Walt Williams was a Yankee, but he was not a Yankee Legend. He wasn't even a Bronx Bomber -- not because of any lack of power, or any perception thereof, but because he never played a home game in The Bronx.

He's best known for a nickname. It wasn't a flattering one. But he should be remembered for more than that.

Walter Allen Williams was born on December 19, 1943 in Brownwood, in central Texas. Shortly thereafter, Brownwood was flooded. The federal government gave injections to prevent the spread of the disease typhus. But, even as a baby, Walter was so muscular that the only place where they could find a vein was in the back of his neck. As a result, he developed a crick in his neck, which stiffened and shrank. As a result, he grew to be only 5-foot-6, and 165 pounds, and received the nickname "No Neck."

The family moved west, and he graduated from Galileo High School in San Francisco. This is the same school that produced the DiMaggio brothers, late 1940s-early 1950s Yankee Bobby Brown, former Levi Strauss & Company and Oakland Athletics owner Walter Haas, basketball pioneer Hank Luisetti, and football legend turned American disgrace O.J. Simpson and his best friend, former teammate, and driver Al Cowlings.

The Houston Colt .45's, forerunners of the Astros, signed him as a free agent in 1963. An expansion team, they tended to move players up quickly -- fielding the youngest lineup in history for their 1963 finale, average age 19 -- and on April 21, 1964, just 20 years old, he made his major league debut, at Colt Stadium, the temporary structure they put up as the Astrodome was being built next door. Wearing Number 28, he was a defensive replacement for Jim Beauchamp in left field, and didn't come to bat. The Colts lost to the Cincinnati Reds 10-4.

After just 10 games in a Houston uniform, he was selected off waivers by the St. Louis Cardinals. But he would not play as they reached the 1964 World Series, since, unlike the Colts/Astros, they could afford to let talent develop in the minors. In 1965, with the Tulsa Oilers, he won the Texas League batting championship, with a .330 average. He hit .330 the next season as well. But with an outfield of Lou Brock, Curt Flood and Carl Warwick, with Roger Maris obtained for 1967, Walt wasn't going to see much action. So the Cards traded him to the Chicago White Sox.

Wearing Number 3 and playing both left and right field, he remained with the South Siders through their 1967 and 1972 Pennant races, and also through their awful season of 1969, though he batted .304. He struck out only 33 times, and grounded into only 5 double plays. (He struck out only 211 times in 10 seasons, despite being known as a free-swinger.) But that was to be his only major league season with at least 400 plate appearances.

Still, in a very inconsistent era for the Pale Hose, he became a fan favorite. He played the entire 1971 season without committing an error, put the ball in play, was renowned as a bunter, and hustled. According to The New York Times:

Like Pete Rose, he played with a caffeinated enthusiasm, running out every batted ball, hustling to his position for the start of an inning and even sprinting to first after receiving a base on balls, although that did not happen too often.

In addition, he reached out to the community, volunteering to talk to first-time drug offenders as part of Cook County's drug abuse prevention program. This helped to build the Sox up among young fans, at a time when the Cubs hardly had a hammerlock on the hearts and minds of Chicagoans and suburbanites.

After the 1972 season, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians. That off-season, he was playing in the Venezuelan Winter League, when his 2-year-old son died from spinal meningitis. His 1st marriage ended in divorce, and he later married a woman named Ester Lacy. He brought 2 sons to that marriage, Deron and Walter Jr., while she brought a son and a daughter, Gary and Sherry Barron.
Walt his career highs in 1973 with 8 home runs and 38 RBIs. With 1 out to go, he broke up a no-hitter by former Chicago teammate (and former Yankee) Stan Bahnsen on August 21 of that season.

A New York/New Jersey basketball legend has left us, and you may have never heard of him.

Robert Francis Wanzer was born on June 4, 1921 in Brooklyn, and grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan -- "when it was poor," according to his son Bob. Despite growing to only 6 feet even, he got a basketball scholarship to Seton Hall University in South Range, New Jersey. In 1942-43, he helped the Pirates to a 16-2 record. Then he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, made the Armed Forces All-Star basketball team, and served during the occupation of Guam.

He returned to Seton Hall after The War, and in 1946-47, under former Hall star Bob Davies, and alongside former Seton Hall Prep star Frank "Pep" Saul, the Pirates went 24-3. From 1939-40 to 1947-48 -- with the program suspended for 3 seasons due to The War -- Seton Hall's "Wonder Five" won 113 games and lost just 14, for a winning percentage of .890.

Bobby Wanzer, nicknamed "Hooks" for his hook shot, was drafted by the Rochester Royals of the National Basketball League in 1947. They had been founded 2 years earlier by Lester Harrison, who owned and coached them, and got them to the NBL title in only their 1st season, 1945-46. Bob Davies had played for that team, while also coaching The Hall (you could do that without running yourself ragged in those days), and recommended Wanzer and Saul.

Davies and Wanzer formed the NBL's best backcourt. In 1949, Harrison was among the men who brokered the merger between the 1937-founded NBL and the 1946-founded Basketball Association of America to form the National Basketball Association. (The NBA officially traces its lineage to the founding of the BAA in 1946, making this year its 70th Anniversary.) The Royals maintained their excellence, and won the title in 1951, the only team to become NBA Champions between 1949 and 1954, other than the Minneapolis Lakers. They beat the Knicks in a 7-game Finals.

Hail the 1951 NBA Champion Rochester Royals: Number 3, guard Frank Saul; Number 7, forward Paul Noel; Number 9, guard Bobby Wanzer; Number 10, forward Jack Coleman; Number 11, guard Bob Davies; Number 12, forward Arnie Johnson; Number 14, center Arnie Risen; Number 16, guard William "Red" Holzman; Number 19, forward Bill Calhoun; Number 20, center Joe McNamee; and team founder, owner and head coach Les Harrison.

Davies and Holzman had previously won the NBL title with the 1946 Royals; since there was no BAA/NBA yet, this made them, them, technically, 2-time "World Champions." Saul would be traded to the Minneapolis Lakers, and make it 4 straight NBA titles with 2 different teams: 1951, '52, '53 and '54. Risen would win a title with the 1957 Boston Celtics, Coleman with the 1958 St. Louis Hawks. Holzman, of course, would coach the Knicks to the title in 1970 and 1973.

The Royals were unusual in that their players didn't wear single-digit uniform numbers. So Wanzer actually wore "09," Saul "03" and Noel "07."
Wanzer played his entire career with the Royals, retiring after the 1957 season. That was the team's last season in the Flour City. The NBA was growing to the point where the mid-size cities where so many pro basketball teams had started were no longer big enough.

The 1957 season was also the last for the NBA in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as the Pistons (whose name did make sense there, as it was a major auto-parts-building center) moved to Detroit. In 1949, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, based in the Moline, Illinois/Davenport, Iowa region (now better known as the Quad Cities), moved to become the Milwaukee Hawks, then the St. Louis Hawks in 1955, and the Atlanta Hawks in 1968.

The Oshkosh All-Stars, NBL Champions in 1941 and '42, knew the game was up, and declined to join the NBA in 1949. Another Wisconsin team, the Sheboygan Redskins, 1943 NBL Champions, joined the NBA in 1949, but left a year later. The year after that, the Iowa-based Waterloo Hawks bit the dust. The Royals' geographic rivals, the Syracuse Nationals, hung on until 1963, when they moved to become the Philadelphia 76ers.

Wanzer was a 5-time All-Star. In 1951-52, he became the 1st NBA player to shoot over 90 percent from the free throw line in a season. He was the Royals' player-coach their last 2 seasons in Rochester, then served as their 1st head coach as the Cincinnati Royals in 1957-58. The team became the Kansas City Kings in 1972 (having to change their name because Kansas City already had the baseball Royals), and the Sacramento Kings in 1985. The Kings still hang the Royals' 1951 NBA Championship banner, 55 years and 3 cities later.

In 1962, Wanzer was hired as the 1st head basketball coach at St. John Fisher College in the Rochester suburb of Pittsford. He coached there for 24 season,and also served as athletic director.

He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987. His Royals teammate Holzman would also be elected, for his coaching of the Knicks. Wanzer was also elected to the U.S. Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame, which is located at Hall of Fame inductees will be enshrined in the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia. Other inductees include baseball legend Ted Williams, 2-time Olympic decathlon champion Bob Mathias, former Heavyweight Champion Ken Norton Sr. and golf legend Lee Trevino.

Seton Hall has retired Number 8 for Wanzer, Number 3 for Saul, and Number 11 for Davies. They've also retired 5 for 1950s player Walter Dukes, 12 for 1950s player Richie Regan, 24 for 1990s player Terry Dehere, 34 for 1970s player Glenn Mosley, and 44 for 1960s player Nick Werkman. These numbers are posted on a single banner at the Prudential Center in Newark, but, aside from Dehere, most fans my age and younger don't know any of them, with the possible exception of Davies, whose 11 has been retired by the Sacramento Kings.
Bobby Wanzer remained in Pittsford, and married a local woman named Nina. They had 3 children: Mary, Beth and Bob. He died at his home in Pittsford on January 23, 2016. He was 94 years old.

With his death, Saul and Calhoun are the only living players from the '51 Royals.

"I owe basketball a lot," he liked to say, "because I never had to get a real job."

Leo Roth, who covered the Royals and is still writing for Rochester's paper, The Democrat & Chronicle, wrote this week: "Bobby Wanzer — player, coach, teacher, husband, father, grandfather, friend — had just given us a 94-year clinic on how to live."

The St. Louis Rams are moving back to Los Angeles after 21 years. It's the right thing to do: The Rams were L.A.'s 1st major league sports team, and St. Louis, while great for baseball and good for hockey, simply isn't a football town.

I never did a trip guide for the Giants or Jets going to St. Louis playing the Rams, even though the Giants went there just last season. If I had posted it, on or around December 14, 2014, a week before the game in question, it would have gone something like this (with updates in Italics):

Before You Go. While the Gateway City can get brutally hot in the summers, this is December. The website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is predicting high 60s for Sunday afternoon and high 40s for the evening. The stadium has a permanent roof, so you will be protected from the elements. But coming out, it could be a bit chilly, so you should bring a jacket.

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 Rams are averaging 57,018 fans per home game this season. That would have been over a sellout at the old Busch Memorial Stadium, but at the Edward Jones Dome, it's only 86 percent of capacity. For both average and capacity, only the Oakland Raiders have done worse this season. So getting tickets for a Rams game should not be all that hard, especially against the Giants, who aren't exactly a regional rival like Chicago or Kansas City, or a Divisional rival like San Francisco, Seattle or Arizona.

(In 2015, the Rams averaged just 52,402 fans per home game, just 80 percent of capacity, both NFL lows. A big reason why they moved, but a bigger reason was the lease and the comparative lack of luxury boxes. Unfortunately, now that the season is over, I can't find any reference to St. Louis Rams ticket prices.)

Getting There. It's 953 miles from Times Square to downtown St. Louis, and 948 miles from MetLife Stadium to the Edward Jones Dome. 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 Saturday (the day before the game) and back home Monday, 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 Friday afternoon, arriving at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 Central on Saturday morning, transfer to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 in the afternoon, and be at St. Louis' Union Station at 7:21 that night. 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 address of the Edward Jones Dome is 901 N. Broadway, 9 blocks north of Busch Stadium. Metrolink to Convention Center. If you drive in, parking starts at $8.00.

The 2 main areas for tailgaters are the parking lot north of the Dome and the park across Broadway. The Rams' official tailgate is in the park. The tailgate often has live music, games and food, and is generally family-friendly

North of the Dome is the closest to a true “tailgate” as you’ll find in St. Louis. With parking spread out throughout downtown, the tailgates are also spread out across the area. The lot north of the Dome captures that tailgating feel, with plenty of food and adult beverages being consumed.
The Dome hosted the NCAA Final Four in 2005, a soccer game between Real Madrid and Internazionale Milano (a.k.a. Inter Milan) in 2013, a pair of Big 12 Conference Championship Games, and 6 neutral-site football games between the universities of Missouri and Illinois -- with Missouri winning all of them. (Then again, it's in Missouri, so in spite of the tickets being allotted 50-50, how neutral can it be?) It also hosts concerts, and the St. Louis-based televangelist Joyce Meyer hosts her annual Joyce Meyer Ministries Love Life Women's conference there, hosting up to 20,000 women.

Food. Compared to most NFL stadiums, the food at the Edward Jones Dome is cheap. They have the lowest-priced beer in the NFL at $4.50, and a Kids Meal that includes a hot dog, juice, yogurt and a toy for just $2.00. 

Delaware North runs the concessions, leaning heavily on local companies, including Sugarfire Smoke House (which, according to the team website, "takes St. Louis’ traditional barbecue up a notch"; Strange Donuts, Crown Candy Kitchen, Gus’ Pretzels, Bandana's Bar-B-Que, and The Peacemaker, a neighborhood restaurant and oyster bar. Former Rams linebacker Will Witherspoon runs Shire Gate Farm, which provides the stadium's "sustainable, high-welfare hot dogs and burgers."

Unfortunately, the team website has no concessions map.

Team History Displays. The Rams hang banners from all 3 cities at the Dome:

* Cleveland: The 1945 NFL Championship.

* Los Angeles: The 1951 NFL Championship; The 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1955 NFL Western Division Championships; The 1979 NFC Championship (losing Super Bowl XIV); The 1967 and 1969 NFL Coastal Division Championships; and the 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1985 NFC Western Division Championships. (The Rams also reached the 1989 NFC Championship Game, via the Wild Card route.)

* St. Louis: The 1999 NFL Championship (winning Super Bowl XXXIV), the 2001 NFC Championship (losing Super Bowl XXXVI), and the 2003 NFC Western Division Championship.

The Rams are the only team to win NFL Championships in 3 different cities. The others to win them in at least 2 are the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts, the Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens franchise, and the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders. In addition, the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs franchise won AFL Championships in 2 different cities.
The Dome houses the St. Louis Football Ring of Fame, and included figures from the Rams in both Los Angeles and St. Louis (which makes no sense), and figures from the football Cardinals (1960-1987):

* Cardinals in St. Louis: Tight end Jackie Smith, offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf (now better known as a broadcaster), cornerback Roger Wehrli and safety Larry Wilson.

* Rams in Los Angeles: Quarterbacks Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin; running back Eric Dickerson; receivers Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, Tom Fears and Jack Snow (later a broadcaster into the St. Louis years); guard Tom Mack; offensive tackle Jackie Slater; defensive ends David "Deacon" Jones and Jack Youngblood; defensive tackle Merlin Olsen; and linebacker Les Richter.

* Rams in St. Louis: Running back Marshall Faulk.

Aside from Snow, all of these men are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So is safety Aeneas Williams, who is not yet in the Ring of Honor. Dan Reeves, the man who moved the Rams to Los Angeles the 1st time, is also honored in both the Hall of Fame and the Ring of Honor. (He was not related to the Dan Reeves who was a running back for the Dallas Cowboys, and later coached the Denver Broncos, the Atlanta Falcons and the Giants, and who, perhaps unfairly, is not in the Hall.)

Carroll Rosebloom,who bought the Rams from Reeves' heirs, and his widow Georgia Frontiere, who moved the team to St. Louis, are also honored in the Ring of Honor, as is Dick Vermeil, who coached them to their Super Bowl XXXIV win. None of those 3 is in the Hall yet.

The Rams have retired 8 numbers: Waterfield's 7, Faulk's 28, Dickerson's 29, Olsen's 74, Jones' 75, Slater's 78, Youngblood's 85, and the number 80 of Isaac Bruce, who, until the 2016 NFL season starts, remains (as a result of not retiring until 2007), the last active former Los Angeles Ram. Despite having caught over 1,000 passes for over 15,000 yards, he is not yet in the Hall.
Not honored by the Hall of Fame, or the Ring of Honor, were defensive tackle Rosey Grier (Number 76) and defensive end Lamar Lundy (Number 78). With Jones and Olsen, they formed the Rams'"Fearsome Foursome" defensive line of the 1960s. All 4 went into acting and music. Olsen starred on NBC's Little House On the Prairie and Father Murphy, and was a color analyst on NBC's NFL broadcasts. Jones appeared in several Miller Lite beer commercials, and Grier appeared on several 1970s TV shows, including playing a bounty hunter on 2 episodes of Kojak and reflecting his real-life role as a community activist on Quincy, M.E. Now 83 years old, Grier is the last surviving member. He was also a member of the 1956 NFL Champion Giants and a graduate of Abraham Clark High School in Roselle, Union County, New Jersey.

The St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame is located at Busch Stadium, 7 blocks away at 700 Clark Avenue. It honors 10 football Cardinals: Dierdorf, Smith, Wehrli, Wilson, Williams, quarterback Jim Hart, running back Jim Otis, receiver Mel Gray, kicker Jim Bakken, and coaches Don Coryell and Jim Hanifan. It honors 9 Rams: Faulk, Bruce, Vermeil, quarterback Kurt Warner, receiver Torry Holt, offensive tackle Orlando Pace, defensive tackle D'Marco Farr, and defensive end Kevin Carter. It also includes baseball Cardinals, Blues 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.

Stuff. The Rams Team Store is on the Dome's lower level concourse, behind Section 152, at the stadium's south end. The usual team-related items can be found there, as can caps with ram horns on them.

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 Rams are few and far between. The Post-Dispatch sports staff commemorated the Super Bowl XXXIV win with On Every Play Eleven Men Believed: The Story of How the St. Louis Rams Rose from the Cellar to the Super Bowl. In 2009, Robert Mullen invoked the nickname of that era's Ram team in the title of his book: The Greatest Show on Turf: The Story of 99-01 St. Louis Rams. The NFL has also released a commemorative DVD of the Rams' Super Bowl triumph.

For their 1st Los Angeles era, pickings are slim: Amazon.com mentions Joseph Hession's book The Rams: Five Decades of Football, and this even includes their Cleveland era -- but was published in 1986.

I suspect that the move will result in new books, including looks back on the original L.A. Rams.

During the Game. Because of their Great Plains/Heartland image, Rams fans like a “family atmosphere.” They don't much like New York, but they won't bother Giants and Jets fans just for being Giants or Jets fans. 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.

An October 18, 2015 Thrillist article listed Rams fans in the bottom half of on a list of "The Most Obnoxious Fans in the NFL" -- in other words, the less obnoxious half. But it didn't exactly praise them: "Rams fans are basically people from St. Louis with nothing to do when the Cardinals aren’t playing. Either that or you just enjoy watching football in a Costco. Minus the noise and energy." 

The Rams hold auditions for singing the National Anthem, instead of having a regular singer. The L.A. version of the Rams had a classic fight song, but the St. Louis version has tried a few, with awful results. The biggest fan chant at the Dome? Probably "Kroenke sucks!"

Since 2010, the team's mascot has been Rampage the Ram. He wears a Number 1 jersey, and doesn't look much toward either extreme: He's neither especially cuddly to appeal to kids, or intimidating to appeal to hardcore football fans. Indeed, splitting the difference was intentional: According to Kevin Demoff, the Rams' current executive-vice president of football operations, Rampage "has the coating of a stuffed animal, but the build of a superhero."
The team is taking Rampage with them to Los Angeles. In the last few years in Anaheim, they had a mascot named Ramster, but he was never accepted by the fans, who seemed to think he looked more like a rat than a mature male sheep with weaponized horns.

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.

The Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, across I-44 at 999 N. 2nd Street, includes Ozzie's Sports Bar and Grill, owned by Cardinal Hall-of-Famer Ozzie Smith. 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.

With the NFL having left St. Louis, here are the closest teams: The Kansas City Chiefs, 241 miles to the west; the Indianapolis Colts, 241 miles to the east; and the Chicago Bears, 296 miles to the northeast.

* Scottrade Center and site of Kiel Auditorium. Since 1994, the NHL's Blues have played at this arena, adjacent to Union Station. The arena opened 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.
1401 Clark Avenue, 7 blocks west of Busch Stadium. The stretch of Clark outside the arena is also known as Brett Hull Way. Union Station and Civic Center stops on Metrolink.

* 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. The tallest in the State is One Kansas City Place, at 624 feet. In each case, 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.

*

As for that last New York football team trip to St. Louis (possibly ever), the Giants beat the Rams, 37-27.

A few days ago, I did a "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame" for the Rams moving back to Los Angeles. It made me want to look at other team moves -- and then, unlike ESPN, actually issue a verdict on whether they could be blamed.

Today, I look at the first big move in modern baseball: The Boston Braves to Milwaukee just before the 1953 season.

(The Seattle Pilots moved to become the Milwaukee Brewers right before the 1970 season. Such a move would never be permitted today. It would be a logistical nightmare. It could only be approved for the following season.)

Some of these will be easy to figure out -- and thus deliver a verdict of "Not Guilty." Others, not so much.

The case for the Braves staying in Boston was actually stronger than you might think. They had won the Pennant as recently as 1948. They still had Warren Spahn, a Hall of Fame pitcher. They had Eddie Mathews, who turned out to be a Hall of Fame 3rd baseman, coming off a good rookie season. They had Hank Aaron, who turned out to be a Hall of Fame right fielder, in their farm system. Many of the other players who would win Pennants in Milwaukee in 1957 and '58 were also in their farm system.

And the Red Sox? What was the point of going there? They had one bankable star: Ted Williams. At the end of the 1952 season, Williams was in the U.S. Marine Corps, flying a jet in the Korean War. He wouldn't be back until late 1953 -- and no one knew that would be the case in the preceding winter. For all they knew, he could have missed all of '53, '54, and so on... maybe even retire. After all, at the dawn of the '53 season, he was 34, and while his batting eye came back when he returned from World War II, he was 27 then, so we're talking about a big difference. No one knew that he would have a career year, by most people's standards, at age 42 (his last), or that he would flirt with .400 again at 39 (finishing at .388 in 1957).

Of course, the Red Sox had Fenway Park. But Fenway wasn't considered special in the early Fifties. There were 16 teams playing in 14 ballparks (there was groundsharing in Philadelphia and St. Louis), and 12 of the parks -- all but Yankee Stadium and Cleveland Municipal Stadium -- were built between 1909 and 1915. Fenway has been at least tied for the oldest MLB stadium since Comiskey Park in Chicago closed in 1990, but in 1952, its age (40 years old) didn't make it special: 8 of the other 13 opened in April 1912 or earlier.

Nor did its big, close green wall in left field: Ebbets Field in Brooklyn and Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia had big, close green walls in right field. The hand-operated scoreboard? Until Yankee Stadium went electric in 1950, they all had them. The other things that make Fenway special now? Not there. The CITGO sign? Didn't go up until 1965. The Yawkeys' initials in Morse code on the scoreboard? 1976. The bleachers on top of the Green Monster? 2002.

Fenway wasn't beloved then. As late as 1967, Tom Yawkey said he wanted a new ballpark, or he might move the team. That was the Impossible Dream Pennant season. If the Sox hadn't brought the fans back that season, by 1971, the Sox could well have been sharing an antiseptic ashtray in Foxboro with the New England Patriots -- or have left Boston without a team.

No, the Red Sox weren't special because of their players, or their ballpark, or their history. They hadn't won the World Series since 1918, and as for their 1946 Pennant, well, the Braves had won one more recently. Neither team was a glamour team, but the Braves were, at the least, not far behind the Sox by that measure.

If the Braves had just hung on in Boston one more season, they would have had Mathews' 47 home runs (or thereabouts; Braves Field was roughly as hitter-pitcher balanced as Milwaukee County Stadium), and the attendance would have gone up. One more, and Aaron would have arrived. The team was getting better.

So was the decision to move the right one? Here's 5 reasons why it might have been:

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Boston Braves for Moving to Milwaukee

5. Demographics. The end of World War II should have meant that the troops would come back and resume their habit of going to games. But it also meant that they were taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, and buying houses in the suburbs.

And cars. This meant that it would be harder for fans to drive in to the city for the games. And while both Fenway and Braves Field were accessible by what's now known as the Green Line B train, highway access -- despite U.S. Route 20, now part of the Massachusetts Turnpike, going right past both of them -- wasn't very good. And parking in Boston has always been a problem.

Check out these per-game attendance figures for the Boston teams for the last 7 years of their coexistence, between the 1st postwar season and the last season that they were in Boston together:

Year Braves Red Sox
1946 12,593 18,166
1947 16,589 17,621
1948 19,151 19,985
1949 14,049 20,736
1950 11,954 17,456
1951 6,250   17,497
1952 3,653   14,490

No, you're not reading that wrong: The Braves averaged three thousand, six hundred fifty-three fans per home game in 1952. And the economy was good at the time. And while the Korean War did take quite a few ballplayers (including the Yankees' Whitey Ford and Jerry Coleman, the Giants' Willie Mays and the Dodgers' Don Newcombe), it didn't take anywhere near as many men as did World War II, so that's not a viable excuse. And the Sox outdrew the Braves in every one of those seasons, even 1948, when the Braves won the Pennant and the Sox lost it in a Playoff.

The Sox' average attendance actually went down after the Braves left, and didn't start going up again until the Impossible Dream year, 1967, doubling from 10,014 to 21,331. They never topped 2 million fans in a season until 1977, and didn't start regularly drawing that many until the Pennant season of 1986, missing it only once since (the strike-shortened season of 1994).

Today, we can look at the 6 New England States (minus the corner of Connecticut that tilts toward New York) and see a "market" of 12 million people. Back then, people didn't think in terms of "markets" or even "metropolitan areas."

Could New England support 2 major league teams today? Maybe: Even in losing seasons in 2014 and '15, the Sox have drawn over 35,000 fans per game (or say they have). Although once David Ortiz and his steroids retire, the Sox may see attendance drop like his power after he was exposed in 2009. But in 1952, Boston and environs could not support 2 teams. Clearly, either the Red Sox or the Braves were going to have to go.

4. Rivalries. Today, we take New York vs. Boston for granted, in all sports. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Jets in the regular season, and Giants in 2 Super Bowls, vs. Patriots. Knicks vs. Celtics. Rangers vs. Bruins.

That was not the case in 1952. There were no Patriots -- or Jets, for that matter. The Celtics hadn't yet reached their 1st NBA Finals. And even Yanks-Sox had cooled off after the heady days of the late 1940s.

The Braves? Who were their arch-rivals? The New York Giants? The Brooklyn Dodgers? Nope, those teams' rivals were each other. The Philadelphia Phillies? Nope. Boston vs. Philadelphia has been a rivalry in basketball since the late 1950s and in hockey since the early 1970s, but it hasn't been one in baseball since the 1910s, when the Sox and the Philadelphia Athletics combined for 8 of the decade's 10 American League Pennants, before Connie Mack had his fire sale after 1914 and Harry Frazee began his in 1919.

The Red Sox and A's wouldn't both be good again until the early 1970s. The Braves and Phillies? They wouldn't both be good again until 1964, when the Phils and the Milwaukee Braves were 2 of the 5 times that finished in a bunch in the National League standings.

By moving to Milwaukee, the Braves had a built-in geographic rivalry, and thus an easy roadtrip for each team's fans, and thus increasing attendance, with the Chicago Cubs: It's just 90 miles from Wrigley Field to Miller Park (which was built adjacent to County Stadium), more than half as close as Boston is to the next-closest MLB city, New York.

(A lot of people don't realize this, but Baltimore is closer to New York than Boston is. So is Washington, although it hasn't been an AL city and thus a regular Yanks opponent since 1971. Philadelphia, with whom the Mets finally began a real rivalry only a few years ago, is half as close to New York as Boston, but still not as close as Chicago and Milwaukee.)

As it turned out, the rivalry the Braves ended up developing after the move was not with the Cubs, but with the Dodgers. The Braves' move, and the results thereof, helped inspire Walter O'Malley to move the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Between 1955 and 1959, either the Braves or the Dodgers finished 1st every year. In '59, they both did, and a Playoff was needed to decide the Pennant. (The Dodgers won.) The Braves and Cubs wouldn't both be good again until 1969, by which point the Braves had moved to Atlanta. (I'll do that one in a later post.)

But aside from Brewers management, the people happiest about the Brewers' shift from the AL to the NL in 1998 were Cub fans, who once again had a roadtrip to Milwaukee. (Chicago White Sox fans didn't like that, as they lost their obvious rivals, but then, their rivalries with Cleveland and Detroit have improved since then.)

3. Ballparks. Braves Field opened in 1915, with 40,000 seats. It was the largest and most modern stadium ever built for baseball to that time.

Just 8 years later, Yankee Stadium opened, and suddenly Braves Field (and all other ballparks) were obsolete. A few of them expanded, but, by 1952, Braves Field was still a single-decked stadium that could have been expanded beyond 40,000 fans -- if the demand were there, and if the money was there. But Braves owner Lou Perini didn't have the money, and he didn't have the demand. And, as I said, the parking situation was awful.

In contrast, Milwaukee County Stadium was nearing readiness: It would open in April 1953 with 35,000 seats, and would have 44,000 by Opening Day 1954. (It was expanded in 1973 to 53,192.) It also had 12,000 parking spaces, to cater to all those people coming in from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas.

Moving to Milwaukee (where, keep in mind, the Braves had their top farm team, so they wouldn't have to pay anybody off to move there) would instantly vault the Braves from having an inadequate ballpark to the newest and, arguably, the best one available.

2. Milwaukee. Despite the manpower shortage of World War II, and having a really inadequate ballpark in Borchert Field (it was older than any major league park, and its dimensions were similar to those of the Polo Grounds), the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers drew rather well.
This was mainly because they were winning. They won the American Association Pennant in 1943, '44 and '45. They also had success because their owner was Bill Veeck, and this was where he became the king of the baseball promotion. This included starting games at 8:00 in the morning so people working the overnight shift at Milwaukee-area defense plants could come to a ballgame right from work.

But Veeck and his Brewers proved that Milwaukee could support a major league team. So the County of Milwaukee began building a stadium, confident that they could get a team. By then, Veeck had owned the Cleveland Indians, and was owning the St. Louis Browns, and intended to move them to Milwaukee. There was also a group trying to buy the St. Louis Cardinals from Fred Saigh, who had to go to prison and sell the team due to tax fraud, and move them to Milwaukee.

So if the Braves hadn't exercised their option before the 1953 season, some Major League Baseball team would surely have been playing home games at Milwaukee County Stadium in April 1954. But the Braves, literally and figuratively, made their move. Gussie Busch bought the Cardinals, keeping them in St. Louis. Veeck tried to move the Browns to Baltimore, but MLB voted that the move could only go forward with another owner, so he sold them, and they became the Baltimore Orioles.

Milwaukee was a good market. The Braves ended up bringing in more fans in their 1st 13 home games in Milwaukee in 1953, 312,936, than they did in all 77 games in Boston in 1952, 281,281. In 1954, they set an NL record for highest attendance, and did it again in 1957. O'Malley got jealous of the attendance and the parking spaces, and the rest is history.

Of course, something like this could have happened to the Red Sox, right? After all, their attendance and their stadium and parking situations weren't too hot, either.

But it wouldn't have happened to them, for one big reason -- also the biggest reason it was going to be the Braves that moved, not the Red Sox:

1. Tom Yawkey. Despite the Braves' 1948 Pennant, once Yawkey, a man whose lumber mill fortune gave him virtually bottomless pockets, bought the Red Sox in 1933, the Braves were doomed.

As soon as he turned 30, and was legally able to claim the fortune that had been left in a trust by his uncle, William Hoover Yawkey, Thomas Austin Yawkey he sought to buy a baseball team. The 1st team he tried to buy was the Detroit Tigers, of whom his uncle had been a minority owner. He asked no less than the greatest Tiger of them all, Ty Cobb, to ask Tiger owners Frank Navin and Walter Briggs if they were interested in selling.

If they had sold the Tigers to Yawkey, baseball history might have been very different. Yawkey might still have benefited from Connie Mack's 2nd Philly fire sale in the 1930s, buying Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons, and buying Joe Cronin from the Washington Senators, but they would have become Tigers instead. Joining with Hank Greenberg and the other stars the Tigers already had, in addition to their Pennants of 1934, '35, '40 and '45, they might have won additional Pennants (they probably only lost to the Yankees in '36 because Greenberg got hurt and missed most of the season), and more than just the 2 World Series in '35 and '45.

If the Tigers had won in '34, the legend of the Cardinals' Gashouse Gang would be diminished: Frankie Frisch and Dizzy Dean (not to mention the former Giant and Cardinal teammates that Frisch advocated for election once he got to the Veterans Committee) might not have made the Hall of Fame, and Leo Durocher probably never would have become a manager, thus altering the histories of the Dodgers, then the Giants, and finally the Cubs.

But the Red Sox wouldn't have regained their status as an AL power by the late 1930s, and wouldn't have been the Yankees' main challenger for AL supremacy from 1946 to 1951. They might have been the ones to move from Boston to Milwaukee -- with the Braves facilitating the move to the home of their top farm club. Can you imagine Ted Williams returning from Korea and playing in Milwaukee? He might have been happier, with both a fan base and a media establishment that would have given him the benefit of the doubt, which Boston's fans and papers weren't doing at the time.

Can you imagine Hank Aaron playing in Boston, becoming a beloved black baseball player there before the Red Sox integrated (1959 -- the Braves did it in 1948), and long before the Sox had a genuine black star in Jim Rice in 1975? Can you imagine the Boston fans coming out to support Hank, including those tweedy literary types who made up the old stereotype of the Red Sox fan, as he approached 714 career home runs? Can you imagine that kind of support, which he didn't get in Atlanta? (The Braves sold out the last game of 1973 and the 1st of 1974, but that was about it.) Hank might have broken the record in late '73 instead of the '74 home opener, and saved himself an offseason of anticipation and aggravation.

But when Cobb talked to Navin and Briggs, he found out that they weren't interested in selling the Tigers. But they did tell him that they heard that the Red Sox might be for sale. Cobb told Yawkey, and Yawkey bought the Red Sox. From the moment he and his bank account set up shop at Fenway Park, the Braves' fate was sealed.
How Yawkey ran the Red Sox, and the extent of his culpability for their failure to win a World Series from 1933 until his widow died in 1992, and the extent of his culpability for their lack of racial integration until 1959, is a separate debate.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. The argument for the Braves staying in Boston, that they had great young players coming up, and that these players would drive up attendance, was only a guess in 1953. And even if they did stay then, there's no way to know that they would have been able to drive Yawkey out before 1967, when the Sox became profitable and a New England icon in a way they hadn't been since 1949, and weren't in 1952.

The Braves had to go. And it worked out. For a while. Why did they have to leave Milwaukee after only 13 seasons? That's a blog post for another time.

The St. Louis Browns were bad. Historically bad. They existed for 52 seasons, 1902 to 1953. They won 1 American League Pennant, in 1944. They finished 2nd in 1902 (5 games behind the Philadelphia Athletics), 1922 (1 game behind the Yankees), 4th in 1908 (but just 6 1/1 behind the Detroit Tigers), 3rd in 1945 (6 behind the Tigers)... and that was pretty much it for their good seasons.

They won 93 games in '22, and 89 in their '44 Pennant season. Only 12 of their 52 seasons were winning seasons, including just 3 of their last 22 and none of their last 8; 8 times, they lost at least 100; 4 times, they lost at least 107; and in 1939, they bottomed out at 111 losses, an AL record 64 1/1 games behind the Yankees.

They didn't even get the benefit of a sports-underdog movie, like the Washington Senators got with Damn Yankees. It was said, "Washington: First in war first in peace, and last in the American League." Because of its brewing and leather industries, the Mississippi River town was "St. Louis: First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League."

They had Hall-of-Famers George Sisler and Bobby Wallace, but what they're most known for is 3 things: All their losing; played a one-armed man, Pete Gray, in 1945 due to World War II's manpower shortage; and team owner Bill Veeck trying anything to get fans to come out to Sportsman's Park, including sending Eddie Gaedel, a 3-foot-7 midget, up to pinch-hit in a 1951 game, drawing a 4-pitch walk and being immediately removed for a pinch-runner.

Still, they shouldn't have just up and left their loyal fans, should they? They shouldn't have just moved -- and east, no less, rather than west! Right?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the St. Louis Browns for Moving to Baltimore

5. Demographics. The end of World War II should have meant that the troops would come back and resume their habit of going to games. But it also meant that they were taking advantage of the G.I. Bill, and buying houses in the suburbs.

And cars. This meant that it would be harder for fans to drive in to the city for the games. And while Sportsman's Park was on a trolley line, highway access wasn't very good: What's now Interstates 44 and 70 were the closest highways, and they weren't close.

Check out these per-game attendance figures for the St. Louis teams for the last 8 years of their coexistence, between the 1st postwar season and the last season that they were in St. Louis together:

Year Browns Cardinals
1946 6,749 13,613
1947 4,162 16,207
1948 4,330 14,434
1949 3,496 18,580
1950 3,209 14,294
1951 3,815 13,161
1952 6,694 11,859
1953 3,860 11,452

No, you're not reading that wrong: The Browns averaged three thousand, eight hundred sixty fans per home game in 1953. In 6 of their last 8 seasons, they didn't draw 5,000 a game. In none of them did they draw 7,000. The 2 St. Louis teams combined couldn't draw 16,000 a game, enough to half-fill the ballpark they shared.

And the economy was good at the time. And while the Korean War did take quite a few ballplayers (including the Yankees' Whitey Ford and Jerry Coleman, the Giants' Willie Mays and the Dodgers' Don Newcombe), it didn't take anywhere near as many men as did World War II, so that's not a viable excuse. And the Cards outdrew the Browns in every one of those seasons.

What makes it even weirder is that, until 1953, the Browns owned Sportsman's Park, which they built in 1909, while the Cardinals had been their tenants since 1920. The key year was 1917, when the Browns fired Branch Rickey as general manager and the Cards hired him. By 1926, the Browns were no longer the top team in town, and the Cards began a run of 21 seasons with 9 Pennants.

The Cards' average attendance went up in 1954, the 1st year they had the city to themselves, to 13,503, but stayed in the 11,000 to 15,000 range until the new Busch Memorial Stadium opened in 1966.

The population of St. Louis City was 857,000 in 1950, its all-time peak. Adjoining, but separate, St. Louis County had 406,000. But just 10 years later, The City was down to 750,000, while the County was up to 703,000. Today, the City's population is a little over 300,000, while the County's population is around 1 million. The combined metropolitan area has about 2.9 million. Contrast that with the 2-team markets of today: New York has over 23 million, Los Angeles over 18 million, Chicago just under 10 million, and San Francisco over 8 million.

No, St. Louis could never really support 2 Major League Baseball teams. Indeed, if the Cardinals hadn't become an iconic franchise through their radio network, long (but no longer) anchored by the powerful station KMOX, it's possible that the City might not even be able to support 1 MLB team.

4. Rivalries. St. Louis vs. Chicago is a good rivalry in baseball's National League, Cardinals vs. Cubs. It's a good one in hockey, Blues vs. Blackhawks. It could have been one in football, but NFL Cardinals vs. Bears and Rams vs. Bears never worked out. In the American League, Browns vs. White Sox was never truly a rivalry.

Ah, but Baltimore vs. Washington? That didn't last long, but, geographically, it made sense. Baltimore vs. Philadelphia? That only lasted 1 year. Baltimore vs. New York? Now, you're talking. The Orioles, not the Red Sox, are the Yankees' closest AL opponents. Baltimore vs. Boston? They're not a whole lot further apart than St. Louis and Chicago, and they've had September showdowns in a few AL Eastern Division races.

3. Ballparks. There were several stadiums named Sportsman's Park, all of them made of wooden and rickety firetraps, until a concrete-and-steel one was built in 1909. It seated 30,804 people, which wasn't enough. The access situation was bad. The parking situation was bad. And, by the 1950s, as white flight turned the North Side of St. Louis into a black neighborhood, white fans didn't feel safe going there. The Cardinals eventually lobbied for, and got, a downtown stadium. The Browns didn't have any pull with City Hall.

In contrast, Baltimore was converting its 70,000 football facility, Municipal Stadium, into a 49,000-seat (eventually 54,000-seat) baseball-and-football facility, Memorial Stadium. It would open in its multipurpose configuration in April 1954, and was one of the few stadiums designed to host both sports that did well by both sports. And it had lots of parking (by the standards of the time).

Moving to Baltimore gave the Browns/Orioles a city all to themselves (Washington is close, but they and Baltimore are not a single market), ready to love a major league team. And it gave them an up-to-date ballpark that fans could drive to. Okay, again, the highway access wasn't good, but nobody was afraid to drive there and park there.

2. Baltimore. Charm City had been a National League powerhouse in the 1890s, and one of the most successful minor-league towns. In 1944, the year the Browns played the Cardinals in the World Series, the International League version of the Orioles attracted over 50,000 fans to Municipal Stadium (which wasn't even designed for baseball, but they had to use it because their ballpark burned down on the 4th of July that year) for the Junior World Series. Fifty thousand people paying to watch a minor-league baseball game. That was almost twice as many as the real World Series was getting.

Shortly before the Orioles arrived, the Colts did; shortly after, they became back-to-back NFL Champions. Baltimore athletes would also fill the ranks of the football and basketball teams of the University of Maryland, which won a National Championship in football in 1953; and of the basketball team at Washington's Georgetown University. Baltimore is a city that loves its sports.

If the Browns hadn't moved to Baltimore for 1954, some team would have moved there in the next few years. They had the stadium. They had the fan base. They were ready.

Of course, something like this could have happened to the Cardinals, right? After all, their attendance and their stadium and parking situations weren't too hot, either. And they nearly did move: Owner Fred Saigh was imprisoned for tax evasion, and according to MLB's rules, he had to sell the team. He came very close to selling the Cards to a group that was going to move them to Milwaukee for 1953. And Bill Veeck thought he and the Browns would soon have St. Louis all to themselves.

Instead, a new owner was found:

1. Gussie Busch. August Anheuser Busch Jr., grandson of August Anheuser and Adolphus Busch, founders of the St. Louis-based brewing company that bears their names, didn't particularly like baseball. But he liked being a bigshot, which sports team owners are. And he wanted to sell beer. Someone told him that the Cardinals were for sale, and that their radio network, which reached all over the Midwest and into the South, could be used to sell Budweiser beer. That was all Gussie needed to hear: He bought the Cardinals from Fred Saigh, and then bought Sportsman's Park from Bill Veeck.

From that day onward, the Browns were doomed, because Gussie was rich as hell, and, like Tom Yawkey of the Boston Red Sox, and later George Steinbrenner of the Yankees, he wasn't afraid to spend big for big results.

He got them quickly. Not on the field, or at the box office. But in beer sales. In 1953, Budweiser was barely in the top 10 brands. By the time the Cardinals won their next Pennant in 1964, Bud was Number 1. Radio, TV and the Cardinals were what did it.

And, along the way, Gussie became a baseball fan. Eventually, on special occasions such as Opening Day or the postseason, he would ride around the field at Busch Stadium in the famous Clydesdale-driven beer wagon, waving his feathered Cardinal-red cowboy hat to the fans. He became that rare thing in sports: An owner who was beloved. (He had some nasty flaws, but most Cardinal fans didn't care.)

Veeck? He knew the game was up. He applied to the AL to move the Browns to Baltimore for 1954. But the other owners hated his guts, and they voted to let the move happen, provided Veeck sold the team to a Baltimore-based group. Ironically, it was a brewery that bought them: Gunther Brewing Company, led by Jerry Hoffberger.

It took a few years, but the results worked out well for both cities. Between 1964 and 1987, the last time the Cards reached the postseason before Gussie died, a total of 24 seasons, St. Louis won 6 Pennants and 3 World Series, and Baltimore did the same. Since the move, the Cardinals have made the postseason 17 times, the Orioles 12.

Today, both teams are strong on the field, financially secure, more popular than ever, and playing in exciting old-looking but relatively new downtown ballparks: The 3rd Busch Stadium, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Oddly, since the '44 "Trolley Series" (as opposed to "Subway Series"), the Cards and O's have never faced each other in the World Series again. The closest call was in 1996, when each lost their respective League Championship Series.

Veeck did get back into baseball, buying the Chicago White Sox in 1959, winning a Pennant. He had to sell them just 2 years later, thinking he was dying. But he was misdiagnosed, then properly diagnosed, and recovered. In 1975, he bought the ChiSox again, and brought fun back to the South Side, but not enough winning. As was the case when he owned the Browns, he just didn't have the money to compete, and sold the Pale Hose in 1980.

Both the Cards in St. Louis, and the O's in Baltimore, have had their ups and downs since 1953. But the move worked out well for both teams. And while there is, to this day, 62 years after the move, a St. Louis Browns Historical Society, it's hard to argue that the franchise, or the City of St. Louis, would have been better off if the Cards had moved instead, and the Browns had stayed -- or if Veeck had tried to make a go of it there anyway.

VERDICT: Not Guilty.

This morning, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, about 75 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and 300 miles west of New York, the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole, and did not see his shadow. Supposedly, that means an early Spring.

If he had seen his shadow, it would have meant six more weeks of Winter. Six weeks after February 2 is March 16 -- March 15 in leap years like 2016.

The first day of Spring is March 20 or 21. So, already, he's a little off. And, here in the New York Tri-State Area, we've been hit with snow as late as April 20. And there's no specific definition of "an early Spring": It could be tomorrow, or it could be just under the six-week threshold. Gee, thanks, Phil, ya dirty rodent!

(Well, groundhogs are rodents, and they do tend to be dirty. After all, he's coming out of a hole.)

According to the website Stormfax.com, from the first prediction in 1886 through 2015, the various Punxsutawney Phils (contrary to the legend of a Santa Claus-like immortality, they live an average of six years) have made 120 predictions, with an early spring (no shadow) predicted 18 times -- 15 percent. The site states (without evidence or corroborative references) that the predictions have proved correct 39 percent of the time. This is significantly worse than chance (p = 0.008), and, if the accuracy figure is correct, suggests the traditional interpretation of Punxsutawney Phil's predictions should be reversed.

So where does this silly legend come from, anyway? Some people have suggested a Celtic origin, which says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on February 2, the Pagan holiday of Imbolc, Winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend says Spring would come early.

Given Pennsylvania's heavy ethnic German origins, this version is probably more accurate: Clear skies on Candlemas, February 2, were said to herald cold weather ahead. In Germany, the tradition morphed into a myth that if the sun came out on Candlemas, a hedgehog would cast its shadow, predicting snow all the way into May. When German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, they transferred the tradition onto a local animal, replacing hedgehogs with groundhogs.

So we can blame Ze Germans for it. But, hey, they can win penalty shootouts, so these things average out, right?

Around here, there have been conflicting reports. At the Staten Island Zoo, Staten Island Chuck -- "real name," Charles G. Hogg -- also failed to see a shadow: Early Spring. But in New Jersey, at the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, Essex County, Essex Ed did see his shadow: Six more weeks of Winter. This was backed up in Middlesex County by Milltown Mel.

There's also an "official groundhog" in Sussex County, named Stonewall Jackson after the Confederate general of the Civil War. But the ceremony was canceled for today, because the groundhog died. Just like Stonewall himself, killed by "friendly fire."

Here's a link to a record of the Jersey groundhogs' recent accuracies, or lack thereof.

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Top 10 Groundhog Day Jokes

10. Punxsutawney Phil makes conservatives out of us all. Every time it snows after February 2, I rethink my position on gun control: "I'm gonna kill that damn groundhog!"
9. Punxsutawney Phil refused to come out. "Gimme just five minutes more!" he said.

8. Punxsutawney Phil came out and said, "Brace yourself: Six more weeks of Winter is coming!"

7. Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole with a film camera. That means that Bill Murray will be coming back for six weeks to film Groundhog Day 2: Do It Again... and Again... and Again! (Why not, they're doing a reboot of Ghostbusters.)

6. Punxsutawney Phil came out and threw his hat in the air. That means six more weeks of Mary Tyler Moore Show reruns.

5. Darth Vader choked Punxsutawney Phil, saying, "I find your lack of an early Spring disturbing."

4. Punxsutawney Phil died. That means the woman who took the test will be pregnant before Spring.
2. Punxsutawney Phil came out with his hair messed up. That means six more weeks of Donald Trump running for President.

And finally...

1. Punxsutawney Phil came out and saw a dozen shadows. That means the worst Winter ever! Oh my God! Gotta get the bread and milk!

Congratulations to the newly-elected members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, whose new members are annually announced on the day before the Super Bowl:

* Dick Stanfel, guard, 1950s Detroit Lions. Won NFL Championships in 1952 and '53.
* Ken Stabler, quarterback, 1970s Oakland Raiders. Won Super Bowl XI in 1977. Selected just days after he died. Stanfel also died within the past year. Can someone explain to me why those two guys were was good enough for election now, but not a year ago, when they were alive and able to enjoy it? Did dying somehow make them better? Way to be classy, PFHOF voters. The other 6 honorees are all still alive.
* Kevin Greene, linebacker, 1980s Los Angeles Rams. Got to the NFC Championship Game with the 1989 Rams and the AFC Championship Game with the 1996 Pittsburgh Steelers, but never reached a Super Bowl.
* Brett Favre, quarterback, 1990s-2000s Green Bay Packers. Won Super Bowl XXXI in 1997. I guess he's finally retired for good this time.
* Orlando Pace, offensive tackle, 1990s-2000s St. Louis Rams. Won Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000.
* Tony Dungy, head coach, 1990s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2000s Indianapolis Colts. Built the team that won Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003, coached the team that won Super Bowl XLI in 2007. Also a player and assistant coach for the 1970s Super Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers.
* Marvin Harrison, receiver, 2000s Indianapolis Colts, under Dungy. Won Super Bowl XLI.
* Eddie DeBartolo, owner, 1980s-90s San Francisco 49ers. Won Super Bowls XVI, XIX, XXIII, XXIV and XXIX. His 5 Super Bowl wins are the most by a controlling NFL owner, although more NFL Championships were won by George Halas, 8, with the Chicago Bears. While the Green Bay Packers have no single owner (individual or corporation), Curly Lambeau won 6 as the franchise's decision-maker. On a personal note, he and his father, Edward Sr., once owned and operated the Brunswick Square Mall in my hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey; and Edward Sr. owned the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The finalists who did not make it were the great by mercurial receiver Terrell Owens; Kurt Warner; Harrison's Indianapolis teammate Edgerrin James; John Lynch, who, like Harrison and James, played under Dungy (in his case, in Tampa Bay); 1990s Denver Bronco stars Terrell Davis and Steve Atwater; offensive line greats Joe Jacoby of the 1980s Washington Redskins and Alan Faneca of the 2000s Steelers; placekicking star Morten Andersen; and Don Coryell, who got the Cardinals as close as they ever got to the Super Bowl in St. Louis, and the San Diego Chargers as close as they ever got to the Super Bowl until the 1994 season. Of these, all but Coryell are still alive.

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

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

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

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

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

1. Chicago Bears, 28: George Halas (founder, owner, general manager, head coach, player), John "Paddy" Driscoll, George Trafton, Ed Healey, William "Link" Lyman, Red Grange, Bill Hewitt, Bronko Nagurski, George Musso, Dan Fortmann, Joe Stydahar, Sid Luckman, George McAfee, Clyde "Bulldog" Turner, George Connor, George Blanda, Bill George, Doug Atkins, Stan Jones, Mike Ditka (player & coach), Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Walter Payton, Alan Page, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary, Jim Finks (executive).

Willie Galimore and Gary Fencik should be in. Brian Urlacher will be eligible in January 2018. probably get in when he becomes eligible. Thomas Jones will be eligible in 2017, and while he didn't spend 4 seasons with any team, his 3 years with the Bears were his most productive period, so I'd list him with them if he got in, and with over 10,000 career rushing yards, he should be in.

2. Green Bay Packers, 26: Earl "Curly" Lambeau (founder, owner, executive, head coach, player), Cal Hubbard, John "Johnny Blood" McNally, Mike Michalske, Arnie Herber, Clarke Hinkle, Don Hutson, Tony Canadeo, Jim Ringo, Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, Willie Wood, Herb Adderley, Dave Robinson, James Lofton, Jan Stenerud, Reggie White, Brett Favre, Vince Lombardi (coach & executive), Ron Wolf (executive), Ray Scott (broadcaster, later the main voice on CBS' NFL telecasts).

There are 11 figures from the Lombardi Era, including Lombardi himself, who are enshrined in Canton -- not counting Emlen Tunnell, who played the last 3 seasons of his career with the Packers and retired after the 1st title of the Lombardi Era, 1961. For whatever reason, Jerry Kramer is not in, and he's not getting any younger. Mike Holmgren will be eligible in 2018.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers, 24: Walt Kiesling (also coach), John "Johnny Blood" McNally, Bill Dudley, Ernie Stautner, Jack Butler, John Henry Johnson, Bobby Layne, Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Mel Blount, Rod Woodson, Dermontti Dawson, Jerome Bettis, Art Rooney (founder-owner), Dan Rooney (owner), Bert Bell (coach, later NFL Commissioner), Chuck Noll (coach), Myron Cope (broadcaster). 

While the Steelers were rarely competitive for their first 40 seasons, they did have a few players who were Hall-worthy, but note that 15 of the 24 were involved with the club during their 1972-79 dynasty. Hines Ward will be eligible in 2017, and while that touchdown he scored on a kickoff return for the Gotham Rogues as the field collapsed behind him in The Dark Knight Rises does nothing to help his candidacy, if he does get in, you know that highlight will be played over and over again.

4. New York Giants, 21: Steve Owen (elected as a coach, also a pretty good player for Giants), Ray Flaherty, Benny Friedman, Red Badgro, Mel Hein, Ken Strong, Alphonse "Tuffy" Leemans, Emlen Tunnell, Arnie Weinmeister, Frank Gifford, Roosevelt Brown, Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Y.A. Tittle, Fran Tarkenton, Harry Carson, Lawrence Taylor, Michael Strahan, Tim Mara (founder & owner), Wellington Mara (owner), Bill Parcells (coach).

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

George Young, the architect of the Giants' 1986 & '90 NFL Champions, has not yet been elected. Nor has Phil Simms, and you can also make a case for Mark Bavaro (tight ends are in short supply in the Hall), George Martin and Leonard Marshall. I wonder if anyone will be willing to vote for Tiki Barber, who is now eligible.

5. Washington Redskins, 20: Cliff Battles, Turk Edwards (also coach), Wayne Millner, Sammy Baugh, Bobby Mitchell, Sonny Jurgensen, Charley Taylor, Sam Huff, Paul Krause, Chris Hanburger, Ken Houston, John Riggins, Art Monk, Russ Grimm, Darrell Green, Bruce Smith (last 4 years of his career as a Redskin), George Preston Marshall (founder & owner), Ray Flaherty (elected as a Giants player but coached 'Skins to 2 NFL titles so I'm counting him as one of theirs), George Allen (coach), Joe Gibbs (coach).

Jurgensen and Huff have also been broadcasters for the team. Grimm is the only one of the "Hogs" yet elected, but Jeff Bostic and Joe Jacoby should also be elected. A case can be made for an earlier Redskin lineman, Len Hauss. And even earlier Redskin lineman, Dick Stanfel, just got in, but he only played 3 season in D.C., so he can't be counted here.

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

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

Note that I’m making an exception to my one-city-only rule for the Raiders, treating them as a continuous Oakland franchise, since they did return, even though their Los Angeles edition became a cultural icon (and not for good reasons). Counted separately, the Oakland Raiders have 13, and the Los Angeles Raiders have 3 (Haynes, Long, Allen).

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

7. Dallas Cowboys, 17: Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Bob Hayes, Rayfield Wright, Mike Ditka, Roger Staubach, Randy White, Tony Dorsett, Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Deion Sanders, Larry Allen, Charles Haley, Tom Landry (coach), Bill Parcells (coach), Tex Schramm (executive).

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

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

8. Cleveland Browns, 16: Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, Frank Gatski, Len Ford, Mike McCormack, Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, Gene Hickerson, Leroy Kelly, Paul Warfield, Joe DeLamiellure and Ozzie Newsome, Paul Brown (coach-executive).

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

And yet, look at just what they produced in the 1940s and '50s. And that doesn't include players they let get away, like Doug Atkins, Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, Len Dawson, and (while they did both play long enough for the Browns to be counted with them) Mitchell and Warfield. Maybe that's the real reason Art Modell isn't in the Hall: It's not that he moved the original Browns, and screwed the people of Northern Ohio, it's that he was a bad owner. (Though, to be fair, his firing of Paul Brown and installation of Blanton Collier in 1962 did bring the 1964 NFL Championship, Cleveland's last title in any sport.)

9. San Francisco 49ers, 16: Bob St. Clair, Y.A. Tittle, Joe "the Jet" Perry, Leo Nomellini, Hugh McElhenny, John Henry Johnson, Dave Wilcox, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Montana, Fred Dean, Ronnie Lott, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Charles Haley, Bill Walsh (coach), Eddie DeBartolo (owner).

Tittle, Perry, McElhenny and John Henry Johnson are the only entire backfield that all played together to all be elected to the Hall; although they were only all together for one season, 1954, and the Niners didn't make the Playoffs that season, they were known as the $100,000 Backfield. The Jimmy Johnson listed above was a black cornerback in the 1960s and '70s, and should not be confused with the white coach for the Cowboys -- although this Jimmy Johnson, unlike the coach, was actually born in Dallas.

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

From their 1980s champions, Dwight Clark, Roger Craig, Randy Cross, Guy McIntyre, Harris Barton and Ken Norton Jr. have not been elected, but all are worth consideration, and Craig absolutely should be in. Terrell Owens is now eligible, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes him to get in; judged solely on performance, not personality, he definitely should be in.

10. Kansas City Chiefs, 15: Bobby Bell, Len Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas, Curley Culp, Jan Stenerud, Derrick Thomas, Marcus Allen, Willie Roaf, Will Shields, Hank Stram (coach), Mary Levy (coach), Lamar Hunt (founder-owner), Charlie Jones (broadcaster, did Dallas Texans/K.C. Chiefs games before becoming the main voice for NBC's AFL and then AFC broadcasts).

Of the 8 new electees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 6 are still alive: Kevin Greene, Brett Favre, Orlando Pace, Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison and Eddie DeBartolo.

Here are the living HOFers, by team. Inductees are listed here with a team if they played, or coached, or were an executive, with them for at least 4 seasons. I have divided moved teams accordingly.
Tenure as a player, or a coach, or an executive is only counted if they were elected as such. 

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

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

1. Oakland Raiders, 15: Jim Otto, Fred Biletnikoff, Willie Brown, Art Shell, Dave Casper, Ray Guy, Ted Hendricks, Mike Haynes, Howie Long, Marcus Allen, Jerry Rice, Warren Sapp, Tim Brown, John Madden (coach), Ron Wolf (scout).
3. Washington Redskins, 13: Bobby Mitchell, Sonny Jurgensen, Charley Taylor, Sam Huff, Paul Krause, Chris Hanburger, Ken Houston, John Riggins, Art Monk, Russ Grimm, Darrell Green, Bruce Smith (last 4 years of his career as a Redskin), Joe Gibbs (coach).

4. Minnesota Vikings, 12: Fran Tarkenton, Carl Eller, Alan Page, Paul Krause, Ron Yary, Mick Tinglehoff, Chris Doleman, Gary Zimmerman, Randall McDaniel, Cris Carter, John Randle, Bud Grant (coach).

5. Pittsburgh Steelers, 12: Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Mel Blount, Rod Woodson, Dermontti Dawson, Jerome Bettis, Dan Rooney (owner).

6. Green Bay Packers, 12: Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, Willie Wood, Herb Adderley, Dave Robinson, James Lofton, Jan Stenerud, Brett Favre, Ron Wolf (executive).


7. San Francisco 49ers, 11: Y.A. Tittle, Hugh McElhenny, Dave Wilcox, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Montana, Fred Dean, Ronnie Lott, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Charles Haley, Eddie DeBartolo (owner).


8. Kansas City Chiefs, 10: Bobby Bell, Len Dawson, Willie Lanier, Emmitt Thomas, Curley Culp, Jan Stenerud, Marcus Allen, Willie Roaf, Will Shields, Mary Levy (coach).
11. Chicago Bears, 8: Doug Atkins, Mike Ditka, Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Alan Page, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Mike Singletary.

12. New England Patriots, 7: Nick Buoniconti, John Hannah, Mike Haynes, Andre Tippett, Curtis Martin, Bill Parcells (coach) and Don Criqui (broadcaster).

In the first 49 Super Bowls...

The NFC Champion has won 26 times, the AFC Champion 23. Not a huge difference there.

But if you count teams that started in the old, pre-1970 merger NFL, including the Steelers and Colts, then it becomes 33-15 NFC. You really shouldn't count the Ravens, even though they began as the Browns (who began in the AAFC before becoming an NFL team anyway); but if you do, then it's 35-13 NFC. The Denver Broncos started out in the AFL, while the Carolina Panthers are a 1995 NFL expansion team. Based on this... Advantage: Carolina.

The team wearing the white jerseys has won 31, including the last 4, and 9 of the last 10. The Panthers will be wearing white. Advantage: Carolina.

UPDATE: I was wrong: The Broncos wore white, and the Panthers blue.

Teams whose primary (dark) uniform color is blue have won the most Super Bowls, 17 -- but have also lost the most, 18. Red has the best winning percentage, at 10-6; Black is 11-8, Green is 7-7, Purple is 4-4, and Orange is 0-5. The Panthers' primary color is a very dark blue. Advantage: Carolina.

The older of the two teams has won 32 times -- and if you accept the old Browns/Ravens as an "old" team, it becomes 33 times. Advantage: Denver.

The Jets are the only team to reach the Super Bowl with a mascot that is an inanimate object. (No, I'm not talking about Fireman Ed.) The only other such team in the league could be the Browns, depending on what you think a "Brown" is. Advantage: Neither.

Teams with human mascots are 37-22 in Super Bowls. Teams with animal mascots are only 11-27. Miles the Bronco and Sir Purr the Panther are both animals. Advantage: Neither.

Teams with horse mascots, the Broncos and the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts, are 4-7. Teams with cat mascots are 0-3: The Panthers have lost their only appearance before tonight, the Cincinnati Bengals are 0-2, the Jacksonville Jaguars have never made it, and the Detroit Lions haven't made an NFL Championship Game, under any name, since 1957. Since horse have won, and cats haven't... Advantage: Denver.

Teams playing their home games on natural grass are 24-23; on artificial turf, 24-26. Both teams play on real grass. The game is being played at Levi's Stadium, which also uses real grass. Turf teams having to switch to grass for the Super Bowl are 13-10, but since that doesn't apply to either team, no advantage. Grass teams having to switch to turf for the Super Bowl are 9-8, while teams playing on turf and staying on turf are 11-12. Not a whole lot of help there.

The team with the more experienced quarterback doesn't help much: It's almost an even split, 25-24. Peyton Manning is considerably more experienced than Cam Newton, but is that really an advantage for Denver? After all, "more experienced" could mean "old," while "less experienced" could mean "just entering his prime."

Having the more experienced head coach doesn't help much: Teams with the less experienced coach are 26-23. The Broncos' Gary Kubiak has been a coach since 1992, an NFL coach since 1994, and an NFL head coach since 2006. The Panthers' Ron River has been a coach, and an NFL coach, since 1997, and a head coach since 2011. So while this particular advantage leans toward Denver, it may be utterly meaningless. Rivera does, however, have a Super Bowl ring, with the 1985 Chicago Bears.

The team that is closer in distance to the site of the Super Bowl is 27-22. And Denver, Colorado is a lot closer to Santa Clara, California than Charlotte, North Carolina is. But in the era of every team flying their own private planes, and with nearly a week to acclimate to the location of the game, is that really an issue?

Finally, teams from States that were Red States -- won by the Republican nominee for President in the most recent election -- are 25-21 in Super Bowls. Teams from Blue States -- won by the Democratic nominee in the last election -- are 24-28. North Carolina has gone Republican in every election but 1 since 1980, while Colorado has gone Democratic in the last 2 elections.

Does this mean... Advantage, Denver? Not necessarily: The last 5 Super Bowl winners have been from Blue States -- but so have the last 6 Super Bowl losers. The last Red State team to win was the New Orleans Saints, 6 years ago. The last team from a conservative city to win was the Indianapolis Colts, 9 years ago. Now that suggests... Advantage, Denver.

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At the moment, the point spread is Panthers by 5.

The 1968-69 Jets, the 1969-70 Chiefs, the 1980-81 and 1983-84 Raiders, the 1982-83 and 1987-88 Redskins; the 1990-91, 2007-08 and 2011-12 Giants; the 1997-98 Broncos, the 2001-02 Patriots, the 2002-03 Bucs, the 2009-10 Saints, the 2012-13 Ravens and the 2013-14 Seahawks -- 15 of the 49 winners -- won the Super Bowl despite being the underdog.

The 1975-76 Cowboys, the 1988-89 Bengals, the 1995-96 Steelers, the 2003-04 Panthers, the 2004-05 Eagles and the 2008-09 Cardinals -- 6 teams -- beat the spread, but did not win the game. The 1996-97 Packers were 14-point favorites to beat the Patriots, and beat them by exactly that, 14 points. The 1999-2000 Rams were 7-point favorites to beat the Titans, and did so. On those 2 occasions, the Super Bowl point spread was right on.

My recommendations? I have two:

1. Don't bet on the game. You need the money more than your friends do, and especially more than any bookmaker does.

2. Enjoy yourself, but don't eat too much.

You could go for the team wearing the less ugly uniforms. Since the Broncos will be wearing their bright orange jerseys with purple trim, and the Panthers their road whites, that would mean the Panthers.

There is sentiment behind Peyton Manning. But he pals around with employee-hating Papa John Schnatter, so to hell with him: Let's go, Panthers!

If you must bet, consider what I've said here, take it with a pinch of salt, and use your head.

Let's hope, first and foremost, for a good game, with no major injuries, and no moments like Peyton's over-the-shoulder snap on last year's first play from scrimmage. No "Leon Lett Play." Nothing that would make an announcer say, as Verne Lundquist said after a wide-open Jackie Smith of the Cowboys dropped a sure touchdown pass in Super Bowl XIII, which ended up making the difference, "Aw, bless his heart, he's got to be the sickest man in America!

Nobody deserves to have that happen to him.

Well, maybe the Patriots do. But they're not in it this time, are they? They couldn't cheat their way in again.

Broncos or Panthers? We shall see.

Tonight, Super Bowl 50 -- I suppose they didn't want to use the Roman numeral because, to the NFL, "L" doesn't mean "fifty" or "League," it means "loss" -- is being played at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the new home of the San Francisco 49ers.

The 50th Super Bowl should have been played where the 1st one was, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which not only still stands, but will be the home of the Los Angeles Rams (and possibly one other team) in the 2016, '17 and '18 season, before the Rams' new stadium opens in Inglewood, and will presumably bring the Super Bowl back to the L.A. area. (The Coliseum hosted 2 Super Bowls, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena 5.)

Why not hold Super Bowl 50 at the site of Super Bowl I? Not enough luxury boxes. Plus, I don't think the NFL is keen on the idea of the fabulously wealthy having to go to the edge of the South Central ghetto.

Neither the Giants nor the Jets reached Super Bowl 50, or even made the Playoffs this season. And neither one visited the Bay Area this season. But, if they had, I would have written something like this:

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

The websites of the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune, and SFgate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, should be checked before you leave. (I won't cite their predictions for today, since it's meaningless for Giant and Jet fans.)

Tickets. The 49ers averaged 70,799 fans per game this season, a sellout every game. They are a team that is struggling now, but they are an iconic franchise, whose new stadium has yet to see its novelty worn off.

So tickets might be hard to come by. You'll probably have to go to the NFL Ticket Exchange. (Don't look up prices for today's game: The Super Bowl has always been overpriced. Even in 1967, it was $12.)

Getting There. It’s 2,906 miles from Times Square in Midtown Manhattan to Union Square in downtown San Francisco, and 2,928 miles from MetLife Stadium to Levi's Stadium. This is the longest Giants or Jets roadtrip there is, and will remain so, unless the clueless Roger Goodell or some future Commissioner decides to put a franchise in London. In other words, if you’re going, you’re flying.

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

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

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

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

That’s still faster than Greyhound and Amtrak. Greyhound does stop in Oakland, at 2103 San Pablo Avenue at Castro Street. But the trip averages about 80 hours, depending on the run, and will require you to change buses 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times. And you'd have to leave no later than Thursday morning to get there by Sunday gametime. Round-trip fare is $592, but it can drop to $396 with advanced purchase.

On Amtrak, to make it in time for a Sunday afternoon kickoff, you would leave Penn Station on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40 PM on Wednesday, arrive at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Central Time on Thursday, and switch to the California Zephyr at 2:00 PM, arriving at Emeryville, California at 4:10 PM Pacific Time on Saturday. Round-trip fare: $673. Then you'd have to get to downtown San Francisco or San Jose.

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

Newark to San Francisco is a relatively cheap flight, considering the distance. You can get a round-trip fare for under $600. You'd have to change planes once on the way to San Francisco, and then taking BART into the city. BART from SFO to downtown San Francisco takes 30 minutes, and it's $8.65.

Once In the City. San Francisco was settled in 1776, and named for St. Francis of Assisi. San Jose was settled the next year, and named for Joseph, Jesus' earthly father. Both were incorporated in 1850. Santa Clara was settled in 1777 and incorporated in 1852. It was named after St. Clare of Assisi, one of St. Francis' 1st followers. Oakland was also founded in 1852, and named for oak trees in the area.

With the growth of the computer industry, San Jose has become the largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a little over 1 million people. San Francisco has about 850,000, Oakland 400,000, and Santa Clara, the new home of the 49ers, 120,000. Overall, the Bay Area is home to 8.6 million people and rising, making it the 4th largest metropolitan area in North America, behind New York with 23 million, Los Angeles with 18 million, and Chicago with just under 10 million.


Going In. The official address of Levi's Stadium is 4900 Marie P. DeBartolo Way, after the mother of former 49ers owner and newly-elected Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Eddie DeBartolo. (If you're going to apply to the U.S. Postal Service to make it 4900, why not 4949?) The intersection is Marie P. DeBartolo Way and Tasman Drive. It's 46 miles southeast of downtown San Francisco, 39 miles southeast of downtown Oakland, and 9 miles northwest of downtown San Jose.
If you're driving in, parking is $30. There is plenty of room for tailgating, and 49er fans have been known to have, shall we say, more refined tailgate party palates. You're as likely to find wine as beer, fancy French cheeses as Cheese Whiz, and sushi as bratwurst.

If you’re taking public transportation, you take ACE, Altamont Commuter Express, from downtown San Francisco to Santa Clara station. California's Great America theme part is next-door. From downtown San Jose, take the 916 trolley.
Naming rights to the stadium were bought by Levi Strauss & Company, the San Francisco-based clothing giant that popularized blue jeans all over the world. I'm against corporate names on stadiums and arenas, but if you're going to put one on a Bay Area stadium, that's as good a choice as any.
The field runs north-to-south (well, northwest-to-southeast), and is real grass. It hosts the Pacific-12 Conference Championship Game, and in 2019 (for the 2018 season) it will host the College Football Playoff National Championship.

The NHL hosted a Stadium Series outdoor hockey game there a year ago, with the San Jose Sharks losing to their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Kings. It is contracted to host 1 San Jose Earthquakes game per year, and last year Manchester United beat Barcelona there. It will host games of the 2016 Copa America. The stadium's largest crowd was 76,976, for WrestleMania 31 last year. Coldplay is playing the Super Bowl halftime show, and they will return to the stadium in September. One Direction and Taylor Swift have both played it.
Food. San Francisco, due to being a waterfront city and a transportation and freight hub, has a reputation as one of America’s best food cities. Levi's Stadium benefits from this:.

Centerplate, which will be handling most of the stadium's concessions, boasts that they'll have one food and beverage point of sale for every 86 fans, cutting down on line times. And if you're a vegan or vegetarian, you'll be particularly excited to hear that the stadium will have the best meatless options in the NFL.
Team History Displays. The 49ers have made the Playoffs 26 times, most recently in 2013. They've won the NFC West 19 times: In 1970, '71, '72, '81, '83, '84, '86, '87, '88, '89, '90, '92, '93, '94, '95, '97, 2002, '11 and '12. They've won 6 NFC Championships: in 1981, '84, '88, '89, '94 and 2012. And they've won 5 Super Bowls: XVI in 1981-82, XIX in 1984-85, XXIII in 1988-89, XXIV in 1989-90, and XXIX in 1994-95. But there appears to be no notations for any of these inside Levi's Stadium.

The 49ers have retired 12 numbers, plus notations for former owner Eddie DeBartolo and the late former head coach Bill Walsh:

* From the 1957 team that tied for the NFL Western Division title, but lost a Playoff to the Cleveland Browns: 34, running back Joe Perry; 39, running back Hugh McElhenny; 73, defensive tackle Leo Nomellini; and 79, offensive tackle Bob St. Clair. Quarterback Y.A. Tittle also played for this team, but his Number 14 has not been retired by the 49ers. (It has been retired by the Giants.) Nor has the Number 35 of John Henry Johnson, who left the 49ers the season before. Tittle, Perry, McElhenny and Johnson formed the only all-Hall-of-Fame backfield ever (playing in San Francisco from 1954 to '56).

* From the 1970 and '71 teams that reached back-to-back NFC Championship Games, losing both to the Dallas Cowboys: 12, quarterback John Brodie; 37, cornerback Jimmy Johnson (no relation to the Cowboy coach of the same name, or to John Henry Johnson); and 70, defensive tackle Charlie Krueger. Brodie is not in the Hall of Fame. Linebacker Dave Wilcox is, but his Number 64 has not been retired.

* From the Super Bowl XVI and XIX winners: DeBartolo and Walsh; 16, quarterback Joe Montana; 42, cornerback Ronnie Lott; 87, receiver Dwight Clark. Clark is not in the Hall of Fame. Defensive end Mean Fred Dean is, but his Number 74 has not been retired. Also not in the Hall of Fame, but should be, is Number 33, running back Roger Craig.

* From the Super Bowl XXIII and XXIV winners: DeBartolo, Walsh, Montana, Lott; 80, receiver Jerry Rice. Craig was still there. Linebacker Charles Haley also was, and is in the Hall, but his Number 94 has not been retired. Steve Young was a backup, and while he got 2 rings, he barely played.

* From the Super Bowl XXIX winners: DeBartolo and Rice; 8, quarterback Steve Young. Linebacker Rickey Jackson, a Hall-of-Famer for his service to the New Orleans Saints, was on this team. So was defensive end Richard Dent, one for his service to the Chicago Bears. So was cornerback Deion Sanders, whose best years were with the Atlanta Falcons and Dallas Cowboys.

* No players from the 2012 NFC Championship have yet been honored.

The 49ers also have a team Hall of Fame, whose inductees include: DeBartolo, Walsh, Young, Brodie, Tittle, Montana, Craig, Perry, both Johnsons, McElhenny, Lott, Wilcox, Krueger, Nomellini, Dean, St. Clair, Rice; founding owners Tony and Vic Morabito, 1950s receiver Gordy Soltau (Number 82), 1960s cornerback R.C. Owens (27), Super Bowl XXIV- and XXIX-winning coach George Seifert, and 1980s and '90s executive John McVay -- whom Giant fans might remember as the head coach who was fired after the 1978 "Miracle of the Meadowlands" game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (BASHOF) is unusual in that its exhibits are spread over several locations, including Levi's Stadium. The 49ers honored include Walsh, DeBartolo, Brodie, Tittle, Montana, Craig, Perry, both Johnsons, McElhenny, Lott, Wilcox, Nomellini, St. Clair, Rice, Soltau, 1940s and '50s coach Buck Shaw, 1940s quarterback Frankie Albert (Number 16, the NFL's 1st great lefthanded quarterback, long before Young), 1970s quarterback Jim Plunkett (16, a San Jose native elected mainly on his performance with the Raiders), 1980s and '90s tight end Brent Jones (84), and a San Francisco native who closed his career with the 49ers, but is now far better known for something else: O.J. Simpson.

Stuff. The 49ers' flagship team store is inside Gate A of Levi's Stadium. They also have team stores throughout the Bay Area.

As a historic team, there are lots of books written about the Niners. In 2014, Brian Murphy -- putting team owner Jed York (Eddie DeBartolo's son-in-law)'s name on it to gain inside access -- published San Francisco 49ers: From Kezar to Levi's Stadium. A few months earlier, Matt Maiocco and team legend Dwight Clark collaborated on San Francisco 49ers: The Complete Illustrated History.

Last year, Dave Newhouse published Founding 49ers: The Dark Days Before the Dynasty. After the 4th Super Bowl win in 1990, Bill Walsh got together with San Francisco Chronicle writer Glenn Dickey and wrote Building a Champion: On Football and the Making of the 49ers, the ultimate inside look at the greatest football organization of the past 35 years. (Yes, ahead of the Patriots of the last 15 years: The 49ers won more Super Bowls, and they didn't have to cheat.)

In 1990, the NFL put out San Francisco 49ers: Team of the '80s. It's now out on DVD. In 2006, in time for the team's 60th Anniversary (this coming year is the 70th), the League put out San Francisco 49ers: The Complete History. With another Super Bowl appearance and a new stadium, it's no longer so complete, but it's the best video history of the team available.

During the Game. This is not a Raider game, where people come dressed as pirates, biker gangsters, Darth Vader, the Grim Reaper, and so on. Nor is this a Giant game where you might be wearing Dodger gear. This is a 49ers game, where fans have tailgated with picnic tables, tablecloths, and even candlesticks -- and not just because they once played at Candlestick Park. These people are as likely to drink California wine as Wisconsin beer at their tailgates. They are more refined, and for all their success, they're not particularly arrogant. You will be safe wearing your Giant or Jet colors.

The 49ers hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. Since the 1980s, "We're the 49ers" has been the team's theme song. Before that, they had a "Touchdown, 49ers" fight song. The 49ers were named for the Gold Rush prospectors that made Northern California possible in 1849, and their mascot resembles one of them, named Sourdough Sam, as sourdough bread was, long before Rice-a-Roni, the actual "San Francisco treat." Naturally, he wears Number 49.
After the Game. Again, Niner fans are not Raider fans. And the Santa Clara stadium is far from any crime issues. Don't antagonize anyone, and you'll be fine.

If you want to go out for a postgame meal or drinks, David's Restaurant, across Tasman Drive from the stadium's north end, is described as a "traditional American restaurant." But it's part of the Santa Clara Country Club, so it might be a bit expensive. A little bit east on Tasman, Butter & Zeus sells fast-food sandwiches and salads. Giovanni's New York Pizzeria is 4 miles to the west, at 1127 Lawrence Expressway (it's really just a suburban divided highway), but I can't say that its "New York pizza" is authentic.

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

R Bar, at 1176 Sutter & Polk Street, is the local Jets fan hangout. And Greens Sports Bar, at 2239 Polk at Green Street, is also said to be a Yankee-friendly bar. Of course, you’ll have to cross the Bay by car or by BART to get there.

Sidelights. The San Francisco Bay Area, including the East Bay (which includes Oakland), has a very rich sports history. Here are some of the highlights:

* AT&T Park. Home of the Giants since 2000, it has been better for them than Candlestick -- aesthetically, competitively, financially, you name it. Winning 3 World Series since it opened, it's been home to The Freak (Tim Lincecum) and The Steroid Freak (Barry Bonds).

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

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

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

The Giants only won 2 Pennants there, and never a World Series. But the 49ers have won 5 Super Bowls while playing there, with 3 of their 6 NFC Championship Games won as the home team. The NFL Giants did beat the 49ers in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, scoring no touchdowns but winning 15-13 thanks to 5 Matt Bahr field goals. The Beatles played their last “real concert” ever at the ‘Stick on August 29, 1966 – only 25,000 people came out, a total probably driven down by the stadium’s reputation and John Lennon’s comments about religion on that tour.

The Giants got out, and the 49ers have now done the same, with their new stadium opening last year. The last sporting event was a U.S. national soccer team win over Azerbaijan earlier this year, the 4th game the Stars & Stripes played there (2 wins, 2 losses). It has now been demolished, and good riddance.

Best way to the site by public transport isn’t a good one: The KT light rail at 4th & King Streets, at the CalTrain terminal, to 3rd & Gilman Streets, and then it’s almost a mile’s walk down Jagerson Avenue. So unless you’re driving/renting a car, or you’re a sports history buff who HAS to see the place, I wouldn’t suggest making time for it.

In spite of the Raiders' return, the 49ers are more popular -- according to a 2014 Atlantic Monthly
article, even in Alameda County. The Raiders remain more popular in the Los Angeles area, a holdover from their 1982-94 layover, and also a consequence of L.A. not having had a team since.
* Kezar Stadium. The 49ers played here from their 1946 founding until 1970, the Raiders spent their inaugural 1960 season here, and previous pro teams in the city also played at this facility at the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park, a mere 10-minute walk from the fabled corner of Haight & Ashbury Streets. High school football, including the annual City Championship played on Thanksgiving Day, used to be held here as well. Bob St. Clair, who played there in high school, college (University of San Francisco) and the NFL in a Hall of Fame career with the 49ers, has compared it to Chicago’s Wrigley Field as a “neighborhood stadium.” After the 49ers left, it became a major concert venue.

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

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

Most notable of these was the 1948 Pennant, won by a group of players who had nearly all played in the majors and were considered old, and were known as the Nine Old Men (a name often given to the U.S. Supreme Court). These old men included former Yankee 1st baseman Nick Etten, the previous year’s World Series hero Cookie Lavagetto of the Brooklyn Dodgers (an Oakland native), Hall of Fame catcher Ernie Lombardi (another Oakland native), and one very young player, a 20-year-old 2nd baseman from Berkeley named Billy Martin. Their manager? Casey Stengel. Impressed by Casey’s feat of managing the Nine Old Men to a Pennant in a league that was pretty much major league quality, and by his previously having managed the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers to an American Association Pennant, Yankee owners Dan Topping and Del Webb hired Casey to manage in 1949. Casey told Billy that if he ever got the chance to bring him east, he would, and he was as good as his word.

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

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

* Cow Palace. The more familiar name of the Grand National Livestock Pavilion, this big barn just south of the City Line in Daly City has hosted just about everything, from livestock shows and rodeos to the 1956 and 1964 Republican National Conventions. (Yes, the Republicans came here, not the “hippie” Democrats, although they did hold their 1984 Convention downtown at the George Moscone Convention Center.)

The ’64 Convention is where New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller refused to be booed off the podium when he dared to speak out against the John Birch Society – the Tea Party idiots of their time – and when Senator Barry Goldwater was nominated, telling them, “I would remind you, my fellow Republicans, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And I would remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” (Personally, I think that extremism in the defense of liberty is no defense of liberty.)

Built in 1941, it is one of the oldest remaining former NBA and NHL sites, having hosted the NBA’s Warriors (then calling themselves the San Francisco Warriors) from 1962 to 1971, the NHL’s San Jose Sharks from their 1991 debut until their current arena could open in 1993, and several minor-league hockey teams. The 1960 NCAA Final Four was held here, culminating in Ohio State, led by Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek (with future coaching legend Bobby Knight as the 6th man) beating local heroes and defending National Champions California, led by Darrell Imhoff.

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

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

* SAP Center at San Jose. Formerly the San Jose Arena and the HP Pavilion, this building has hosted the NHL’s San Jose Sharks since 1993. The Warriors played here in 1996-97, while their Oakland arena was being renovated. If you’re a fan of the TV show The West Wing, this was the convention center where the ticket of Matt Santos and Leo McGarry was nominated. 525 W. Santa Clara Street at Autumn Street, across from the Amtrak & CalTrain station.

* Avaya Stadium. The brand-new home of Major League Soccer's San Jose Earthquakes, it is soccer-specific and seats 18,000 people. 1123 Coleman Avenue & Newhall Drive; 41 miles from downtown Oakland, 46 from downtown San Francisco, 3 1/2 from downtown San Jose. ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) to Great America-Santa Clara.

This is actually the 3rd version of the San Jose Earthquakes. The 1st one played in the original North American Soccer League from 1974 to 1984, at Spartan Stadium. This has been home to San Jose State University sports since 1933, it hosted both the old Earthquakes, of the original North American Soccer League, from 1974 to 1984. It's hosted 3 games of the U.S. national team, most recently a 2007 loss to China. 1251 S. 10th Street, San Jose. San Jose Municipal Stadium, home of the Triple-A San Jose Giants, is a block away at 588 E. Alma Avenue. From either downtown San Francisco or downtown Oakland, take BART to Fremont terminal, then 181 bus to 2nd & Santa Clara, then 68 bus to Monterey & Alma.

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

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

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

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

* California Memorial Stadium. Home of Stanford’s arch-rivals, the University of California, at its main campus in Berkeley in the East Bay. (The school is generally known as “Cal” for sports, and “Berkeley” for most other purposes.) Its location in the Berkeley Hills makes it one of the nicest settings in college football. But it’s also, quite literally, on the Hayward Fault, a branch of the San Andreas Fault, so if “The Big One” had hit during a Cal home game, 72,000 people would have been screwed. With this in mind, the University renovated the stadium, making it safer and ready for 63,000 fans in 2012. So, like their arch-rivals Stanford, they now have a new stadium on the site of the old one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Giant or Jet fans in going coast-to-coast, and take on the legendary, but now-struggling San Francisco 49ers. After all, the Giants have won more NFL Championships, if not yet as many Super Bowls. The Jets? Well, their 1 is still more iconic than any of the Niners' 5.

Peyton Manning! You just won the Super Bowl in what was probably the last game of your career! Now, what are you going to do?

Essentially, the question that has traditionally been answered in commercials, "I'm goin' to Disney World!" was asked by Tracy Wolfson of CBS, after Manning's Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10 in Super Bowl 50 last night.

Manning did not say he was going to Disney World. Here's what he did say:

You know, I'll take some time to reflect. I got a couple of priorities first. I want to go kiss my wife and my kids. I want to go hug my family. I'm going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight, Tracy. I promise you that.

He started off on the right foot. Then, he promoted binge drinking.

And people want to get on Panthers quarterback Cam Newton for how he reacted after the game? Idiots.

This was a few minutes after Dame Helen Mirren appeared in an ad for, yes, Budweiser -- I thought she had more taste than that --

“If you drive drunk, you, simply put, are a shortsighted, utterly useless, oxygen-wasting human form of pollution, a Darwin Award-deserving selfish coward. If your brain was donated to science, science would return it. So, stop it... Don't be a pillock.”

She could have used a stronger word, also common in British street speech or pub talk, but it would never have gotten onto American television.

Peyton Manning, for promoting heavy drinking and unfair labor practices (through shilling for Papa John's pizza) before a tremendous worldwide TV audience...

You, sir, are a pillock.

And, if the rumor is true, and you also used human-growth hormone or some other performance-enhancing drug throughout your career, joining with your nemesis Tom Brady -- who, along with his team, has been caught in multiple cheats -- to do what performance-enhancing drugs did to baseball, which is cast doubt on the legitimacy of an entire era...

You, sir, are a... word that Dame Helen probably wanted to use.

See You Next Tuesday.

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I'm just glad the game's Most Valuable Player award was given to Bronco linebacker Von Miller. I've often criticized the expression "Defense wins games"/"Defense wins championships." Defense never won a damn thing without offense failing. You can't win unless you score. You can't score unless you have the ball. If you have the ball, even if you're a traditional defensive player who's intercepted a pass or picked up a fumble, by definition, you are now on offense.

The Broncos' defense was the 2nd-biggest factor in the game. The biggest factor was the Panthers' inability to adjust to it.

That said, Miller was the player on the winning side who had the biggest impact, and was thus deserving of the MVP.

I was sure they were going to give it to Manning, what with him being beloved by the media, and what with it (probably) being his last game.

Because when the media loves a quarterback, they... how can I put this politely... never shy away from showing you that love. We've seen it before. Johnny Unitas. Joe Namath. Roger Staubach. Joe Montana. John Elway. Brett Favre. Now, Brady and Manning. (Not so much Eli Manning, though -- because he beat Brady in 2 Super Bowls, thus ruining the media's narrative.)

Yes, Elway retired as a back-to-back Super Bowl winner, and as the reigning Super Bowl MVP. But he wouldn't have won a Super Bowl without Terrell Davis in the backfield -- Sammy Winder was good, but, back then, Elway didn't have someone who was TD good, and that's a big reason why he went 0-3 before going 2-0 in the biggest game -- and Peyton wouldn't have won this Super Bowl without Von Miller and his defensive compadres shutting down the Panther offense.

Just in case Peyton was thinking it was all about him. Maybe he wasn't. But, going in, the media sure was.

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As for Cam Newton: I could criticize him for his postgame reaction. Instead, I'll say that Newton is lucky on 2 counts: He didn't screw up that big for a New York team (or Boston, or Chicago, or Los Angeles), or for his alma mater, Auburn University, against their arch-rivals, the University of Alabama.

However, I can and do criticize Newton for not picking up that fumble that turned a decent shot at a winning touchdown drive into a final score that did not, at all, indicate how close the game was until that point.

Some people are telling him, "Act like you've been there before." Well, he hadn't been there before.

And he may never get back. That's the hard part: In the biggest game of his career, he froze. I'm reminded of Chuck Knoblauch in the 1998 Playoffs, although Knobby is white, was playing a much less important position, and was in what did not amount to a Game 7 like Newton's game. On the other hand, Knobby also isn't nearly as smart as Newton.

If this had happened to Newton in a regular-season game, we'd talk about it until the next game. Instead, we talk about it forever, because it was in the Super Bowl. Ask Jackie Smith. Ask Scott Norwood. Ask Kevin Dyson -- and he didn't even do anything wrong; quite the contrary, he did his damnedest, and came up a few inches short.

But look at this list: Daryle Lamonica, Joe Kapp, Vince Ferragamo, Ron Jaworski, Ken Anderson, David Woodley, Dan Marino, Tony Eason, Boomer Esiason, Stan Humphries, Neil O'Donnell, Drew Bledsoe, Chris Chandler, Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme, Donovan McNabb, Matt Hasselbeck. Most likely, Rex Grossman. Possibly, Colin Kaepernick.

Each of those quarterbacks went to one Super Bowl, lost it, and never got back in.

There's a lot of talent there. Marino is in the Hall of Fame. McNabb becomes eligible next year, and will probably get in, if not on the 1st try. Lamonica, Jaworski, Anderson, Esiason and Bledsoe are all worthy of Hall consideration. At the very least, Newton should end up with a career as good as those last 5.

But this could have been his only chance, and he blew it.

The truly sad part is, the game wasn't even interesting until that play. And then, it got interesting in a bad way.

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About the halftime show: Thanks to Newton, no one is going to remember that Coldplay never should have been selected. Not that they were offensive. They were just... weak.

But Beyoncé Knowles upstaged the whole thing. As she usually does. She gave a Black Power salute, a la Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. The dancers behind her wore black berets, like the Black Panthers, founded just up the road in Oakland 50 years ago.

And Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, saw it as an attack on his favorite people (whom he refused to ever give a raise), the police. Here's what he told Fox News this morning:

This is football, not Hollywood, and I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers, who are the people who protect her and protect us, and keep us alive.

And what we should be doing in the African-American community, and all communities, is build up respect for police officers. And focus on the fact that, when something does go wrong, okay, we'll work on that. But the vast majority of police officers risk their lives to keep us safe.

Well, gee, Rudy, maybe African-Americans would have more respect for police officers if they didn't see some -- not one every 10 years, but several times in the last few, from Staten Island to Baltimore to Cleveland to Ferguson, Missouri and so on -- get away with murder. Who didn't"keep us alive." (I'm using "us" in this case even though I'm white.)

And that doesn't even include Trayvon Martin's murderer, a cop wannabe that the cops didn't think was mentally stable enough to join them.
You want black people to build up respect for police officers? Start by demanding that police officers respect them. The motto is, "To serve and protect.""Serve" comes before protect, Rudy, you fascist... pillock!

Rudy needs to shut the bloody hell up. His achievement as Mayor, reducing crime, would never have happened without the crime bill pushed and signed by President Bill Clinton. (A liberal Democrat and Hillary's husband, in case you've forgotten.) And even at his moments of triumph, we all knew, even if we didn't want to say it out loud, that Rudy was a racist.

Yes, Cam Newton fumbled the ball in the end zone, and it was recovered for a Denver Bronco touchdown. And, yes, later on, fumbled, and froze, and didn't pick the ball up, and the Broncos did. And, yes, as a result of these 2 fumbles, especially the 2nd,, the Carolina Panthers lost Super Bowl 50.

But Newton isn't solely to blame. In the tradition of the ESPN series The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame..., here are...

The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Cam Newton for the Carolina Panthers Losing Super Bowl 50

First, a few reasons that didn't make the cut: The Best of the Rest.

No Other Panther Picked Up the Fumbles. Obviously. There were 10 other Panthers on the field at the time. If one of them had picked either of them up, who knows?

The Misread Fair Catch. The Panthers thought Jonathan Norwood had called for a fair catch of Brad Norman's punt, but he hadn't, and he ended up returning a mere 28-yard punt for 61 yards, the longest punt return in Super Bowl history.

It was only 10-7 Broncos at that point. Granted, the Broncos only got a field goal out of it, but, if the Panthers had fielded the return properly, and then held the Broncos, it would have been only 13-10 Broncos at the time Newton began the play that led to his 2nd fumble, and the Panthers would've needed only a field goal to tie the game and, most likely, send it to overtime. There would have been considerably less pressure on Newton, and he might've gotten the job done.

The Missed Field Goal. Graham Gano kicked a field goal to make it 16-10 Broncos early in the 4th quarter, but he also missed one early in the 2nd half. That would have made it 13-10 Broncos, meaning the one he actually made would've made it 16-13, and made it a field-goal-to-tie, touchdown-to-win game. And we go back to the point about pressure in the previous reason.

The Broncos Were Already Winning. This one only applies to the 2nd fumble. But if Newton had hung onto the ball, there's no guarantee he would have gotten the Panthers downfield for a touchdown to tie the game 17-17. Even if he had led the Panthers to a tying touchdown, there's no guarantee the Broncos wouldn't have prevented overtime with a last-minute winning score. After all, they only would've needed a field goal.

The Iron Bowl. Cam Newton quarterbacked Auburn University against the University of Alabama. This rivalry is known, for Alabama's steel industry, as the Iron Bowl. Win it, and you are a hero to your school and its alumni forever. Lose it, and your name may as well be Mud. In rivalries like that one, there's more pressure than that than their is from the Super Bowl, because it's not from the whole country, it's from your own people.

Duane Thomas, one of the stars of the Dallas Cowboys' win in Super Bowl VI, said, "If it's 'the ultimate game,' why are they playing it again next year?" Well, if you've ever played in Alabama-Auburn, or Ohio State-Michigan, or Texas-Texas A&M, or Florida-Florida State... you get the idea... then your idea of what constitutes an "ultimate game" is a bit skewed.

Due to reasons I won't get into here, Newton only played 1 season at Auburn, 2010. But he won the Heisman Trophy, and led them to the Southeastern Conference and then the National Championship. More importantly, from their perspective, was what Newton did in that season's Iron Bowl. Auburn trailed Alabama 24-0. Newton led them to win 28-27. I'm surprised there isn't a statue of him outside Jordan-Hare Stadium already.

What's winning a Super Bowl compared to being a football god in the State where, more than any other (including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas), football is a religion?

Now, for the Top 5 Reasons:

5. The Media. They all seemed to want to make the game about Peyton Manning. They also dragged the racial aspect into it: Peyton Manning, a white Southern quarterback (he grew up in New Orleans while his Mississippi father Archie was the Saints' quarterback) who charmed the media and everyone else, vs. Cam Newton, a black Southern quarterback (from Atlanta) who refused to play the media's game, was guilty of self-promotion, and represented the States that sent Jesse Helms (North Carolina) and Strom Thurmond (South Carolina) to the U.S. Senate.

You can argue that Newton shouldn't have allowed this to get into his head, which is why I've only listed it at Number 5. But it was still there, and it was something he couldn't control.

4. The Panthers' Receivers. Newton threw 41 passes in Super Bowl 50, and only completed 18 of them. But you know what? The quarterback is only half the issue. The men he's throwing to have to catch them.

In the 1960s, Johnny Unitas wouldn't have gotten anywhere without Raymond Berry, John Mackey and Lenny Moore to throw to. Bart Starr had Max McGee and Bowd Dowler. Joe Namath had Don Maynard and George Sauer.

In the 1970s, Roger Staubach had Drew Pearson. Terry Bradshaw had Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. In the 1980s, Joe Montana had Dwight Clark, and later Jerry Rice and John Taylor. The 3 quarterbacks who took the Washington Redskins to 4 Super Bowls in a 10-season span had Art Monk, Gary Clark, Ricky Sanders, Don Warren and Clint Didier. Phil Simms had Phil McConkey.

In the 1990s, Troy Aikman had Michael Irvin and Daryl Johnston. Brett Favre had Antonio Freeman and Robert Brooks. John Elway had Shannon Sharpe and Rod Smith. In the 2000s and 2010s, Peyton Manning, when he was with the Indianapolis Colts, had Marvin Harrison and Joseph Addai. Eli Manning had Plaxico Burress, Amani Toomer, David Tyree, Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham. Tom Brady had... ways to cheat.

Who did Cam Newton have to throw to last night? Corey Brown, Ted Ginn and Greg Olsen each caught only 4 passes. Devin Funchess and Jerricho Cotchery, only 2 each. Fozzy Whittaker and Jonathan Stewart each caught only 1. Mike Tolbert, none. And once they caught those passes, how far did they get with them? Newton's 18 completions went for 265 yards, an average of 14.7 yards per catch.

I don't want to sound like Sonny Corleone yelling at Tom Hagen in The Godfather -- "Pop had Genco, what do I got?" -- but, in this case, the Panther receiving corps was no Tom Hagen, let alone Genco Abbandando.

3. Ron Rivera. He's the head coach. He called the Panthers' plays. He called the plays that weren't working for the Panthers all night long. He called the plays that led to Newton's fumbles. Doesn't he share the blame?

2. Experience. The Broncos not only had a lot more of it, but having been in the Super Bowl before meant that, whatever problems they had, reacting to the hype was not going to be one of them.

When a team gets embarrassed like the Broncos were in Super Bowl XLVIII, one of two things is going to happen: Either they get discouraged, and they don't make it back, or they remember the taste of how close they came, and they get more determined than ever to get back. Usually, the latter happens more when the team loses in the Playoffs before the Super Bowl, i.e. with the 1985 and '86 Giants, or the 1996 and '97 Broncos.

But there are examples of teams losing a Super Bowl and coming back to win it within 3 seasons: The 1969-70 Kansas City Chiefs (3), the 1970-71 Baltimore Colts (2), the 1971-72 Cowboys (1), the 1972-73 Miami Dolphins (1), the 1977-78 Cowboys (2). Granted, the last of those examples was nearly 40 years ago, but it had happened a few times. The Broncos just made it happen again.

1. The Broncos Were Better. True, the Panthers were 15-1 this season -- 17-1 counting the Playoffs. But over the last 4 seasons, going into Super Bowl 50, counting the Playoffs, the Broncos were 55-18. Over the same stretch, the Panthers were 44-24. Between their 12-4 2013 season and their 15-1 2015 was a 2014 season in which they went 7-8-1.

The Bronco defense, led by game MVP Von Miller, faced a team that was 17-1, and held them to 10 points over the 60 minutes. They had to, because their vaunted quarterback Manning only led their offense to score 16 before the fumble. In the 1st 49 Super Bowls, only 3 times had a team scored so few points (or fewer) and still won: The 1968-69 Jets (16), the 1972-73 Miami Dolphins (their 14 a record low for a Super Bowl winner), and the 1974-75 Pittsburgh Steelers (16). It hadn't been done in 41 years. The 2007-08 Giants were the only team in that span to score as few as 17 and still win.

So the Orange Crush defense had to step up, and hold the Panthers off, or even get the ball back and give their offense a chance to put the game away. They had the experience and the poise to do it. And they did it. They were simply better.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. This game was won by the Broncos more than it was lost by the Panthers, or any personnel thereof.

February 8, 1956, 60 years ago: Connie Mack dies in Philadelphia, of "old age and complications from hip surgery." He was 93 years old.

A former major league catcher, occasionally good but never great, he managed the Philadelphia Athletics from their founding in 1901 until 1950 -- 50 seasons. He won American League Pennants in 1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930 and 1931. He won the World Series in 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929 and 1930.

But increase in salaries caused by the arrival of the Federal League in 1914 caused him to break up his 1st dynasty, and the stock market Crash of 1929 wiped out his savings, causing him to break up his 2nd dynasty, as he had no more income outside of the team.

He was never able to rebuild the A's as he had in the 1920s. And, also being the owner, he was not going to be fired as manager, even as he entered his 80s, and began making inexplicable moves, including calling out names of pinch-hitters, players who hadn't been on the A's in years.

Finally, after the 1950 season, his sons ganged up on him. Earle and Roy Mack, his sons from his 1st marriage, did not get along with Connie Mack Jr., his son from his 2nd marriage. The one thing they agreed on was that Connie Sr., at age 87, had to go, as field manager, as general manager, and as owner in all but name.

Their financial management was no better than his, and in 1954, they sold the A's to Arnold Johnson, who ran a Chicago-based trucking business, and he moved them to Kansas City.  Mack was dead in a year and a half, a few months after that scourge of the elderly, a hip-breaking fall.

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Mitchell Nathanson, author of The Fall of the 1977 Phillies, makes the case that, unlike with the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals, and the Boston Braves and Red Sox, in the case of Philadelphia, the wrong team moved and the wrong team stayed.
He's got a point. The AL's A's not only were more successful than the National League's Philadelphia Phillies -- from 1901 to 1949, winning 9 Pennants to the Phils' 1, in 1915 -- but were the landlords at Shibe Park, while the Phils, who'd the inadequate Baker Bowl a few blocks away, were the tenants. The Phils' stirring 1950 "Whiz Kids" Pennant changed the recent history, but not the overall history.

Here's what the teams did after the A's moved in 1954:

* The Phillies have made the Playoffs 12 times, won the NL Eastern Division 11 times, won 5 Pennants, and won the World Series in 1980 and 2008. Not a bad record, but this includes the near-misses for the postseason in 1964, 1982, 2004, 2005 and 2006; and the terrible postseason chokes of 1977 and 1978, plus losing World Series they had very good chances to win in 1983, 1993 and 2009.

* The A's did nothing in Kansas City, but since moving again, to Oakland, in 1968, they've made the Playoffs 18 times, won the AL Western Division 16 times, the Pennant 6 times (although not since 1990) and the World Series 4 times (1972, 1973, 1974 and  1989). Indeed, the A's won more World Series in 3 seasons (1972 to 1974) than the Phils have won in the competition's entire history (1903 to 2015).

* Just since the A's moved to Oakland, 1968 to 2015, they've won nearly as many Pennants, 6, as the Phils have in their entire history (1883 to 2015), 7.

So, in hindsight, Philadelphia and its fans might have been better off keeping the A's and losing the Phils.

And in the 25 years between the Crash of '29 and the A's move, not only the Phils' on-field fortunes as futzed-up as those of the A's, but so were their finances. Gerry Nugent had to get a loan from the other NL owners in 1943, just so he could send the team to spring training. He sold them to William D. Cox, who had plenty of money and was willing to spend it, but was caught betting on the Phils, and so was banned from baseball. A new owner stepped in.

So if the Phils were in that bad a shape, why did they stay, and not the A's? Did the 1950 Pennant really matter all that much?

Not really. It would be a "Best of the Rest" in a list of...

The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Philadelphia Athletics for Moving to Kansas City

5. Demographics. In the 1950 Census, Philadelphia was cited as having just under 2.1 million people. This was the most it would ever have. Indeed, the population was already going down. It would be a shade over 2 million in 1960, a little under that in 1970, under 1.7 million in 1980, under 1.6 million in 1990, and bottom out at just over 1.5 million in 2000. It's now believed to be about 1,553,000.

Meanwhile, the suburbs boomed, so that the Philly region, a.k.a. the Delaware Valley -- Eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Northern Delaware -- has about 7.1 million people, making it the nation's 7th-largest market. This suburban boom will be revisited in Reason Number 3.

Ahead of Philly in metropolitan population are New York (23 million), Los Angeles (18 million), Chicago (almost 10 million) and San Francisco (8.6 million), all with 2 MLB teams, although San Fran may lose the Oakland Athletics in the next few years. Also ahead of Philly are Boston (just over 8 million) and Dallas (7.2 million). And nobody is credibly suggesting that Boston, whose Red Sox are no longer selling out every game, or Dallas, a football-first city which barely supports the Texas Rangers as it is, should get a 2nd Major League Baseball team.

When the Phillies were winning 5 straight NL East titles from 2007 to 2011, and Citizens Bank Park was full 81 times a year -- even after the economic Crash of 2008, the worst since the Crash of 1929 that wiped Connie Mack out -- there was talk that Philly might get a 2nd team, either through expansion by the AL or a moved team, playing at CBP until they could get their own ballpark built. There was even talk that, after over half a century away, the A's could come home. But the Phils' 2012 collapse, and their subsequent nosedive in attendance, put an end to that talk, before it could reach an even remotely serious stage.

Philadelphia could support 2 major league baseball (capitalized or otherwise) teams before World War II. But not afterward. As with Boston and St. Louis, 1 of the 2 teams was going to have to go.

4. The Deaths of the Shibe Brothers. When Ben Shibe, Connie Mack's co-owner and the man for whom their ballpark was named, died in 1922, his shares of the team went to his sons. Thomas F. Shibe became team president, and John F. Shibe became vice president.

Tom and Jack Shibe were "sportsmen" in the old sense, also interested in hunting and speedboat racing, respectively. Tom essentially ran the ballpark, while Mack ran the team. But Tom died in 1936. John replaced his brother Tom as president, and Mack installed his son Roy as vice president. But John got sick shortly after becoming president, dying the next year.

Connie, club treasurer from day one, installed himself as president, and bought out the brothers' widows, making himself majority owner for the first time. Why not promote one of the next generation of Shibes? Because neither Tom nor John had children, while Ben's daughters, being women, were not seriously considered for team leadership roles, even though they had stock in the club.

One of Ben's sons-in-law, Ben MacFarland, was named traveling secretary. His brother, Frank MacFarland, was named assistant treasurer. But the MacFarlands were frozen out of management decisions regarding the team or the stadium, neither of which got proper maintenance.

Connie set Roy, Earle and Connie Jr. to run the team after him, frequently citing "The House of Mack." (Even that wasn't correct: His full name was Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy. He only shortened his name to "Mack" as a young player so that it would fit in a box score without being abbreviated into something like "M'Cuddy.")
In 1937, and again in 1939, at ages 74 and 76, Connie Sr. got sick, and Earle, who had played a little for the A's from 1910 to 1914, filled in as manager. If either of the Shibe brother had still been around at the time -- Tom was 70 when he died, and Jack was 65, both of them thus younger than Connie Sr. -- they might have talked some sense into "The Grand Old Man of Baseball,"

(Roy Mack died in 1960, only outliving his father by 4 years. Earle lived on until 1967, and Connie Jr. until 1996. His son Connie III became a U.S. Senator from Florida, and Senator Mack's son Connie IV was elected to the House like his father, but has failed in his only Senate bid thus far.)

3. Ballparks. Part of the problem was Shibe Park itself. Opening on April 12, 1909, it was the 1st concrete and steel stadium in Major League Baseball. The Shibe brothers expanded it in 1925, and eventually seating capacity would reach... 33,608. This made it smaller than any ballpark in use in MLB today; when it finally closed on October 1, 1970, 3 months after the end for Crosley Field in Cincinnati and Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, only Fenway Park in Boston was similarly small.
And losing his money in the Crash of '29 and buying out the Shibe widows had tapped Connie Mack out. He tried adding more seats, but he couldn't afford the maintenance on Shibe Park. When his sons pushed him out, they took out a tremendous mortgage, and couldn't make the payments on it, so they couldn't keep the place up either.

Access was a big problem, too. Although North Philadelphia hadn't yet descended into urban blight, there was no major highway nearby. Public transportation? The trolleys had been cut back, so to get to Shibe Park, you either had to take the Broad Street Line subway to North Philadelphia, or the Pennsylvania Railroad to Germantown Junction (now SEPTA's North Philadelphia commuter rail station), or the Reading Railroad to North Broad Street Station; and then take a bus 7 blocks down Lehigh Avenue. Even if you weren't afraid of the neighborhood (and by the time the Phillies made their 1964 Pennant run, lots of people were), that was a hassle.

In contrast, the Kansas City Municipal Stadium, built in 1923, was being double-decked in the 1954-55 off-season, doubling its seating capacity to 35,020, and while its neighborhood soon deteriorated as well, it had better access roads and more parking.
When the A's were sold, the Macks sold Shibe Park to the Phillies, even though their owner said, "I need Shibe Park like I need a hole in the head." He renamed it Connie Mack Stadium in honor of the Grand Old Man, and spent the rest of the 1950s and nearly all of the 1960s trying to get it replaced, finally convincing the city to build what became Veterans Stadium for the Phillies and the NFL's Eagles, who left Connie Mack Stadium for the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field in 1958, before groundsharing with the Phils again from 1970 to 2003, when each had a new stadium built adjacent to the Vet at the South Philadelphia sports complex.

2. Kansas City. It had been a very good baseball town, with the minor-league Blues (a Yankee farm team from 1936 to 1954) and the Negro Leagues' Monarchs each winning multiple Pennants. If the A's didn't move there for 1955, some team would have done so in the next few years. If that hadn't happened by 1960, surely, they would have gotten an expansion franchise.
It worked, sort of: Although their attendance in Kansas City was never great, in each of the A's 1st 7 seasons there, they got more fans than in each of their last 5 seasons, and in 24 of their last 25 seasons, in Philadelphia. Even their worst seasonal attendance in K.C. was better than 4 of their last 5 years in Philly. Once the A's moved to Oakland, and were replaced by the Royals, fans who had never warmed to Charlie Finley, who'd bought the A's after the death of Arnold Johnson in 1960, came out in better numbers than the A's franchise would ever see until the 1980s.

The Royals' recent success, including last year's World Series and the last 2 AL Pennants, shows that Kansas City was a sleeping giant as far as baseball markets was concerned. All they needed was to show that ownership cared. It took ownership a while to show it, but they have, and the fans are coming out.

But the A's might never have moved to Kansas City -- and the Phillies might have, or might have moved somewhere else -- if the right man hadn't stepped in to buy the Phillies.

1. The Carpenters. No, not the singing siblings of the 1970s. In November 1943, Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter bought the Phillies from the banned William D. Cox.

Known as Ruly, he could afford it: The Carpenters were one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Philadelphia and in neighboring Wilmington, Delaware. Ruly married into the family in Delaware, the du Ponts, giving him control of more money. He became an executive at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (a.k.a. simply "DuPont," but the family has never capitalized the D in their names), and made even more money.

He was a strong supporter of the University of Delaware, including its athletic department. But he didn't really want to run the Phillies. So he left that to his son, Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter Jr. Known as Bob Carpenter, he totally reorganized the team, giving it a real front office, a real farm system, and a real scouting department for the first time. The result was the 1950 Pennant, featuring Hall-of-Famers Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn, Most Valuable Player Jim Konstanty, and Dick Sisler, whose home run on the final day of the season clinched the flag.
Eventually, Bob's moved stopped working, especially since he was so focused on getting the ballpark replaced. In 1972, that task done, he turned control over to his son, Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter III, known as Ruly like his grandfather. Ruly made Paul Owens the general manager, and they built the Phillies team that dominated the NL East from 1976 to 1983, including the 1980 World Championship.

The Carpenter family is no longer involved with the team, but retains a small ownership, and still supports University of Delaware athletics. But once they bought the Phillies, and put to work money the Mack and Shibe/MacFarland families simply didn't have, the A's, despite the huge advantages in ownership and history with the Phillies, were doomed as far as Philadelphia was concerned.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. As many mistakes as the Macks made, there were circumstances beyond their control that put an end to the Athletics' tenure in Philadelphia.

The A's had to go. And it worked out. For a while. Why did they leave Kansas City after only 13 seasons? That's a blog post for another time.

In 1971, Roger Kahn published The Boys of Summer, recalling the 1952 and '53 baseball seasons, when he was the Brooklyn Dodgers beat writer for the New York Herald Tribune.

By 1971, he was 44 years old, and those Dodgers were in or approaching their 50s. Two of them died the next year: Gil Hodges from a heart attack in April and Jackie Robinson from diabetes in October.

Brooklyn has always had a separate identity. From its incorporation in 1834 until the consolidation of "Greater New York" that took effect on January 1, 1898, it was a separate city. When the referendum to consolidate happened in 1897, what became the other 4 Boroughs all voted for it in a landslide, but in Brooklyn, the Yes side won in a squeaker.

Brooklyn had half of the Brooklyn Bridge (they seemed to care less about the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges that followed) and the Brooklyn Navy Yard at one end, Coney Island at the other, and Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Dodgers in the middle.

The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. The Pentagon closed the Navy Yard in 1964. That same year, also the year the Drifters' song "Under the Boardwalk" evoked classic Coney Island, Steeplechase Park closed. It was the last of the old Coney Island amusement parks, leaving only the more recently-opened Astroland, which is still going.

By that point, the Irish, Italian, Polish and Jewish communities that made Brooklyn the Brooklyn of memory had shrunk, because many of those people had taken advantage of post-World War II opportunity to move to better surroundings in Staten Island, Queens, Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey. (When I grew up in East Brunswick, there were a lot of ex-Brooklynites there.)

And taking their places were poor blacks and Hispanics who couldn't afford to keep the place properly maintained. Brooklyn became a crime-ridden shadow of its former self. And memories of the old Coney Island and the Dodgers, and tributes thereto, made Brooklyn itself a symbol of all that once was good to millions of people, the majority of whom never set foot in the State, let alone the City, of New York.

As a result, even those of us who weren't born yet in 1957 (i.e. most of the people reading this) "remember" Brooklyn, and "remember" the Brooklyn Dodgers, and many of us wish they'd never moved.

The New York Giants, who moved to San Francisco after 1957, going to California at the same time as the Dodgers, never got that tribute. No one wrote their Boys of Summer. The Yankees had Peter Golenbock write Dynasty, which, as he stated in the introduction to the 1st edition in 1975, was an explicit response to Kahn's book, saying that you could remember a team that seemingly always won with as much fondness as one that seemingly had heartbreak in mind.

(Kahn is now 88 years old, while Golenbock is 69. Both have written eloquently about baseball, particularly New York baseball, many more times. They have even flipped subjects: Golenbock wrote Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, while Kahn wrote October Men about the 1977 and '78 Yankees.)

There have been books about the baseball team that gave the still-here football team its name. But those books were mostly well after The Boys of Summer and Dynasty. But the best writing about them was probably published before the move: Arnold Hano's A Day In the Bleachers, which came out the following spring, 1955. (Hano, like Kahn and Golenbock, is still alive at this writing, at age 93.)

As a result, we have 2 whole generations of baseball fans, and are beginning a 3rd, who know the New York baseball Giants only for Bobby Thomson's walkoff home run in the 1951 National League Playoff, and Willie Mays' catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, because "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" and "The Catch" have been played on TV a thousand times, and are easily available on YouTube. We've seen both plays so many times we can recite Russ Hodges' call of the former and Jack Brickhouse's of the latter. Dusty Rhodes' walkoff homer came in the same game as Mays' catch, essentially deciding the Series (after all, Mays' catch didn't win the game, though it did preserve the then-current tie score), and it's practically an afterthought.

Roger Connor, Amos Rusie, John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Joe McGinnity, Roger Bresnahan, Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Carl Hubbell? Those guys played 80 to 130 years ago. It might as well have been a thousand. Terry and Hubbell died in 1988, meaning they were alive at the same time as Beyonce, the 3 older Kardashian sisters. and 1 of the Jonas Brothers. But, to today's teenagers, they might as well have been contemporaries of Marco Polo or Charlemagne, names they may have heard, but know only "one-line biographies," if that.

The baseball Giants played their last New York home game over 58 years ago; their last New York World Series, they won over 61 years ago. Your father or grandfather might have rooted for them, but they are forgotten, even if Mays is still alive. (Monte Irvin just died, and Bobby Thomson died in 2010.)

And they shouldn't be. From their 1883 establishment to their 1957 move, they won 17 National League Pennants (and had a few other near-misses), and won postseason series against the champions of the other major league then in place 7 times, including 5 World Series. Until the 1927 Yankees, led by Babe Ruth, established themselves as "Murderers' Row," the Giants were the baseball franchise.

And they left.

*

The worst part is, it didn't have to be that way. Look at the reasons ESPN gave in their "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Walter O'Malley for Moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles":

5. Horace Greeley. Greeley, a 19th Century New York newspaper publisher, never said, as has been attributed to him, "Go west, young man!" But he was a proponent of America's westward expansion. His name stands in on this list for all those who've said America's future was in its west, and its past was in its east. That seemed very true in the 1950s, and Dodger owner Walter O'Malley sure came to believe it.

4. William Levitt. His Levittown construction launched the exodus of so many Brooklynites and Queensians to Long Island, taking the Dodgers' fan base with them. Driving to Ebbets Field was next to impossible. This is why O'Malley wanted to build a new Dodger stadium across from the Long Island Rail Road terminal: So people could drive to their local LIRR station and then take the train in. He didn't get it, but, eventually, Nets owner Bruce Ratner did, and thus was born the Atlantic Yards project and the Barclays Center.

3. Milwaukee. The Braves had left Boston to the Red Sox, and did great in Milwaukee. Their modern stadium (modern for the time) and gigantic parking lot showed O'Malley that he couldn't continue at tiny, antiquated Ebbets Field with its minimal parking. He needed a new ballpark, either in Brooklyn or out of it.

2. Los Angeles. It had already been considered by teams looking to move, so if the Dodgers hadn't moved there, somebody would have. Or it would have gotten an expansion team. Which it got, anyway: The Angels. It has proven to be a good market for baseball: Even when the Bums and the Halos have struggled on the field, they've usually had good attendance.

1. Robert Moses. The man in charge of construction for not just the City, but the State wouldn't condemn the property necessary to build the domed stadium O'Malley wanted. He was willing to build them a multipurpose stadium in Queens, but O'Malley didn't want Queens: He either wanted Brooklyn, or out of the City entirely.

ESPN didn't render a verdict, but they certainly implied O'Malley was Not Guilty.

My verdict: Guilty, which you can read here, in one of the first few posts I ever wrote for this blog.

Moses and his Queens project, which became Shea Stadium, are the key, at least from the Giants' perspective. Suppose Giants owner Horace Stoneham had invited Moses to Game 1 of the 1954 World Series -- the game illuminated by Mays' catch, won by Rhodes' homer, and chronicled by Hano's book.

Maybe Moses wouldn't have become a baseball fan, but he would have seen how the fans reacted to one of the most amazing games in baseball history. Stoneham, who said after the Giants' last home game on September 29, 1957, "I feel bad for the kids, but I haven't seen too many of their fathers lately," could have told Moses, "I need a new ballpark. Help me build something for these wonderful fans, so they don't have to go to an outdated stadium in a bad neighborhood."

The Giants could have hosted Opening Day 1958 not at Seals Stadium in San Francisco, but at the stadium we came know as Shea. And while a team playing in Queens calling itself the Brooklyn Dodgers would have been wrong, there would have been absolutely nothing wrong with a team called the New York Giants playing in Queens, any more than it was wrong, in the history we know, for the Mets to play there under the New York name.

(Of course, if either or both of the New York National League teams had stayed, there never would have been a New York Mets. An expansion franchise would still have been put in the NL in 1962, but it would have been elsewhere. Possibly San Francisco. It would also have given the fledgling American Football League more credibility if their New York franchise, the Titans, who became the Jets in 1963, could have played in a 60,000-seat stadium from that start, instead of in the crumbling old Polo Grounds.)

And, just as the Dodgers needed only 2 years to win a Pennant in L.A., the Giants rebounded from a poor last season in New York to a good 1st one in San Francisco. For their 1st 15 years in the Bay Area, they did well both on the field and at the box office. The young talent they had coming up -- Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, all of whom joined Mays in the Hall of Fame -- would have become New York baseball superstars.

But Stoneham wanted to get out of the Polo Grounds. The Giants' top farm team was the Minneapolis Millers, and Metropolitan Stadium had just been built for them in suburban Bloomington. Before O'Malley told Stoneham, "Let's go to California together," Stoneham was planning to open the 1958 season as the Minnesota Giants.

If he had just talked to Moses, and hung on just a little longer... Who knows? There could have been Subway Series with the Yankees in 1962 and possibly other times. The Giants nearly won the NL Western Division in 1969, so maybe they, not the Mets we know, could have beaten out the Chicago Cubs in the NL East, and produced New York's "Miracle of '69." And maybe they still would have won the 2010, '12 and '14 World Series, giving New York more titles in those 5 seasons than the Mets have given us in 54 seasons.

And the only games they would have had to play in Candlestick Park would have been away games, home games for a San Fran expansion team. Or maybe, whenever San Fran got its own team, they would have agreed to a different plan, and gotten a downtown ballpark much sooner than 2000, when the stadium now called AT&T Park opened. And the 49ers could have played at Stanford until a renovated Kezar Stadium opened, making both Candlestick and the new Levi's Stadium unnecessary. And, not having to play in Candlestick, maybe both the 49ers and this hypothetical expansion baseball team would have been more comfortable, and won more in San Francisco, than the 49ers and baseball Giants actually did.

It is very possible that both New York and San Francisco would have been better off if the Giants had never moved.

*

At any rate, that's the case for the prosecution. What's the case for the defense?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the New York Giants for Moving to San Francisco

5. Demographics. As I said earlier, New York (and this was true for nearly every major city in America at the time) was seeing a massive outflux into its suburbs, making it harder for fans living there to get back into the City to see live games. Many stuck to their living rooms and their new TVs.

As I said in my post about the Top 10 Myths About the 1950s, the great American middle class was in the early stages of great growth, so fans couldn't afford to go to multiple games a year unless they were rich. Attendance was not as good then as it became in the 1960s, '70s, and beyond. It was far below New York baseball's peak year of 2008, the last year of the old Yankee Stadium and Shea:

From the first postwar season of 1946, to the last season in Brooklyn in 1957, the Dodgers averaged just 16,800 fans per home game, in a ballpark, Ebbets Field, that seated 31,497. That's just 53 percent of capacity... 

In 1949, the Dodgers averaged 20,945 fans -- and never topped 17,000 as a seasonal per-game average again until 1958, their first year in Los Angeles (the novelty factor taking hold there). That overall 1947 total was 1,807,526, and while they got at least 1 million total fans every year after World War II, in 1954, '55 (the World Championship season) and '57, they just got past the million mark. In contrast, in the 56 seasons that the Dodgers have played in Los Angeles, only 5 times, and not at all since 1970, have they failed to top that 1947 Brooklyn peak.

The Giants did even worse: Their per-game average at the 55,987-seat Polo Grounds from 1946 to 1957 was 13,642 -- just 24 percent of capacity. In other words, the average Dodger crowd and the average Giant crowd combined, 30,442, would not have sold out Ebbets Field, let alone the Polo Grounds. Double it, and it wouldn't have filled the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium.

And how do these figures compare to the team then frequently described as "the lordly Yankees"? They averaged 24,063 from 1946 to 1957 -- over 10,000 more than the Giants and 7,000 more than the Dodgers, but still not great.

This coming Saturday night, the New York Knicks will visit Minneapolis, to play the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Brooklyn Nets will do so on March 5.

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. The temperatures that they're predicting for next Saturday aren't so bad: Low 40s for daylight, high 20s for night. But they're also saying a 35 percent chance of snow, so be on the lookout for that.

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

Tickets. The Timberwolves are averaging 14,136 fans per home game. That ranks 29th in the NBA, ahead of only the Denver Nuggets. It's about 73 percent of capacity, ahead of only the Nuggets and the Philadelphia 76ers. This has led to suggestions that the Twin Cities really aren't big enough to support teams in all 4 sports, and, with the Twins having a new stadium, the Vikings about to get one, and no one willing to take the NHL away from Minnesota a 2nd time, the T-Wolves are the likeliest to go.

At any rate, most likely, you'll be able to show up 5 minutes before the scheduled tipoff, and get any seat you can afford. In the lower level, the 100 sections, T-Wolves tickets between the baskets can be had for as low as $289, and behind them at $81. In the upper level, the 200 sections, they go $50 between and $31 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). 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 under $700, but your flight will probably not be nonstop. 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 $414 round-trip, although it can be dropped to $344 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.

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 10:03 PM. From there, 730 Transfer Road, you’d have to take the Number 16 or 50 bus to downtown Minneapolis. And it’s $368 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 NHL Wild (2000) and the departed NHL North Stars (1967-1993) and the WHA Fighting Saints (1972-1977), the Timberwolves (1989) are called "Minnesota," because they didn't want to slight either one of the "Twin Cities." The previous NBA team, the Minneapolis Lakers (1947-1960), took the name of their host city.

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. Separated from Target Field by I-394 and 2nd Avenue, the Target Center -- the discount store chain is headquartered in Minneapolis -- has been home to the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves since the 1990-91 season, its 2nd.
The official address is 600 First Avenue North, and the arena is also bounded by 6th and 7th Streets and Rod Carew Drive, downtown. The Blue and Green Lines on the light rail stop at Warehouse Hennepin Avenue station. From there, it's a 2-block walk to the arena down 5th Street and 1st Avenue. If you drive in, parking can be had for as little as $5.00.

The court is laid out northeast-to-southwest. 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. The T-Wolves, however, 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.
Food. Considering that Minnesota is Big Ten Country, you would expect their basketball arena to have lots of good food, in particular that Midwest staple, the sausage. They don't disappoint. Delaware North runs the concessions.

District Dogs (hot dogs) and Corner Creamery stands are at each corner of the lower level of the arena. District Dogs can be found in the upper level at Sections 205, 209, 229, 233 and 237; Corner Creamery, at 209 and 233.

Big Red's BBQ is at 104, Eastside Grill at 109 and 211, Hoops & Hops (mostly bratwurst & beer) at 111, State Fare at 113, Loco Lobos (Mexican food) at 126, 133 and 213, Westside Grill at 129 and 231, Lotsa Mozza Pizza at 131, Full Court Press at 136, and Southside Grill at 225. (There is no Northside Grill.)

Team History Displays. As 1 of the NBA's 4 newest teams, you would expect the T-Wolves to not have many championship banners. There is 1, for the 2004 Midwest Division title. And the only photo of it I could find on the Internet came with photos of the WNBA banners won by the Lynx: The league titles of 2011, '13 and '15, and the conference title of 2012.
Nor could I find a picture of their retired number banners. They only have 1 of those, too, the Number 2 of forward Malik Sealy, whom some of you will remember from playing in New York, for Tolentine High School in The Bronx and St. John's University in Queens. He played for the Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons, and was in his 1st season with the T-Wolves -- where Kevin Garnett was already wearing the Number 21 Sealy had worn throughout his career, so he switched to 2 -- when he was killed at age 30 by a drunk driver.
Presumably, when he retires as a player, Garnett's 21 will also go up in the rafters. It would also not surprise me to see a tribute of some kind to the late Flip Saunders, still the only coach to guide them into the Playoffs.

No player who has ever played for the T-Wolves has yet been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, although Kevin McHale was already in it for what he did as a Boston Celtics player while he was their head coach and general manager. Nor did they have anyone chosen for the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

Stuff. The Timberwolves and Lynx Pro Shop is on the Skyway Level of the Target Center. You can find the usual team stuff there.

As a relatively new teams (among NBA teams, only the Toronto Raptors, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Charlotte Bobcats/new Hornets were founded more recently), there aren't many books about the Timberwolves. Pete Birle wrote their entry in the NBA's On the Hardwood series in 2013 and Nate LeBoutillier their entry in The NBA: A History of Hoops in 2015. No titles, no luck when it comes to team videos: Anything you could find on Garnett would probably focus on his Celtics days.

During the Game. Because of their Midwest/Heartland image, Timberwolves like a “family atmosphere.” Therefore, while they don’t like the Chicago Bulls or the Milwaukee Bucks (regional rivals) or the Los Angeles Lakers (the former Minneapolis team, stolen from them), they don't have any special animus for the Knicks or the Nets.

The T-Wolves hold auditions to sing the National Anthem, as opposed to having a regular singer. A group called Power Surge recorded a theme song for them, "Roll With It" (not to be confused with the Steve Winwood song of the same title). Their mascot is Crunch the Wolf. He was named NBA Mascot of the Year in 2012. He wears Number 00 and, like the Phoenix Gorilla and some other NBA mascosts, performs stunt dunks.
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, Hubert's Sports Bar & Grill, named for Minnesota's most famous politician, is in the arena. O'Donovan's Irish Pub, in Minneapolis at 700 1st Avenue North at 7th St., right across from the arena, and is said to cater to football Giants fans. Kieran's Irish Pub is at 85 N. 6th Street, a block from the arena. Cowboy Jack's is at 126 N. 5th Street, and many others are within a 2-block walk. Jet fans are said to go to the Lyndale Tap House, at 2937 Lyndale Avenue South, but that's 2 1/2 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis. Number 4 bus.

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 Minneapolis Millers and the St. Paul 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, the NFL’s Vikings from 1982 to 2013, and the Timberwolves in their 1st season, 1989-90 -- they got over 46,000 fans in there for a game -- 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.

* Xcel Energy Center. Home to the NHL's Wild since it opened in 2000, 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."

"The X" 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.

* 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, and 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 than their current names.)

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.

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 has been admitted to Major League Soccer, though it hasn't yet been decided whether it will be for 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 in his Ralph Kramden bus driver's uniform outside Port Authority, Henry Winkler (a statue known as The Bronze Fonz) in Milwaukee, Bob Newhart in Chicago, Andy Griffith and Ron Howard with their fishing poles in Raleigh, Elizabeth Montgomery in Salem, Massachusetts and Elvis in Honolulu. However, the show had no location shots in Minneapolis, aside from the iconic opening montage.

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, within the fictional universe of the show, 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 at Iowa. 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 new 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!”

From what I understand, Minneapolis and St. Paul are still terrific cities, including for sports. A Knicks or Nets fan should definitely take in a game against the Timberwolves there.

Note: Only 1 of these movies is about sports, although James Bond did some skiing and boat racing, Dirty Harry did have a scene filmed inside San Francisco's Kezar Stadium, Revenge of the Nerds featured a college football coach and his players, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off had one filmed inside Chicago's Wrigley Field.

I'm not talking about movies that were hard to watch at the time. A Clockwork Orange (1971 but taking place in an indeterminate but probably near future), Taxi Driver (1976), Schindler's List (1993 but taking place in the early 1940s), Irreversible (2002), or any number of war or murder movies. We knew those movies were hard immediately. They were planned that way.

I'm talking about movies that we might see long after the fact, and realize, "Hey, that scene I loved back then? That was bad. In fact, I'm not even sure I like this guy anymore." Movies where the people we were supposed to root for may not have deserved it.

These films are listed in chronological order, and their entries, of course, contain spoilers.

1. The Wizard of Oz, 1939. Refresh my memory: Which witch is good, and which witch is wicked? You can't blame Dorothy for killing the Wicked Witch of the East: She didn't cause her house to drop on her, and didn't even realize that witch was dead until the Good Witch of the North showed her. Indeed, Dorothy is as much a victim in all this.

But the Good Witch? She manipulates Dorothy into doing her bidding. And the Wicked Witch of the West? All she wants is the ruby slippers worn by her newly-dead sister, to which, as (as far as we know) her only living relative, she is absolutely entitled. (Granted, we don't know the specifics of Ozian law, but any rational society would say she should get the slippers.) She's got a legitimate gripe.

And yet, she forfeits any claim to moral superiority and our sympathy by trying to have Dorothy and the others (including her little dog, too) killed. Included in this is getting them stoned. "Poppies!" That's right: The Wizard of Oz had a drug reference 3 years after Reefer Madness and 5 years after the Hays Code got serious. They might as well have had the Scarecrow going Justin-to-Janet on Dorothy's dress.

What's more, she's stupid. All she had to do was tell Dorothy, "I'll make ya a deal: Give me the slippers, and I'll send you and your dog home. I'll even give you a magic spell to make that awful Elvira Gulch let you keep the dog." (Elvira and the Wicked Witch were both played by future Maxwell House coffee pitchwoman Margaret Hamilton.) Dorothy could have turned to the Wicked Witch and said, "Deal!" and to the "Good" Witch and said, "Tough luck, bitch, I got mine!" Of course, that would have made it a 20-minute movie, and 20-minute movies went out with the silents.

2. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946, taking place from 1911 to 1945. Is George Bailey a wonderful guy before Clarence the Angel shows him what life would be like if he'd never been born? Sure, he helped people buy and keep their homes during the Great Depression. But...

But he's verbally abusive to his wife, his children, one of his children's teachers, and his uncle. He's willing to let Uncle Billy take the fall for misplacing $8,000 (about $105,000 in today's money), even though George is the one who, legally, goes to prison if charges are filed and successfully prosecuted. He also drives drunk and wrecks a car and a tree. Even in the he-was-never-born fantasy sequence, he punches out a cop. Who also happens to be a real-life friend.

Is this a guy who deserves a happy ending? If the writers of Seinfeld had written it, he would have ended up in prison just like Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine did in the finale.

And here's what gets me: George Bailey knows that Sam Wainwright is his best friend, knows Sam is rich, and knows where Sam can be found. The first thing George should've done is pick up the phone (or send a telegram -- you could do that in those days) to Sam, and explain the problem. Then, that night, he could have shown the return telegram from Sam to the bank examiner, who, knowing Sam's reputation, would accept it, and give George until after the holiday to cash the money order and pay off the $8,000. So not only is George not very

3. Several James Bond movies, 1962 to 2002. Granted, most of the women Agent 007 has sex with are phenomenal. But sometimes he does it without thinking of how it might jeopardize his mission. Indeed, the KGB plot in From Russia With Love (1963) is dependent on Bond getting honey-trapped.

And in Live and Let Die (1973), while, to his credit, he shows he has no problem with an interracial relationship (as he already showed in Japan in You Only Live Twice in 1967), he threatens to kill Rosie Carver if she doesn't tell him what he wants.

Rosie: "But you wouldn't... not after what we just did!"

James: "Well, I certainly wouldn't have killed you before."

By the way, in case anybody who prefers Sean Connery to Roger Moore, thinking Connery is more of a "badass": This Moore line was more badass than anything Connery ever said.

But the biggest problem with the Bond movies isn't the wanton destruction, or the innocent people who are surely accidentally killed or maimed in Bond's chase scenes and shootouts, or the time and effort MI6 (sometimes also the CIA, the KGB, and any other countries' intelligence services) has to put into covering up Double-O-Antics.

It's the women. What happens to them after the finale scene? Every time, the movie suggests to us that Bond and this film's Bond Girl may have found true happiness. The only times previous Bond girls are even referenced -- aside from the brief mentions while Bond is shown packing in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969 -- are when Tracy, whom he marries and then loses to murder at the end of that movie, is brought up.

Seriously: There must have come a day when all of Bond's ex-girlfriends got together -- either on their own, or brought together by some villain -- to gang up on him, a la what happened to Hugh Grant during the 2nd wedding's reception in Four Weddings and a Funeral. We never saw that movie, but I would gladly pay to see it.

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. Let's get the obvious out of the way first: All Stanley Kubrick films are hard to watch, including Dr. Strangelove, his version of Stephen King's The Shining, and the aforementioned film he made of Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange.

2001, based on the science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke, is hard to watch because it's long (2 hours and 41 minutes initially, and the studio forced it to be cut down to 2:22), and Kubrick made it far longer than it should have been with his montages. It's hard to watch because there's instances of several minutes with no dialogue at all. (For crying out loud, at least foreign movies where we have to read subtitles at least have people talking.) And it's hard to watch because of the what-the-hell ending.

But the hardest thing about it is comparing what the film said in 1968 life in 2001 would be like with how it actually was. There were no Pan Am flights from the Earth to orbiting space stations and then on to the Moon. Hell, there was no Pan Am: It ceased operations in 1991. There was no civilian space travel of any kind. Our space program had been stupidly stalled after Apollo 17 (Skylab turned out to be a white elephant), and tragically set back after the Challenger disaster.

What's more, and this is one thing Kubrick never foresaw -- he died in 1999 -- is that 2001 would feature not airliners going to the Moon, but being hijacked and purposely crashed into skyscrapers. For so many of us, hearing the date "2001" will forever remind us of September 11 and the weeks that followed, when it seemed like the furthest thing from anyone's mind was how humanity was about to evolve into a higher form.

5. Dirty Harry, 1971. Long before San Francisco cop Harry Callahan takes too much of a risk with that school bus at the end, look at the beginning: He essentially lets a robbery happen, and then causes a lot of destruction in stopping it. This isn't some rookie patrolman: His rank is Inspector. That's above Officer, Detective, Sergeant, Lieutenant, even Captain. He's an important guy. And this is how he does his job? Harry really is dirty.

And then, at the end, after he's killed the Scorpio Killer, he throws his badge into the reservoir, indicating that he's quitting the force. Except there were 4 more Dirty Harry movies, all the way up to 1988, with The Dead Pool. (Not to be confused with Deadpool, which is disturbing in its own right.)

By which point, Callahan has to be close to the age of mandatory retirement. Clint Eastwood was 40 while filming the 1st one in 1970, and Callahan was an Inspector already. (For comparison's sake: In the final episode of Barney Miller, the title character, a Captain throughout the show's 8 seasons and mentioned as being born in 1930 like Eastwood, is promoted to Inspector at age 52.) If Callahan is the same age as Eastwood, and had actually made Inspector by age 40, then in the last film, he was 58, and still being an action hero. (They mocked Roger Moore for being Bond at 58 in A View to a Kill -- or even 52 in Moonraker.)

So Dirty Harry starts out as a bad cop -- maybe not evil, certainly not corrupt, but not exactly the most competent of badgemen -- and ends as a guy who, to borrow the phrase of Los Angeles Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon movies, is "too old for this shit."

6. Animal House, 1978 but taking place in 1962. Yes, the Omegas and Dean Wormer got what was coming to them. But the Deltas were horrendous drunks, were rotten people even when sober, deserved to get expelled, caused some serious property damage both before and during the Homecoming parade, and one, Pinto, knocks up a 13-year-old. He had no problem having sex with her, because he thought she was 16. Newsflash: It was not"okay in the Sixties."

7. Revenge of the Nerds, 1984. Another misfits vs. establishment frat movie. The Tri-Lambs only got going after Booger remembered he had pot. Putting the video cameras in the Pi house was an invasion of privacy. And Lewis has sex with Betty while he's wearing a mask, letting her think he's Stan. Legally, that's rape.

8. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986. This remains one of my Top 5 favorite movies of all time because it's so much fun. But... Oy vey, where to begin?

Ferris is only a few weeks from the end of the schoolyear, yet decides to burn a 9th sick day of the semester. He lies to his parents about being sick. He ignores his best friend's apparently real illness (which is conveniently forgotten about for the rest of the film). And he lets the girl he loves think that her grandmother has died. (Look at her face: It's not until she sees him in the disguise in front of the Ferrari that she realizes it's a ruse and that Grandma is alive.) And they both forgive him.

All that, before they even get out of Shermer. Granted, Ed Rooney wasn't exactly heroic in his pursuit of Ferris, but he was doing his job. Ferris' maneuvers include cheating a man out of a restaurant reservation, hijacking a parade (and instead of arresting him, the cops dance along to his songs), wrecking a priceless rare antique car (okay, it was Cameron who did that, but Ferris put him in that position), and leading to his sister getting arrested. And, for all we know, that "little chat" that Cameron said he was going to have with his father over the wrecked Ferrari (not to mention the shattered window in the garage) may have gotten Cameron beaten by his father, or even kicked out of the house.

At least he didn't wreck the parade, like the '62 Deltas did.

9. Field of Dreams, 1989. We want to believe in the magic of this film. This allows us a tremendous amount of suspension of disbelief, from the ghosts to the time-traveling, from Mark doing a complete 180 on letting Ray keep the ballfield to people in the 1980s willingly driving to Middle of Nowhere, Iowa and paying $20 to watch a baseball game that doesn't count in any standings.. I'm not going to criticize any of that on this occasion. But...

First, Ray Kinsella jokes about kidnapping famous but reclusive author Terence Mann. Then, he (sort of) actually does it. Kidnapping is a federal crime. Furthermore, all those people paying to see ghost baseball? Ray could be prosecuted for fraud.

Speaking of "Ease his pain... " Released just 6 weeks after Field of Dreams was...

10. Dead Poets Society, 1989 but taking place in 1959. Immediately, the film was hard to watch because the school was not held accountable for Neil's suicide and the way it treated Neil's classmates and Mr. Keating.

What makes the film hard to watch now is knowing that Mr. Keating's portrayer, Robin Williams, later committed suicide himself, because even one of the most successful careers in entertainment history, which Neil never got the chance to try for, couldn't ease his pain.

George Washington was said by a contemporary, General Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, to have been "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

But the Washington Senators were a historically bad baseball team, said to have been "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League."

From the 1901 foundation of the AL until 1960, only 18 times out of 60 did the Senators finish with a record of .500 or better. Only 14 times did they finish as high as 3rd in the AL. Only 6 times did they finish within 7 games of 1st place. They won Pennants in 1924, 1925 and 1933, but 1924 remains the only World Series won by a Washington baseball team. After the 1933 Pennant, only once in 27 years did they even get within 13 games of the Pennant: In 1945, they finished a game and a half out.

The Senators were so identified with losing that, in 1954, Douglas Wallop made them the protagonists of his novel, titled The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. The St. Louis Browns had already moved to Baltimore, but, for 1 more season, the Athletics would still be in Philadelphia. He also could have used a fictional team in a city that didn't yet have a big-league ballclub. Or he could have used the Brooklyn Dodgers and had them beat the Yankees in the World Series, which didn't happen in real life until 1955.

It was a retelling of the Faust legend: In 1958, a frustrated middle-aged Senators fan named Joe Boyd says he'd sell his soul to the Devil if it meant that the Senators would win the Pennant. The Devil shows up, and takes him up on the offer, turning him into powerful young slugger Joe Hardy, who arrives in Washington and sparks the Senators on a run. (It may have been influenced by Bernard Malamud's The Natural: His story of mysterious slugger Roy Hobbs came out 2 years earlier. And both players were power-hitting right fielders.) Spoiler alert: Just when it all seems to be going wrong, the tables get turned, and the Senators win the Pennant anyway.

Ironically, in 1954, for the 1st time since 1948, the Yankees did lose the Pennant. In 1955, the novel was turned into a Broadway musical, titled Damn Yankees. In 1958, it was filmed. It came very close to violating the Hays Code that censored movies at the time: Not only was "damn" considered a profanity (Gone With the Wind got in trouble for having Clark Gable say, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," but since the line was in the book, it was kept for the film), and a song-and-dance number shows men copying a chorus line, including doing high kicks, while wearing only towels.

In real life, Clark Griffith owned the Senators in part starting in 1912, and in a controlling interest from 1919, until his death in 1955. He was a former player, legitimately a Hall-of-Famer based on his pitching, but was essentially elected for his role in founding the American League. His street cred as a great pitcher lent status to the fledgling League, convincing several players to jump from the National League. He was the 1st manager of the Chicago White Sox, won the League's 1st Pennant in 1901, then in 1903 became the manager of the New York Highlanders, pieced together from the remnants of the dissolved Baltimore Orioles, and nearly got them to the Pennant in 1904, and to another 2nd place finish in 1906, before retiring as a player and being fired as manager. That team, of course, became the Yankees.

"The Old Fox" had no income aside from the Senators, the ballpark he renamed Griffith Stadium, and his Montana ranch. He had to run the team on a shoestring. If not for mortgaging his ranch and receiving rent from the NFL's Washington Redskins, he would have been wiped out.

In spite of his childhood in segregated Missouri, Griffith had no problem integrating his team. Unlike his tenant, George Preston Marshall, who kept the Redskins as the last all-white team in American professional sports (not counting the mostly-Canadian, and thus mostly-white, NHL), he was willing to add black players, and had already been a pioneer in Latin America by adding white Cubans, eventually adding black ones, too.

Griffith died in 1955. He had no children, but had raised 4 nephews and 2 nieces as his own. One of the nieces, Mildred Robertson, married Joe Cronin, who was the shortstop and manager of the 1933 Pennant-winning Senators. When Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey offered Griffith a bundle to take Cronin as shortstop and manager, Griffith, cash-short as always, could not resist.

Yawkey's friendship with Cronin meant that Griffith couldn't lure him back as his heir as Red Sox owner. The conflict of interest also prevented Mildred from being heir, and women in sports leadership roles were frowned upon then, anyway. This is why the other niece, Thelma Griffith Haynes (who, like Mildred, married a Senators player, pitcher Joe Haynes), wasn't made the heir. One of the nephews, Sherry Robertson, was a Senators player and coach, and 2 others, Jimmy and Billy, were minor executives, but none was trusted as the heir.

That left the oldest of the nephews as heir: Calvin Griffith, who took his uncle's family name. He made Thelma the club treasurer, and she gave him her vote on all matters of importance, thus giving him control of 52 percent of club ownership.

By the time teams started moving to other cities in the 1950s, the Senators were a target for minor-league cities looking to move up. In 1958, Calvin Griffith publicly promised he would never move the Senators. Two years later, he broke that promise, moving to the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis-St. Paul, becoming the Minnesota Twins.

The timing turned out great for Minnesota, and lousy for Washington. By their 2nd season, 1962, the Twins finished 2nd in the AL. In 1965, they won the Pennant. They came close again in 1967, and when Divisional Play began, they won the AL Western Division in 1969 and 1970. Meanwhile, the replacement team the AL put in Washington, also named the Senators, was, as is typical for expansion teams, terrible, and didn't have a winning season until 1969, and moved after the 1971 season to become the Texas Rangers.

But the Twins declined, because, like his uncle, Griffith wouldn't spend on the team. This time, though, it wasn't out of necessity. It was by choice.

Walleyes are a popular fish in Minnesota. So much so that Griffith successfully appealed to the AL to always have the Twins be scheduled for a roadtrip on the 2nd weekend of May, which is the start of the walleye fishing season. Griffith was so cheap, a joke made the rounds that he would go out that weekend, catch his legal limit, then take them to the supermarket, and trade them for a year's supply of Mrs. Paul's fish sticks.

He didn't put up with dissent. This, more than a late-season fight with one of his players, is why Billy Martin, despite winning the AL West in 1969, his 1st season as a big-league manager, was fired right thereafter. And when start players such as Tony Oliva and Rod Carew demanded more money, they were marginalized.
In 1978, was a featured guest at a Lions Club dinner in the Minneapolis suburb of Waseca. And he told them this:

I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ballgames, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here. 

This is in contrast to Washington: Aside from federal government employees, the District of Columbia's residents had already become majority-black by the time Griffith inherited the team in 1955. Indeed, the site of Griffith Stadium is now occupied by Howard University Hospital, the medical center and medical school, of the leading "historically black college" in America, a.k.a. "the Black Harvard." Not only was the neighborhood around Griffith Stadium almost totally black by 1955, but that around the site of the planned new stadium, the one opened in 1961 as District of Columbia Stadium and known since 1969 as Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, was also mostly black. And, to Griffith, that meant poverty and crime, affecting the mostly-white Senators fans.

After more than a generation of failures for the old Senators, 11 years of it for the new Senators, an interregnum of more than a third of a century, and now the slow climb and postseason failures of the Nationals, Washington, D.C, still hasn't won a Pennant, in either League, since 1933, or a World Series since 1924.

When Carew heard that Griffith had said what he said at the Lions Club dinner, he said he would never play for him again. Before the 1979 season, he was traded.

In 1984, fed up with the rising costs of running a Major League Baseball team, Griffith sold the Twins to Carl Pohlad, a billionaire financier -- who still ran the team very cheaply, but spent enough to win the World Series in 1987 and 1991.

Griffith died in 1999, and, today, a statue of him stands outside Target Field, home of the Twins since 2010. The statue is warranted, as, technically, he's the father of the franchise. On the other hand, he was a racist asshole. So it's a bit poetic that the statue is bronze, and thus very dark.

It could be argued that Griffith screwed over both D.C. and Minnesota. After all, not only did D.C. get the short end of the stick, but Minnesota fans had to sit through 21 years of cold Aprils outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium, and then had to endure the Metrodome, one of the worst stadiums ever to host big-league baseball. And, let's not forget, the team didn't win a World Series throughout his ownership, in either place, 1956 to 1984.

And, considering they had a new stadium -- 2, in fact, 1 in suburban Bloomington for the Minneapolis Millers and 1 in St. Paul for the St. Paul Saints -- the Twin Cities were going to get a major league team whether the Senators moved there or not. So we can't say, "Minnesota wouldn't have gotten a Major League Baseball team if not for Calvin Griffith."

But this isn't about whether he was a good guy. (He wasn't.) Or even about whether he was a good owner. (He wasn't.) It's about whether the move was the right idea. (Even if he publicly gave an evil reason for it.) Was moving the Senators, and moving them to Minnesota, justified, for non-racist reasons? Let's find out: You've heard the case for the prosecution. Here's the case for the defense:

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Washington Senators for Moving to Minnesota

5. Ballparks. What became known as Griffith Stadium opened in 1911, on the site of the Senators' 1st home, which burned down early that year. (The same thing happened with the Polo Grounds in New York that year.) The new stadium was built in concrete and steel, and by Opening Day -- only a month after the fire -- 16,000 seats were ready and filled by fans, among them President William Howard Taft. (In a retroactive irony, considering Calvin Griffith, the stadium was built mostly by black construction workers.)

Construction was declared complete in late July. The stadium was expanded in 1924, just in time for their World Championship season. This expansion gave the double decks down the baseline a greater height than those behind home plate. This, plus the angling of the center field fence around a tree, resulted in a very strange look for the stadium.
Even with a bleacher section in front of the left field wall, in addition to the one behind it, for football, the stadium's capacity topped out at around 35,000. (Redskin fans complaining about RFK Stadium having just 56,000 fans, and wondering when they'd get a larger stadium, forgot that RFK was the larger stadium.) For baseball, Griffith Stadium's capacity was 27,410, lowest in the major leagues after the Cleveland Indians stopped playing home games in 21,000-seat League Park after 1946 and moved all their games into the 85,000-seat Municipal Stadium.

In contrast, in 1956, Metropolitan Stadium opened -- advertised as equidistant from the downtowns of both Minneapolis and St. Paul, thus appealing to both cities -- with 18,000 seats. By 1960, it had been expanded to 30,000 seats, with potential for more. (It was 40,000 by the 1965 Pennant season and 45,914 for the Playoff season of 1970. But it never seated more than 48,446 for football, which, combine with Minnesota's cold weather, led to the building of the Metrodome.)

The Met also had a weird look: One deck along the 3rd base line and in center and right field, two decks down the 1st base line and in left field, and three decks behind home plate. Somebody said it looked like an Erector set a kid was playing with, and then his mother called him away to dinner, and he never finished it.

The D.C. government, then under the control of the federal government, wouldn't build the Senators a new ballpark. But the federal government was willing to, and did build D.C. Stadium, which originally seated 43,500 for baseball and would peak at 45,596.

But it wouldn't be ready for baseball until April 1962 (it was ready for football in October 1961), and so Griffith needed a more appropriate stadium as soon as possible. Minnesota had one. It also had a real hunger for the majors, as you'll see next.

4. The Twin Cities. The Minneapolis Millers and the St. Paul Saints battled it out for local, and American Association, supremacy throughout the 1st 6 decades of the 20th Century. The Miller won 10 Pennants, in 1896, 1910, ’11, ’12, ’15, ’32, ’35, ’55, ’58 and ’59. The Saints won 2, in 1924 and ’48.

The Millers were a Boston Red Sox farm team in 1938, so Ted Williams played for them. They were a New York Giants farm team in 1951, so they became Willie Mays' last team before reaching the majors. Other Millers who went on to major league success include Roger Bresnahan, Jimmy Collins, Gavvy Cravath, Red Faber, Zack Wheat, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bill White, Orlando Cepeda, Felipe Alou and Carl Yastrzemski. (They were again a Red Sox farm team when the Twins arrived.) Great players for the Saints included Ginger Beaumont, Lefty Gomez, Duke Snider and Roy Campanella.

In addition to their natural geographical rivalry, for a time, the Millers were a farm team of the Giants, and the Saints of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Giant-Dodger rivalry also came into play.

Minnesota wanted major league ball very badly. They almost got it for the 1958 season: As the Millers' parent club, and wanting to get out of the Polo Grounds and its deteriorating Washington Heights neighborhood, the Giants decided in 1957 to move to Minneapolis and Metropolitan Stadium. But Dodger owner Walter O'Malley decided to move to Los Angeles, and talked Giant owner Horace Stoneham into going to San Francisco instead. (This also explained the Giants giving up the Millers as their top farm club.)

The Twins came in for the 1961 season, and, despite the team being in what turned out to be the last year noncontention, attendance went up from 9,655 per home game in the last Washington season to 15,611, over 2,000 more than they had ever gotten in Washington. (They peaked at 13,254 in the baseball-hungry 1st season after World War II, 1946.)

And the fan bases of the Millers and the Saints came together to root for one team, just as the Giant and Dodger fan bases would soon do for the Mets. Indeed, the original Twins logo, revived at Target Field, reflects this. Note the M and StP monograms as they reach across the river to form a human bridge.
And while the Minneapolis Lakers got moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1960, the NFL brought the Land of Lakes into the fold with the Minnesota Vikings in 1961. And the NHL's 1967 expansion included the Minnesota North Stars. Both the ABA and the WHA would put teams in Minnesota, and it was the problems with the leagues, not the Twin Cities market, that doomed those teams. No, if you were an MLB team owner in the 1950s, and you wanted to move, Minneapolis-St. Paul was a great place to go.

3. The Baltimore Orioles. It's only 40 miles between the sites of Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and Griffith Stadium in Washington. The arrival of the O's in 1954 ate up a lot of the Senators' support in the suburbs of Maryland.

It wasn't just the difference in talent that emerged in the 1960s, with the O's becoming contenders in 1960, coming close to the Pennant in 1964, winning the whole thing in 1966 and 1970 and also winning Pennants in 1969 and 1971. In the 18 seasons from the Orioles' arrival in 1954, as very much still an extension of the sad-sack Browns, until the Senators left in 1971, there was never a season in which Washington topped Baltimore in per-game attendance.

And while the Orioles had a more modern stadium with a serious advantage in parking from 1954 to 1961, the last season of Griffith Stadium, that advantage was more than wiped out by Opening Day 1962: D.C. Stadium has more parking. And the neighborhood advantage was also eliminated: People talk about how bad the neighborhood around RFK Stadium is, but it's never been as bad as was faced at Yankee Stadium, or Comiskey Park in Chicago, or Tiger Stadium in Detroit were in those stadiums' last few decades. And it's not like there isn't a ghetto between downtown Baltimore and Memorial Stadium.

It also didn't help that the Orioles and the Senators were in the same league. With the former exception of New York, which had 3 teams from 1903 to 1957, every other 2-team city had their teams split between the Leagues: Boston (1901-1952), St. Louis (1902-1953), Philadelphia (1901-1954), Chicago (1901-present), Los Angeles (1961-present), New York (1962-present), San Francisco/Oakland (1968-present). Even in different cities in the same State, it worked out that way: Ohio (1901-present), Missouri (1955-67 and 1969-present), Florida (1998-present), Texas (1972-2013). Until the Houston Astros got bumped over to the American League in 2014, Pennsylvania was the only exception among 2-team States. (California, of course, has 5 teams: 3 in the NL, 2 in the AL.)

But when the Orioles arrived in 1954, from then until 1971, there were 2 teams in the same League within 40 miles. Had they been in different Leagues, as the O's and Nats have been since 2005, fans could see American League games and players in Baltimore, and National League games and players in Washington.

Just as Orioles owner Peter Angelos stood in the way of an expansion or moved team in Washington in the 1990s, claiming he would lose 1/4 of his fan base if that happened, Calvin Griffith knew in the latter half of the 1950s that a lot of Marylanders were going to Baltimore instead of Washington to get their baseball. And the newly-arrived Orioles weren't going anywhere. So the old Senators had to go.

As it turned out, Angelos was wrong: The Orioles' attendance took a nosedive in 2002, 3 years before the Nationals arrived. Why? Because 2001 was Cal Ripken's last year. The loyalty of a lot of fans, both in the Baltimore area and the Washington area, was to him, not to the Orange & Black. Once Cal retired, not nearly as many fans started coming up from Prince Georges County, the District, or Virginia to see the Orioles, who no longer provided either Cal or winning baseball. Maybe that's why Angelos dropped his objection when Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the Montreal Expos were being moved to Washington: He knew his best excuse had been exposed as a bad guess.

2. They Were Immediately Replaced. The American League, under pressure from the politicians who wanted easy access to baseball, added an expansion team to Washington, along with the Los Angeles Angels, for the 1961 season. So it's not like Washington was without baseball, however bad. (The "New Senators" were so bad that, as the Vietnam War escalated and D.C. became a cauldron of protest, they were called "last in war, last in peace, and last in the American League.")

No, Washington still had a baseball team. Until 1971. And you can't blame Calvin Griffith for that move:

1. Washington, D.C. It simply wasn't a good baseball town at the time. Essentially, there were 2 things that mattered in D.C.: The federal government and the Redskins. President Richard Nixon said, "All anybody in Washington cares about is the Redskins. They don't give a damn about the Smithsonian or the Kennedy Center." (And that wasn't just sour grapes over losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.)

The fans who tended to show up, first at Griffith Stadium, and then at D.C./RFK Stadium, were middle-class federal government employees, who came from all over the country. Even when they did go to games, it was usually to root for their hometown teams. A Congressional aide from Chicago going to see the Senators play the Chicago White Sox was going to root for the White Sox. An Army Lieutenant from New Hampshire, working at the Pentagon, getting an evening's pass would go to the ballpark and root for the Boston Red Sox to beat the Senators.

When Bob Short -- who, oddly enough, was also the owner who moved the Lakers out of Minnesota in 1960 -- announced that the new Senators were moving to Dallas after the 1971 season, Congress did not pressure the baseball establishment to get them a new team. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, despite growing up in D.C., did nothing to stop the move. When the final home game was played, only 14,461 fans showed up. (And rioted at the end, blowing a win for the Senators and getting the game forfeited to the Yankees.) And when a deal to move the San Diego Padres to Washington for the 1974 season began to fall apart, neither Kuhn nor Congress stepped in to save it.

It also didn't help that the locations weren't great. It wasn't just that Griffith Stadium and, later, RFK Stadium were built in black neighborhoods. It was that public transportation wasn't great. It wasn't until 1976 that Washington's Metro opened, with the Stadium-Armory stop making it easy to get from anywhere in the metro area to RFK. It wouldn't be until 1991 that the Shaw-Howard University stop opened, providing access to the former location of Griffith Stadium.

It was even worse if you were trying to get to a University of Maryland football or basketball game: The College Park station didn't open until 1993. And Largo Town Center, the Landover station used for the Redskins' new stadium, didn't open until 2004, 7 years after the Bullets/Wizards and Capitals left that area and moved into downtown Washington.

Despite the old Senators/Twins franchise's ups and downs, the worst season the Twins have ever had for per-game attendance, 8,129 in 1974, is still better than they got in 51 of their 60 seasons in Washington. And despite the ups and downs of the new Senators/Rangers, the best per-game attendance they got in their 11 seasons in Washington, 11,335 in 1969, has been topped in all but their 1st 2 seasons in Arlington, Texas. (Not since 1988 have they even gotten below 24,000.)

Today, with the Nationals in town, a relatively new ballpark (Nationals Park opened in 2008), easily accessible via public transportation (the Navy Yard station on the Green Line), a heavily-grown market due to the explosion of the D.C. suburbs in both Maryland and Virginia, a growing white and black middle class, a regional TV network (MASN) to drum up local support, and a promotions arm of Major League Baseball that knows a hell of a lot more of what it's doing than it did in 1960 and 1971, would anyone even think of moving the current MLB team out of Washington? As their biggest current star, Bryce Harper, might say, "That's a clown question, bro." It was not a clown question in 1960 or 1971.

Now, no one would move the Nationals. But can Calvin Griffith -- guilty though he was of racism and cheapness -- be blamed for moving the old Senators to Minnesota in 1960?

VERDICT: Not Guilty.

In 2015, with both teams in Playoff contention most of the way, and good public transportation to both Nationals Park in Washington and the 1992-opened Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, the Nationals averaged 32,343 fans per game; the Orioles, 29,374 -- in each case, better than the O's got in the days in which they drove the new Senators to Texas, and a lot better than the O's got in the days in which they drove the old Senators to Minnesota.

The Honeymooners was centered on Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason). On a few occasions, he mentioned that he'd been driving a bus for 15 or 16 years. Since the show aired in 1955 and '56, that means he started in 1940. It's unlikely he would have been allowed to drive a bus (or "brive a dus," or even "dus a brive") before turning 21.

So, presuming he was 21 in 1940, and got married to Alice Gibson (Audrey Meadows) the next year (they were said to be married for 14 years, and then 15) at 22, if he's still alive (unlikely, given his lifestyle, especially his diet), he'd now be 97 years old. (That would still make him younger than his portrayer: Gleason would have been 100 this year.)

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M*A*S*H really did a number on continuity. I'll spare you the details. But the ages of the characters weren't always clear.

Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) admitted to being 62 years old in an episode that would have taken place in 1952 or '53, but had previously said he lied about his age to enlist in the Army in World War I, which would have made him about 10 years younger.

Major Charles Winchester claimed to be a Harvard University graduate, Class of 1943; this would have made him 31 or 32 in the episode in question. His portrayer, David Ogden Stiers, was 40 at the time, and 35 when the character debuted, so there's no way Charles was just 31 at the time.

But none of the show's surgeons, save for the much older Potter and possibly his predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson), were mentioned as having served in World War II. If they were 31 in 1951 and 32 in 1952, this would give them a birthdate of 1920 -- prime draft age during World War II, but possibly with deferments, as they would have been in college and then medical school, and the Army would certainly have said, "Okay, you can train as doctors, but if the war is still going on when you get out, you're going to be Army doctors." At any rate, if 1920 is reliable as a birthdate, and if they're still alive, they'd be 96 years old.

Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff) was supposedly 19 in 1951, making him 84 now. Yes, Radar is in his 80s.

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Happy Days was set 19 years before the show's episodes aired: 1955 to 1965. Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard), Warren "Potsie" Weber (Anson Williams) and Ralph Malph (Don Most) graduated from Jefferson High School in 1957. This suggests a birthdate of 1938. This makes Richie, Potsie and Ralph 78. (We can presume that Howard's other major character, Opie Taylor, is the same age that he is, since The Andy Griffith Show took place in what was then the present day. So Opie is about to turn 62.)

Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran) and Chachi Arcold (Scott Baio) would be 76, and Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) probably around 82. Da Fonz would not, however, be in a rest home. He would still be too cool for that. And Richie Cunningham Jr. would be 52.

In The Wonder Years, set 20 years before, 1968 to 1973, Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper are said to start out at 12. This means they were born in 1956, and are turning 60 this year.

And on another nostalgia program, That '70s Show, the gang graduates from high school in 1978, giving them a birth year of (or around) 1960. So Eric, Donna and the rest are 56.

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If we presume the "meddling kids" on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? were about 18 when the show first aired in 1969 (certainly, they were old enough to have driver's licenses), that makes them 65 now. Of course, dogs don't usually live past the age of 20 no matter how well you take care of them, and big dogs, such as Great Danes like Scooby, tend not to live as long as smaller dogs.

But if the gang is now 65, I can imagine Fred saying, "Now, where did I put my glasses," and remembering his long-ago dog, and saying, "Well, Scoob, it looks like we've got another mystery on our hands!"

When Gloria Bunker (Sally Struthers) and Mike Stivic (Rob Reiner) met on All In the Family, Mike was in college, and Gloria was probably the same age, maybe a year or two younger. If Mike was 20, and a flashback showed that they met in 1969, then they'd be 67 or so now. (For the record, Reiner is 69, and Struthers is about to be.) Their son Joey Stivic is 40 -- just 8 years younger than Archie was when the show started.

Can you imagine Gloria Bunker and Charles Emerson Winchester III as coming from the same place? Believe it or now, Struthers was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and Stiers spent his teenage years in the same State, in Eugene. (While his real voice is rather refined, it does not have a Boston Brahmin accent.)

The Odd Couple made several mentions of the fact that Felix Unger (Tony Randall) and Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman) served in World War II. Felix had 2 teenaged children, and while Oscar had no children (although he did in the play and movie versions), he did have a niece who was 18, married and having a baby in an episode.

So, when the show aired from 1970 to 1975, they weren't just "two divorced men," they were divorced middle-aged men. Randall was born in 1920, Klugman in 1922 (and both are dead now), although it's possible that both enlisted as early as age 18. But while Felix was in great shape for a man in his 40s, he did have a little gray hair, suggesting that he might have been closer to 50 (as Randall was when the show first aired).

If (as I did for my "obituary" of Oscar a while back, which I wrote after Klugman died), I kept the characters' ages matched up with the actors', if they were now still alive, Felix would be 96, Oscar 94. "Odd"? Say what you want about the way Oscar lived his life, but Jack made it to 90, 6 years older than Tony was when he died!

Barney Miller revealed he was 15 years old on V-E Day, May 8, 1945, so he was born in 1930. So, if he's still alive -- his portrayer Hal Linden is -- he'd be 86.

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Desi Arnaz Jr. was born on January 19, 1953, the same day that the I Love Lucy episode featuring the birth of his analogue, "Little Ricky" Ricardo, aired. This makes Little Ricky 63.

Theodore Cleaver was said to be 7, almost 8, when Leave It to Beaver first aired in 1957. That means he was born in late 1949. His brother Wally was 13, so he as bornin 1944. That makes the Beaver 66 now, and Wally 72.

Dobie Gillis graduated high school in his show's 2nd season, in 1961, meaning he was born in 1943. This makes Dobie 73.

Tabitha Stephens was born in Bewitched's 2nd season, 1966. But in the 1977-78 spinoff series Tabitha, she is said to be in her 20s already. If the 1966 date is correct, she's about to turn 50.

The Brady Bunch kids? The series began in 1969, at which point Greg and Marcia Marcia Marcia were in high school. So they were probably born in 1953, which makes them 63, and their siblings a little younger.

I'd like to think things were better for the characters on Diff'rent Strokes than for their portrayers. Arnold Jackson's birthdate was definitively given as July 19, 1970. Willis Jackson's was April 27, 1965, and Kimberly Drummond's on October 22, 1964. If they managed to avoid the troubles that the actors had, Kimberly is now 51, Willis is just short of that age, and Arnold is 45. And the girls on the spinoff series The Facts of Life were supposedly 13 when that show premiered in 1979, making them now 47.

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Let's move up a bit. From The Cosby Show, based on the ages the kids were at the start, Cliff Huxtable is 78, his wife Claire is 72, Sondra Tibideaux is 51, Denise Kendall is 47, Theo Huxtable is 45, Vanessa Huxtable is 42, and Rudy Huxtable is 36. (This, of course, ignores the fact that we don't know if Vanessa and Rudy got married and, if so, whether they took their husbands' last names like Sondra and Denise did.)

Bob Saget is about to turn 60, so it's same to presume his Full House character, Danny Tanner, is the same age. Dave Coulier is 56, but since his character Joey Gladstone and Danny are supposed to be the same age, Joey is also 60. John Stamos is 52, which makes him 8 years younger than Saget. If we presume Pam, Danny's late wife, was the same age as Danny, that probably makes her brother, Jesse Katsopolis, a couple of years younger, so he's probably now 58. Lori Loughlin, who played Rebecca Donaldson, Danny's TV morning-show co-host and later Jesse's wife, is 51, but there's no reason her character's age couldn't be her own.

As we can now see on Fuller House, D.J., now Donna Jo Tanner-Fuller (taking the Danny role), is 38. Most likely, so is her best friend Kimmy Gibler (taking the Joey role). Sister Stephanie Tanner (taking the Joey role) is 34, and sister Michelle, whom we apparently won't see in Fuller House, is 28. Jesse and Rebecca's twins, Nicky and Alex, are 23. There's some additional characters in the Fuller House cast photo above, but I don't know who they are.

On Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza were said to have graduated from high school in 1971. This suggests they were born in 1953. But real Jerry was actually born in 1954. Regardless, they'd now be 62. I get the idea that Elaine Benes was a little younger, and Cosmo Kramer a little older. Kramer on Social Security? It's possible.

On Mad About You, it was stated that Paul Buchman was born in early 1959, Jamie Stemple Buchman in late 1963, and their daughter Mabel was born in mid-1997. So, today, Paul is 57, Jamie is 52, and Mabel is almost 19. Holy cow, Mabel Buchman is in college.

On Friends, Monica Geller turned 27 in 1995. Rachel Green graduated from high school with her, so they're the same age. Monica met Phoebe Buffay in college, so they're probably the same age. Ross Geller is 2 years older than his sister, and he met Chandler Bing in college, so those 2 are probably the same age. And Joey Tribbiani... we know he turned 30 at some point during the show. Let's presume he's the same age as the ladies. This makes Ross and Chandler 50 sometime this year, and the rest of them 48. Ross' son Ben will turn 21, Ross & Rachel's daughter Emma Geller will be 13, and Monica and Chandler's twins, Erica and Jack Bing, will be 12.

Fast fact that may blow your mind: Ben Geller could legitimately be dating Mabel Buchman.

If we presume the characters on Living Single were the same ages as their portrayers... Well, that won't work, since Kim Coles, who played Synclaire James, is 8 years older than Queen Latifah, who played her cousin Khadijah James. Okay, let's presume they're all around Khadijah's age. Therefore, Khadijah, Synclaire, Regine Hunter (played by Kim Fields, who, of course, also played Tootie Ramsey on The Facts of Life), Maxine Shaw (Erika Alexander), Overton Jones (John Henton) and Kyle Barker (T.C. Carson) are about to turn 46. And the Shaw-Barker baby we never got to see is 18.

Girlfriends was so much of a ripoff of Living Single that Michael Warren -- Sgt. Bobby Hill on Hill Street Blues -- was cast as the fathers of both Khadijah and Tracee Ellis Ross' character Joan Clayton. Joan was born in 1972, Persia White's Lynn Searcy and Jill Marie Jones' Toni Childs in 1971, and Golden Brooks' Maya Wilkes in 1978. So,this year, Lynn and Toni turn 45, Joan 44, Maya 38, Maya's son Jabari 22, and Toni's daughter Morgan is 11.

Atlanta: Greg Maddux. 10 postseason appearances, including 3 Pennants and a World Championship. 3 Cy Young Awards. 6 All-Star berths. A member of the 300 Win and 3,000 Strikeout clubs, and the majority of each stat was in Atlanta. Contrast this with Hank Aaron, who had the most significant part of his career -- statistically, if not culturally -- in Milwaukee.

No Falcon, Hawk, Flame or Thrasher comes close.

Baltimore: Johnny Unitas. Won 3 World Championships, made the Colts an iconic team in American sports (not just in the NFL), almost singlehandedly made the NFL a TV spectacle that day at Yankee Stadium, and not only rewrote the passing section of the NFL record book (though most of his records have been broken), but defined the position of quarterback for everyone who would come after him. If your choice for the greatest quarterback who ever lived is anyone other than Johnny U or Joe Montana, you do not understand the position.

Ahead of Brooks Robinson and Cal Ripken of the Orioles, Ray Lewis of the Ravens and Earl Monroe of the Bullets. (Also ahead of Frank Robinson of the Orioles, whose best years were split between Cincinnati and Baltimore.)

Boston: Bill Russell. 11 NBA Championships. 2 as player-coach. And he revolutionized his sport. Ted Williams of the Red Sox, Tom Brady of the Patriots and Bobby Orr of the Bruins, for all their achievements, can't match that.

Buffalo: Bruce Smith. Ahead of any of the other Bills, including O.J. Simpson, due not to O.J.'s post-football life but rather due to on-field achievements. Ahead of any Sabres, including Gilbert Perrault and Dominik Hasek.

Calgary: Jarome Iginla. True, he didn't win a Stanley Cup with the Flames, but that wasn't his fault (the Flames truly were robbed in 2004). And, unlike most of the 1989 Cup winners, such as Lanny McDonald, Joe Nieuwendyk, Al MacInnis and Mike Vernon, his best years were with the Flames. I rank him ahead of all Stampeders, including Doug Flutie, who won a Grey Cup with them.

Charlotte: Steve Smith. Hard to pick one here, as the Carolina Panthers have only been to 2 Super Bowls and lost them both, and most of the Hornets' good players split their careers with other cities, including Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning. Smith caught over 800 passes for the Panthers, for over 12,000 yards, and it certainly wasn't his fault the Panthers lost Super Bowl XXXVIII to the New England Patriots.

Cam Newton? Check back in a couple of years.

Chicago: Michael Jordan. 6 NBA Championships with the Bulls, MVP of the Finals in all 6. Ernie Banks of the Cubs, Luke Appling of the White Sox, Bobby Hull of the Blackhawks, and any of several running backs and linebackers for the Bears (including Walter Payton and Dick Butkus) can't match that.

Cincinnati: Oscar Robertson. It's easy to forget that Cincy had the Royals in the NBA from 1958 to 1972. In 1961-62, The Big O averaged a triple-double for the entire season, in a league with only 8 other teams, so he was facing better teams than today's players. (This is the same year that Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50 points per game, including the 100-point game.) He held the career records for assists and steals now held by John Stockton. He's still, 42 years after his last game, 1 of the top 5 players of all time.

Ahead of Johnny Bench and any other Red, and ahead of Anthony Munoz and any other Bengal.

Cleveland: Jim Brown. 9 years in the NFL, 8 rushing titles. Retired as the league's all-time leader in rushing yardage, and in touchdowns achieved in any fashion, let alone in rushing. And he continued to hold those records for many years despite the expansion from a 12- to a 14-, then 16-game schedule. Again: Just 9 seasons.

Ahead of fellow Browns legend Otto Graham, Tris Speaker and Bob Feller of the Indians, and LeBron James of the Cavaliers.

Columbus: Rick Nash. Easily the Blue Jackets' all-time leading scorer. But in the history of his current team, the New York Rangers, he remains a footnote. And remember, this is the major leagues only, so none of the many legends of Ohio State football count here.

Dallas: Emmitt Smith. Still the NFL's all-time leading rusher. If he wasn't that good, Troy Aikman reaches no Super Bowls, instead of winning 3. Ahead of fellow Cowboys Bob Lilly, Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett; Rangers Nolan Ryan, Ivan Rodriguez and Josh Hamilton; the Stars' Mike Modano; and Mavericks Rolando Blackmon and Dirk Nowitzki.

Denver: John Elway. The Rockies and the Nuggets have both had some nice players, such as Larry Walker and Dan Issel, respectively. But they've never had the kind of star that Elway was for the Broncos. The Avalanche had Patrick Roy for the 2nd half of his career, and Joe Sakic for most of his, and Peter Forsberg at his best. But the Broncos are the Rocky Mountain region's defining team, and Elway remains their defining player -- not Peyton Manning.

Detroit: Gordie Howe. Still the greatest hockey player ever. Don't tell me it was Gretzky. (Someday, I'll do a post explaining why.) As for other Detroit icons, Howe is ahead of fellow Red Wings Larry Aurie and Steve Yzerman; Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg and Al Kaline of the Tigers; Doak Walker and Barry Sanders of the Lions; and Isiah Thomas of the Pistons.

Edmonton: Wayne Gretzky. True, the Eskimos have won a few Grey Cups, including 5 straight while quarterbacked by the young Warren Moon. But Gretzky not only led the Oilers to their 1st 4 Stanley Cups, he put up goal and assist totals that still make the head spin.

Houston: Hakeem Olajuwon. He led the Rockets to the city's only 2 World Championships in any sport, and that's before you consider he and Clyde Drexler led the University of Houston to 3 NCAA Final Fours. Ahead of Nolan Ryan of the Astros and Earl Campbell of the Oilers. The Texans don't have anyone approaching that level yet, and the aforementioned Gordie Howe wasn't with the WHA's Aeros long enough to be Houston's greatest sports legend.

Indianapolis: Peyton Manning. Kind of an easy choice, as he did win a title there for the Colts, and Reggie Miller didn't win one for the Pacers.

Jacksonville: Fred Taylor. Rushed for over 10,000 yards for the Jaguars.

Kansas City: George Brett. This is complicated by the appearance that the Chiefs, while having had Len Dawson, Willie Lanier and Derrick Thomas, among others, don't have one that stands out above the rest. So we go with the only man to win batting titles in 3 different decades, and is still the face of his franchise, which never reached the postseason without him until October 2014.

Of course, all those stars on the Kansas City Monarchs are there, but the Negro Leagues were about as good at keeping records as England's Premier League is at making sure it has competent referees, so we can't really be sure.

Los Angeles: Magic Johnson. Despite Dodgers like Sandy Koufax; Kings like Marcel Dionne, Gretzky and the current bunch; Marcus Allen and Howie Long during the Raiders' L.A. soujourn; and a few interesting Rams ranging from Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch to Merlin Olsen to Kevin Greene, L.A. is still a Laker town.

Throw in the fact that Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal all arguably spent their best years elsewhere, that Jerry West is now remembered mainly as an executive, and that Kobe Bryant is, well, Kobe Bryant, and it's got to be Magic.

If you count Anaheim separately, it's down to Nolan Ryan of the Angels and Teemu Selanne of the Ducks. Each was the 1st player for his team to get his uniform number retired. Ryan is iconic well beyond Southern California, but Selanne won a Stanley Cup.

Memphis: Pau Gasol. He's now better known as a Laker than as a Grizzly, but who else can we pick? The Grizzlies are, for the moment and for the foreseeable future, the only big-league team that Memphis has. Reggie White was a Memphis Showboat in the USFL for all of 2 seasons, just as long as Larry Csonka was a Memphis Southman in the WFL.

Miami: LeBron James. Surprise, it's not any Dolphin. That early 1970s Dolphin team was so team-oriented that no one player stood out more than the others, and when they did have one that stood out, Dan Marino, they didn't win a Super Bowl. LeBron was in Miami 4 seasons, and the Heat reached the NBA Finals all 4, winning 2 and came pretty close to making it 3. No Marlin or Panther comes close.

Milwaukee: Bart Starr. Yes, I'm counting Green Bay with Milwaukee. While the Braves had the young Hank Aaron, the older Warren Spahn, and the prime Eddie Mathews, and the Brewers had most of Robin Yount and Paul Molitor and the older Rollie Fingers, and the Bucks had the older Oscar Robertson and the young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Packers are still Wisconsin's defining team.

Why Starr, and not Don Hutson, Paul Hornung, Ray Nitschke, Brett Favre, Reggie White or Aaron Rodgers? Because Starr pulled off what is still a unique feat in NFL history: He quarterbacked 5 Championship teams. That's 1 more than Sid Luckman, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. Starr might be the most underappreciated player in NFL history.

If you count Milwaukee separately from Green Bay, it's Hank Aaron. If the Braves had stayed in Milwaukee for Aaron's entire career, then it would be Aaron over Starr even if you did count Green Bay with Milwaukee.

Minneapolis: George Mikan. When he was on the Lakers, from 1947 to 1954 (they moved to Los Angeles in 1960), they won 5 NBA titles. All other Minnesota teams combined have won just 2 (the Twins of Kirby Puckett). No Twin (not Puckett, not Rod Carew, nor Harmon Killebrew), no Viking, no Timberwolf, no Wild layer and no North Star comes close.

Montreal: Maurice Richard. The Rocket was the Wayne Gretzky of his time, rewriting the NHL scoring records, and leading the Canadiens to 8 Stanley Cups. How big was Richard in Quebec? He died the same year as Canada's greatest Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. Their funerals were held at the same Montreal cathedral. Guess which one had more people standing outside. He's ahead of any Expo and any Alouette.

Nashville: Eddie George. Ran for over 10,000 yards, although he didn't quite cross that barrier with the Tennessee Titans, finishing up with the Dallas Cowboys. I don't see any Predator approaching George's level.

New Orleans: Drew Brees. It's hard to pick the best player in Saints history, but he's the only quarterback to lead the Saints to win a Super Bowl. Ahead of Pete Maravich, whose best years in the NBA were in Atlanta, not in New Orleans with the Jazz.

New York: Babe Ruth. It's "greatest athletes," not "most athletic people." Ahead of Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Derek Jeter, and that's just among Yankees. Ahead of Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson and Tom Seaver, and that's just among baseball players. Ahead of Frank Gifford, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Namath, and any other football player. Ahead of Walt Frazier, Patrick Ewing, Julius Erving and Jason Kidd, and any other basketball player. Ahead of Frank Boucher, Rod Gilbert, Mark Messier, Denis Potvin, Scott Stevens, Martin Brodeur, and any other hockey player.

There can be a debate as to who was the greatest player ever in those other sports, but the Babe was the greatest baseball player ever. If you doubt this, show me another player who was the best lefthanded pitcher in baseball and then became the best hitter in baseball. Show me a guy who spent 4 years as Randy Johnson with better hair, and then spent 16 years as Barry Bonds without steroids. Show me where Ty Cobb or Willie Mays or Bonds himself did that, and I'll step aside and say he was better than the Babe. Good luck finding such a player.

If you count New Jersey separately from New York, it's Brodeur, ahead of L.T. If you count Long Island separately from The City, it's Potvin, ahead of Dr. J, who had his most exciting days with the New York Nets, but was probably a better all-around player in Philadelphia.

Oklahoma City: Kevin Durant. In the brief time that the city has had its one and only major league team, the Thunder, he's been their best player, and along with LeBron James and maybe one other player each year, 1 of the top 3 players in the NBA.

Orlando: Shaquille O'Neal. He wasn't with the Magic for long, but he is still their biggest icon, and not just because of his physical size.

Ottawa: Cy Denneny. The all-time leading scorer for the old Senators, winning 4 Stanley Cups with them (the last in 1927, and also in 1929 with the Boston Bruins). 

Philadelphia: Wilt Chamberlain. Yes, he also starred in San Francisco and Los Angeles. But between his individual-record-setting years with the Warriors and his leading of the dominant 76ers team that took the 1967 NBA Championship, it has to be the Big Dipper, who is, over Michael Jordan and everybody else, the greatest basketball player who ever lived.

Ahead of Julius Erving of the 76ers, Chuck Bednarik of the Eagles, Bobby Clarke of the Flyers, Mike Schmidt of the Phillies, and any of the old Philadelphia Athletics.

Phoenix: Randy Johnson. A tough call, as the Big Unit was only with the Arizona Diamondbacks for 5 seasons, but 3 were Playoff seasons including the State's only World Championship thus far. No single player stands out for the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals or Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes.

Pittsburgh: Joe Greene. This is a really tough one. How do you choose one Pirate, between Honus Wagner and Roberto Clemente? How do you choose one Steeler, between Terry Bradshaw, Mean Joe Greene and Jerome Bettis? And once you do get it to one of each, how do you choose between them and Mario Lemieux of the Penguins?

This is how I choose: When you think of Western Pennsylvania, you think of football; when you think of the Steelers, you think of defense; and when you think of Steeler defense, you think of Mean Joe.

Portland: Bill Walton. Due to injuries, he hardly played for the Portland Trail Blazers. But for a year, from March 1977 until March 1978, he was not only healthy, but played the position of center about as well as it has ever been played in the era after Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, leading the Blazers to the NBA Championship.

His coach, Dr. Jack Ramsay -- who coached Chamberlain in Philadelphia -- said the night of the clinching, "I've never coached a better player, I've never coached a better competitor, and I've never coached a better person than Bill Walton." If it's good enough for Dr. Jack, one of the best basketball minds ever, it's good enough for me.

Raleigh: Eric Staal. If you combine the Carolina Hurricanes with their earlier incarnation as the Hartford Whalers, it's Ron Francis. But this is about individual cities, and Staal is their greatest player in Raleigh.

Sacramento: Mitch Richmond. In the long history of the team now known as the Sacramento Kings, he's probably their greatest player in their Sacramento years.

St. Louis: Stan Musial. The Rams weren't in St. Louis long enough to put up a serious challenger (not even the superb and versatile Marshall Faulk), nor were the football Cardinals before they moved to Arizona (not even the tough-as-nails safety Larry Wilson), nor were the NBA's Hawks before they moved to Atlanta (not even the original power forward, Bob Pettit).

The baseball Cards will always be The Team in St. Louis, and, while they've had icons such as Rogers Hornsby, Dizzy Dean, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols, there is one that tops them all. With 4 Pennants, 3 World Championships, 3,630 hits and 24 All-Star berths, after his death, and over half a century after his final game, Stan remains The Man.

Salt Lake City: Karl Malone. A close call over his Jazz teammate John Stockton, who holds the NBA career records for assists and steals. But Malone, along with Charles Barkley, defined the position of power forward for everyone who came after.

San Antonio: Tim Duncan. Since the city has just the 1 team, the Spurs, and he's been there for all 5 of their NBA Championships, he's an easy choice.

San Diego: Tony Gwynn. Beyond his cultural importance, meaning he saved Major League Baseball in the city by leading the 1998 Pennant that got the ballot initiative to build Petco Park approved, he collected over 3,000 hits and won 8 batting titles. Maybe if Dave Winfield had stayed, it would have been him. But no other Padre, no Charger, and certainly no one from the Clippers' brief tenure in San Diego (1978-84) can match him.

San Francisco Bay Area: Joe Montana. The greatest quarterback ever, unless you still think it was Unitas (which is understandable). 4-for-4 in Super Bowls. Ahead of his 49er teammate Jerry Rice (by far the greatest receiver ever), Willie Mays of the Giants (whose most iconic years were in New York, if not his best ones), and any players from the Oakland teams (it doesn't help that the A's always seem to break up their good teams too soon) and the San Jose Sharks.

If you count Oakland separately, I suggest Rickey Henderson, ahead of Reggie Jackson, any other Athletics, any Raiders, or any Warriors. But at the rate Stephen Curry is going with the Warriors, we may have to rethink that in a couple of years.

If you count San Jose separately, well, they haven't got any Stanley Cup winners, and the 3 players they've had who are now in the Hall of Fame played a grand total of 5 seasons in San Jose. So I'm going to go with their only MVP, who will soon be their all-time leading scorer: Joe Thornton.

Seattle: Ken Griffey Jr. True, he only played the 1st half of his career (and a little at the end) for the Mariners, but who else are you going to pick? If Russell Wilson leads the Seahawks to another Super Bowl win, we'll have another legitimate candidate. But I can't pick any other Mariner over Junior, nor any other Seahawk, nor any SuperSonic.

Tampa Bay: Warren Sapp. Can't pick any other Buccaneer, or any member of the Rays or Lightning.

Toronto: Frank Mahovlich. The biggest star on the Maple Leafs' last 4 Stanley Cup winners, there's no Blue Jay, no Argonaut, and no Raptor who comes close.

Vancouver: Fred Taylor. Nicknamed Cyclone, and obviously no relation to the Fred Taylor I selected for Jacksonville, he led the Vancouver Millionaires to the city's only Stanley Cup win, in 1915. Yes, Vancouver won the Cup, but it was over 100 years ago. He had previously won the Cup in 1909 with Ottawa.

He's ahead of any Canuck, any member of the CFL's British Columbia Lions, and ahead of anyone with the Grizzlies in their 6 years as a Vancouver-based expansion team before moving to Memphis.

Washington: Sammy Baugh. This was a tough choice over Walter Johnson of the Senators, who might have been the greatest pitcher ever. But Slingin' Sam might have been the greatest all-around player in NFL history. Not only did he lead the Redskins to 5 NFL Championship Games, winning 2, but he showed the pro game what throwing the football could do. He was Unitas at a time when Unitas was a preschooler, Montana before Montana was born.

But the greatest argument for Baugh? In 1943, he led the NFL in passing yards, and interceptions made by a defensive player, and punting yardage. All in one season. Think about that: In his day, he was Peyton Manning, Richard Sherman and Shane Lechler all at the same time.

He's ahead of any Washington baseball player (even Johnson and Josh Gibson), any Washington hockey player (even Alexander Ovechkin), and any Washington basketball player (don't tell me that Michael Jordan, he was over the hill was a Wizard).

Winnipeg: Bobby Hull. Winnipeg hasn't won the Stanley Cup since the 1902 Victorias (that's even longer than Vancouver and Ottawa), but the Golden Jet -- the man for whom the WHA franchise was named -- led the original Winnipeg Jets to 4 AVCO Cup (WHA Finals), winning 3.

He might have been better with the Blackhawks, and certainly played against a lesser standard in the WHA, but he's ahead of any pioneer Winnipeg hockey player, and anyone from the CFL's Blue Bombers.

In 1953, the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee. At first, the move paid off spectacularly well. In every season from 1953 to 1958, they led both major leagues in attendance. In 1953, '54 and '57, they set National League attendance records.

They were successful on the field, too. In 1953, boosted by this newfound home-field advantage and a farm system that began paying off, they rose to 2nd place, winning 92 games, albeit 13 games behind the Pennant-winning Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1954, they won 89 and finished 3rd. In 1955, they finished 2nd again. In 1955, they finished 2nd again, although, again, the Dodgers won the Pennant by 13 games. In 1956, they came within 1 game of the NL Pennant, again finishing 2nd to the Dodgers.

In 1957, they won the Pennant,  and won the World Series, too, beating the Yankees. In 1958, they won another Pennant, losing the Series to the Yankees in 7 games. In 1959, they tied the now-Los Angeles Dodgers for the Pennant, losing a Playoff. In 1960, they finished 2nd. In 1964, they finished 5th, but only 5 games out of 1st place.

They had a winning record every year they were in Milwaukee -- 13 straight years, as many winning records as they had in their last 50 seasons in Boston. They seemed to be the very model of a successful baseball franchise, both on the field and at the box office.

After the 1965 season, they moved to Atlanta. What happened?

The Braves leaving Boston made sense. Moving to Milwaukee made sense. But leaving Milwaukee didn't seem to make sense. And moving to Atlanta seemed to make no sense, either: While they topped 17,000 in per-game attendance in 3 of their 1st 4 seasons in Atlanta, they didn't do so again until 1982. That year, 1983 and 1984 were the only 3 of their 1st 25 seasons in Atlanta that topped the 20,000 mark, which they beat in 7 of their 13 Milwaukee seasons. While the South liked baseball, did then and does now, football was the big game there, always has been, and always will be.

And remember: At the time, the Braves weren't sharing Milwaukee. There was no NBA team in town after the Hawks moved to St. Louis in 1955, and the expansion Bucks wouldn't arrive until 1968. There has never been an NHL (or even a WHA) team in Milwaukee. The Green Bay Packers were 117 miles away. That's a 2-hour drive. When it came to the NFL, the Chicago Bears, the Packers' arch-rivals, were actually closer, 96 miles. Marquette University basketball wasn't yet a big deal, and the closest major team in college football, the University of Wisconsin, was 80 miles away. There was nothing to distract you from baseball.

In contrast, Atlanta got the NFL's Falcons at the same time as the Braves, and this was already announced in June 1965. There was also Georgia Tech football in Atlanta.

And while Milwaukee County Stadium was designed for baseball, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was a multipurpose facility, designed to host both baseball and football, and it didn't do a good job with either one, so much so that, by 1997, both the Braves and the Falcons had gotten new stadiums and their 1st home was demolished. (That process is well underway again: In 2017, both teams will abandon their still relatively new stadiums for brand-new ones. Atlanta is a lousy sports town.)

The Braves leaving Milwaukee? Despite being a winning team? And moving to Atlanta? It didn't seem to make sense. Why would such a successful and popular baseball team move? And why there?

The case for the plaintiff seems ridiculous. Can the defense make a case that outweighs it? (Remember: This is a civil case, where a preponderance of the evidence matters, not the elimination of all reasonable doubt.)

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame the Milwaukee Braves for Moving to Atlanta

First, let me do some reasons that didn't make the cut: The Best of the Rest.

Beer. The stuff that made Milwaukee famous. Milwaukee wasn't quite a single-industry town in the 1950s and 1960s, but brewing dominated them as much as the auto industry dominated Detroit and the steel industry dominated Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

And breweries are good to their employees. A friend of the family worked at the Anheuser-Busch brewery across from Newark Airport for over 40 years. Great benefits, and he now lives on a pension plan that makes General Motors look like Papa Johns.

One benefit of working at a Milwaukee-area brewery in the Fifties was getting a bonus at the end of the month: A free case of beer. Like Henry Ford 40 years earlier, believing that his workers should be able to afford the cars that they built themselves, the breweries rewarded their employees with their own product, free of charge.

A case contained 24 bottles. That's less than 1 free bottle a day. But since an average month of 30 days contains about 22 workdays, that does work out to about 1 free bottle to have at the end of every workday. Pretty soon, a brewery worker got the idea that being asked to pay for beer wasn't such a good idea.

What does this have to do with the Braves? Well, in 1961, the City of Milwaukee passed a law prohibiting fans from bringing outside beer into sports stadiums and arenas. This went over about as well as the City of Philadelphia's ban on bringing outside food into Lincoln Financial Field did when it opened in 2003: Eagles fans, many of them used to bringing in hoagies (submarine sandwiches), had a holy fit. Philly sports fans are like Dr. Banner: You wouldn't like them when they're angry. That ban wasn't lifted until 2009.

Did the beer ban really make much of a difference in Milwaukee? You tell me: In 1960, when the Braves were in the Pennant race most of the way, they averaged 19,452 fans per home game; in 1961, again in the race most of the way, they averaged 14,304. That's a drop of 5,148 per game, or 36 percent. More than 1 out of every 3 fans who went in 1960 stayed home in 1961. Attendance for a Milwaukee-based baseball team wouldn't top 19,452 per game again until 1978, the 1st time the Brewers were in a Pennant race.

So was a Braves game just an excuse to get drunk in public? No, of course not: There are no legends of Braves fans engaging in alcohol-fueled rowdy behavior. Packer fans might get into fights with Chicago Bears fans, but Braves fans in the Fifties and Sixties, and Brewers fans since, don't have the reputation for being drunken boors. They just didn't like seeing what they saw as a work-earned right being taken away, and being forced to pay for stadium beer. So those 5,148 fans decided to stay home, and sit in their easy chairs, and drink the beer they'd already paid for, or received for free, and watch the Braves for free.

Victims of Their Own Success. At the conclusion of the 1959 season, the Braves had rewarded their fans with 3 straight seasons of still having something to play for after Game 154. They had won a World Series and nearly made it back-to-back titles. The Braves were kings in Milwaukee, real-life kings, unlike the retroactively fictional Fonz of the 1970s- & '80s-aired, but late 1950s- and early '60s-set, series Happy Days.

But, having gotten a taste of success, now, they were demanding it, and not getting it. It wasn't that the Braves organization, or players, were taking fans for granted. It was that other teams had adjusted, and were getting to be better.

The Dodgers had rebuilt during the process of moving to Los Angeles. Indeed, as early as their 1953 Pennant in Brooklyn, Don Zimmer and Jim Gilliam, 2 of the players who would become stars in L.A., were beginning to make their mark. The San Francisco Giants had also retooled in anticipation of moving away from New York. The Cincinnati Reds made a serious run at the Pennant in 1956, thanks to young stars like Wally Post and Rookie of the Year Frank Robinson, and their maturing would lead to the 1961 NL Pennant. Branch Rickey, former president of the Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals, was no longer working for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the team he built won the World Series in 1960, led by Most Valuable Player Dick Groat, Cy Young Award winner Vernon Law, Gold Glove winner and World Series hero Bill Mazeroski, and young star Roberto Clemente. By 1964, the Cardinals had blossomed with Bob Gibson becoming a star, and Groat and Lou Brock being obtained in midseason trades.

The Braves were also in transition, as I'll get to in a moment.

Milwaukeeans were used to minor-league ball, then saw the Braves come and be successful quickly, and then fell off just enough to no longer be Pennant winners, and they got angry at the lack of additional Pennants. They'd developed an entitlement complex, much like fans of London soccer team Arsenal were used to finishing 4th or higher being an achievement, and got spoiled between 1996 and 2006, then came to believe that 4th was no longer good enough and got angry at the very manager, Arsene Wenger, who won them their recent trophies.

Pretty soon, the fans who packed County Stadium 2 million strong every year began to stay home. New team owner Bill Bartholomay didn't say, but could have said, what Giants owner Horace Stoneham said when reminded of the young fans who wouldn't have the Giants in New York after 1957: "I feel bad for the kids, but I haven't seen too many of their fathers lately."

Star Power. Or, Rather, a Lack of It. Who were the Braves' biggest stars? Warren Spahn, a pitcher. Despite the legends of Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, and the shooting stars that were Mark Fidrych and Fernando Valenzuela, pitchers usually don't bring in fans the way sluggers do.

So who were the Braves' heavy hitters? Eddie Mathews, a man born with great talent for hitting a baseball, but not much personality. And Hank Aaron, who was not only a black man in a then mostly-white city (that has changed: In the 2010 Census, the City of Milwaukee became plurality-black), but was described even in the early 1970s, as people began to realize he could become the game's all-time home run leader, as a "quiet superstar." He was not big on self-promotion. If anything, Midwesterners (at least, until the Braves moved) should have loved Aaron: He was a man who showed up, did his job, did it well, went home, and quietly enjoyed the rewards of his labor.

But, as long as the Braves were in Milwaukee, it was the white (and Southern) Mathews who was more popular, not the black (and Southern) Aaron. (In all fairness, Mathews did arrive a year sooner than Aaron, and the fans saw him blossom first.)

In 1964, Spahn's arm had finally accepted its age, Mathews was in decline, and most of the 1957 and '58 stars were gone. Aaron was still there, but the players filling in weren't particularly stellar. Phil Niekro wasn't yet the pitcher he would become in Atlanta. Joe Torre was already good, but his best years would come in Atlanta and St. Louis. The Braves simply weren't as interesting in the Sixties as they were in the Fifties.

Now, for the Top 5 Reasons:

But Milwaukee simply isn't a very big city. It is, by far, the biggest city in the State of Wisconsin. But as big-league cities go, it's not big. In the 1950 Census, it had 637,000 people. In 1960, it reached its all-time peak of 741,000. But by 1970, when the Brewers arrived, it was down to 717,000, and that decline was already underway when the Braves left in 1965. In 2010, it was down to 595,000 -- only a slight decline from 2000, but a drop of 24 percent from the all-time peak.

And compare Milwaukee's population to the other major U.S. cities in 1960, with cities then having Major League Baseball teams in bold, and the 2 cities in question underlined:

1. New York (just 1 team then) 7,781,984
2. Chicago (2 teams) 3,550,404
3. Los Angeles (just 1 team then) 2,479,015
4. Philadelphia 2,002,512
--. Toronto 1,919,000 in the Canadian Census of 1961 (got a team in 1977)
5. Detroit 1,670,144
--. Montreal 1,201,559 in the Canadian Census of 1961 (got a team in 1969) 
6. Baltimore 939,024
7. Houston (got a team in 1962) 938,219
8. Cleveland 876,050
9. Washington 763,956
10. St. Louis 750,026
11. Milwaukee 741,324
12. San Francisco (just 1 team then) 740,316
13. Boston 697,197
14. Dallas (got a team in 1972) 679,684
15. New Orleans (has never had a team) 627,525
16. Pittsburgh 604,332
17. San Antonio (has never had a team) 587,718
18. San Diego (got a team in 1969) 573,224
19. Seattle (got a team briefly in 1969 and permanently in 1977) 557,087
20. Buffalo (hasn't had a team since the 1880s) 532,759
21. Cincinnati 502,550
22. Memphis (has never had a team) 497,524
23. Denver (got a team in 1993) 493,887
24. Atlanta (got a team in 1966) 487,455
25. Minneapolis (got a team in 1961) 482,872
26. Indianapolis (hasn't had a team since the 1880s) 476,258
27. Kansas City 475,539

At the time, Milwaukee ranked 11th in U.S. population, and 11th among MLB cities (if you properly divide 2-team Chicago in halves).

Note that, in 1960, Atlanta had just 52 percent of Milwaukee's population. It wasn't even the biggest city in the South: It ranked 6th, 3rd behind New Orleans and Memphis if you don't count Texas. So Atlanta, at first glance, doesn't look like a good destination for a MLB team. But Milwaukee? It doesn't look like a great place for one to stay in, being only the 5th-largest city in the Midwest (6th if you count each half of Chicago).

By 1962, when Bartholomay and his group bought the Braves from Lou Perini, who moved the Braves out of Boston but kept his own residence in Boston, MLB teams had already been given to Minneapolis and Houston, and additional ones to New York (the Mets) and Los Angeles (the Angels).

Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Louisville, San Diego, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal and, yes, Atlanta were aggressively pursuing teams, either through moves, AL or NL expansion, or through the since-aborted Continental League. If Bartholomay and his group had rejected Atlanta as a destination, there were others to choose from. And if Perini, who had already begun to lose money owning the Braves, hadn't sold them when he did, he would have had to do so at some point, or move them again.

"But, Mike," you might say, "You're citing intracity population figures, not those of the entire metropolitan areas, and that's unfair." You're right -- in hindsight. But, at the time, people didn't think that way. It took visionaries to think that way.

Visionaries like team owners Walter O'Malley of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (who, despite his vision, used it for greed, and was not a good person), Joan Payson of the Mets, Roy Hofheinz of the Houston Colt .45's/Astros, and the not-always-so-aptly-nicknamed "Foolish Club," the founders of the American Football League. And visionaries like sportswriter Jack Murphy of the San Diego Union, who convinced first AFL founder Lamar Hunt and Los Angeles Chargers owner Barron Hilton, and then the National League and NBA owners, that San Diego would be a great city for their leagues.

And visionaries like politicians Hofheinz, a federal judge who had been Mayor of Houston; George Christopher of San Francisco and Norris Poulson of Los Angeles, the Mayors who got the Giants and the Dodgers to come to California; and Ivan Allen Jr.

4. Atlanta. The year the move to Atlanta was announced, 1965, was the high-water mark of the Civil Rights Movement. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law. The Civil Rights Act had been signed into law the year before. The lunch-counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Selma-to-Montgomery March, and the integrations of the universities of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama had all taken place, with mixed success in some cases and total success in others, within the last 5 years. And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. King was from Atlanta. The Mayor at the time was Ivan Allen Jr. He ran his father's office-supply company and took it to new heights, making himself one of the South's richest men. He lived long enough to get an offer he couldn't refuse: Staples bought him out in 1999, and his son, Inman Allen, still runs one of their office-furniture division.

In 1961, he ran for Mayor against segregationist Lester Maddox, who would later be elected Governor of Georgia. He won, and began to build on the work of his predecessor, William Hartsfield, for whom the city's famous airport is named.

As a businessman, he understood that he had the chance to change the image of his city, and to help change perceptions of the State of Georgia and of the South itself. The city underwent its greatest construction phase since after its burning in the Civil War 100 years earlier. He built the Memorial (now the Woodruff) Arts Center, in effect Atlanta's version of Lincoln Center. He created MARTA, which reworked the city's bus system and built its subway. He also got Interstate 285, a beltway, a.k.a. "The O Around the A," built.

He got Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium) built and, although it wouldn't open until after he left office, the Omni Coliseum approved. This enabled the city to go from no major league teams when he took office on January 1, 1962 to 3 when he left on January 1, 1970.

More low-income housing was built in his 8 years than in the previous 30. He needed to do this to alleviate the concerns of local black leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., that he wasn't doing enough for the poor and was focusing too much on business, especially downtown -- a criticism since leveled at many urban mayors, black and white alike (including Newark's Sharpe James in the 1980s and '90s).

"It is wonderful to be idealistic and to speak about human values," Allen said, "but you are not going to be able to do one thing about them if you are not economically strong. If there is any one slogan I lived by as Mayor of Atlanta, that would be it."
So, with the concerns of both business and civil rights in mind, he brought the 2 concepts together. The day he was sworn in, he ordered all "WHITE" and "COLORED" signs removed from City Hall, and personally desegregated the City Hall cafeteria by dining with local black activists. He desegregated municipal hiring. He hired the city's first black firemen. He let it be known that black Atlanta policemen would be allowed to arrest white criminals. He desegregated the city's pools. By January 1964, 6 months before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, 14 Atlanta hotels had already desegregated themselves.

Allen billed Atlanta as "The City Too Busy to Hate." That made the sports establishments stand up and take notice. Atlanta also offered a bigger stadium, if not necessarily a better one, than Milwaukee County Stadium: 52,000 to 44,000. (Milwaukee County Stadium would later expand to 53,000.) Today, the Braves' team museum is named for Allen.

But it was more than that. It wasn't just municipal, or even metropolitan. It was regional. There was no other MLB team within 90 miles of Milwaukee, but, within 400 miles -- essentially, a single day's drive -- there were 6 others: 2 in Chicago, and 1 each in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Detroit. The Braves could only build an identity as "Wisconsin's Team" if they stayed put.

But the nearest big-league cities to Atlanta were all very far away: Cincinnati (461 miles), St. Louis (555) Washington (643), and Houston (799). Even the closer Southern cities that have teams in one sport or another today weren't all that close: Charlotte (243), Nashville (248), Jacksonville (347), Memphis (383), Raleigh (400), Orlando (438), Tampa (457), New Orleans (469), Miami (661), Dallas (784), Oklahoma City (849).

In other words, if you were a Southerner, and you wanted to see big-league baseball in 1965, you had to drive 9 hours (counting rest stops) to get to Cincinnati and sit in tiny Crosley Field. Sportsman's Park in St. Louis and Griffith Stadium in Washington were of similar size (although D.C. Stadium, now RFK Stadium, had been built by that point).

Whereas, a person living in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama or Mississippi no longer had to take them newfangled Interstate highways to D.C., Cincy or St. Lou to see a team they could truly call their own: The Braves were The South's Team. True, there were the Astros, and Texas was a Southern State, but they weren't The South's Team, they were Texas' Team.

It's also important to note the timing. On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. Race riots broke out in nearly every major American city, including Atlanta. There had already been such riots in New York's Harlem and North Philadelphia in 1964, Los Angeles' Watts in 1965, the West Side of Chicago and the East Side of Cleveland in 1966, and, in the span of just a few weeks of the Summer of 1967, first in the South End of Boston, then in the Central Ward of Newark, and finally, most devastatingly of all, in Detroit.

The South began to lose the progress it had made in Northern hearts and minds. The hope that it was putting its racist past behind it faded. (The fact that racism had become obvious in the North as well didn't help the South's image.) If the Braves had moved somewhere other than Atlanta, and no other team had moved to Atlanta by April 4, 1968, the MLB expansion announced a few weeks later -- Kansas City, Montreal, San Diego and Seattle were chosen -- would never have admitted Atlanta, or any other Deep South city. Miami, maybe; Atlanta, or New Orleans, or Nashville, or, God forbid, Memphis, the city where Dr. King was struck down, no way. It might have taken until the expansion of 1977 for Atlanta to have gotten a team.

Times have changed. Atlanta is a majority-black town, a "chocolate city." The last 5 Mayors have been black: Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young (followed by Jackson again), Bill Campbell, Shirley Franklin and Kasim Reed. Atlanta has become a major corporate center: Already the world headquarters for Coca-Cola, it also became so for future (now former) Braves owner Ted Turner's media empire including CNN (more about that later), plus Delta Air Lines, United Parcel Service, Home Depot and Newell Rubbermaid -- and it's opened its doors to black business as well as white business.
While the Braves' new management is moving from Turner Field downtown to the mostly-white Cobb County suburbs for the 2017 season, Atlanta has been, while not without problems, remarkably free of the kind of racial strife recently seen in New York, Baltimore, Cleveland and St. Louis.

Today, if you include all those places within Atlanta's "market" -- every place in this country where the Braves are the closest MLB team -- they have the most people, about 35 million. That's 12 million more than New York and nearly double that of Los Angeles -- which, remember, get divided between 2 teams.

Milwaukee? Their market is just over 2 million, dead last among MLB's 30 markets if you measure this way, and still last if you measure only by the federally-defined "metropolitan area"; in which case, Atlanta has 6.2 million and ranks 9th, behind L.A,. the 2 New Yorks (if we presume the Tri-State Area is equally divided between the Yankees and the Mets, ha ha), Boston, the Texas Rangers, Philadelphia, Houston and Miami.

Of course, the Milwaukee baseball market used to be a lot bigger. It shrank, thanks to...

3. The Minnesota Twins. When they were established in 1961, they took a lot of territory away from the Braves. The entire State of Minnesota. The entire State of North Dakota. The entire State of South Dakota. Northernmost Iowa. Even the westernmost part of Wisconsin, which is closer to Minneapolis than it is to Milwaukee, or even to Madison. Today, that territory includes about 9.3 million people.

Granted, it was a lot less then. But look at the attendance figures: In 1960, the last year that the Braves had the Upper Midwest all to themselves, they got 19,452 a game; in 1961, the 1st year the Twins were in Minnesota, the Braves got 14,304, while the Twins got 15,611. The newly-arrived Twins, while benefiting from the novelty factor, were still not a good team, yet they got 1,200 more fans a game than the established, successful Braves.

It got worse: In 1962, the Twins finished 2nd. By 1965, they were Pennant winners. True, the Braves were stuck in Milwaukee that year only because of a legal injunction that forced them to finish their County Stadium lease, resulting in a lame-duck attendance of 6,859 fans per game. But the Twins were now successful competitively and financially.

People from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Northern Iowa and Western Wisconsin no longer needed to go all the way to Milwaukee to see a good big-league ballclub. The Twins were closer. Eau Claire was 242 miles from West Milwaukee, but only 94 miles from Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington. Sioux Falls, South Dakota was 498 miles from the Braves, 231 miles from the Twins. Fargo, North Dakota was 568 miles from the Braves, 246 miles from the Twins. Sioux City, Iowa was 468 miles from the Braves, 265 miles from the Twins. Granted, the Dakotas and Iowa, still weren't close, but they were a whole lot closer to Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva than they were to Aaron and Mathews.

2. Vince Lombardi. In spite of the Braves' wild attendance in their 1st few years -- tame though it sounds in hindsight, it was spectacular for the time -- Wisconsin is, first and foremost, a football State.

When the Braves arrived in 1953, the Green Bay Packers were in the middle of a down period. They hadn't reached, let alone won, the NFL Championship Game since 1944. As late as 1958, they were just 1-10-1.

But in 1959, Vince Lombardi was named the Packers' head coach and general manager. Right after the Braves fell just short in a bid for a 3rd straight Pennant, the Packers jumped to 7-5 under Lombardi's leadership. In 1960, they won the NFL Western Division. In 1961, they began a run of 5 NFL Championships in 7 seasons. During that run, the Braves moved.
It wasn't just the arrival of the Twins that cut into the Braves' attendance: It was the Pack's return to glory under Lombardi. Fans in Wisconsin who could only afford to go to 1 major league sporting event a year chose to head for Green Bay to watch the Packers at Lambeau Field, instead of for Milwaukee to watch the Braves at County Stadium.

Except that the Packers did play at County Stadium. From 1933 until 1952, every season, the Packers played 2 of their 6 home games at Borchert Field, home of the old minor-league Milwaukee Brewers. From 1953 until 1960, they played 2 out of 6 at County Stadium. From 1961 to 1977, 2 out of 7. From 1978 to 1994, 3 out of 8.

They also annually played a preseason game in Milwaukee. They even played the 1939 NFL Championship Game at the Dairy Bowl in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis (now an auto racing track called the Milwaukee Mile), and a 1967 NFL Divisional Playoff at County Stadium.

It was only the economics (Lambeau now far exceeded County Stadium's seating capacity) and the logistics of playing home games away from Green Bay that made them play at Lambeau only from 1995 onward. But that was under general manager Ron Wolf and head coach Mike Holmgren. Lombardi might have had the power to cut Milwaukee out of the Pack's schedule, but he probably liked the idea of having 2 home fields. (Three, if you count the preseason game the Packers played every year at the University of Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium. While they don't play in Milwaukee anymore, not even in the preseason, they do still play a preseason game at Camp Randall.) He probably liked the idea of having not just "small-town America" loving his team (Green Bay had only about 60,000 people at the time, and the Packers became what the Cowboys only claimed later, "America's Team"), but also having a "big city" (even if, as I pointed out earlier, Milwaukee wasn't that big a city) rooting for his team.

In other words, despite the 117-mile difference between downtown Milwaukee and Lambeau Field, the Packers were very much a part of Milwaukee's culture. Although they haven't played a regular-season game there in 21 seasons, they still are.

But none of those is the biggest reason the Braves moved when they did, or where they did.

1. Television. Baseball was slow to accept TV. With some reason: While radio grew the local fan base, TV only grew the national one, not the local one. Why go 300, or even 3, miles to pay to see a ballgame, and pay for food at the ballpark, when you can sit at home, watching for free, eating food and drinking beer that you've already paid for? This, along with raids by major league teams, killed the Negro Leagues, and it devastated the minor leagues. (MLB's expansion didn't exactly help the minors, either.)

As late as 1961, the Braves allowed none of their games to be televised. Zero. That may have been the biggest reason for the high attendance, especially since the novelty factor had worn off: If you wanted to see the Braves, you had to actually be inside County Stadium. In 1962, shortly before selling the team to Bartholomay, Perini signed a deal to allow the broadcast of 15 away games on local TV. In 1963, Bartholomay allowed more away games and, critically, 5 home games. Attendance dropped. In 1964, the Braves lost $500,000 -- about $3.8 million in today's money, not much in the current baseball climate, but a huge amount then.

In contrast, the Southern TV market seemed like a gold mine. Since places like Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, New Orleans, Jackson, Jacksonville and Birmingham seemed too for from Atlanta to drive, Bartholomay figured the TV revenue would be huge, and wouldn't drive down attendance. It seemed like a great excuse to move the team, and to move it to Atlanta.

There was just one problem: It didn't work. The Braves' attendance improved their first few years in Atlanta over their last couple of years in Milwaukee, but that was due to the novelty factor and the Braves being good (winning the 1st NL Western Division title in 1969). By the early 1970s, with Aaron their only bankable star -- and a black man whom the Braves simply couldn't make appeal to white fans without the novelty of the chase for the record, attendance seriously lagging until he got to 712 in late '73 and dropping off completely after he got to 715 in early '74 -- their attendance was in the tank, and the TV revenue simply wasn't covering it.

Meanwhile, MLB had returned to Milwaukee with the Brewers, and, while they weren't good, they were less embarrassing to Milwaukee than the Braves were to Atlanta.

In 1975, Bartholomay's group sold its majority stock in the Braves to Ted Turner, who was looking to grow his media empire. It took another few years, but he did make it work, once he turned his single TV station, WTBS-Channel 17, into a cable "Superstation," making it a national network based on movies and the Braves. In 1982, the Braves won the NL West, and millions of Americans who had never set foot in Dixie became Braves fans. Sports Illustrated put MVP-in-the-making Dale Murphy on the cover, and headlined the Braves as "AMERICA'S TEAM II."
A similar phenomenon happened 2 years later, when the Chicago Cubs won the NL East, and their games were broadcast nationally on WGN, by then also a "superstation." It had even happened before, with KMOX anchoring a regional radio network that had made the Cardinals the South's team. To this day, there are lots of Southerners whose MLB taste runs toward St. Louis rather than toward Atlanta, as the Cards were handed down from father to son to grandson.

Even as the Braves fell off in 1984, the year of the Cubs' success on the field and on the nationwide air, TBS' ratings for their games remained good. When they started winning again in 1991, the ratings jumped again, and they've remained strong. The Braves, like the Cardinals, the Cubs, the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Dodgers, have a national fan base. And it's thanks to Ted Turner and TBS. He made Bartholomay's dream of the Braves becoming a regional powerhouse not only come true, but get blown right past, all the way to national stardom.

And that never would have happened had the Braves remained in Milwaukee. To this day, the 1957 World Series remains the only one ever won by a Milwaukee baseball team. The building of Miller Park and the Selig family's sale of the team to a group led by Mark Attanasio -- ironically, born right after the Braves won that 1957 Pennant -- has secured the Brewers' long-term future in Milwaukee. But the Brewers, even at their best (the 1982 Pennant season, the Playoff runs of 2008 and 2011), have never been as good, or as interesting, or as profitable as the post-Bartholomay Braves.

So, can Bartholomay and his group be blamed for moving the Braves from Milwaukee to Atlanta?

VERDICT: Guilty. Yes, you can blame them. As Ted Turner himself likes to say, "Either lead, follow, or get out of the way." The Bartholomay group's dream came true, but only many years after the fact: It was only after they got out of the way and let Turner lead that people began to follow.

If, in 1962, the Bartholomay group and the people of Wisconsin were told what would happen between then and 2015, they might reason that things turned out all right, because Milwaukee did get a new team, even if that team had been disappointing.

But if, in 1962, they were only told what would happen between then and 1981, when the Brewers made the Playoffs for the 1st time, with the Braves having made the Playoffs exactly once and not yet having become a national phenomenon, they would have said, "See? It didn't work. Stay put, you'll be better off."

And, through 1981, that would have been a reasonable presumption. The Braves succeeded after -- long after -- leaving Milwaukee for Atlanta. The Bartholomay group did not.