush, Rick Perry, Greg Abbott and Bill Clements Governor; Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Ron Paul and Louie Gohmert to the House of Representatives; and Phil Gramm and Ted Cruz to the Senate -- and thinks the rest of the country isn't conservative enough. This is the State where, in political terms, somebody like Long Island's conservative Congressman Peter King is considered a sissy. This is a State that thinks that poor nonwhites don't matter at all, and that poor whites only matter if you can convince them that, no matter how bad their life is, they're still better than the (slur on blacks) and the (slur on Hispanics).

So if you go to Dallas for this game, it would be best to avoid political discussions. And, for crying out loud, don't mention that, now over half a century ago, a liberal Democratic President was killed in Dallas. They might say JFK had it comin''cause he was a (N-word)-lovin' Communist. (Some people have included Clint Murchison, father of Clint Murchison Jr., the Cowboys' original owner, in the conspiracy theories, due to JFK's interest in eliminating a tax break known as the oil-depletion allowance.)

No. I'm not kidding.  I've never been to Texas, but I've seen enough Texans elsewhere, in actual meetings and on TV, to know that there are some of them who think like this -- and, among their own people, they will be less likely to hold back. So don't ask them what they think. About anything.

At any rate, before we go any further, enjoy Lewis Black's R-rated smackdown of Rick Perry and the State of Texas as a whole.

At least you'll be going in the winter, so you won't have to deal with the usual Texas heat and humidity. Still, before you go, check the websites of the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (the "Startle-gram") for the weather. Right now, they're talking about it being in the low 70s during daylight on Friday, but dropping to the high 40s by gametime. You may need to bring a jacket, but not a winter jacket.

Texas is in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York. (The exception is the southwestern corner, including El Paso, which borders New Mexico, so it's in the Mountain Time Zone.) Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Despite Texas' seeming foreignness (and that's before you factor in the Mexican-American influence, which improves things) and its embrace of its treasonous Confederate past, you don't need a passport to visit, and you don't need to change their money.

Tickets. The Mavericks averaged 20,187 fans last season. This season, it's down to 20,116. That's still an average of more than a sellout. Getting tickets will be tough.

In the Lower Level, the 100 sections, seats are $167 between the baskets and $67 behind them. In the Platinum Level, the 200 sections, they're $87 between and $68 behind. In the Upper Level, the 300 sections, they're $30 between and just $10 behind, far from the action, but a bargain.

Getting There. It is 1,551 miles from Midtown Manhattan to downtown Dallas. So unless you want to be cooped up for 24-30 hours, you... are... flying.

Nonstop flights from Newark, Kennedy or LaGuardia airports to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport could set you back as little as $334 round-trip. However, despite DFW being a major airline hub -- American Airlines has its corporate headquarters there -- you'll have to change planes, probably in Charlotte, North Carolina. There is Orange Line rail service from the airport to Dallas' Union Station, but it will take about an hour and a half.
Amtrak offers the Lake Shore Limited (a variation on the old New York Central Railroad’s 20th Century Limited), leaving Penn Station at 3:40 PM Eastern Time and arriving at Chicago’s Union Station at 9:45 AM Central Time. Then switch to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 PM, and arrive at Dallas’ Union Station (400 S. Houston Street at Wood Street) the following morning at 11:30. It would be $536 round-trip, and that’s with sleeping in a coach seat, before buying a room with a bed on each train. That would push it close to $2,000.

As with American Airlines, Dallas is actually Greyhound’s hometown, or at least the location of its corporate headquarters: 205 S. Lamar Street at Commerce Street, which is also the address of their Dallas station. If you look at Greyhound buses, you’ll notice they all have Texas license plates. So, how bad can the bus be?

Well, it is cheaper: $424 round-trip, and advanced purchase can get it down to $314. But it won’t be much shorter: It's a 40-hour trip, and you'll have to change buses at least twice, in Richmond, Virginia (and I don't like the Richmond station) and either Atlanta or Memphis.

Oh... kay. So what about driving? As I said, over 1,500 miles. I would definitely recommend bringing a friend and sharing the driving. The fastest way from New York to Dallas is to get into New Jersey, take Interstate 78 West across the State and into Pennsylvania, then turn to Interstate 81 South, across Pennsylvania, the “panhandles” of Maryland and West Virginia, and across the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia into Tennessee, where I-81 will flow into Interstate 40. Take I-40 into Arkansas, and switch to Interstate 30 in Little Rock, taking it into the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, a.k.a. “The Metroplex.” In Texas, I-30 is named the Tom Landry Freeway, after the legendary Cowboys coach.

Once you get across the Hudson River into New Jersey, you should be in New Jersey for about an hour, Pennsylvania for 3 hours, Maryland for 15 minutes, West Virginia for half an hour, Virginia for 5 and a half hours (more than the entire trip will be before you get to Virginia), 8 hours and 15 minutes in Tennessee, 3 hours in Arkansas, and about 3 hours and 45 minutes in Texas.

Taking 45-minute rest stops in or around (my recommendations) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Charlottesville, Virginia; Bristol, on the Virginia/Tennessee State Line; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock and Texarkana, Arkansas; and accounting for overruns there and for traffic at each end of the journey, and we’re talking 31 hours. So, leaving New York at around 7:00 Eastern Time on Saturday morning, you should be able to reach the Metroplex at around 1:00 Central Time on Sunday afternoon, giving you 2 hours before kickoff.

But it would be better to leave on Friday afternoon, reach the area on Saturday night, and get a hotel. Fortunately, AT&T Stadium is in Arlington, midway between the downtowns of Dallas and Fort Worth. Well before either the Rangers or the Cowboys set up shop in Arlington, Six Flags Over Texas did so, as the original theme park in the Six Flags chain (opening in 1961), and so there are plenty of hotels available nearby. They’re also likely to be cheaper than the ones in downtown Dallas.

Once In the City. Dallas (population about 1,250,000, founded in 1856) was named after George Mifflin Dallas, a Mayor of Philadelphia and Senator from Pennsylvania who was James K. Polk's Vice President (1845-49). Fort Worth (about 800,000, founded in 1849) was named for William Jenkins Worth, a General in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War. And Arlington (375,000, founded in 1876) was named for the Virginia city across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., as a tribute to Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

The population of the entire Metroplex is about 6.8 million and climbing, although when you throw in Oklahoma, southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana, the total population of the Cowboys'"market" is about 19 million -- a little less than the New York Tri-State Area, and soon it will surpass us.

Commerce Street divides Dallas street addresses into North and South. Beckley Avenue, across the Trinity River from downtown, appears to divide them into East and West. The sales tax in the State of Texas is 6.25 percent, in Dallas County 8.25 percent, and in Tarrant County (including Arlington and Fort Worth) 8 percent even.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) runs buses and light rail trains. A 2-hour pass costs $2.50, and a day pass is $5.00 local and $10.00 regional (if you want to go beyond Dallas to Arlington or Fort Worth).

Going In. The NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and the NHL’s Dallas Stars play at the American Airlines Center, or the AAC. Not to be confused with the American Airlines Arena in Miami (which was really confusing when the Mavs played the Heat in the 2006 and 2011 NBA Finals), it looks like a cross between a rodeo barn and an airplane hangar. It is 1 of 10 arenas that is currently home to both an NBA team and an NHL team.
The address is 2500 Victory Avenue, in the Victory Park neighborhood, 2 miles north of downtown, at the corner of Houston & Olive Streets. Bus 052 or Green Line to Victory station. If you drive in, parking can be had for as little as $5.00.

Since you're most likely to arrive from downtown, by either car or train, you're likely to enter from the south. The court runs northwest-to-southeast.
The arena opened in 2001, and has also been the Metroplex's major concert and pro wrestling center. It's also hosted the Big 12 Conference basketball tournament.

Food. Going along with the "Everything is big in Texas" idea, you would think that the Mavericks' arena would have lots of concession stands and big portions. You would also think they would rely heavily on Southwest and Tex-Mex food. They don't disappoint in those regards.

Going with the Southwest/Tex-Mex theme, they have stands labeled Grill Zone, High Steaks (a play on "high stakes" gambling), Stampede Station, Taco Bueno. There's a basketball-themed stand called Fast Break and a hockey-themed stand called Center Ice. They have a Pizza Hut, and as far as I know they have the only venue in North American major league sports with a 7-Eleven. As for locations within the arena, click this link.

Team History Displays. The Mavericks were founded in 1980, meaning that I can remember a time before they existed. Nevertheless, they have some history. Since the mid-1980s, they have been a Playoff contender more often than not, despite a horrible 1992-93 season in which they went 11-71, and flirted with the 1973 Philadelphia 76ers' record-worst 9-73.

They've won Division titles in 1987, 2007 and 2010. They've won the Western Conference title twice, in 2006 and 2011. Both times, they faced the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, losing in 2006 but winning in 2011.
The Mavericks have retired 2 numbers, both from guards who played for tem in their earliest days: 15, for Brad Davis; and 22, for Rolando Blackman. Once he retires, Dirk Nowitzki's 41 is sure to be added. Jason Kidd's 5 and Steve Nash's 13 could also be.

No man who played for the Mavericks was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players in 1996, although Don Nelson, who was soon to be named their head coach, was named to the 10 Greatest Coaches. Only 3 men who've played for the Mavericks have yet been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and, between them, they played what amounted to 3 full seasons, all near the ends of their careers: Alex English, Adrian Dantley and Dennis Rodman. Nelson has also been elected.

Almost certainly, Nowitzki will be elected, and Nash and Kidd also have good chances. Peja Stojakovic closed his career with the Mavs' 2011 title, and he could be elected to the Hall, but it would be based on what he did with the Sacramento Kings, who have retired his Number 16, which the Mavs almost certainly won't do, since he was there so briefly.

Stuff. The AAC (American Airlines Center) Fan Shops can be found in Sections 100 and 103, on the Plaza concourse. A larger store, The Hangar, is on the south plaza of the arena. These stores may sell Western wear (actual "cowboy" clothing, including oversized Cowboy hats) with team logos in it.

You don't usually think of Dallas having much of a literary tradition -- or of Texans being functionally literate -- but there are a few books about the Mavericks. The sports staff of The Dallas Morning News put together the 2011 title tribute The Will To Win. Rob Mahoney wrote Mavericks Stampede: Dirk Leads Dallas to the 2011 NBA Championship. In 2014, Bill Redban wrote Nowitzki's entry in the NBA's The Inspirational Story of Basketball Superstar... series.

Team owner Mark Cuban wrote How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It. And Sean Huff wrote the biography Mark Cuban: The Maverick Billionaire. He's so much of a "maverick" that the baseball establishment has stepped in to stop buying a team. He's already tried and failed to buy the Chicago Cubs and his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. It's not that he doesn't have enough money: He certainly does. It's not that he wouldn't make even more money, for himself and the league, as an owner: He almost certainly would. It's not that he'd be unwilling to promote the sport: He would be. It's that he's not one of them, and never will be. (This is also why they won't let Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson lead a group to buy a team: His group has already tried and failed to buy 2 of the teams for whom he's played, the Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.)

This Saturday night, the Brooklyn Nets will be in what has been called "America's only foreign city," to play the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center, in a 7:00 PM Eastern Time start -- 6:00 PM local time. The New York Knicks will visit on March 28.

Before You Go. The game will be played indoors, but that doesn't mean the weather won't be a factor before or after the game. New Orleans is a semi-tropical city. Fortunately, this game is being played in the middle of the autumn, so heat and humidity probably won't be a factor. Check Nola.com, the website for the city's newspaper, The Times-Picayune, before you leave.

Indeed, the current weather forecast for New Orleans for next Sunday suggests, by our standards, unseasonable warmth for late January: Low 70s for daylight, high 50s for night. But they're not predicting rain.

New Orleans is in the Central Time Zone, so set your timepieces back an hour. However, in spite of that "foreign city" stuff, and the Confederate chapter of its past, you won't need a passport. You might think you'll need it, especially while there, but you won't. You won't need to change your money, either. But the ability to speak fluent French, while hardly required, might help.

Tickets. The Pelicans are averaging 16,697 fans per home game, about 97 percent of capacity,and slightly above last season. That's pretty good, considering the Pels are only 16-28 at this writing. So getting tickets might be an issue. And, with New Orleans' reputation as a city of, among other things, con men, I wouldn't trust a scalper any further than I could throw him. (I know, I know: "Well, with your bad knee, Mike, you shouldn't be throwing anybody.")

Pelicans tickets are cheap by NBA standards. Seats in the lower level, the 100 sections, can be had for $170 between the baskets and $61 behind them. In the upper level, the 300 sections (the 200s are all season-ticket club seats), they're $44 between and $20 behind.

Getting There. It's 1,340 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown New Orleans. Unless you really, really like driving, you're probably going to fly.

Google Maps says the fastest way from New York to New Orleans by road is to take the Holland Tunnel to Interstate 78 to Harrisburg, then I-81 through the Appalachian Mountains, and then it gets complicated from there.
No, the best way to go, if you must drive, is to take the New Jersey Turnpike/I-95 all the way from New Jersey to Petersburg, Virginia. Exit 51 will put you on I-85 South, and that will take you right through Charlotte and Atlanta, to Montgomery, Alabama. There, you'll switch to I-65 South, and take that into Mobile, where you'll switch to I-10 West, which, under the name of the Pontchartrain Expressway, will take you into New Orleans.


So we're talking about 23 hours. Throw in traffic in and around New York at one end, Washington and Atlanta in the middle, and New Orleans at the other end, plus rest stops, preferably in Delaware, and then one each State in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and it’ll be closer to 28 hours. Still wanna drive? Didn’t think so.

Flying? You could get a round-trip fare from Newark to Louis Armstrong International Airport for a little under $900, but it won't be nonstop. The airport is west of downtown, in Kenner, and the E-2 bus will get you to downtown in 45 minutes for $2.00.

The train may be the best option. Certainly, it's the least complicated and the least annoying. Amtrak's Crescent leaves Penn Station at 2:15 PM every afternoon, and arrives at Union Station in New Orleans the following evening at 7:32 PM (30 hours and 17 minutes). So you could leave on Thursday, arrive on Friday, and have a Friday night and a Saturday afternoon in Party Town U.S.A. before the game on Saturday night.

But you'd have to spend a 2nd night in New Orleans, and then get up really early (never an easy thing to do there -- "Big Easy," yeah, surrrre!) to catch the Crescent back at 7:00 AM on Sunday, arriving back in New York at 1:46 PM on Monday. Round-trip fare is $354, and this is one of the exceptions to the rule that Greyhound is cheaper than Amtrak. It's considerably faster, too, and might even be faster than driving.

Union Station, now the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, handles both bus and train traffic. It is at 1001 Loyola Avenue, at Howard Avenue, a 5-minute walk from the Superdome and the Smoothie King Center.
It's not especially old, only going back to 1954. It may just be the least interesting major building in the city, even if, in the pre-Amtrak days, it was the southern terminus for the Illinois Central Railroad's morning-launching train to and from Chicago, made famous in Steve Goodman's 1970 folk song "The City of New Orleans"; and its Panama Limited, made famous in Jimmy Forrest's 1951 rhythm & blues instrumental "Night Train." (The former is best known by Arlo Guthrie; the latter, James Brown, and it gave legendary football defensive back Dick Lane his nickname.) The City of New Orleans ran from 1947 to 1972. Amtrak kept the night-launching Panama Limited going, but in 1981 renamed it the City of New Orleans.

Once In the City. Founded in 1718, the French named the settlement after Philippe II, Duc
d'Orléans, nephew of King Louis XIV and Regent for the child King Louis XV, governing with considerably more liberality than his uncle until the King's majority, at which point the King named the Duke Prime Minister, but he died shortly thereafter.

Known as the Crescent City, for its shape in a bend of the Mississippi River, New Orleans would be governed by the French from 1718 until the settlement of the French and Indian War in 1763, Spain from 1763 to 1802, France again from 1802 to 1803, the U.S. from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 to 1861, the brief Republic of Louisiana after secession in 1861, the Confederate States of America in 1861 and 1862, and the U.S. again from 1862 onward.

The city's port status has long made it, though no longer the largest, easily the most important city in the American South. As a result, it was a major battle area of both the War of 1812, elevating Andrew Jackson to hero status, and the American Civil War, which ended its status as the largest slave market in North America. But it also had more free black and mixed-race people than any other American city to that point -- indeed, there were some light-skinned black people wealthy enough to own other, darker-skinned, black people as slaves.

By 1820, the French had become a minority in the city. As late as the dawn of the 20th Century, 3/4 of the population could speak French, and 1/4 spoke it first or even exclusively. Today, the main legacy of the French is in not just the many street names, but in the Creole patois of black New Orleanians.

New Orleans' status as the birthplace of jazz led to the naming of its 1st 2 major league sports teams: The NFL's Saints in 1967, after the city's unofficial anthem, "When the Saints Go Marching In"; and the NBA's Jazz in 1974, although they moved to Utah in 1979. The ABA's New Orleans Buccaneers were named for Jean Laffite, a privateer who aided Jackson during the 1814-15 Battle of New Orleans.

As late as 1950, New Orleans' population was 660,000, putting it in America's top 20 cities. White flight led to a drop to about 484,000 people within the city limits in the 2000 Census. After Hurricane Katrina, it dropped to 230,000, losing over half its people in one fell swoop. According to a recent estimate, it's back up to about 384,000. But the metropolitan area has just 1.45 million people, making it the 3rd-smallest metro area in the NBA, ahead of only Memphis and Oklahoma City.

And the poverty issue, so pervasive before the hurricane, is worse. Unemployment remains a high 9.4 percent. And crime is definitely an issue. The sales tax in the State of Louisiana is 4 percent. Orleans Parish (Louisiana calls its Counties "Parishes") adds a 5 percent sales tax, so the total sales tax is 9 percent, even higher than New York City's rate of 8.875 percent.

Because the Mississippi River bends so much, the city doesn't have a North Side, East Side, South Side or West Side. Canal Street traditionally divides Uptown from Downtown. It, and the river, are essentially the "zero points" for street addresses.

The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) runs buses and historic (or at least historic-style) streetcars. The fare is just $1.25.
Going In. The address for the Smoothie King Center is at 1501 Girod Street. Adjacent is the Louisiana Superdome -- rebranded as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 2011 -- at 1500 Sugar Bowl Drive. Parking in the deck under the Superdome costs $11. But if you don't get a space in the deck, you're screwed, because, otherwise, parking in downtown New Orleans is insanely expensive.

Founded as the original Charlotte Hornets, this franchise moved to New Orleans in 2002. Having to play their 2005-06 season in Oklahoma City led the NBA to decide to let a team move there -- the Seattle SuperSonics, as it turned out.

The old Hornets became the Pelicans in 2013, taking the name of the city's former minor-league baseball team, itself taken from the State bird. The new Hornets, formerly the Bobcats, have been assigned this franchise's 1988-2002 records, so the NBA counts the Pelicans as having started in 2002, as the New Orleans Hornets.

The arena opened in 1999 as the New Orleans Arena, and seats 18,500. The court is laid out east-to-west -- or, more accurately, northwest-to-southeast. It was once home to a minor-league hockey team called the New Orleans Brass, and an Arena Football League team called the New Orleans VooDoo. Smoothie King, a fruit drink retailer based in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, bought the arena's naming rights in 2014.
It's hosted 2 NBA All-Star Games in its not-so-long history, and 2 NCAA Women's Final Fours. ZZ Top played the 1st concert there, and in the past year both Stevie Wonder and Rihanna have played it.

Food. There are many great food cities in America. New Orleans considers itself special in this regard. If you like spicy food, you will enjoy yourself. If not, you might still enjoy yourself. The arena's website has a chart with a link to show you where everything is.

Team History Displays. Since the NBA considers the new Charlotte Hornets to have begun as a franchise in 1988, and hasn't yet assigned the Seattle SuperSonics' history away from the Oklahoma City Thunder to a new (or moved) team, the Pelicans are, in a way, the youngest franchise in the league. But even if you count the old Hornets as part of their history, only once have they won their Division. That was in 2008.
The Pelicans have retired 1 number, and it's for a man who played in the city, but not for this team: 7, for "Pistol Pete" Maravich, the Louisiana State University star who played for the New Orleans Jazz before they moved to Utah. The Jazz have retired his number, even though he only played briefly in Utah. When the Hornets came to New Orleans in 2002, they retired his number, even though the franchise didn't play its 1st game until after he died in 1988.

No one who has played for the 2002-present Hornets/Pelicans franchise has yet been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Nor were any of them named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players, which, of course, happened before 2002.

Stuff. Supposedly, there is a Pelicans Team Shop somewhere in the arena. However, the team website doesn't say where it is.

As such a new and unsuccessful franchise, don't count on any team videos being available. Not many books, either: In August 2014, Zach Wyner published the Pels' entry in the NBA's On the Hardwood series; in January 2015, Shane Frederick published their entry in the NBA's A History of Hoops series.

During the Game. Pelicans fans are Louisianans. Due to the multiracial and multiethnic nature of New Orleans, they have to get along, and, with the help of their teams -- the Pelicans, the Saints, and LSU -- they do. The fans have no interest in starting violence. Respect them as home fans, and they'll respect you as visiting fans.

This Saturday night, the Pelicans will be hosting a Military Night promotion, so expect to see tributes to the troops. An active-duty soldier, sailor, airman/woman or Marine may sing the National Anthem.

The Saints do not have a regular National Anthem singer, instead holding auditions. Their mascot is Pierre the Pelican, his name tying in with the city's French heritage. Introduced before the 1st regular-season game under the Pelicans name, on October 30, 2013, his head scared some children, and had to be redesigned.

On February 11, 2014, the revised Pierre debuted. He still looks kind of creepy.
And that's not even the creepiest mascot they've ever had. The King Cake Baby debuted with the Pelicans name as well. According to one explanation:


The team's theme song is "Roll With It" by Powersurge -- not to be confused with the Steve Winwood song of the same title. Their fan-interaction team is called the Swoop Troop. And, yes, the "Who Dat?" chant is borrowed from the Saints: "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Pelicans?" It just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

After the Game. New Orleans has had a crime problem for almost 300 years. Jean Laffite wasn't the only pirate there, and, at times, the city has seemed ungovernable -- especially since it's also got white-collar crime, both in business and in municipal government.

This is rampant throughout Louisiana, where Edwin Edwards ran to get back to the Governorship against former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke with the slogan, "Vote for the crook. It's important." Edwards won. He also publicly bragged, "The only way they're going to get rid of me is to catch me with a dead girl or a live boy." He served from 1972 to 1980, 1984 to 1988, and 1992 to 1996. He was finally nailed on racketeering charges in 2001, and served 9 years in prison. He's now out, 88 years old, just a few days younger than Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson.

But the Superdome/Smoothie King Center complex is probably the best-policed place in the entire South. The only crime you're likely to get besieged by is drunk and disorderly conduct, nothing violent. As long as you don't start anything, neither will anyone else.

Nola.com posted a list of 7 New Orleans restaurants to try before or after a Saints game. Presumably, they are also worthy of a post-Pelicans visit. These include Emeril Lagasse's home base of Emeril's, at 800 Tchoupitoulas Street at Julia Street. Mike Serio's Po-Boys & Deli, at 133 St. Charles Avenue at Tulane Avenue, is festooned with Saints and LSU memorabilia, and as the owner's name suggests, they are serious about New Orleans-style sandwiches. Walk-On's Bistreaux & Bar, a Baton Rouge and LSU institution, recently opened a Superdome affiliate at 1009 Poydras Street at Rampart Street. All of these are within a mile of the Superdome.

Perhaps the most famous of all New Orleans drinking establishments is Pat O'Brien's Bar, in its current location since 1942. The name was in place well before the actor Pat O'Brien, famed for playing the title football coach in the film Knute Rockne, All-American, became famous. Due to wartime difficulties in importing scotch, they experimented with easier-to-obtain rum, coming up with a recipe that they poured in a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp, and the hurricane cocktail was born.

718 St. Peter Street off Royal Street, in the heart of the French Quarter, just 2 blocks from iconic St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square, home to the statue of Andrew Jackson, a copy of the one in Lafayette Square across from the White House in Washington.

There doesn't appear to be a New Orleans bar that caters to New York sports fans. I looked up "New York Giants fan bar in New Orleans," then plugged in the Yankees and the Mets, but got nothing concrete, other than to read postings that some of the bars around Tulane University show games, due to a contingent of students from our Tri-State Area. There has been an official New Orleans Jets Fans club since 2011, but they don't yet have a regular gameday meeting place.

Sidelights. History? Atmosphere? Sports? Debauchery? N'Awlins has got it all. To paraphrase John Dos Passos talking about New York, If you can get bored in New Orleans, you're a sad case.

* Superdome. As I said, the building formerly known as the Louisiana Superdome and now as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome is part of the same complex as the Smoothie King Center. Opening in 1975, it has seen a lot in its 40 years: The good, the bad, and the ugly; the sublime and the ridiculous.

It's hosted more Super Bowls than any other building (7), 5 Final Fours, the annual Sugar Bowl and Bayou Classic college football games, some major championship fights, Tulane University home football games from 1975 to 2013, the NBA's New Orleans Jazz from 1975 to 1979, the 1988 Republican Convention, and even the occasional exhibition baseball game.

It was meant as a haven for the dispossessed of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but instead turned into a house of horrors. Its renovation cost, even with inflation factored in, much more than its original construction bill. But it reopened better than ever in 2006, and the Saints won the Super Bowl in the 2009-10 season.

* Yulman Stadium and site of Tulane Stadium. Tulane University's football team, the Green Wave, played at the 81,000-seat Tulane Stadium, "the Queen of Southern Stadiums," from 1926 to 1974. The stadium was built on the site of a sugar plantation, hence the name of the game, and the stadium itself was nicknamed the Sugar Bowl.

The Saints played there from their 1967 founding to 1974, and it was the site of Tom Dempsey's record-setting 63-yard field goal in 1970. The Sugar Bowl was played there on (or close to) every New Year's Day from January 1, 1935 to December 31, 1974. In 1975, the Sugar Bowl, the Green Wave and the Saints all moved to the Superdome.

Tulane Stadium hosted Super Bowl IV in 1970 (Kansas City over Minnesota), Super Bowl VI in 1972 (Dallas over Miami), and Super Bowl IX in 1975 (Pittsburgh over Minnesota), which was its last major event. It continued to host high school football before being demolished in 1979. Willow Street and Ben Weiner Drive.

In 2014, the Green Wave moved into Benson Field at Yulman Stadium. The field was named after the Saints' owner, and the stadium for Richard Yulman, the former chairman of bed manufacturers Serta. Both are major donors to the University, and Richard and his wife Janet (for whom a nearby on-campus street is named) donated $15 million toward the stadium's construction.

The opener, a loss to Georgia Tech, had a listed attendance of 30,000 (roughly capacity), making it the best-attended Tulane sporting event since they abandoned the old stadium for the Superdome. A block up Ben Weiner Drive from the old stadium site, at Barrett Street. Turchin Stadium, Tulane's baseball facility, is just to the north. Number 16 bus, or Number 12 St. Charles streetcar.

* Municipal Auditorium. Built in 1930, this old music hall was home to the New Orleans Buccaneers of the ABA, before they moved to Memphis in 1970. The NBA's New Orleans Jazz played their 1st season here, 1974-75, before moving to the Superdome, and then to Utah in 1979.

Elvis Presley sang at the Municipal Auditorium on May 1, 1955 and August 12, 1956. He also sang in New Orleans at Jesuit High School on February 4, 1955, and at Pontchartrain Beach on September 1, 1955. In his return to the stage, 1969 to 1977, Elvis would sing in Louisiana in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lake Charles, Alexandria and Monroe, but never again in New Orleans.

The Municipal Auditorium was seriously damaged by the hurricane, and its future is currently in doubt. 1201 St. Peter Street at Essence Way, in what is now Louis Armstrong Park, just off the French Quarter.

* Zephyr Field. The New Orleans Zephyrs, formerly the Denver Zephyrs and the Denver Bears, play in the Class AAA Pacific Coast League (geography is no longer the league's strong point), at this 10,000-seat stadium, opened in 1997.

The Zephyrs, currently a Miami Marlins farm club and a Mets farm team in 2007 and '08, won Pennants at Zephyr Field in 1998 and 2001. The ballpark was used to film some scenes in the baseball-themed film Mr. 3000. 6000 Airline Drive, in suburban Metairie. E-2 bus, the same bus that goes between downtown and the airport. The right to the ballpark takes about an hour.

The closest Major League Baseball team to New Orleans is the Houston Astros, 347 miles away. Houston is also home to the closest MLS team, the Dynamo. The closest NHL team is the Dallas Stars, 508 miles away. And since the city's population would still rank its metro area dead last among MLB markets, you can forget about the Crescent City getting a team anytime soon.

* Maestri Field at NBC Park. On the campus of the University of New Orleans, on Lake Pontchartrain, the Zephyrs played here from 1993 to 1996, when it was known as Privateer Park. But, at 2,900 seats, it was too small for Triple-A ball. 6801 Franklin Avenue. Number 55 bus.

* The Baseball Pelicans. The baseball version of the New Orleans Pelicans played from 1887 to 1959. After that, there was no professional baseball team in New Orleans, at any level, except for a brief revival of the Pelicans at the Superdome for the 1977 season, until the Colorado Rockies were expanded into existence, forcing the Denver Zephyrs to move for the 1993 season.

For most of their existence, the Pelicans played in the Southern Association, and on the same site, in a series of ballparks culminating in Heinemann Stadium, a.k.a. Pelican Park, built in 1915. They won 12 Pennants: 1887, 1889, 1896, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1915, 1918, 1923, 1926, 1927 and 1934. Their star players included Shoeless Joe Jackson, Joe Sewell, Dazzy Vance and Bob Lemon.

Pelican Park was demolished in 1957, and a Burger King now stands on the site of its infield. Tulane Avenue and S. Carrollton Avenue. Number 39 bus.

* Tad Gormley Stadium. Originally City Park Stadium, this 26,500-seat stadium was built by the Works Project Administration in 1937, and is New Orleans' premier high school football venue. It hosted the old baseball Pelicans in their last 2 seasons, 1958 and 1959. It's also a major concert venue, having started by hosting the Beatles on September 16, 1964. Other bands playing there include Journey, Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine.

5400 Stadium Drive, in New Orleans City Park, across from the New Orleans Museum of Art. Number 48 Streetcar.

According to an April 2014 article in The New York Times, the Yankees are the most popular baseball team in New Orleans, with about 23 percent of locals calling them their favorite team. The Red Sox are 2nd, with around 14 percent. The Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves are 3rd and 4th, each getting around 10 percent. This is despite the closest MLB team to New Orleans being the Houston Astros, 348 miles away.

* Museums. I've already mentioned the New Orleans Museum of Art, the city's version of our Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their answer to the Museum of Natural History is the Tulane Museum of Natural History, not on the Tulane campus but at 3705 Main Street in Belle Chase, 12 miles south of downtown. Not easily reachable by car.

Confederate Memorial Hall bills itself as Louisiana's Civil War Museum. 929 Camp Street at Andrew Higgins Street. It's next-door to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, at 925 Camp.

A better museum, because it's to a war was fought by a united America, is the National World War II Museum. It's in New Orleans because the city built a lot of the landing craft used on D-Day, June 6, 1944, which, as you might guess, is one of the central exhibits of the museum.

Admission is $24, plus $5 additional for each for the films Beyond All Boundaries, narrated by Saving Private Ryan star Tom Hanks; and Final Mission: The USS Tang Experience, about the most successful submarine of the war. 945 Magazine Street at Andrew Higgins Street.

The WWII Museum, Confederate Memorial Hall and the Ogden Museum are all a mile away from the Superdome, a 20-or-so-minute walk. From the French Quarter, Number 10 or 11 bus, or the Number 12 St. Charles Streetcar.

The French Quarter is centered on the corner of Orleans and Bourbon Streets. The French Quarter Visitor Center is on the riverfront, at 419 Decatur Street at St. Peter Street, 3 blocks from Pat O'Brien's. Preservation Hall, at 726 St. Peter Street off Bourbon Street, doesn't look like much from the outside, but it serves as the unofficial capital of jazz. The Cabildo was the seat of New Orleans' government, and the Louisiana Purchase was signed there. It is now the Louisiana State Museum. 701 Chartres Street off Jackson Square.
The Audubon Zoo, names for naturalist John James Audubon, who lived in New Orleans for much of his life, is at 6500 Magazine Street in Audubon Park. Number 11 bus. The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas is closer to downtown, on the riverfront at 1 Canal Street. Number 2 Riverfront Streetcar.

* Baton Rouge. The State capitol is 80 miles northwest of New Orleans, and can be reached by Greyhound, but not by Amtrak. It's home to Louisiana State University, home of the LSU Tigers, and the historically-black Southern University, home of the Jaguars.

Louisiana has never produced a President. As a young man, Zachary Taylor lived in St. Francisville, 32 miles north of Baton Rouge and 112 miles northwest of New Orleans. But he's much more identified with Virginia, where he was born; and Kentucky, where he lived the last few years of his life.

The tallest building in the State of Louisiana isn't much to look at, typical of 1960s and '70s urban architecture. One Shell Square, opened in 1972 at 701 Poydras Street, 8 blocks from the Superdome, is 697 feet tall.

Films set and/or filmed at least partly in New Orleans include the Jean Lafitte biopic The Buccaneer (made twice, in 1938 with Frederic March and Hugh Southern as Andrew Jackson, and 1958 with Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston), The Flame of New Orleans, the Elvis movie King Creole, The Cincinnati Kid, Easy Rider, the football-themed film Number One (starring Heston as an aging quarterback), the James Bond film Live and Let Die, Pretty Baby, Cat People, Tightrope (in which Clint Eastwood played a differnt kind of cop, admitting, "Dirty Harry might not even like this guy"), The Big Easy, Blaze, JFK, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Double Jeopardy, RED; the John Grisham-based legal thrillers The Pelican Brief, The Client and Runaway Jury; and, perhaps most iconically, A Streetcar Named Desire, the film version of Tennessee Williams' play that launched Marlon Brando to stardom.

TV shows that have been set in New Orleans include Bourbon Street Beat, Longstreet, Frank's Place, Treme, and, currently, NCIS: New Orleans and the Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals. While True Blood is set in Louisiana, it is set in a fictional town in the north.

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New Orleans is a city that celebrates the spiritual and the surreal. Certainly, the New Orleans Pelicans (with their location difficulties, name changes and whacked-out mascots) have seen some surrealness. A visit to the Knicks-Pelicans or Nets-Pelicans game could be fun, and, despite it being in "America's Most Haunted City," you won't meet up with any ghosts, goblins, vampires, werewolves, or any other supernatural creatures.

Probably.