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The Play's the Thing: Yanks Score 6 Runs, Win

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Due to a dispute between the Gregorian calendar, to which most of Europe had already switched, and the Julian calendar, still used by England, April 23, 1616, 400 years ago today, is commemorated as the day that William Shakespeare died.

Many years ago, someone tried to come up with a series of Shakespeare quotes about baseball, many of which were on the theme of "base players."

But the one that most frequently applies comes from the end of the production known, for reasons of bad luck, as "The Scottish Play." Strange, though, that the name of the character, Macbeth, can be quoted without attracting bad luck. Anyway, you know that baseball people are every bit as superstitious as theater people:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.


Sounds like Shakespeare foresaw the Mets, and their fans!

*

Last night, at home in the opener of a series against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Yankees were not as poetic as Shakespeare, but they did try a novel approach: They scored 6 runs, and won.

Not quite what Shakespeare meant when he said, "The play, the play's the thing," but I'll take it.

CC Sabathia, black and once a great warrior like Othello, and fat Falstaff, did not get out of the 5th inning. He left trailing 3-2, though a home run by Brian McCann (his 3rd of the young season) did keep the Yankees close.

Ivan Nova came on to finish the 5th inning, and pitched the 6th and the 7th. Dellin Betances pitched the 8th, and Andrew Miller the 9th. That's 4 1/3rd innings of perfect relief. Or, to put it another way, Joe Girardi's dream night.

The Yankees tied the game in the bottom of the 5th. Jacoby Ellsbury singled with 2 outs, was singled to 2nd by Didi Gregorius, and the runners were balked over by Rays starter Matt Moore.

Ellsbury was once hailed for his baserunning acumen. "This above all: To thine own self be true." As Moore delivered ball 4 to Brett Gardner, Ellsbury broke for home -- attempting to steal home plate with 2 strikes and 2 outs. "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt."

It worked. "What a piece of work is a man."

The last Yankee with a straight steal of home plate was Derek Jeter on May 5, 2001, just over 15 years ago.

Carlos Beltran singled to lead off the top of the 6th. Mark Teixeira singled him over. Alex Rodriguez popped up, but McCann singled Beltran home to give the Yankees the lead. Ellsbury struck again in the 8th, doubling home 2 more runs.

This gave us the final score of Yankees 6, Rays 3. WP: Nova (1-0). SV: Miller (4). LP: Moore (1-1).

There was one unfortunate note, aside from CC's shaky start: Aaron Hicks had to leave the game in the top of the 6th, with an injured shoulder.

The series continues this afternoon. Masahiro Tanaka starts for the Pinstripes, Blake Snell for the Rays, making his major league debut. Uh-oh, the proverbial "pitcher the Yankees have never seen before."

Youth is full of sport
Age's breath is short.
Youth is nimble, age is lame
Youth is hot and bold
Age is weak and cold
Youth is wild
And age is tame.

To hell with that: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

How Long It's Been: A Yankee Stole Home Plate

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Last night, in the Yankees' 6-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, Jacoby Ellsbury took a big risk: Trailing 3-2, and with 2 outs and 2 strikes, he attempted to steal home plate.

The risk paid off: He succeeded.

Not counting double steals, no Yankee had stolen home plate since May 5, 2001. It was Derek Jeter, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, in the 3rd inning of a 5-2 Yankee win over the Baltimore Orioles.

The strangest thing about this game may not have been the steal of home. It may have been that Brian Boehringer got the save. Mariano Rivera did not appear.

At any rate, May 5, 2001 was nearly 15 years ago. How long has that been?

*

It was still the Yankee Dynasty. Manager Joe Torre's starting lineup was:

LF Chuck Knoblauch
SS Derek Jeter
RF Paul O'Neill
CF Bernie Williams
1B Tino Martinez
DH David Justice
2B Alfonso Soriano
C Jorge Posada
3B Scott Brosius

P Andy Pettitte

The Orioles featured Cal Ripken in his last season, and Mike Bordick, who had played for the Mets against the Yankees in the previous year's World Series. The last active player from this game, aside from Jeter, was Oriole 2nd baseman Jerry Hairston, who would come to the Yankees in midseason in 2009, and help them with the World Series.

From that Yankee team, Torre, O'Neill, Williams, Martinez, Posada and Pettitte all have Plaques in Monument Park. Torre, Williams, Posada, Pettitte, Rivera, and, for all intents and purposes, Jeter and O'Neill have had their uniform numbers retired.

The San Francisco Giants had not won the World Series in 47 years (since they were still in New York), the Boston Red Sox in 83 years, the Chicago White Sox in 85 years. The Arizona Diamondbacks and the team then known as the Anaheim Angels had never yet won one. The D-backs, the Angels, the Houston Astros, the Colorado Rockies, the team then known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Texas Rangers had not yet won a Pennant. The Expos were still in Montreal, and the Astros were still in the National League. All of those facts have now changed.

The Yankees, the Mets, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Minnesota Twins, the San Diego Padres, the Florida/Miami Marlins and the Expos/Washington Nationals have all built new ballparks since then. That's 30 percent of MLB in just 15 years.

Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Bob Feller and Warren Spahn were still alive. Ripken, Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Frank Thomas, Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were all active players. All of them are now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Active then, but not in the Hall today, and they know why, were Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield and Roger Clemens. Also active then, but not in the Hall today, was Curt Schilling -- not only because many of us suspect him of steroids, but, even more than the Rocket, the Big Unit and Pedro the Punk, for his personality.

Alex Rodriguez was in the 2nd month of the biggest contract sports had ever seen. David Ortiz was a barely-average slugger for the Minnesota Twins, from whom nothing much was expected. Albert Pujols was a rookie. Jose Bautista was in the minor leagues. David Wright, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Zack Greinke, Alex Gordon, Max Scherzer, Daniel Murphy, Yoenis Cespedes, Felix Hernandez, Andrew McCutchen and Buster Posey were in high school. Clayton Kershaw, Matt Harvey and Madison Bumgarner were in junior high school. Mike Trout was 9 years old, and Kris Bryant and Bryce Harper were 8.

Terry Collins, now manager of the Mets, was a coach with the Rays. Kurt Rambis of the Knicks was an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers. Alain Vigneault of the Rangers was out of hockey. Todd Bowles of the Jets was coaching defensive backs for the Cleveland Browns. Joe Girardi was playing for the Chicago Cubs. Jack Capuano of the Islanders was coaching the South Carolina-based Pee Dee Pride. Kenny Atkinson of the Nets was playing in France's basketball league. John Hynes of the Devils was an assistant coach at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. And Ben McAdoo of the Giants was an assistant at Michigan State.

The defending World Champions were the Yankees, the Devils, the Lakers and the Baltimore Ravens. Hasim Rahman (WBC & IBF) and John Ruiz (WBA) were the men recognized as the Heavyweight Champion of the World. The Olympic Games have since been held in America, Greece, Italy, China, Canada, Britain and Russia. The World Cup has since been held in Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa and Brazil.

George W. Bush had been "President" for less than 4 months, and the idea that his time in the White House would be dominated by terrorism would have been considered ridiculous. Indeed, while many Americans had heard of Osama bin Laden, few had heard of his organization, al-Qaeda.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and their wives, were all still alive. Barack Obama was a State Senator in Illinois. Hillary Clinton had just been elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. Donald Trump was about to open the 72-story Trump World Tower, then the tallest all-residential structure on Earth. Derek Jeter would be one of its tenants, although he has since moved out.

The Governor of New York was George Pataki. The Mayor of New York City was Rudy Giuliani, and running to replace him were a dedicated Democratic public servant, Mark Green, and a playboy Republican billionaire, Michael Bloomberg.

The Governor of New Jersey was Donald DiFrancesco, filling in the expired term of Christine Todd Whitman, whom Bush had appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. (And Republicans wondered why we called Bush "stupid.") Running to replace DiFrancesco were former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, who was so conservative he made the new "president" look like George McGovern; and Woodbridge Mayor and former State Senator Jim McGreevey, who seemed very popular with the ladies, and he seemed to reciprocate their feelings. If we only knew...

The Pope was John Paul II. The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien. The Prime Minister of Britain was Tony Blair. The British monarch was Queen Elizabeth II. (That hasn't changed.) Manchester United was about to win the Premier League, and Liverpool what remains a unique "treble": The FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup (the tournament now known as the Europa League). Bayern Munich was about to win the UEFA Champions League.

Major novels of 2001, later turned into movies, included John le Carre's The Constant Gardener, Ian McEwan's Atonement, and Yann Martel's Life of Pi. There were, as yet, only 4 Harry Potter books, and only 3 installments of A Song of Ice and Fire. The 1st Harry Potter film would not debut until November, and no one had yet tried to turn ASOIAF into a TV series or a film.

Major films of the spring of 2001 included Blow, about a 1970s cocaine trafficker; the film version of Bridget Jones’ Diary, the live-action version of Josie and the Pussycats, the 1st Shrek film, the 1st Spy Kids film, A Knight’s Tale (in which Heath Ledger plays someone decidedly less creepy than the Joker), the Ben Affleck telling of Pearl Harbor, and the Nicole Kidman-starring not-quite-remake of Moulin Rouge.

Those films were your choices in the spring of 2001? What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Oh yeah, there was also a very bad buddy picture with that title. Why was it bad? Because the "buddies" were Danny DeVito and Martin Lawrence.

Television shows that were about to air their final first-run episodes were Nash BridgesDiagnosis: MurderWalker: Texas Ranger (starring the incredibly overrated Chuck Norris), 3rd Rock From the SunStar Trek: VoyagerMoesha, and, after 33 years, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Debuting were The Fairly OddParentsBracefaceSix Feet Under, and Fear Factor. Not sure if there’s a pattern there. The WB and UPN were separate networks, not yet having morphed into The CW and MyNetworkTV.

Nathan Fillion was best known as Joey Buchanan on One Life to Live. He had not yet appeared in Firefly, let alone Castle. Stana Katic had been in exactly one role, as Annie in the film Acid Freaks.

Mark Harmon, who once starred as a baseball player in a movie titled Stealing Home, was best known as Dr. Jack McNeil on Chicago Hope; David McCallum as Agent Illya Kuryakin on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Michael Weatherly as Logan "Eyes Only" Cale on Dark Angel (with his then-girlfriend, Jessica Alba); Sasha Alexander as Gretchen Witter on Dawson's Creek; Sean Murray as Zane Grey Hart on Harts of the West; Lauren Holly as Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart on Picket Fences; Rocky Carroll as Joey Emerson on Roc; Pauley Perrette was still a blonde and mostly making commercials, but had recently begun to appear as Alice Cramer on Special Unit 2; Cote de Pablo had yet to appear on English-language television at all; and Emily Wickersham was in high school. Most Americans had never heard of NCIS, much less expected to ever watch a TV show based on it.

Ed O'Neill was still though of as Al Bundy on Married... with Children. Sofia Vergara was modeling, and had not yet acted -- no joke. Ty Burrell and Eric Stonestreet had recently appeared on The West Wing (though not in the same episode). Burrell was filming Black Hawk Down. (The same guy playing Phil Dunphy and an Army Ranger? Wow, he must be a great actor!) Julie Bowen was playing Carol Vessey on Ed. Jesse Tyler Ferguson had just had his 1st film role, as Thomas Jefferson's possible son, Tom Hemings, in Sally Hemings: An American Scandal. Sarah Hyland was 10, Ariel Winter was 3, Rico Rodriguez and Nolan Gould were 2, and Aubrey Anderson-Emmons wasn't born yet.

Khloe Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington were in high school. Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, Rihanna and Emma Stone were in junior high. Louis Tomlinson was 9; Jack Gleeson, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj and Zayn Malik were 8; Ariana Grande, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Justin Bieber were 7; Kendall Jenner, Sophie Turner and Abigail Breslin were 5; Maisie Williams was 4; Kylie Jenner was 3.

The Number 1 song in America was "All For You" by Janet Jackson. It succeeded "Angel," which Shaggy (not the Scooby-Doo character, this guy smoked even more marijuana) had ripped off the Merrilee Rush song "Angel of the Morning." It would be succeeded by the Moulin Rouge-inspired remake of Patti LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade," sung by Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa and Pink. George Harrison and Michael Jackson were still alive. Bob Dylan was about to turn 60.

Wikipedia had just begun operation. The iPod would debut in October. We had the Internet, but there was no Skype, no MySpace, no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no iPhone, no Pinterest, no Instagram, no iPad, no Vine. DVDs hadn't yet replaced VHS videotapes as the home entertainment of choice. And a "smart phone" would have been one that fit in your pocket.

In the spring of 2001, the Russian space station Mir fell from orbit. A U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided, forcing the American plane to make an emergency landing; it was detained for 10 days. The Netherlands became the 1st nation to legalize gay marriage.

Temba Tsheri, age 16, became the youngest person to climb Mount Everest, which is half in China and half in Nepal. Just 1 week later, the Crown Prince of Nepal killed his father (the King), his mother (the Queen) and several other members of the royal family, before shooting himself. Although brain-dead, he was King for 3 days. His uncle became King Gyanendra, but has since been deposed and the monarchy abolished.

The holder of the Nobel Peace Prize was President Kim Dae-jung of Korea. Timothy McVeigh was executed for blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, making him still the only recipient of the death penalty from the federal government since 1963. And the World Trade Center still stood.

Perry Como, and Anthony Quinn, and Arlene Francis died. So did Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Jackson Brundage, and David Mazouz, and Sasha Obama were born.

May 5, 2001. A Yankee stole home plate. Now, nearly 15 years later, it has happened again.

The Yankees won the Pennant that year. I would gladly take that again this year.

Gardner Gives Yanks 1st Walkoff Win of 2016

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First walkoff win of the season for the Yankees. Ranger Scum eliminated from Playoffs. Arsenal disgusted me. Shut up, Meat Loaf: I wanted three out of three.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in New York, the kind of day that just demands a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Well, we had to settle for Yankee Stadium II, instead of the real thing. (You maniacs, you tore it down! Damn you all to Hell!)

But it looked like it was going to be one of those days for the 2012-present Yankees. Over the 1st 8 2/3rd innings, we got just 2 runs on 6 hits.

Ah, but until sundown yesterday, it was Passover. "Why is this night different from all the others?" Well, for one reason, Joe Girardi actually let a Yankee starter who was pitching well for 6 innings also pitch the 7th. Masahiro Tanaka went 7 full, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and only 1 walk. A nice performance.

But after 7 full, he'd thrown 97 pitches, and you know Girardi. Actually, he handled this one just right: Dellin Betances pitched a perfect 8th, and Andrew Miller a scoreless 9th. If I smack Girardi when he blows it with the pitching situation, I have to credit him when he gets the pitching situation right.

If we were going to lose this game, it was going to be because we weren't hitting. Alex Rodriguez: 0-for-4, lowering his batting average to .132. Didi Gregorius: 0-for-4, although at .264 going into today's game, I can't be upset with him. Chase Headley: 0-for-3, .159. Carlos Beltran, who turns 39 today, 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk, and his BA of .279 is hardly bad. Mark Teixeira is only batting .218, but he did get a hit yesterday.

The hero of the game was Brett Gardner. He went 3-for-5, including singling home Brian McCann in the 7th. The other Yankee run came on a wild pitch in the 1st, so even though we got a run, nobody got a run batted in.

With 2 outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the 9th, and extra innings and a likely Girardi bullpen screwup looming, Gardner came up to bat against Erasmo Ramirez. He cracked a drive deep to right field. Home run.

Cue John Sterling: "Ballgame over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!"

Yankees 3, Rays 2. WP: Miller (1-0). No save. LP: Ramirez (4-1). It was the 1st walkoff win of the season. It took us long enough: 16 games.

The Yankees have now taken the series from the Rays, and go for the sweep this afternoon. Michael Pineda starts against Drew Smyly.

Come on you Pinstripes!

How Long It's Been: The Rangers Won the Stanley Cup

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(Oh yes they do, oh yes they do.)

The New York Rangers were defeated by the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday, 6-3, and ending their run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

I realize that my New Jersey Devils didn't make the Playoffs at all. The Rangers' failure is the greater. Why? Because the Devils and their fans knew that making the Playoffs this season was a longshot, while Ranger fans always think their team is going to win the Cup.

This time is different, though: On Twitter, I saw a lot of Ranger Scummers ripping their team, saying that goaltender Henrik Lundqvist deserves better than this, that the team gave up on him, that they hung him out to dry.

Sounds like "King Henrik" is the hockey version of Don Mattingly: The "legend" New York loves but can't get a title for.

A king wears a crown. The only way Lundqvist will ever win a Cup is as somebody else's backup. Maybe Jonathan Quick in Los Angeles: That team may well have a 3rd cheated-to Cup in them, and, in a way, Lundqvist would be a "King."

God, I hope the Mattingly pattern doesn't hold up completely, with the Rangers dumping Lundqvist and then winning the Cup the next season.

The last time they won the Stanley Cup was -- come on, we all know the date -- June 14, 1994. The last time before that, April 13, 1940. #76Years1Cup

"The waiting is over!" Howie Rose said of the 54-year drought. "The New York Rangers have won the Stanley Cup! And this one will last a lifetime!"

It will have to. Indeed, if you're age 76 or younger, it already has.

Since then, the Devils have won 3. The Detroit Red Wings 4, the Chicago Blackhawks 3, the Colorado Avalanche 2, the Los Angeles Kings 2, and the Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins 1 each.

22 years down. 32 years to go?

*

June 14, 1994. How long has that been?

The Knicks were also in the NBA Finals. And came closer to winning it than they have at any time since 1973. But they lost in Game 7 to the Houston Rockets. No shame in losing to such a good team... but the way they lost, with John Starks sending up brick after brick after brick... and the fact that the Knicks of Patrick Ewing never did win a title... That was shameful.

The Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Nets, Liberty, Islanders, Devils and Red Bulls have all built and/or moved into new facilities. (The Liberty and Red Bulls didn't even exist yet.) Even the new Rutgers Stadium, now renamed High Point Solutions Stadium, wasn't quite finished, and would open in September. The 2 Garden teams are the only area teams that have not since replaced their venues, although the Garden recently underwent a supposedly major renovation.

Who had the Rangers replaced as Stanley Cup Champions? The Montreal Canadiens. No Canadian team has won the Cup since. After 23 years, can that possibly be as a result of chance? Or has Commissioner Gary Bettman fixed it as such?

The defending World Champions in the other sports were the Toronto Blue Jays, the Chicago Bulls and the Dallas Cowboys. At this point in the 1994 season, the Yankees had the best record in the American League, but the best record in Major League Baseball belonged to the Montreal Expos. They have since moved.

So have the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Raiders, Cleveland Browns (a franchise since restored) and Houston Oilers. The Rams have even moved back.

The NBA’s Toronto Raptors, Vancouver Grizzlies and Charlotte Bobcats began play, but the Grizzlies moved to Memphis, and the Bobcats replaced the Charlotte Hornets, who moved to New Orleans, and became the Pelicans, allowing the Bobcats to reclaim the Charlote Hornets name. The Seattle SuperSonics moved to become the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the New Jersey Nets became the Brooklyn Nets.

In the NHL, the Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche, the old Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes, and the Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes. The Nashville Predators, Atlanta Thrashers, Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets began play, but the Thrashers became the new Winnipeg Jets.

Most Clevelanders hadn’t yet realized what a jackass Art Modell is, nor had most of them heard of LeBron James. They were also under the impression that Bill Belichick, while one of the most accomplished defensive coordinators in NFL history, was a lousy head coach. Maybe they were right: It was only in New England that he began to cheat.

The Atlanta Braves, the Florida Marlins, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the team currently known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have since won their 1st World Series. In other sports, winning their 1st World Championship since then have been the Denver Broncos, the New England Patriots, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New Orleans Saints, the Seattle Seahawks, the Houston Rockets, the San Antonio Spurs, the Miami Heat, the Dallas Mavericks, and, as stated earlier, the Devils, Avs, Stars, Bolts, 'Canes, Ducks and Kings.

On June 14, 1994, hockey legends Maurice Richard, Sid Abel, Syl Apps, and Frankie Brimsek were still alive. So were 9 members of the Rangers' last Stanley Cup-winning team, of 1940: Mac Colville, Art Coulter, Dutch Hiller, Murray "Muzz" Patrick (brother of teammate Lynn Patrick and son of team GM Lester Patrick, both already dead by 1994), Alf Pike, John Polich, Alex Shibicky, Clint Smith and Stan Smith.

Clint Smith, a lefty-shooting center who played for the Rangers from 1937 to 1943, was the last survivor of the 1940 Rangers, living past 1994, all the way to 2009. There was even 1 member of the 1928 and 1933 Stanley Cup-winning Rangers still alive: Murray Murdoch, who died in 2001, making him also the last survivor of the original 1926-27 Rangers.

Of the defining players of my youth, only Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and, ugh, the hero of the '94 Rangers, ol' Lex Luthor himself, Mark Messier were still active. And remember: He wasn't just the Hair Club Team Captain, he was also a client.

Martin Brodeur had just completed his rookie season. Patrik Elias was still in the minor leagues. Zdeno Chara and Henrik Zetterberg were then in whatever their countries call high school. Lundqvist, Andy Greene, Rick Nash and Marc-Andre Fleury were in junior high. Alexander Ovechkin and Jonathan Quick were 8 years old; Evgeni Malkin was 7; Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Claude Giroux and onathan Towes were 6; Patrick Kane and Ryan McDonagh were 5, Steven Stamkos was 4, John Tavares was 3, and Connor McDavid wasn't born yet.

On June 14, 1994, the Canadiens were still playing at the Montreal Forum, Toronto was still playing at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Bruins at the Boston Garden, the Sabres at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, and the Blackhawks had just closed Chicago Stadium. Indeed, with the Edmonton Oilers having just left Rexall Place (then known as the Northlands Coliseum), only 5 teams are playing in the same arena in which they played the 1993-94 season: The Rangers, the Red Wings, the Ducks, the Calgary Flames and the San Jose Sharks -- and the Wings are building a new arena.

The World Cup was about to get underway in the U.S., won by Brazil, beating Italy on penalty kicks after a scoreless regulation and extra time. Since leaving the U.S., the World Cup has been held in France, Japan, Korea, Germany and South Africa.

The Champions League soccer tournament has been won by Real Madrid and Barcelona 4 times each, AC Milan 3 times, Manchester United and Bayern Munich twice each, and once each by Ajax Amsterdam, Juventus, Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Liverpool, Internazionale Milano and Chelsea.

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

Current Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was an assistant with the Ottawa Senators. Jack Capuano of the Islanders was coaching in the minor leagues. John Hynes of the Devils was playing at Boston University. Joe Girardi of the Yankees was playing for the Colorado Rockies. Terry Collins of the Mets was managing the Houston Astros. Kurt Rambis of the Knicks was playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. Todd Bowles of the Jets was playing for the Washington Redskins. Kenny Atkinson of the Nets was playing in Spain's basketball league. And Ben McAdoo of the Giants was in high school.

Bill Clinton was in his 1st term as President. Hillary Clinton was First Lady. George W. Bush was running for Governor of Texas. George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and their wives, and Lady Bird Johnson were all still alive. (Mrs. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Mr. and Mrs. Reagan have since died.) Richard Nixon had just died. Barack Obama was teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and Donald Trump was... doing something douchey.

The Governor of New York was Mario Cuomo, about to lose a bid for a 4th term to George Pataki. The Mayor of New York City was Rudy Giuliani, and the Governor of New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman.

Nelson Mandela was about to be elected President of South Africa in that nation's 1st-ever all-races-are-eligible elections, succeeding Fredrik W. de Klerk. They were the current holders of the Nobel Peace Prize, and enabled their country to be readmitted to the British Commonwealth. The Pope was John Paul II. The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien, and of Britain John Major. Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch -- that hasn't changed. Manchester United had just won "The Double": The Premier League and the FA Cup.

Novels of 1994 that became major motion pictures included Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, Disclosure by Michael Crichton, The Ice Storm by Rick Moody and The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. Elizabeth Wurtzel published the year's leading non-fiction book, Prozac Nation. None of the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire books had yet been published.

Major films of the late spring and early summer of 1994 included The Crow, Speed, The Lion King, Forrest Gump, and 2 baseball-themed movies, Little Big League and a remake of the 1951 film Angels in the Outfield. Michael Douglas was about to turn 50 and was wrapping up filming the movie version of Disclosure with Demi Moore; he was still married to Diandra Douglas, she to Bruce Willis. Catherine Zeta-Jones was then 23 and starring in a film version of Thomas Hardy's novel Return of the Native. Pierce Brosnan was filming his 1st James Bond movie, Joel Schumacher was about to temporarily ruin Batman, and the Star Trek film franchise was about to be handed off to The Next Generation (whose TV show was wrapping up).

Other television shows that were about to air their final first-run episodes were In Living Color, L.A. Law, the cartoon Rugrats and The Arsenio Hall Show. Soon to debut were Inside the Actors Studio, My So Called Life, New York Undercover, the cartoon version of The Tick, Party of Five, All American Girl, the medical shows Chicago Hope and ER, Touched by an Angel, Friends, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and NBC's Entertainment Tonight clone Extra! The WB Network and UPN were preparing to debut.

The day the Rangers won the Cup, the Number 1 song in America was “I Swear” by All-4-One, and Aaliyah released an album with the retroactively creepy title Age Ain't Nothing But a Number. In the preceding few days, Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley. The Eagles launched their 1st tour since breaking up 14 years earlier. Weezer released their self-titled debut album. Tupac Shakur spent 15 days in jail for assaulting film director Allen Hughes. And Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, in retaliation for being beaten, burned down boyfriend Andre Rison's house.

Few Americans had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Monica Lewinsky. Shakira, Kanye West, Stana Katic, Katie Holmes, Heath Ledger, Kourtney Kardashian and Pink were in high school. Kim Kardashian, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Jessica Alba, Natalie Portman, Chris Evans, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Kate Middleton and Hayley Atwell were in junior high school. Prince William, Matt Smith and Anne Hathaway were 11 years old; Khloe Kardashian was about to turn 10; Lady Gaga was 8; Drake, Emilia Clarke and Rob Kardashian were 7; Kevin Jonas and Rihanna were 6; Daniel Radcliffe, Joe Jonas and Emma Watson were 4; Louis Tomlinson was 2; Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj were 1 1/2; Zayn Malik was 1; Ariana Grande was about to turn 1; Liam Payne and Niall Horan were 9 months old; Harry Styles was 4 months; and Justin Bieber was 3 months.

That's right: The last time the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup, Justin Bieber wasn't a "Boyfriend," he was a "Baby." Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Maisie Williams, and, except for Sarah Hyland (who was 3), all of the kids on Modern Family hadn't yet been born.

The Internet was still new to most of us. Aerosmith became the 1st musical act to premiere a song on it. Most of us had never heard of Microsoft or Netscape or America Online. There was no Wikipedia, no Skype, no MySpace, no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no Pinterest, no Instagram and no Vine. VHS videotapes were still the dominant way of recording and playing back movies and TV shows. There were no tablet computers, iPods or iPads. No iPhones, either: Mobile phones were still roughly the size of the communicators on the original Star Trek series. 

The day after the Rangers won the Cup, Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations. Two days before, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered; three days afterward, Al Cowlings drove O.J. Simpson through greater Los Angeles. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed the month before.

In the spring of 1994, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Ralph Ellison, and, on the very day the Rangers won the Cup, Henry Mancini, died. Saorsie Ronan, and Olympic diving champion Tom Daley, and Olympic gymnastics champion Aly Raisman were born.

June 14, 1994: "The waiting is over! The New York Rangers have won the Stanley Cup! And this one will last a lifetime!"

If Howie Rose and Ranger fans only knew: As of April 24, 2016 -- indeed, as of the 2017 Stanley Cup clincher, even if the Rangers do pull it off -- 1 Cup in at least 77 years? That 1994 Stanley Cup already has lasted a lifetime.

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Norm Green for Moving the Minnesota North Stars to Dallas

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The Dallas Stars have advanced to the NHL Western Conference Semifinals, defeating the Minnesota Wild.

This has not gone over well in Minnesota, and not just because they don't like to lose there. Nor just because they don't like losing to Dallas. (See the 1975 NFC Divisional Playoff, where the Cowboys cheated their way to a win over the Vikings.)

It's because, from 1967 to 1993, the Dallas Stars were the Minnesota North Stars. Under that name, in 26 seasons, they won 2 Division titles, reached the last 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs 5 times, and the Stanley Cup Finals twice, but never won the Cup.

Then came Norm Green, a mall developer and telecom investor from Calgary. He'd already had experience in moving a hockey team, as part of the Harley Hotchkiss-led group that bought the Atlanta Flames in 1979, and moved them to Calgary in 1980.

But that was different. Atlanta never really took to hockey, and the Thrashers, expanded into existence in 1999, would fail in 2011.

In 1990, at the NHL's request, Green sold his shares in the Flames, and the brothers George and Gordon Gund sold the North Stars to Green, because they preferred to own a team in the San Francisco Bay Area. This enabled the Gunds to found the San Jose Sharks.

In 1991, the North Stars reached the Finals, but lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins. In 1993, he moved the team.

He could have changed the name to the Dallas Lone Stars, which would have enabled him to keep the new Star logo, as opposed to the North Stars' N topped by a Star logo, he made them just the Dallas Stars.

That was the dumbest thing he did, but moving the team was worse than that. He cited attendance as the reason for the move. So you think you can't get enough hockey fans in cold Minnesota, but you can in hot Dallas?

Well, the team has done well in attendance in Dallas, regularly filling the Reunion Arena from 1993 to 2001, and the American Airlines Center from 2001 to 2010, before a downturn in performance led to one in attendance, but it picked up again in 2015 and remains up.

It was suggested at the time that he wanted to move to get away from the Minnesota media, which was writing unflattering things about him, in the wake of a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Green was vilified as "Norm Greed" in Minnesota, but he was a hero in Dallas. Since the move, in 23 years, the Stars have won 8 Division titles (including this year), reached the Western Conference Finals 4 times, reached the Stanley Cup Finals twice, and won the Stanley Cup in 1999.
Norm Green. This guy is a secret underground lair away
from being a villain in a James Bond movie.

Despite the founding of the Minnesota Wild and the opening of the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, both on the Autumn of 2000, Green has not been forgiven by Minnesotans. Should he be?

Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Norm Green for Moving the Minnesota North Stars to Dallas

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

The Early 1990s Recession. Contrary to what conservatives said in 1993, as new President Bill Clinton was enacting the economic plan that restored American to prosperity, the recession that hit in 1990 really was bad. That drove down attendance to the kind of level that made Green complain.

Burnout. From March 1991 to April 1992, just a shade over 1 year, the Twin Cities hosted the Frozen Four, the World Series, the Super Bowl and the Final Four. They were scheduled to host the NBA All-Star Game in 1994, hosted by the NBA team they'd just gotten. As a result, Minneapolis-St. Paul felt more "major league" than it ever had. Maybe losing the North Stars really didn't matter that much.

The Softenings of the Blow. Maybe Minnesotans thought that losing their NHL team was a tragedy. But was it, really? Losing baseball teams crushed New York in 1957 (especially the Borough of Brooklyn, which has never recovered emotionally), Milwaukee in 1965, Seattle in 1970, and Washington in 1971. Losing NFL teams was a blow to Oakland in 1982, Baltimore in 1984, St. Louis in 1987 (though not so much in 2016), Los Angeles and Cleveland in 1995, and Houston in 1996. Each of those cities felt a little less "major league."

But losing an NHL team? It didn't hurt the Bay Area and Kansas City much in 1976, or Cleveland in 1978, or Colorado in 1982. It did hurt Quebec City in 1995 and Winnipeg in 1996, because that hurt Canada's psyche as much as losing an MLB or NFL team would to an American city's. It hurt Hartford in 1997, but that was because the Whalers were all they had.

Minnesotans still had high school and college hockey, and teams in MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and college football and basketball. And they did get the announcement of the Wild in 1997, just 4 years later, to take the ice in 2000, just 7 years after the North Stars were taken away.

So was it really all that bad? It's better than Cleveland got with the new Browns, New York (at first) got with the Mets, and much less of a wait than Baltimore had until the Ravens, Winnipeg with the reborn Jets, Colorado with the Avalanche, or Quebec City, which still doesn't have a replacement team. The wait has now also been exceeded by that of Seattle for a replacement for the SuperSonics.

Okay, the '99 Cup being won by the same franchise in Dallas must've stung. But there's no guarantee they would have won it had they stayed in Minnesota.

Now for the Top 5:

5. The Attendance Really Was Bad. Green may have been a greedy jerk and a womanizer, but on this subject, he was not a liar. In 1982, in the wake of the previous season's trip to the Finals, Stars fans filled the Metropolitan Sports Center to capacity, averaging 15,220 fans per home game. But it declined: From 1985 to 1993, it never again topped 14,000.

By 1988, it was under 12,000. In the Finals year of 1990-91, it was a mere 7,838. That is not a typographical error: Seven thousand, eight hundred thirty-eight. The Chicago Blackhawks get nearly 3 times that now. Even in the final season, knowing that increased attendance could change Green's mind and get him to keep the team in what's now known as "The State of Hockey," it was only 13,910 fans per game.

Much like the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Baltimore Colts before them, and the Cleveland Browns after them, North Stars fans didn't support their team in the kind of numbers that their enthusiasm then and their angst shortly thereafter would suggest.

Green could have been a decent man who wasn't getting sued for bad behavior toward women, and he still would have had a great reason to move them. If Minnesotans who were already salaried adults in the George H.W. Bush years want to blame someone for their team moving, the 1st place they need to look is in the mirror.

4. The Golden Gophers. The University of Minnesota had the State's, and the Twin Cities', most popular hockey team. By 1993, they'd already reached what's now known as the NCAA Frozen Four 14 times (they've since raised that number to 21), and won National Championships in 1974, 1976 and 1979 (and have added them in 2002 and 2003).
The Gophers could be counted on to win more often than not. The North Stars couldn't. So a local hockey fan was more apt to spend his hard-earned dollars on a winning team.

3. New Buildings. The NBA's expansion Minnesota Timberwolvesgot a new arena, the Target Center, in 1990 after playing their 1st season in the Metrodome. And the Twins and Vikings had gotten the Metrodome only a few years earlier, in 1982. The City of Minneapolis was willing to build new venues for them, but not for the North Stars. Nor was the City of Saint Paul. Nor was Hennepin County (where Minneapolis is). Nor was Ramsey County (where St. Paul is). Nor was the State of Minnesota. Why couldn't the Stars get a new arena?

Why did the North Stars need a new arena? The Met Center was in suburban Bloomington, 10 miles south of downtown Minneapolis. Today, the Metro Blue Line light rail connects downtown with the Mall of America, built in stages on the sites of Metropolitan Stadium and the Met Center. But it didn't open until 2004, long after the Twins, Vikings, and North Stars left.
Some sports venues have their naming rights bought by a bank.
This one looked like it was a bank.

It wasn't so easy to get there from Minneapolis without a car. It was even harder from St. Paul. In contrast, the Metrodome site, now nearly fully converted into U.S. Bank Stadium, new home of the Vikings, and the Twins' new home of Target Field, and the Target Center are all adjacent to light rail stations downtown, and the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul has public transit access as well.

So why didn't Green simply negotiate to move the North Stars into the Target Center? Because it was built with basketball specifically in mind. As Islander fans are now finding out at the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn, when you try to squeeze a hockey rink into a venue built for basketball, the sight lines don't work out very well.

2. Dallas. It's a sports-crazy city with a lot of transplants from hockey areas, and lots and lots of money. Dallas was rolling in it, from the energy, insurance and banking industries. Minneapolis may have been an argibusiness, pharmaceutical and technological giant once upon a time, but its business glory days were long gone.
Downtown Minneapolis, as seen from the University of Minnesota campus.
Photo taken in 2013. Note the Metrodome still standing.

And, as we've seen the Stars have done well in Dallas, both on the ice and at the box office. Hockey in Texas may never feel quite right, but this "marriage" has stood the test of time thus far.
Dallas

1. Gary Bettman. Whatever the Commissioner of the National Hockey League wants, he gets. He wanted fewer teams in the Snow Belt, more teams in the Sun Belt. The fact that he had to give Minnesota an expansion franchise shortly thereafter shows that he was wrong. But it is also a fact that, if he had wanted the North Stars to stay in Minnesota, they'd still be there.

VERDICT: Not Guilty. Norm Green may have been Norm Greed, but he had legitimate reasons for moving the team, and for where.

Hopefully, with the NHL now long restored to the Twin Cities, and the Wild having been good more often than not, the statute of limitations has expired, and Minnesota hockey fans can focus on the future, not on the past.

Yanks Drop Finale vs. Rays, Head for Texas

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It's a good thing baseball series aren't awarded on aggregate, like some soccer ties are. Otherwise, we'd have lost 13-10.

Michael Pineda started the home series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays, and got the 1st 2 outs of the game. But, then: Double, home run, single, double, home run, double, popup. 5-0 to Tampa Bay before the Yankees even came to bat.

Pineda allowed only 1 run on 4 hits and a walk after that. A hell of a way for "onebadinningitis" to strike.

The Yankees got only 1 run on 6 hits, the run coming in the 4th, on a rare hit by Alex Rodriguez, an RBI double that got Brett Gardner home. (He'd been hit by a pitch.)

Gardner, Chase Headley and Didi Gregorius each went 0-for-3. Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann went 0-for-4.

Rays 8, Yankees 1. WP: Drew Smyly (1-2). No save. LP: Pineda (1-2). The Yanks took 2 out of 3, but the 1 they lost looked really bad.

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So, 3 weeks into the 26-week Major League Baseball season, here's how the American League Eastern Division stands:

Baltimore Orioles: 11-6
Toronto Blue Jays: 10-10, 2 1/2 games behind
Boston Red Sox: 9-9, 2 1/2 back
Tampa Bay Rays: 8-10, 3 1/2 back
Yankees: 7-10, 4 back

As they say on medical dramas, "I'm not going to lie to you, it doesn't look good." Although it didn't help that the Orioles got off to a 7-0 start. Had they gone merely 4-3, 1 over .500, there'd be nobody in the AL East over .500, and the Yankees would be only 1 game behind Boston in the loss column.

The Yankees head down to Hell, otherwise known as Texas, to play the Rangers. Here are the projected starters:

* Tonight: Nathan Eovaldi vs. Cesar Ramos.
* Tomorrow night: Luis Severino vs. A.J. Griffin.
* Wednesday night: CC Sabathia vs. Martin Perez.

Have I ever mentioned I hate all teams called Rangers? Regardless of country, regardless of sport, especially when they wear blue shirts. Baseball in Texas. Soccer in Scotland. Especially hockey in New York. The only Ranger wearing a blue shirt who doesn't suck is the Lone Ranger. (And Disney screwed that up, casting Armie Hammer and giving him a black shirt.)

Come on you Bombers!

How Long It's Been: The Islanders Won a Playoff Series

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Last night, the New York Islanders beat the Florida Panthers, 2-1 at the Barcalys Center in Brooklyn, on an overtime goal by their Captain, John Tavares, and won their NHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series 4 games to 2.

They will play the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Conference Semifinal.

With the New York Rangers, gutless wonders as always, clowning their way to a 5-game loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the New Jersey Devils not having made the Playoffs at all, this is the 1st time the Islanders have been the last team standing in New York Tri-State Area hockey since 1993.

It is also the 1st time since then that the Islanders have won a Playoff series. It was on May 14, 1993 that the Islanders eliminated the 2-time defending Penguins in 7 games, before falling to the Montreal Canadiens in the Conference Final. The Canadiens would beat the Los Angeles Kings for the Cup.

(The Kings' Marty McSorley got caught using an illegal stick in Game 2, and the ensuing power play turned a likely 2-0 series lead for the Kings into a 4-1 series win for the Habs. Back then, the Kings got punished for their cheating.)

May 14, 1993. Almost 23 years. How long has that been?

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The Islanders opened the season losing 4-3 away to the Devils, then lost away to the Penguins, which emphasized the way the previous season ended: The Rangers winning the President's trophy for best overall League record, and eliminating the Devils in the 1st round, before falling to the defending Champion Penguins. Then they had a 5-game losing streak from October 31 to November 12. But they won 6 out of 7 from December 13 to 26, had a 5 win and a tie run from January 16 to 28, won 5 straight from February 27 to March 9, and got into the Playoffs.

The Isles played the Washington Capitals in the 1st round, and won 3 games in overtime before Pierre Turgeon's goal clinched Game 6 and the series, before Dale Hunter's cowardly cross-check, knocked Turgeon out until the middle of the Conference Finals against the Canadiens, but the Isles didn't need Turgeon to beat the mighty Penguins.

Two years later, the Islanders had fallen apart, and general manager Don Maloney -- an ex-Ranger, a member of their 1979 Stanley Cup Finals team -- decided to rebuild (which failed). He traded several players, including Turgeon. A 5-time All-Star, the 3rd and 4th times with the Isles, Turgeon's been out of hockey since retiring as a player in 2007. He is 46 years old. That's right, the last real Islander hero is closer to 50 than to 40. His son Dominic now plays in the Detroit Red Wings' organization.

The Rangers hadn't won the Cup in 53 years. The Detroit Red Wings, 38 years. The Chicago Blackhawks, 32 years. The Boston Bruins, 21 years. Those droughts have now ended.

The New Jersey Devils, the franchise then known as the Quebec Nordiques franchise, the Washington Capitals, the franchise then known as the Minnesota North Stars, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the franchise then known as the Hartford Whalers, the team then known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and the Los Angeles Kings hadn't yet won their 1st Stanley Cup. The Devils, the Kings (though they were about to), the Nordiques franchise, the Florida Panthers, the Whalers franchise, the Ducks and the Lightning hadn't yet reached their 1st Stanley Cup Finals. All of these have since reached those achievements.

The North Stars hadn't yet moved to Dallas, except officially. The original Jets were still in Winnipeg, and the Nordiques and Whalers hadn't yet moved. There was no NHL team in Texas, or Arizona, or the Carolinas, or Ohio. The Ducks and the Panthers existed only on paper. The Nashville Predators, the Minnesota Wild, the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Atlanta Thrashers -- now the new Winnipeg Jets -- didn't exist at all. All those facts have now changed.

With the Edmonton Oilers having just left the Northlands Coliseum/Rexall Place for a new arena to open this Autumn, only 3 NHL teams are currently playing in the same arenas they were using in the 1992-93 season: The Rangers, the Red Wings and the Calgary Flames -- and the Wings are building a new arena that they plan to open in the 2017-18 season.

The Islanders have left the Nassau Coliseum for the Barclays Center, which is now also the home of the team known in 1993 as the New Jersey Nets. The Devils, the Yankees, the Mets, the Giants and the Jets have built new venues. Of the 9 teams playing major league sports in the New York Tri-State Area in May 1993, only the Rangers and the Knicks have not moved. And they may have to, within the next few years, due to a lease issue with Madison Square Garden. The New York Liberty, who also play at The Garden, and their league, the WNBA, did not exist yet. Neither did the team now known as the New York Red Bulls, and their league, MLS. The Red Bulls have also built a new venue.

Hockey legends Maurice Richard, Sid Abel, Syl Apps and Red Horner were still alive. So was Murray Murdoch, who won the Cup with the Rangers in 1928 and 1933. Of the defining players of my youth, only Bryan Trottier, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and, ugh, Mark Messier were still active.

Martin Brodeur had barely played in the NHL. Patrik Elias and Zdeno Chara were in what their country calls high school. Henrik Zetterberg was in junior high. Henrik Lundqvist was 11 years old; Andy Greene was 10. Rick Nash and Marc-Andre Fleury were 9. Alexander Ovechkin and Jonathan Quick were 7. Evgeni Malkin was 6. Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Claude Giroux and Jonathan Toews were 5. Ryan McDonagh and Steven Stamkos were 3. John Tavares was 2. Connor McDavid wasn't born yet.

Current Islanders coach Jack Capuano had just started coaching in minor-league hockey. Alain Vigneault of the Rangers was an assistant coach with the Ottawa Senators. John Hynes of the Devils and Ben McAdoo of the Giants were in high school. Joe Girardi was the starting catcher for the expansion Rockies. Terry Collins of the Mets was the bullpen coach of the Pirates. Todd Bowles of the Jets was playing as a cornerback for the Washington Redskins. Kurt Rambis of the Knicks was playing for the Sacramento Kings. And Kenny Atkinson of the Nets was playing in Spain's basketball league.

As I said, the Pittsburgh Penguins were the defending Stanley Cup Champions. The defending World Champions in the other sports were the Toronto Blue Jays, the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bulls. Riddick Bowe was the Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The Olympic Games have since been held in America twice, Norway, Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China, Canada, Britain and Russia. Soccer's World Cup has since been held in America, France, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa and Brazil.

The President of the United States was Bill Clinton -- who, of course, was married to Hillary Clinton. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, their wives, and the widows of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were all still alive. George W. Bush was 46, failing as owner of the Texas Rangers, already a 3-times-failed businessman and a once-failed candidate for Congress, and was wondering what he was going to do with his life. Barack Obama was a civil rights attorney in Chicago, who had not yet run for public office. His wife Michelle was running a nonprofit organization. Donald Trump was... doing something douchey.

The Governor of the State of New York was Mario Cuomo; his son, Andrew, now Governor himself, was then Assistant Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. The Mayor of the City of New York was David Dinkins, but he was about to lose the office to Rudy Giuliani; the current Mayor, Bill de Blasio, was then an aide to Dinkins. The Governor of New Jersey was Jim Florio, but he was about to lose his bid for re-election to Christine Todd Whitman. The current Governor, Chris Christie, was running a primary challenge to the State Senate Majority Leader, John Dorsey. He lost when it was legally proven that he didn't get enough signatures in his petition to get on the ballot.

The holder of the Nobel Peace Prize was Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan activist for the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, later discredited for lies in his memoir. Few Americans had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky. Or Osama bin Laden: The World Trade Center had recently survived a bombing, with 6 deaths.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Brian Mulroney, but he was about to retire, and let his successor, Kim Campbell, the 1st female head of government in North American history, take the fall at the polls for his mismanagement of the country, making Jean Chretien Prime Minister. The monarch of Canada, and of Great Britain, was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed -- but the Prime Minister was John Major.

Manchester United had won England's Premier League the previous spring, while Arsenal became the 1st team ever to take both domestic cup competitions: The FA Cup and the League Cup. Arsenal defeated Sheffield Wednesday in both tournament's Finals at the old Wembley Stadium in London, but needed a replay to take the FA Cup, as the original game ended tied. It was the last time an FA Cup Final or Semifinal went to a replay: The Football Association prescribed penalty kicks after regulation and extra time. (What we would call "overtime.") The 1st ever penalty shootout in a Final would also involve Arsenal, beating Manchester United in 2005.

Major novels of 1993 included Honor Among Thieves by Jeffrey Archer, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, The Client by John Grisham, Death In the Andes by Maria Vargas Llosa, and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. Historian Stephen Ambrose published Band of Brothers, immortalizing a U.S. Army unit marching through Europe in World War II. None of the Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire books had been published yet.

Major films released in the Spring of 1993 included the baseball film The Sandlot, Indecent Proposal, Dave, Sliver and Super Mario Bros. Soon to be released: Jurassic Park, The Last Action Hero and Sleepless In Seattle.

There was, as yet, no Fox News Channel, WB Network or UPN. Major TV shows that had just ended included Doogie Howser, M.D., Major Dad, Reasonable Doubts, Quantum Leap, Knots Landing and The Wonder Years. Cheers, Saved by the Bell, Life Goes On, Designing Women and A Different World were about to wrap up. David Letterman was in the process of moving his talk show from NBC to CBS.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Homicide: Life On the Street, Beavis and Butt-head and Walker: Texas Ranger -- the last of these, not as good a cop show as the first, and almost as stupid and cartoonish as the second -- had recently premiered. Soon to do so were Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Living Single, The X-Files, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Animaniacs, Ricki Lake, Biker Mice from Mars, Frasier, NYPD Blue, Boy Meets World, Grace Under Fire, Diagnosis: Murder, The Nanny, and the original Jon Stewart Show, an MTV variety series.

The Paula Poundstone Show, a talk show, and South of Sunset, featuring Glenn Fry of The Eagles as a private eye, would soon premiere -- and both were canceled after 1 episode. I saw both, and Poundstone's show was a genuine what-the-hell. Nobody knew what she was doing, including herself. Frey's show, billed as Moonlighting in L.A., wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't bad. I still don't know why CBS didn't give it another chance. It was only the 2nd episodic series (not a game show, a variety show, or a "reality" show) on U.S. TV to be canceled after just 1 airing. There have since been 4 more. South of Sunset was easily the best of these. But neither it nor Poundstone was as big a bomb as The Chevy Chase Show, Fox's attempt to turn Weekend Update, the Saturday Night Live sketch that Chase premiered in 1975, into a full-length show. 

The Number 1 song in America was "That's the Way Love Goes" by Janet Jackson. Her brother Michael had recently played the Super Bowl halftime show and sat for an interview with Oprah Winfrey, but a legal cloud was beginning to form over him.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr returned to the Hollywood Bowl, 27 years after last playing it with John Lennon and George Harrison, and headlined an Earth Day concert that also featured ex-Eagle Don Henley and Steve Miller. Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles married screenwriter Jay Roach. They're still together. Not still together are Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones and Suzanne Accosta, who married a few days before the Islander victory in question; and Mariah Carey and Tommy Mottola, who married a few days after.

A month before, the American establishment essentially surrendered in their long war against Sixties activism, as the San Francisco Giants had the Grateful Dead sing the National Anthem before their home opener; and a musical version of The Who's Tommy opened on Broadway. The month after, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, which he kept, along with the identification "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince," for 7 years.

Kanye West, Stana Katic, Katie Holmes and Kourtney Kardashian were in high school. Pink, Kim Kardashian, Chrstina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Jessica Alba, Natalie Portman and Chris Evans were in junior high school. Beyonce Knowles, Britney Spears, Kate Middleton, Hayley Atwel and Kirsten Dunst were 11 years old; Prince William, Matt Smith and Anne Hathaway were 10; Khloe Kardashian and Prince Harry were 8; Lady Gaga was 7; Drake, Emilia Clarke and Rob Kardashian were 6; Kevin Jonas and Rihanna were 5; Daniel Radcliffe, Joe Jonas and Emma Watson were 3; Louis Tomlinson was a year and a half; Selena Gomez was 10 months, Demi Lovato was 9 months, Nick Jonas was 7 months, Miley Cyrus was 6 months, Nicki Minaj was 5 months, Zayn Malik was 4 months; and Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Abigail Breslin, Maisie Williams, and all of the Modern Family kids (except Sarah Hyland, 2 1/2) had not yet been born.

Most of us had not yet heard of the Internet. Mobile phones were about the size of the communicators on the original Star Trek series. There was, as yet, no Nintendo PlayStation, no Bluetooth, no smart phone, no tablet computer, no Wikipedia, no Skype, no MySpace, no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no Pinterest, no Instagram, no Vine, no iPod, iPhone or iPad. If you had suggested in the Spring of 1993 that things like these would become possible over the next 22 years, you might have gotten some interest, but it would have been hard to take that interest seriously.

In the Spring of 1993, Janet Reno was confirmed as the 1st female U.S. Attorney General. David Koresh, a bigamist child molester with a gun fetish and a messianic complex, had his cult in Waco, Texas kill 4 federal agents, before the FBI moved in; Koresh had the cult commit suicide by fire rather than be captured alive. Governor George Mickelson of South Dakota and 7 others were killed in a plane crash. Another killed the national soccer team of the African nation of Zambia. Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia.

Mets star Bobby Bonilla was caught on tape threatening sportswriter Bob Klapisch, who had written an unflattering book about the team. Wade Boggs, Paul O'Neill, Jimmy Key and Jim Abbott made their Yankee debuts. Auto racer Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash in Tennessee. Drazen Petrovic of the Nets was killed in a car crash in Germany. And in the same country, tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed during a tournament.

Marian Anderson, and Cesar Chavez, and Johnny Mize died. Ariande Grande, and Romelu Lukaku, and, on the very day of this Islander victory, Miranda Cosgrove were born.

May 14, 1993. The New York Islanders won a Playoff series. Between 1975 and 1993, this was not considered a big deal. But it would take them 22 years to do so again.

Now, they have. Can they go further? They would have to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, defending NHL Eastern Conference Champions to advance to the Conference Finals. If successful, they would have to beat the winner of the series between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

We shall see.

How to Be a Yankee Fan In Baltimore -- 2016 Edition

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On Tuesday, May 3, the Yankees begin a series away to the Baltimore Orioles.

I started my "How to Be a Yankee Fan In... " series with the Orioles, because they are actually the Yankees' closest opponents, if you don't count Interleague trips to Flushing and South Philly. They are closer to New York than the Boston Red Sox: Camden Yards is 193 miles from Times Square and 202 miles from Yankee Stadium; Fenway Park, 210 and 203.

It's an easy trip, or, as Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay once said, seeing a LOT of Yankee paraphernalia in the stands, "This is really the South Bronx. About 190 miles south."

I saw 3 Oriole games at the old Memorial Stadium, and I've seen 4 games at Camden Yards, the last 2 involving the Yankees. I won't be going this week, but I highly recommend this trip -- if not now, certainly in the future. Baltimore is a good city and a very good sports town.

Before You Go. Baltimore can get quite hot in the summer, but we're in early May, so heat shouldn't be a problem. Check the Baltimore Sun website for the weather before you go. Afternoon temperatures are expected to be in the mid-70s, evenings in the mid-60s. However, rain is a possibility for all 3 days. Fortunately, Baltimore is close enough that, if there's a rainout, your raincheck will be fairly easy to use.

Baltimore is, of course, in the Eastern Time Zone, so there's no need to fiddle with your timepieces.

Tickets. It used to be that getting tickets to any Orioles home game, not just Yankee games, was hard, because they were selling Camden Yards out 44, 45, 46,000 per night. (Officially, seating capacity is 45,971, with the difference long being made up by standing room.)

Just as the 1954 arrival of the Orioles in Baltimore, 40 or so miles away, probably doomed the Washington Senators (twice, as it turned out, the originals-turned-Minnesota Twins in 1961 and the "New Senators"-turned-Texas Rangers in 1971), so, too, did the specter of a new team coming to Washington hang over the Orioles.  Edward Bennett Williams, the "superlawyer" who also owned the NFL's Washington Redskins for many years, wanted out of Memorial Stadium, which was a fine place to watch a baseball game and a great one to watch a football game. It had two major problems, however: You couldn't get in, and you couldn't get out. Driving there was bad, and public transport was every bit as bad, with the Number 3 bus constantly getting stuck in traffic on North Charles Street and then on 33rd Street.

Williams wanted a ballpark close to downtown, with easy access to Camden Station and Interstate 95 -- and thus with easier road and rail access from his Washington hometown. For years, Baltimoreans were terrified that, if he didn't get what he wanted, he would outright move the team to Washington to share Robert F. Kennedy Stadium with the 'Skins. This fear expanded after Robert Irsay moved the Colts to Indianapolis in 1984. But, just before Williams' death in 1988, a funding plan for the new ballpark got through the Maryland legislature.

New team owner Peter Angelos, once one of the biggest-spending owners in the game, was desperate to keep MLB expansion from including the Nation's Capital and established teams from moving there. He was sure that one-quarter of the Orioles' fans were from the D.C. area, and he didn't want to lose those fans. Which explains why he got plenty of freebies to D.C. power brokers, including members of Congress, White House staff, and pundits, including George Will, who became a minority owner of the franchise despite his lifelong fandom for the Chicago Cubs.

The Orioles reached the American League Championship Series in 1996, but lost to the Yankees; and again in 1997, but lost to the Cleveland Indians. In fact, the O's have played 6 ALCS games at Camden Yards since it opened in 1992, and have won only 5. (This includes 0-3 against the '96 Yanks, so since they couldn't protect their house, their fans can shut the hell up about Jeffrey Maier.)

A beanball war at Yankee Stadium in 1998, in the midst of a Yankee sweep, marked the end of the O's would-be dynasty. But people still came to Camden Yards in droves, even as the team deterioriated. In 1997, attendance peaked at 45,816 per game. As late as 2000, it was 40,704. In 2001, still 38,686.

And then, in 2002, per-game attendance dropped to 33,122. Just like that. So what happened in 2002? Or in the 2001-02 offseason? Easy: The statue of Cal Ripken was removed from third base.

You've probably gotten the joke: That wasn't a statue. That was Ripken himself, who probably played 3 years too long. But after Cal left, and took his overrated legend with him, there was no reason to watch the Orioles anymore: They stunk, and had no drawing cards.

In 2004, the last season before the Montreal Expos moved to become the Washington Nationals, O's per-game attendance was 34,300. In 2005, the Nats' first season down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, attendance fell to 32,404. The Nats weren't good, and RFK Stadium was inadequate for modern baseball, but the novelty of baseball being back in the Nation's Capital wasn't enough to make the one-quarter difference that Angelos long feared. In fact, instead of a 25 percent drop, it was a 6 percent drop. But it was a 19 percent drop from the last Cal season.

In 2010, O's per-game attendance bottomed out at 21,662, which was their their lowest since 1988, the year they lost their first 21 games en route to losing 107 for the season. That's little more than half the total from the last Cal season, but that's got little to do with the Nats simply existing an hour's drive away (at least, it's an hour's drive in theory; BaltWash Corridor traffic can be horrendous), and lots to do with the O's being pathetic. And with Stephen Strasburg having arrived, now it will be the Nats who have the iconic player (as if Ryan Zimmerman isn't already a damn good player).

So the O's were really up the creek, right? Nope, they found a way to bounce back: Winning.  In 2012, they drove the Yankees crazy all season long, taking the American League Eastern Division race down to the wire, and even facing the Yankees in the AL Division Series, before the Yankees finally emerged victorious. Per-game attendance rose to 26,610. In 2015, with the O's in contention most of the way, it was 29,374.

So what does this mean? It means getting tickets for O's games will still be relatively easy, although it may no longer be possible to just walk up to the ticket booth and give your request, and basically get pretty much any seat(s) you're willing to pay for. Field Box seats are $72, Terrace Boxes are $48, Lower Reserves are $24, Upper Boxes are $33, Upper Reserves are $20, and Bleachers (in center field) are $24.

Getting There. Getting to Baltimore is fairly easy. However, if you have a car, I recommend using it, and using the parking deck at a hotel near the ballpark. There are several.

If you're not "doing the city," but just going to the game, take the New Jersey Turnpike all the way down to the Delaware Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. the Twin Span), across the Delaware River into the State of, well, Delaware. This should take about 2 hours, not counting a rest stop.
The Delaware Memorial Bridge

Speaking of which, the temptation to take an alternate route (such as Exit 7A to I-195 to I-295 to the Ben Franklin Bridge) or a side trip (Exit 4, eventually leading to the Ben Franklin Bridge) to get into Pennsylvania and stop off at Pat's Steaks in South Philly can be strong, but if you want to get from New York to Baltimore with making only one rest stop, you’re better off using the Walt Whitman Service Area in Cherry Hill, between Exits 4 and 3. It's almost exactly the halfway point between New York and Baltimore.

Once you get over the Twin Span – the New Jersey-bound span opened in 1951, the Delaware-bound one was added in 1968 – follow the signs carefully, as you'll be faced with multiple ramps signs for Interstates 95, 295 and 495, as well as for U.S. Routes 13 and 40 and State Route 9 (not the U.S. Route 9 with which you may be familiar, although that does terminate in Delaware, but considerably to the south of where you'll be). You want I-95 South, and its signs will say "Delaware Turnpike" and "Baltimore." You'll pay tolls at both its eastern and western ends, and unless there's a traffic jam, you should only be in Delaware for a maximum of 15 minutes before hitting the Maryland State Line.

At said State Line, I-95 changes from the Delaware Turnpike to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, and you'll be on it for about an hour (unless you want to make another rest stop, at either the Chesapeake House or Maryland House rest area) before reaching the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and Exit 53, for I-395 which empties onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and the ballpark will be right there.

If all goes well (getting out of New York City and into downtown Baltimore okay, reasonable traffic, just the one rest stop, no trouble with your car), the whole trip should take about 4 hours.

Baltimore, whose airport is named for native son Thurgood Marshall, the 1st black Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, is too close to fly, just as flying from New York (from JFK, LaGuardia or Newark) to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, don’t really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train.

The train is a good option, but not a great one. Baltimore's Penn Station is at 1515 N. Charles Street, bounded on the other side by St. Paul Street, which runs southbound. Get on Charles, and you'll be going northbound, away from downtown, and you'll end up near the Museum of Art, Druid Hill Park ("Droodle Park" in Baltimorese), and the site of Memorial Stadium (now senior-citizens' housing). It's not a good neighborhood (although there are worse ones in Baltimore), and it will be out of your way. In addition, Amtrak is expensive. They figure, "You hate to fly, you don't want to deal with airports, and Greyhound sucks, so we can charge whatever we want."
Baltimore's Penn Station, with that weird sculpture in front

Still, if you have the money – it’ll probably be $176 round-trip – Amtrak is a good option. An Acela Express (they don’t call it the Metroliner anymore) will be much more expensive, $556, but it will take about 2 hours and 15 minutes; a regular Northeast Regional about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Bus? The old Greyhound terminal was right downtown, but it was an absolute hole. It looked like a homeless shelter. The new one is a huge improvement in terms of cleanliness, and a round-trip fare would be $62 at most -- with advanced purchase, dropping to as little as $16! The problem is that the terminal is at 2110 Haines Street, south of downtown. On paper, it's not unreasonable to walk from there to the NFL Ravens' stadium (currently, M&T Bank has the naming rights) and then past that to ballpark. But you'll be walking under the elevated Interstate 395, and, having done it, I can tell you: You won't like it.

From the Greyhound terminal, the Number 27 bus will take you right to the ballpark. If you want to see the Inner Harbor attractions, change by the ballpark to the Number 7 bus, theoretically in just 3 minutes. (That's what the schedule says, but we're talking night games, therefore rush hour traffic. Expect a longer trip.)

Unfortunately, New York to Baltimore -- or, more accurately, the return trip -- by Greyhound is a bad option on a weeknight. The last bus of the night leaves the "downtown" terminal at 7:30 PM. You'd have to spend the night in the city to go back by bus. Anyway, the trip is around 4 hours.

Greyhound also has "Baltimore Travel Plaza." It's at 5625 O'Donnell Street, 3 miles east of downtown, just off Interstate 95, designed to cater to Baltimore and Washington travelers at the same time, while those going to the Haines Street terminal are pretty much only those going to Baltimore. To get from Travel Plaza to downtown (Harborplace or Camden Yards), take the Number 20 bus. A bus from there will leave at 11:00 PM, but it won't get back to Port Authority until 3:45 AM. And do you really want to be at Port Authority at 4 in the morning?

In hindsight, it's better to come down early on a Saturday, get a hotel, enjoy downtown on Saturday afternoon, see the game on Saturday night, and then on Sunday, choose between going to a second game and seeing something away from downtown such as the Museum of Art. You'll be glad you did. There are 2 more Yanks-O's series in Baltimore in this regular season, and they're both on weekends: June 3 to 5, and September 2 to 4.

Once In the City. Named for Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, founding proprietor of the Maryland Colony, and founded in 1729, Baltimore -- from the Gaelic "Baile an Tí Mhóir," meaning "town of the big house" -- is one of those cities whose interior population shrank from the 1950s onward, due to "white flight," causing its suburbs to boom. A city of 800,000 in 1970, it has fallen to 622,000, but the metropolitan area has about 2.8 million -- roughly as many as Brooklyn. Counting their entire market -- roughly northern and eastern Maryland, plus Sussex County, southernmost Delaware, including Rehoboth Beach -- and it's about 3.4 million.

Keep in mind that Baltimore City and Baltimore County are separate entities. (This is also true of St. Louis -- but not Philadelphia, San Francisco or Denver, where the City and the County have the same borders. And the Counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas and Milwaukee include the cities with those names, as well as other municipalities.) So if someone tells you that a location in which you're interested is in Baltimore County, you'll know it's not anywhere near downtown. Example: Towson University (the word "State" has been dropped from its name) is 8 miles north of downtown.

The city's centerpoint is Charles & Baltimore Streets. Charles separates east & west addresses, Baltimore separates north & south.

Baltimore is way behind the curve when it comes to public transportation. They didn't have a subway (they call it the Metro) until 1983, and it didn't go anywhere near Memorial Stadium. As it is, the Lexington Market and Charles Center stops are each 8 blocks from Camden Yards.
The Light Rail system opened in April 1992, the same month as the new ballpark, and separate stops serve both the ballpark (and Camden Station, enabling MARC commuter-rail access from Washington and the suburbs between the two cities) and the football stadium. The Light Rail does serve Penn Station, although the closest stop to the Greyhound station on Haines Street is Hamburg Street, which is the stop for the Ravens' stadium. The regular fare for a bus, subway or light rail ride is $1.60.
Camden Yards Station light rail stop

As a result of not having a subway or a light rail until a generation ago, old habits die hard, and people overrely on the city's buses, jamming them, sometimes not even during rush hour.

I'll say it again: If you can drive, or if you can get someone to drive you, do it, and park in a downtown hotel's deck. You'll be better off walking around to the various downtown locations.

If you're coming into the city by Amtrak, when you get to Baltimore’s Penn Station, pick up copies of the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post. The Post is a great paper with a very good sports section, and as a holdover from the 1972-2004 era when D.C. had no MLB team of its own, it still covers the Orioles well. The Sun is only an okay paper, but its sports section is nearly as good as the Post's, and their coverage of their town's hometown baseball team rivals that of any paper in the country -- including the great coverage that The New York Times and Daily News give to the Yankees.

Once you have your newspapers, walk out to St. Paul Street, and catch either the Number 3 or the Number 64 bus, which will take you to downtown, to the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards areas.

Sales tax for the State of Maryland is 6 percent. That does not rise when you enter Baltimore City, or Baltimore County for that matter.

Going In. Hard to believe, but this is the 25th season for the stadium that was designed to have all the comforts of the future and all the atmosphere of the past. So now, instead of only looking like it has some history, Camden Yards actually does -- although it hasn't yet hosted a World Series. It has, however, hosted an All-Star Game, and the Playoffs 4 times, including the 1996, 1997 and 2014 American League Championship Series.

There are 5,000 parking spaces available at the ballpark (costing $6.00), but over 20,000 within a short walk of it. The official address for the ballpark is 333 W. Camden Street.

However you got there, you're most likely to walk in at the Eutaw Street gate, between the edge of the left field stands and the Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse. This area has statues of notable Orioles and of Babe Ruth. I'll elaborate in "Team History Displays."

But if you can, try to enter by the right field gate. You'll see some of the letters from the front gate of Memorial Stadium, which stood as a memorial to Baltimore City and Baltimore County losses in World Wars I and II. The bottom line of the inscription on the gate was saved: "TIME WILL NOT DIM THE GLORY OF THEIR DEEDS."
Entering by the right field gate will also enable you to get a good look at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the 2-time Super Bowl Champion Ravens, and its statue of Colts legend Johnny Unitas, and to get to what appears to be the only escalator bank at Camden Yards.
Nobody calls the ballpark "Oriole Park," even though that's how its name officially begins. It's always referred to as "Camden Yards," the only MLB stadium with a name that evokes English soccer grounds, particularly the pre-Taylor Report era (up until 1990, when stadiums had to begin conversion to all-seater in the wake of the previous year's Hillsborough Disaster): "Highbury,""Anfield,""Old Trafford, "Maine Road,""White Hart Lane,""Stamford Bridge." (But nobody ever called Memorial Stadium "Venable Park" after its neighborhood. And when people talk about "The South Bronx," they're not referring to Yankee Stadium, old or new.)

The field is natural grass, and points northeast. The park is not symmetrical. The left-field pole is 333 feet from home plate, left-center a nice, close 364, the deepest point in left-center 410, straightaway center 400, right-center 373, and the right-field pole 318. Unlike its predecessor, pitcher-friendly Memorial Stadium, Camden Yards is very much a hitters' park.
Darryl Strawberry, while with the Yankees on June 17, 1998, hit a 465-foot home run. But that's no longer the longest ever hit in Camden Yards: Evan Longoria hit one 473 feet on April 6, 2010. To this day, no one has hit the warehouse during a competitive game, although Ken Griffey Jr. did it during batting practice for the 1993 All-Star Game.

The longest homer inside the old Memorial Stadium was a shot to center field by Frank Howard, 470 feet. However, Frank Robinson hit the only home run out of Memorial Stadium, down the left field line, hitting the parking lot 460 feet from home plate, before bouncing another 80 feet. A flag reading "HERE," with black letters on an orange background, was put up on a pole where the ball left the confines of the stadium.

Speaking of home runs, every seat in Camden Yards is green, except for 2: 1 in left field, which marks the spot of Cal Ripken's 278th career home run, breaking Ernie Banks' all-time record among shortstops; and 1 in right field, which marks the spot of Eddie Murray's 500th career home run.

Food. Eat. You'll be glad you did. Baltimore is a really good food city, and the concession stands reflect this.  There are plenty of stands, and the lines are usually of reasonable length. The Esskay hot dogs are good, and the beers are varied.

Boog Powell's barbecue stand, on the Eutaw Street walkway, sells good stuff, although his meats are a little too spicy for my taste. Sometimes, you can even see the big fella himself, the 1961-74 1st baseman monitoring the cooking, seeing to it that his recipes are well-cared-for. He runs it with his lookalike son, John Wesley Powell Jr. or "J.W. Powell." Like the Number 19 Phillie jerseys in honor of Greg Luzinski at Bull's BBQ in Philadelphia, Boog's employees wear his Number 26 Oriole jersey.
Also on the Eutaw Street walkway are Baltimore Burger Bar; Esskay Gourmet, run by the company that has long sold the Orioles' hot dogs ("Esskay" as in "S.K.," for the merger of meatpacking companies Schluderberg and Kurdle), and famous for its crab mac & cheese dog (ew); Dempsey's Brew Pub and Restaurant, inside the Warehouse, named for former Oriole catcher Rick Dempsey; Natty-Boh Bar, also inside the Warehouse, complete with National Bohemian beer's one-eyed, mustachioed logo, which is iconic in the Chesapeake region (both Baltimore and Washington).

At Section 27 on the 1st base side is Flying Dog Grill, famed locally for their "Chesapeake fries," a variation on waffle fries. Nearby, at Section 31, is Ole Mole, a Mexican stand. Near that, at Section 37 (also upstairs at 222 and 366), is Pizza Boli's.

At Section 53 on the 3rd base side is TAKO Korean BBQ. Nearby, at Section 68, is The Chipper, serving nacho-style kettle-cooked potato chips, which come will all kinds of toppings, including that Maryland favorite, lump crabmeat. Near that, at Section 78, is Kosher Sports.

Team History Displays. As I said, there is a nod to Oriole history at the Eutaw Street gate. Since 2004, there have been steel sculptures of the uniform numbers officially retired by the team; and, since 2012, statues of the players so honored: 4, 1968-86 manager Earl Weaver; 5, 1955-77 3rd baseman (and later broadcaster) Brooks Robinson; 8, 1981-2001 shortstop (and later 3rd baseman) Cal Ripken Jr.; 20, 1966-71 right fielder (and later manager) Frank Robinson; 22, 1965-84 pitcher (and later broadcaster) Jim Palmer; and 33, 1977-96 1st baseman Eddie Murray.
Brooks Robinson at the dedication of his statue

The Orioles will only retire a number if its wearing has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, although the Robinsons and Ripken had their numbers retired before they were elected. For this reason, Number 7, worn by longtime coach and briefly manager Cal Ripken Sr.; Number 44, worn by former catcher and longtime coach Elrod Hendricks; and Number 46, worn by former pitcher and general manager Mike Flanagan, have not been officially retired, and they don't have statues. However, the team has not given any of these numbers out since these men died.

Since 1996 -- a little late, just missing the 100th Anniversary of his birth -- a statue of Baltimore native Babe Ruth has stood outside the Eutaw Street gate, roughly at the spot once occupied by Ruth's Cafe, a bar owned by the Babe's father, George Herman Ruth Sr. It's known as "Babe's Dream," and its sculptor, Susan Luery, is also a Baltimore native.

It shows him with a righthanded fielder's glove. This is often considered a mistake, since the Babe was lefthanded. But the first position he played at Baltimore's St. Mary's Industrial School was that of catcher, and he almost certainly didn't have a lefthanded catcher's mitt. So the glove might not be a mistake.
Ruth's 1st professional team was the International League version of the Orioles, in 1914, but the major league version didn't start until 1954, replacing the last one, in 1899. As far as I know, only 1 other current big-league ballpark has a statue of a person who was never involved with the current home team in any capacity. That's Turner Field in Atlanta, which has one of Georgia native Ty Cobb. (Presumably, it will make the trip to suburban SunTrust Park next Spring.) The Olympic Stadium in Montreal has a statue of Jackie Robinson, who did play in the city for the Triple-A Montreal Royals, but never for the Expos; and, besides, Montreal doesn't currently have a major league team anyway.

The 6 Pennants that the American League version of the Orioles have won -- 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979 and 1983 -- used to be shown as painted onto the outfield fence. Now, they are restricted to a pair of murals inside the concourse,
The old, National League version of the Orioles won Pennants in 1894, 1895 and 1896. The Triple-A version of the Orioles won the International League Pennant in 1908, 7 straight from 1919 to 1925, and again in 1944 and 1950. And the team the Orioles used to be, the St. Louis Browns, won the AL Pennant in 1944. However, there is no notation for these at Camden Yards. (It is now generally accepted that the 1901-02 American League version of the Orioles is not the same franchise that became the Yankees in 1903: The AL folded the Baltimore franchise, and started over in New York.)

There's a brick wall on the Eutaw Street walkway that features an Orioles Hall of Fame, with 73 inductees:

* From the pre-title period, 1954-65: Founding owner Jerry Hoffberger, manager/general manager Paul Richards, executive Jack Dunn III, general manager Lee MacPhail, 1st baseman Jim Gentile, outfielder Gene Woodling (the Yankees sent him there in the 18-player deal after the 1954 season that included getting Don Larsen), catcher Gus Triandos, and pitchers Hoyt Wilhelm and Milt Pappas.

* From the 1966-74 glory years: Hoffberger, managers Hank Bauer and Earl Weaver (the ex-Yankee right fielder was fired in 1968, and Weaver hired as his replacement); 3rd base coach Billy Hunter (also involved in that 18-player deal), pitching coach George Bamberger; executives Frank Cashen and Harry Dalton; 1st baseman John "Boog" Powell; 2nd basemen Davey Johnson (yes, the later Met manager) and Bobby Grich; shortstops Luis Aparicio (better known for playing for the Chicago White Sox) and Rick Belanger; 3rd baseman Brooks Robinson; outfielders Frank Robinson, Paul Blair and Don Buford; catcher Elrod "Ellie" Hendricks; and pitchers Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally, Jim Palmer, Stu Miller, Steve Barber, Dick Hall and Eddie Watt.

* From the 1977-84 contention: Hoffberger; GM Hank Peters; Weaver, coaches Hunter, Hendricks, 3rd base coach Cal Ripken Sr. and pitching coach Ray Miller; 1st basemen Lee May and Eddie Murray; 2nd baseman Rich Dauer; shortstops Belanger and Cal Ripken Jr.; 3rd baseman Doug DeCinces; outfielders Ken Singleton (now a Yankee broadcaster), Al Bumbry, John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke; catcher Rick Dempsey; and pitchers Palmer, Mike Flanagan, Dennis Martinez, Tippy Martinez (no relation), Scott McGregor and Mike Boddicker,

* From the 1985-95 period that closed Memorial and opened Camden Yards: Both Ripkens, Manager Johnny Oates, coach Hendricks; catcher Chris Hoiles, and pitchers Gregg Olson and Mike Mussina (later with the Yankees).

* From the 1996-97 Playoff berths: Davey Johnson, back as manager; coach Hendricks; Ripken, Hoiles, Mussina, 2nd baseman Roberto Alomar, shortstop Mike Bordick, and outfielders Brady Anderson, B.J. Surhoff and Harold Baines.

* Since 1997: Ripken and 3rd baseman Melvin Mora.

* Crossing the eras: Broadcasters Chuck Thompson and Bill O'Donnell; public-address announcer Rex Barney (formerly a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers); trainers Eddie Weidner, Ralph Salvon and Richie Bancells; public relations director Bob Brown; minor league director Lenny Johnston; scouts Don Pries, Walter Youse and Fred Uhlman; traveling secretary Phil Itzoe; director of community relations Julie Wagner; clubhouse attendant Ernie Tyler; and Baltimore cabdriver turned superfan Wild Bill Hagy.

In 1999, Brooks and Cal were named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. That same year, they, Frank, Palmer, Murray, and 1890s Oriole Willie Keeler were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Players. Wee Willie, just 5-foot-4 and maybe 140 pounds, was the earliest, and smallest, player so honored.

The Orioles have not retired any numbers from the Browns, nor elected any to their team Hall of Fame. Even if they wanted to, who would they take? The Browns' only real members of the big Hall of Fame in Cooperstown were shortstop Bobby Wallace and 1st baseman George Sisler, and they played before numbers were worn. When the 1st All-Star Game was played, only 1 Browns player was selected, Sam West. And that was the highlight of his career.

There is a museum partially dedicated to the team, which I'll describe in more detail in "Sidelights."

The Orioles have plaques on Eutaw Street for every home run hit there. It's been done 78 times. It's been done 9 times by 6 Yankees: Paul O'Neill in 1996, Jason Giambi in 2005, Johnny Damon in 2007, Giambi again on back-to-back days in 2008, Robinson Cano later in 2008, Nick Swisher in 2011, Curtis Granderson in 2012, and Granderson again in 2013.
Stuff. Souvenir stands dot the Camden Yards concourses every few yards, and when I was there in June 2010, some of them sold Yankee T-shirts as well as Oriole gear. I don't know if they do this for other teams -- I haven't been there for a game with an Oriole opponent other than the Yankees since 1999 -- but while I appreciate the effort to pander to visiting fans, I also find it troubling: It suggests that they think that their own stuff might not be good enough.

The Warehouse includes a team store, but if you're looking for nostalgia items, your luck will be limited. They do see B. Robinson 5, Ripken 8, F. Robinson 20, Palmer 22 and Murray 33 jerseys, but that's about it.

If you're looking for Oriole history DVDs, forget it, although it probably shouldn't be too hard, somewhere nearby, to find the official World Series highlight films, sold in an Orioles package of 1966, 1970 and 1983. While a 40th Anniversary video was released on VHS in 1994, there appears not to have been a DVD released for the 50th in 2004 or the 60th in 2014. There a commemorative DVD for Ripken, though.

As for books, the best single-volume history of the team is Baltimore Orioles: 60 Years of Magic, written by Jim Henneman and Jim Palmer. It was updated in 2015 to include the previous season's run to the ALCS. Henneman, now 80 years old, worked in the Triple-A Orioles' clubhouse at Municipal Stadium before it was converted into Memorial Stadium, worked in the press box after the conversion, and wrote for the Baltimore News American and the Baltimore Sun, and thinks he's seen more Orioles games than anyone.

Newly-published is Skipper Supreme: Buck Showalter and the Baltimore Oriolesby Todd Karpovich and Jeff Seidel. Begging the question, how can a skipper be supreme if, in 24 seasons, with 4 different teams, he's never won a Pennant?

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" ranked Oriole fans 25th -- in other words, the 6th most tolerable. They're right: You do not need to fear wearing your Yankee gear to Camden Yards. Although Baltimore is an old, tough, gritty Northeastern city, home to two tough, gritty, much-honored TV crime dramas (Homicide: Life On the Street and The Wire), their fans will not fight you or provoke you into a fight. O's fans are generally classy. And they know the game, and they don't want to ruin their experience by mixing it up with outsiders.

They will, however, boo you and your fellow Yankee Fans when you chant, "Let's Go Yankees!" They don't like it when you (and Red Sox fans, and, with Interleague play coming in, fans of the Mets, Phillies and Nats) take over their ballpark, but they know fighting isn't the answer. This is something some Red Sox fans have yet to learn.

The Thursday night game between the Orioles and the Yankees has a promotion. Every Monday and Thursday home game, former Orioles players will sign autographs on Eutaw Street as part of the Orioles Alumni Autograph Series, beginning 1 1/2 hours before game time. (In case of inclement weather, location will be on the lower concourse near home plate fan assistance.)

There is one thing that might bother you at the start of the game. "The Star-Spangled Banner," played at baseball games since at least 1918 and our official National Anthem since 1931, was written in Baltimore, by city resident Francis Scott Key, following the Battle of Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814. The city's connection with the song remains strong, and since the 1979 Pennant season, it has been a tradition at Orioles games for fans to yell out the "Oh" in the line, "Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave." In this case, "O" is short for "Oriole."

It was started in the upper deck of Section 34, on the 1st base side of Memorial Stadium, by a woman named Mary Powers. Nearby was Wild Bill Hagy, the cabdriver known for his body-spelling "O-R-I-O-L-E-S" cheer. He picked it up, and soon the entire section, and by the postseason the entire stadium, was doing it.

In theory, this is cute. In actual practice, I find it grossly offensive. It trivializes the event the song commemorates. My 1st visit for a Yanks-O's game was on September 11, 2004. As Baltimore was still (for 3 more weeks, anyway) the closest MLB team to D.C., they had Pentagon rescue workers throw out the ceremonial first ball to some Yankees, representing New York and the World Trade Center. But when they sang the "O!" I said, "Not today, people!" They still do it.

To make matters worse, this is done at other sporting events. I heard it in September 2009 when Rutgers went down to the University of Maryland to play football. I understand: While the College Park campus is inside the Capital Beltway, UM wouldn't be the athletic powerhouse it's become without kids from Baltimore City and Baltimore County. I heard it in the summer of 2006 when the Yankees played the Washington Nationals in an Interleague game at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, and I heard it again that Autumn when I went to see the New Jersey Devils play the Washington Capitals at the Verizon Center.

Baltimore doesn't have an NHL team, and never has, although they briefly had the Baltimore Blades in the World Hockey Association. And a lot of Nats fans grew up with the O's as their MLB team, and old habits die hard. But the D.C.-area natives booed the hell out of the "O!" shouters at both the Nats game and the Caps game. (At the former, the Nats trailed the Yankees 8-2 but came back to win, 9-8, oy; at the latter, the Devils embarrassed the Caps, 4-1.)

I've never been to a basketball game in the D.C. area -- Washington Bullets/Wizards, University of Maryland, Georgetown University or George Mason University -- but I have it on good authority that the "O!" is done at games of the Ravens, the minor-league Aberdeen Ironbirds (owned by the Ripken brothers, adjacent to their Havre de Grace hometown), and the minor-league Norfolk Tides, even before it became the Orioles' top farm club in 2007. From 1969 to 2006, the team, previously known as the Tidewater Tides, was a Met farm club. That's 240 miles from Camden Yards, but apparently they still do the "O!" I don't know if they do it on at Delmarva Shorebirds games in Salisbury on the Eastern Shore. (They're in the Lakewood BlueClaws' league, and not far from Ocean City, Maryland. Maybe I'll check them out someday.)

At any rate, the Orioles hold auditions to sing the Anthem, instead of having a regular singer. When they closed Memorial Stadium in 1991, they asked the fans to sing it a cappella before the next-to-last game, and they had the Baltimore Colt Marching Band play it before the very last. (Both times, the fans shouted out the "O!" They became the Marching Ravens when the new stadium opened in 1998.) Occasionally, in a tradition they started at Memorial Stadium, the Orioles will fly a copy of the 15-star, 15-stripe flag made famous by the Battle of Fort McHenry, the original "Star-Spangled Banner."

The center field scoreboard is sponsored by the Baltimore Sun. Note the Oriole weathervanes at the corners, the big block letter "THE" and "SUN" flanking the paper's "Light for All" coat of arms, and a clock on top of that with the BALTIMORE SUN letters taking the place of the numbers.
May 24, 2014. The Oroles lost to Cleveland, 9-0.
You're reading that right: The O's gave up the DH that day.

Another tradition that started in 1979 was the mascot: The Oriole Bird (or just "The Bird") was hatched out of a giant egg on the field at the home opener, trying to ride the Seventies successes of the San Diego Chicken and the Phillie Phanatic. His head was designed to look like the Oriole logo used on the team's caps from 1966 to 1988, and again since 2012. (Note: With that cap, the O's have reached the postseason 10 times; with all other cap designs, twice.) However, more often than not these days, he wears a cap with the "O's" logo.
The Bird with Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal

At the 7th inning stretch, after they sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," they go into "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver. It was suggested by shortstop Mark Belanger in 1975, as Oriole management was looking for "new songs" to appeal to young fans. During the 1979 World Series, Denver himself came to Memorial Stadium and sang it from the top of the Oriole dugout, along with the Oriole Bird mascot.
John Denver, on a later visit to Camden Yards

I hate that song. And it makes no sense for them. Come on, Baltimore, you're a Northeastern city of over 600,000 people. You're supposed to be tough and urban. You've got a subway, for crying out loud. Stop with this "country boy" nonsense!

Well, you got you a wife, she's a cousin you diddle...
This is what a real oriole looks like.

After the Game. Don't worry about Oriole fans talking trash to you if they manage to beat you. A few might, but most won't. This isn't Boston. It isn't even Toronto, where the Blue Jays fans take a lot more liberties than their team has earned (since 1993, anyway).

If you want to get a drink before or after the game, there are plenty of choices near the ballpark, including Slider's Bar & Grill (504 Washington Blvd.), Pickles' Pub (520 Washington Blvd.), and the Goddess (38 S. Eutaw Street -- I realize that the last one's name makes it sound like a strip club, or maybe a lesbian bar, but it's neither). Going to Harborplace for a late meal/snack/drink only works for day games, as they close at 9:00 at night.

Smaltimore is a bar known as a hangout for Yankees and football Giants fans. 2522 Fait Avenue, in the neighborhood of Canton, east of downtown. Bus 7 from downtown. No Idea Tavern is known to cater to Jets fans. 1649 S. Hanover Street, in Federal Hill, south of downtown. Bus 1, 3 or 64 from downtown.

Royal Farms, a convenience store chain similar to 7-Eleven and Wawa, has stores throughout Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The closest one to the ballpark is at 36 Light Street, at Lombard Street. Actually, the Royal Farms Arena is closer.

If you came to Baltimore by Amtrak, and you're not spending the night, be advised that the last train of the night leaves Penn Station at 10:54 PM (and arrives at New York's Penn Station at 1:40 AM), and since Yanks-O's games tend to last over 3 hours, you could be in trouble. You could take Bus 36, leaving from Baltimore Street & Eutaw Street (4 blocks north of the ballpark) at 10:21; Bus 11, leaving from Hopkins Place & Pratt Street leaving at 10:23 (2 blocks east of Eutaw, going southbound before turning left at Conway Street and again at Charles Street to head north); Bus 3, leaving from Charles Street & Pratt Street in front of Kona Grill (4 blocks east of Eutaw) at 10:24; or the Light Rail at 10:16.

If you're trying the Light Rail, make sure you go to Convention Center station (not Camden Yards), on Howard Street between Conway & Pratt Streets, and get on a train marked "PENN STATION," so you'll be taken directly into the station. Do not get on a train marked "MT. WASHINGTON" or "HUNT VALLEY," or you'll end up in the suburbs of Baltimore County. They might be a nice place to visit, but not now.

Sidelights. Despite currently having only 2 major league sports teams -- the metro area could probably support another -- Baltimore is a city with a rich sports history.

Just to the east of the ballpark is Camden Station, the former terminal of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. (If you play Monopoly, this was the B&O Railroad.) From 2005 to 2015, it was home to the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards. However, the Museum's lease ran out, and it closed.

* M&T Bank Stadium. The home of the Baltimore Ravens since 1998 is part of the Camden Yards complex, just to the south of Oriole Park, separated by a ramp from I-395 that becomes Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Its official address is 1101 Russell Street.
The Ravens' stadium, with the Orioles' park in the background

It has hosted 2 Super Bowl winners, several games by touring international soccer clubs, and 2 games of the U.S. national soccer team: A July 21, 2013 win over El Salvador, and a July 18, 2015 win over Cuba. It hosted the Army-Navy Game in 2000, 2007 and 2014, and will do so again this coming December 10.

* Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. Three blocks from the ballpark, to the west, at 216 Emory Street, is the rowhouse where the Great Bambino was born on February 6, 1895. It, and the rowhouse next door, are now the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Baltimore Orioles Museum.

The Museum features exhibits on the Babe, and on the history of baseball in the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland. It's open 10 AM to 5 PM, Tuesday through Sunday -- but not at all on Mondays -- meaning you can visit before Orioles home games, even on Sundays (but not Mondays).
* Baltimore Civic Center. Also 3 blocks away from the ballpark, to the north, bounded by Baltimore, Howard and Lombard Streets and Hopkins Place, is the Royal Farms Arena, formerly known as the Baltimore Civic Center.

This arena, built in 1962, hosted the NBA's Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) from 1963 to 1973; the Beatles on September 13, 1964; Elvis Presley on November 9, 1971 and May 29, 1977; and Martin Luther King’s "Race and the Church" speech in 1966.
The American Basketball Association team known as the New Orleans Buccaneers, the Memphis Pros, the Memphis Tams and the Memphis Sounds, was supposed to play the 1975-76 season there as the Baltimore Claws. They played 3 exhibition games: In Salisbury, Maryland; in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland. They never did play in Baltimore, or in a regular-season game: Financially, the team was a disaster, and the Civic Center's management padlocked their offices. They folded right before the season began, and that's the last time Baltimore had a basketball team that even pretended to be major league.

The Baltimore area appears not to have forgiven the Bullets/Wizards for heading down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway over 40 years ago: According to recent polls, NBA fandom in Baltimore seems to be divided between the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. Indeed, even in D.C. itself, the Wizards only have plurality support, as most of the people working for the federal government and living in the D.C. metro area have kept their hometown fandom, often rooting against the Wizards at the Verizon Center. (This is also a problem for the Nationals and Capitals, and used to be one for the Washington Senators. Not so much for the Redskins: They own the town, far more than any politician ever has.)

Nevertheless, the Wizards, playing 37 miles from the Inner Harbor, remain the closest NBA team. Baltimore does, however, give good support to the Washington Capitals, the closest NHL team. The closest that Charm City has ever had to having a major league team was in 1975, when the Michigan Stags of the World Hockey Association folded, and the WHA sold the team to Baltimore buyers, and they played out of the Civic Center, winning only 3 out of 17 games before folding for good after the season.

The Arena has been a mainstay in minor-league hockey in the Northeast, featuring the Baltimore Clippers (1962-77), the Baltimore Skipjacks (1981-93), and the Baltimore Bandits (1995-97). But despite also having hosted arena football, indoor soccer (the Baltimore Blast won the 1984 Major Indoor Soccer League title, and a newer version has won 7 league titles), lacrosse (a popular sport in Maryland), and concerts, the only current tenant is the reborn Blast.

If Baltimore ever did get a new NBA team, the metro area would rank 20th in population among NBA markets. It would also rank 20th among NHL teams. It does not appear that the Washington teams would claim territorial rights and block such a team being placed in Charm City.

The problem with the arena isn't its condition: Despite its age, it's in good shape. The problem is the cramped conditions, with narrow concourses, not enough concession stands and restrooms, and the installation of wider seats has reduced the capacity to 11,271. (To put that in perspective: The smallest current NBA arena in New Orleans, 16,867; in the NHL, Winnipeg with 15,294.) Several plans to replace it have been floated, but none has been approved.

* Site of Memorial Stadium. "The Insane Asylum on 33rd Street" (1954-2002), and its predecessor Municipal Stadium (1922-1953), were at 900 E. 33rd Street, at Ellerslie Avenue. It hosted the minor-league Orioles from 1944 to 1953, the major-league Orioles from 1954 to 1991, the Colts from 1947 to 1950 and again from 1953 to 1983, the Canadian Football League’s Baltimore Stallions in 1994 and 1995, and the NFL’s Ravens in 1996 and 1997.
The Army-Navy Game was played on the site as Municipal Stadium in 1924 and 1944. Memorial Stadium didn't host the Army-Navy Game, but it did host a few University of Maryland football games. (Despite having the Baltimore name, the USFL's Stars, in their last season of 1985, actually played at UMd's Byrd Stadium, closer to Washington.) It hosted 2 U.S. soccer games, a 1972 draw with Canada and, in one of its last events, a 1997 loss to Ecuador.
Senior citizen housing has gone up on the site. The Number 3 bus goes up Charles Street and turns right onto 33rd.

* Previous Baltimore Ballparks. Before Camden Yards, before Memorial Stadium, and before Municipal Stadium on the same site as the preceding, teams named the Baltimore Orioles played at several other locations:

* 1872 to 1890, Newington Park: 2301 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood in West Baltimore. Metro to Penn North, or Bus 7.
* 1891 to 1899, Union Park: 2500 Guilford Avenue. The National League Orioles won 3 Pennants here, and nearly 2 others.
* 1901 to 1915, Oriole Park: 400 Ilchester Avenue. The 1st American League Orioles played their desultory 1901 and '02 seasons here. Then the International League Orioles were founded. This was Babe Ruth's 1st professional home field.
* 1914 to 1944, also called Oriole Park: 2900 Barclay Street. The Federal League's Baltimore Terrapins played here in 1914 and '15, and when the FL folded, the IL Orioles made the short move in. But they had to leave after a fire on July 4, 1944, and played at Municipal Stadium until its conversion to Memorial Stadium, allowing the St. Louis Browns to restore the city to the majors.

These last 3 locations are in the Venable Park neighborhood north of downtown, not far from the site of Municipal and Memorial Stadiums. They can be reached from downtown by Bus 3, and are about a 10-minute walk apart. Worth visiting in daylight, but I wouldn't do it at night.

* Pimlico Race Course. This track opened in 1870, with a race won by a horse named Preakness. In 1873, the Preakness Stakes began to be run there. It became the 2nd leg of U.S. thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown. It was the site of the 1938 match race between 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral and underdog-turned-folk hero Seabiscuit; the latter won.
5201 Park Heights Avenue, Metro to Rogers Station, then Bus 44.

* Site of Baltimore Coliseum. This 4,500-seat arena opened in 1930. The original Baltimore Bullets began playing there in 1944, won the American Basketball League title in 1946, joined the Basketball Association of America in 1947, won the title in 1948 under player-coach Buddy Jeannette, became part of the NBA after the merger of the BAA with the National Basketball League in 1949, and folded in 1954.

The Coliseum closed after the Civic Center opened in 1962, and was torn down in 2008. An auto parts store is on the site now. 1750 Windsor Avenue, in the Penn-North neighborhood. Metro to Penn-North.

* Soccer. The highest-ranking professional soccer team representing Baltimore is the Baltimore Bohemians, who play in the USL Premier Development League, the 4th tier of American soccer. They play at Cedar Lane, in Bel Air, Harford County, 30 miles northeast of downtown Baltimore. It can't be reached by public transit.

It's a development club -- or a "farm team," as we would say in baseball -- of Washington's MLS team, D.C. United. When DCU couldn't get a new stadium built in the District, Baltimore's Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, made them an offer, and it looked like they might move. They did, however, get a new stadium site in the District, which is scheduled to open next year. Still, New York Red Bulls fans continue to taunt them as "Baltimore United."

* Site of St. Mary's Industrial School. If the old Yankee Stadium was "The House That Ruth Built," St. Mary's Industrial School was "The House That Built Ruth." From 1866 to 1950, including Ruth's residence from 1902 to 1914, it was a combination orphange, vo-tech school, and reform school. After a fire burned down all but one building on the campus in 1919, the Babe took the school's band on tour to raise funds for new buildings.

The Babe continued to donate to the only school he ever knew, until his death in 1948. But declining enrollment, and the Babe's no longer being available to raise money for it, led to its closing in 1950. The Archdiocese of Baltimore, recognizing its place in the local Catholic community, bought the campus, and in 1962 opened Cardinal Gibbons High School on the site.

But "CG," too, faced declining enrollment, and closed in 2010. Adjacent St. Agnes Hospital bought the site, and is planning to expand on the land, while keeping the athletic facilities, including Babe Ruth Field, the spot where little George Herman Ruth Jr. learned to play that game for which his legend still does more than it even did for him. 3225 Wilkens Avenue, in the Morrell Park neighborhood in West Baltimore. Bus 35.

* New Cathedral Cemetery. Several of the 1890s Orioles are buried here, including John McGraw, who went on to become the legendary manager of the New York Giants. (Willie Keeler, who played for all 3 of the old New York teams as well as the "Old Orioles," and was the Yankees' 1st superstar from 1903 to 1909, is not: He's buried at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.) 4300 Old Frederick Road, west of downtown. Bus 20 from downtown.

* Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. Colts legend Johnny Unitas is buried here. So is Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's 1st Vice President, who had served as Governor of Maryland and Chief Executive of Baltimore County, and had to resign the Vice Presidency in 1973 (during the baseball Playoffs) because of crimes committed while serving in each of those offices.

200 E. Padonia Road, in the northern suburb of Timonium, Baltimore County. Metro to Fairgrounds Station, then transfer to Bus 9 to York Road, then a 1-mile walk east on Padonia.

* Inner Harbor. No visit to Baltimore is complete without a trip to the Inner Harbor, home to the Harborplace mall. James Rouse, who revitalized New York's South Street Seaport and Boston's Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market, and designed Philadelphia's Gallery at Market East Station (now Jefferson Station), was from Baltimore, and he wanted to give his hometown the best one of all.

He may have succeeded. Aside from the Orioles team store, the highlight may be The Fudgery, where the people making and serving the fudge sing all day. Harborplace is at the intersection of Light & Pratt Streets, and there's a Light Street Pavilion (with mostly food and tourist trinkets) and a Pratt Street Pavilion (with mostly clothes).

To the east of Harborplace is the USS Constellation museum, a pentagonal skyscraper named the World Trade Center (Boston, Montreal and San Francisco also have buildings with that name we so often associated with New York from 1973 onward), the National Aquarium, a Hard Rock Café, the Pier Six concert Pavilion, and the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House at 844 E. Pratt Street.

The Flag House is where the 15-star, 15-stripe Fort McHenry flag that "was still there" was sewn, not where it is now (it's at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington), and it's also a museum dedicated to the War of 1812 and Baltimore’s pivotal role in that conflict, for which 200th Anniversary commemorations were held from 2012 to 2015.

Beyond that is Fell’s Point, which is Baltimore’s Little Italy, and is loaded with kitschy stores and bars. To the south of Harborplace is the Maryland Science Center, the American Visionary Art Museum (not to be confused with the Baltimore Museum of Art), and Federal Hill, a neighborhood which is the closest thing Baltimore has to a Greenwich Village, a neat (as in both "tidy" and "cool") place to walk around when you've got an hour or two with nothing to do until it's time to go to the game.

Federal Hill includes the South Street Seaport-ish Cross Street Market, and my favorite Baltimore watering hole, the Abbey Burger Bistro. Officially, it’s at 1041 Marshall Street, but don’t let that fool you: It’s actually in a short alley off Cross Street between Light and Patapsco Streets, giving it the allure of an English-style pub. This is one of the reasons it's the home of the Charm City Gooners, the local supporters club of my favorite English soccer team, London's Arsenal FC. Like such new-to-New York chains as The Counter and Five Napkin Burger, you can build your own burger, and it caters to fans of the Orioles and Ravens; but they will put up with Yankee Fans if they're also Arsenal fans. And (assuming you have time either before or after the game), it's a reasonable walk from both the ballpark and the Greyhound terminal on Haines Street.

* Museums. I mentioned the USS Constellation, the Flag House, the National Aquarium and the Maryland Science Center. The Baltimore Museum of Art is one of the most renowned in the country. 10 Art Museum Drive, in the Wyman Park neighborhood, adjacent to the main campus of Johns Hopkins University. Their Archaeological Museum may also be worth a visit. Bus 3.

But if there's one thing people know about Baltimore, aside from its sports history, it's Fort McHenry National Monument, where the U.S. Army held off the British fleet on September 13, 1814, inspiring Francis Scott Key -- on one of the British ships, as he had gone, as a lawyer, to negotiate for the release of a prisoner of war -- to write "The Defence of Fort M'Henry," which was given the tune of an old English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven," and became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner."

It was named for James McHenry, a physician, a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Constitution of the United States, and Secretary of War under Presidents George Washington and John Adams. This Yankees-Orioles series will begin on the 200th Anniversary of his death: May 3, 1816.

The Fort was established in 1800, and continued as a U.S. Army base during the American Civil War. In World War I, in a move that Dr. McHenry would have appreciated, it became an Army hospital, treating returning veterans from the fields of France and Flanders. It was proclaimed a National Monument in 1939. It was where the 1st official 50-star U.S. flag was flown on July 4, 1960, and that flag is still on the grounds, as is the "storm flag" that actually flew during the battle, replaced by the "garrison flag" when the battle ended -- the flag that Key saw and is at the Smithsonian now. 2400 E. Fort Avenue. Bus 1.

The closest college sports programs are the University of Maryland in College Park, and the U.S. Naval Academy in the State capital of Annapolis. UMd's Cole Field House hosted the 1966 and 1970 NCAA Final Fours. The 1966 Final features Texas-El Paso (then Texas Western), a Southern school with an all-black starting lineup, beating Kentucky, a Southern school with an all-white starting five, one of the landmark games in basketball. The 1970 Final had UCLA beating Jacksonville University. UMd played there from 1955 to 2002, when they moved to the XFINITY Center (formerly the Comcast Center).

UMd's Capital One Field at Maryland Stadium, known as Byrd Stadium from 1950 to 2015, was where the Baltimore Stars played their 1985 USFL Championship season, because, for whatever reason, they couldn't use Memorial Stadium. Maybe they would have if the USFL had survived to 1986. However, to get to UMd's campus without a car, you'd be better off taking Greyhound or Amtrak from Baltimore to Washington, and then taking D.C.'s Metro up to College Park; or you could take MARC from Camden Station to College Park.

The Naval Academy is a military base, so you might want to go to their website to check for visitor information. There is a museum on the campus. For those of you who are New Jersey Devils fans, the team's founding owner, Dr. John McMullen, was a graduate, and a naval engineer, and the school's hockey arena is named for him.

Bus 64 to Patapsco Avenue & Potee Street, then transfer to Bus 14. The trip takes a little over 2 hours, even though it's only 33 road miles, so you might be better off driving if you can.

Maryland has never produced a President (although Jimmy Carter was an Annapolis graduate),, so there's no Presidential Birthplace or Presidential Library. The closest they've come, sadly, is the aforementioned Spiro Agnew. Martin O'Malley, Mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, and Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015, ran for the Democratic nomination for President this year, but dropped out after finishing a distant 3rd behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Democratic Party made its 2nd attempt at an 1860 Convention, after a disastrous 1st one in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Front Street Theatre. It nominated Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. He lost to the man he beat in his last Senate run in 1858, Abraham Lincoln, the 1st President elected as a member of the Republican Party. The Republicans held their 1864 Convention at the same theater, renominating Lincoln. Built in 1829, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1904. A hotel now stands on the site. Southwest corner of Front & Low Streets.

That was the only time the Republicans have had their Convention in Baltimore, but the Democrats frequently held theirs in Baltimore in the early days. They held the 1st-ever national nominating convention in 1832, renominating President Andrew Jackson, at the Athenaeum, at 110 St. Paul Street, where the Quality Inn now stands. Their 1840 Convention, renominating President Martin Van Buren, was held at Odd Fellows Hall, where the current City Hall stands at 100 Holliday Street.

Their 1852 Convention, nominating Franklin Pierce, was at the Maryland Institute, at Howard & Dolphin Streets, at the southern edge of the current MI campus, near that of the University of Baltimore and Penn Station. Mount Royal Station is on the site. Their 1872 Convention, nominating Horace Greeley, was at Ford's Grand Opera House (run by John T. Ford, who also ran Ford's Theatre in Washington, where Lincoln was killed), at 300 W. Fayette Street. Retail space is on the site now. Their 1912 Convention, nominating Woodrow Wilson, was at the Fifth Regiment Armory, the only one of these buildings that still stands. 219 29th Division Street, on the opposite corner of Howard & Dolphin from the 1852 Convention site. Light Rail to Cultural Center.

Baltimore doesn't have a lot of tall buildings. The tallest is the Transamerica Tower, built in 1973 as the USF&G Building and later the Legg Mason Building, at 100 Light Street at Lombard Street, 528 feet high. It succeeded the old Baltimore Trust Company Building, now the Bank of America Building, built in 1924 at 509 feet, at 10 Light Street at Baltimore Street.

Don't look for TV locations from Baltimore. The best-known series set there are Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire, and they were mainly set in bad neighborhoods. In particular, stay away from the west side, and the neighborhoods to the north, east and south of the Memorial Stadium site. (This includes between downtown and the old Stadium site.)

Because the Orioles were the closest team to the nation's capital from 1972 to 2004, and Ronald Reagan revived the tradition of Presidents throwing out the first ball to start the season at Memorial Stadium in 1984, and especially after Camden Yards opened in 1992, giving closer access to D.C., TV shows and movies that want to show government officials at a ballgame have used Baltimore. The films Dave and Head of State, and the TV shows The West Wing, Commander in Chief, and House of Cards have shown fictional Presidents throwing out first balls. Camden Yards was used as the Cleveland Indians' ballpark in Major League II, and it was also shown on The Wire and Eastbound & Down.

The movie version of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears shows the Super Bowl taking place in Baltimore, at M&T Bank Stadium, with the city being destroyed by a nuclear blast, but the stadium scenes were filmed at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. In the book, the Super Bowl was set at Mile High Stadium in Denver. Neither Baltimore nor Denver has yet hosted a Super Bowl in real life, probably due to weather concerns, although with the Meadowlands having pulled it off in decent weather, and with both Baltimore and Denver having new stadiums, maybe the NFL should them a try.

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Baltimore's Sunday games are usually 1:35 starts, barring switches due to ESPN Sunday Night Baseball; while all other home games, including Saturday games, are 7:05 starts. These 3 will all be night games.

Good luck, and have fun!

Nate Is Nasty -- And So Are Castle's Showrunners

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I became a fan of ABC's TV show Castle in its 2nd season, in 2010, when it featured an episode, "The Suicide Squeeze," about a murdered baseball player, and Joe Torre had a cameo as himself. Or, as Stana Katic's Detective Kate Beckett, a character not easily flustered, said, "Oh my God! That was Joe Freakin' Torre! I gotta call my Dad!"

The show is winding down its 8th season, and both Katic and Tamala Jones, who plays Dr. Lanie Parrish, the show's medical examiner, will not be returning for a 9th. It has not been officially decided yet, but it is generally believed that the show will return for a 9th season -- and the show's fans, especially its female fans, are furious that Katic is not returning, and that the great love story between Beckett, now a Captain, and mystery writer Richard Castle, played by Nathan Fillion, will come to an end -- given the "LokSat" storyline, possibly a tragic one.

The show should have ended last season. Not that this season hasn't had its fun moments. But last season's season finale, in which Rick's "origin story" was finally revealed, and resolved, would have been a perfect series finale. But, no, the showrunners have screwed things up royally, and the fanbase is one part outraged, five parts saddened.

If the showrunners do kill Kate off, that won't just be filthy... that'll be nasty. After all, the previous showrunner, show creator Andrew W. Marlowe, appeared to have killed her off at the end of Season 3. Maybe the show is called Castle, not Castle & Beckett, but, as a Season 7 "It's a Wonderful Life"-type episode showed, without Beckett, Castle wouldn't have been nearly as well off -- and the same would have gone for Beckett without Castle.

The show depends on their interaction. Castle without Beckett, especially at this point, would be like Superman without Lois Lane, or Robin Hood without Maid Marian.

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At any rate, last night, ABC aired a new episode. At the same time, Yankee pitcher Nathan Eovaldi was pitching a no-hitter. And since the game was in the Central Time Zone, it would not end before Castle's 10:00 PM start time.
"Nasty Nate" got a 3-0 cushion thanks to home runs by Jacoby Ellsbury (finally, his 1st of the season) and Starlin Castro (his 3rd), and an RBI double by Mark Teixeira.

Still, knowing Joe Girardi -- who once watched CC Sabathia take a no-hitter into the 8th inning in Tampa Bay, and said in his postgame press conference that he was going to take CC out after the 8th, no matter what -- I had this vision of the future: Girardi was going to take Eovaldi out after 6 due to his pitch count, go to his bullpen, and watch the no-hitter, the shutout and the lead get blown, and the Yankee bats would then fail, and we'd lose 4-3 (or worse).

He didn't do that: He left Eovaldi in to pitch the 7th. Nomar Mazara led off, and singled on a 3-2 pitch to break up the no-hitter. At least, now, I could continue to watch Castle with a clear conscience -- but also with my smartphone able to give me score updates.

Incredibly, Girardi still left Eovaldi in, and he got Adrian Beltre to ground into a double play. Good thing, too, as Prince Fielder doubled, which, if Beltre had struck, popped, grounded or even flied out, would probably have led Mazara score. Eovaldi then got Ian Desmond to ground out, preserving the 3-0 lead on 2 hits.

Girardi even let Eovaldi start the 8th, but he walked Mitch Moreland. That was it: Girardi took him out, and brought in Dellin Betances. He got Elvis Andrus to ground into a double play, but Brett Nicholas hit a home run. Again, had the guy who grounded into the double play been eliminated only as a single out, it would have put the lead in considerably more jeopardy than it already was.

No-hitters are wonderful, shutouts are nice, but getting the win is what matters. Fortunately, Betances stuck out Delino DeShields Jr. to end the threat. And Andrew Miller sent the Rangers down 1-2-3 in the 9th.

Ballgame over. Yankees 3, Rangers 1. WP: Eovaldi (1-2). SV: Miller (5). LP: Cesar Ramos (0-1).

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The series continues tonight. Luis Severino starts for us, A.J. Griffin for the Rangers.

I hope Girardi doesn't, through good intentions, try to wreck this game. Or any others. He's done that too many times, trusting his binder instead of the facts of the effectiveness of the players on the field, especially the pitchers.

Of course, he could do everything as well as it could possibly be done, and he'd still be at the mercy of Brian Cashman, Lonn Trost, Randy Levine, and Hank and Hal Steinbrenner.

But I doubt that even they could wreck the Yankees as much as the showrunners are in a position to wreck Castle.

And there's no "free agent" actor who could be signed for a recasting of Kate Beckett. Baseball, and the Yankees, continued after Babe Ruth. But the Yankees didn't depend on any one person. Castle depends on two... and, unless this season's finale is the series finale, they're going to go on without one of them. Even if they keep Kate alive with another actress... it would be like signing Stephen Drew to replace Derek Jeter.

Winston Hill, 1941-2016

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When your favorite team has won only one Super Bowl, you should treasure it, and the men who helped to achieve it, especially if it was long ago, and the number of surviving players involved is dwindling.

If you're a fan of the New York Jets, that number dwindled by one more yesterday.

Winston Hill (no middle name) was born on October 23, 1941, in Joaquin, Texas. He starred in both football and tennis at Weldon High School in Gladwater, Texas, then a segregated, all-black school where his father was the principal. Luckily for Jets fans, he chose football.

He went to Texas Southern University (also "historically black") in Houston, and was an All-American offensive tackle. In 1963, he was drafted by the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League, but was cut. Instead, he signed with the New York Jets of the American Football League, and remained with them for 14 years.

He was perhaps the finest left tackle the AFL ever had, protecting the blind side of quarterback Joe Namath (starting in 1965), and blocking for running backs Matt Snell, Emerson Boozer and, later, John Riggins. He would be named to the AFL All-Star Team 4 times. After the merger with the NFL, he would be named to 4 Pro Bowls -- making 8 All-Star selections. He was named to the AFL's All-Time Team.

"I lined up behind Winnie in the backfield," said running back Emerson Boozer. "We worked so well together. We communicated without speaking.

"And you could not meet a nicer person off the field. But on the field? Winnie was vicious!"

I should hope so, once the opposition heard his teammates call him "Winnie."

In 1968, coached by Wilbur "Weeb" Ewbank, the Jets went 11-3, and beat the Oakland Raiders at Shea Stadium, 27-23, for the AFL Championship. With all the fuss over the game that followed, this one gets forgotten, but it was actually a considerably better game.

They advanced to what had, the previous 2 years, been known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, but was now officially being called the Super Bowl. The NFL wouldn't officially add the Roman numerals until 1971, the 1st one after the merger, Super Bowl V. Retroactively, the Jets' appearance was labeled Super Bowl III.

It was played on January 12, 1969, on neutral ground at the Orange Bowl in Miami. They would face the Colts -- ironically, not only the team which had drafted Hill, but which had been coached to the 1958 and 1959 NFL Championships by Weeb Ewbank.

Much has been made of Namath receiving an award at the Miami Touchdown Club 3 days before the game, hearing a heckler yelling, "Hey, Namath! We're gonna kick your ass on Sunday!" and responding, "Lemme tell you something: We're gonna win. I guarantee it!" And then backing up the boast, as the Jets won, 16-7, in one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports.

Here's a trivia question you can use on your Jet fan friends: How many touchdown passes did Namath throw in that game? Answer: Exactly none. The Jets only scored one touchdown, on a run by Snell. (Their other 10 points came on the extra point and 3 field goals, all by Jim Turner.) Snell's run was to the left, meaning Hill blocked for it. And Hill gave Namath all the time he needed to run the Jets' offense for 4 scoring drives (the aforementioned TD and 3 FGs).

It should also be noted that the Jets' defense completely shut down a team that went 13-1 in the supposedly stronger league, not allowing a score until the 4th quarter. It should also be noted that the Colts did themselves no favors, making all kinds of mistakes. Perhaps never has a team been so favored to win a sports final and then come up so small.

My point: It wasn't all about Broadway Joe. He was the lead story because of his mouth. But it was his brain (believe it or not), and the brawn of the Jets' offensive line and their entire defense, plus the Colts' ineptitude, that won the World Championship for the Jets.

But when Hill and Namath were inaugural inductees into the Jets' Ring of Honor in 2010, he had nothing but praise for Namath:

It was great to protect Joe all those years. You come across great people in a lifetime, and he's one of them. He was a very special ballplayer ,and elevated everyone else's play.

*

Hill played 195 consecutive games with the Jets, and remained with them through the disastrous 1976 season, the one and only season of pro football where Lou Holtz was a head coach. He'd been a good college coach at North Carolina State, and would be again at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina. But with the Jets, he was a bust, trying to use the veer offense that had worked so well for him at N.C. State, but with Namath, then 33 years old and with crumbling knees, as a running quarterback.

Hill closed his career in 1977 with the Los Angeles Rams -- as did Namath. The Rams were a good team, but Namath was done, not even a good backup for Pat Haden, and he and Hill both retired.

Hill moved to Centennial, Colorado (a suburb of Denver, a former AFL city), and opened a barbecue restaurant, Winston Hill's Ribs & Stuff. He was elected to Texas Southern's Sports Hall of Fame and the Jets' Ring of Honor.
Winston Hill died in Denver yesterday. He was 74 years old. As of this writing, a cause has not been revealed, but he did need a cane when he attended the Jets' Ring of Honor ceremony at MetLife Stadium last Autumn.

With his death, there are now 34 surviving members of the 1968-69 World Champion New York Jets: Quarterbacks Joe Namath and Babe Parilli; receivers Don Maynard, Bill Rademacher and Robert "Bake" Turner; tight end Pete Lammons; running backs Mark Smolinski, Bill Mathis, Emerson Boozer, Lee White and Matt Snell; centers John Schmitt and Paul Crane; guards Bob Talamini and Randy Rasmussen; offensive tackles Dave Herman and Jeff Richardson; defensive end Gerry Philbin; defensive tackles Paul Rochester and Steve Thompson; linebackers Carl McAdams, Ralph Baker, Larry Grantham, Al Atkinson and John Neidert; cornerbacks Randy Beverly, John Dockery and Earl Christy; safeties Jim Richards, Bill Baird, Mike D'Amato and Cornell Gordon; placekicker Jim Turner; and punter John "Curley" Johnson.

Having died are defensive tackle Verlon Biggs in 1994, offensive tackle Sam Walton in 2002, cornerback Johnny Sample in 2005, defensive tackle John Elliott in 2010, receiver George Sauer and safety Jim Hudson in 2013, and now offensive tackle Winston Hill in 2016. Center Paul Seiler, who died in 2001, was on the Jets in the 1967 and 1969 seasons, but spent 1968 in the U.S. Army, though not in combat in Vietnam.

"Winnie was like my brother," Schmitt said yesterday on the Jets' team website. "He was a terrific football player. His heart was as big as his body. He did not have a bad thing to say about anyone.

"I am going to miss that turkey."

It's a term of endearment. When it came to how he treated people, how he played football, and how he ran his restaurant, Winston Hill was no turkey. He had reasons to be as proud as a peacock.

How to Be a Met Fan In San Diego -- 2016 Edition

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On Thursday, May 5, the Mets begin a series away to the San Diego Padres.

Unlike the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Padres are an expansion team with no connection to New York. They've never even played the Mets in the Playoffs -- but they have played the Yankees in the World Series. (The Chargers have played the Jets in the Playoffs. San Diego has no NHL team, and have only had an NBA team briefly and not currently.)

Before You Go. Unlike the Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas, but like the Los Angeles area, the San Diego area has very consistent weather. It’s a nice place to visit, and there's little threat of earthquakes, mudslides and smog -- but there have been wildfires, including one that led to a Chargers home game being moved to Phoenix a few years ago.

The website of the San Diego Union-Tribune (yet another paper that, not that long ago, used to be two separate papers), is predicting low 70s by day, mid-50s by night, and, as you might expect for San Diego, no precipitation for the entire weekend. A short-sleeve shirt should be enough, no jacket necessary. Just in case, you may want to bring sunscreen.

San Diego is in the Pacific Time Zone, 3 hours behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

If you're planning on making a side trip to Tijuana, Mexico, 25 miles south of downtown San Diego, be sure to bring your passport. If you don't have a passport, it's too late to get one for this trip, so if you're going to San Diego, do not attempt to cross the Border. Also, the crossing cannot be done by public transportation: You'll need a car.

Tickets. The Padres averaged 30,367 fans per home game last season, at a park with a seating capacity of 42,524. That's about 71 percent of capacity. Getting tickets shouldn't be a problem.

The most expensive seat in the house is a Field Box VIP for $94. Field Infield is $78, Field Plaza is $54, Terrace Infield is $63, Field Boxes are $55, Field Reserved are $47, Terrace Reserved are $45, Left Field and Right Field Lower Boxes are $35, Upper Box Infield are $32, Terrace Pavilion are $40, Field Pavilion are $39, Right Field Lower Reserved are $27, Upper Infield are $20, Upper Box Pavilion are $23, Right Field Upper Box are $22, Left Field Reserved are $23, and Upper Reserved are $18.

Getting There. It's 2,803 miles from Times Square in New York to downtown San Diego, including Petco Park. In other words, if you're going, you're flying. After all, even if you get someone to go with you, and you take turns, one drives while the other one sleeps, and you pack 2 days’ worth of food, and you use the side of the Interstate as a toilet, and you don’t get pulled over for speeding, you’ll still need over 2 full days. Each way.

But, if you really, really want to, well, in order to get there in time for this series, you're too late to see the whole thing. So, for future reference... You’ll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take it to Exit 14, to Interstate 78. Follow I-78 west all the way through New Jersey, to Phillipsburg, and across the Delaware River into Easton, Pennsylvania. Continue west on I-78 until reaching Harrisburg. There, you will merge onto I-81. Take Exit 52 to U.S. Route 11, which will soon take you onto I-76. This is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the nation’s first superhighway, opening in 1940.

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

At St. Louis, take Exit 40C onto Interstate 44 West, which will take you southwest across Missouri into Oklahoma.  Upon reaching Oklahoma City, take Interstate 40 West, through the rest of the State, across the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, into Arizona.  At Flagstaff, take Interstate 17 South, which will take you into Phoenix.  Take Interstate 10 West to Exit 112 for Arizona Route 85 South, to Gila Bend, right on Arizona route 238 West, which will flow into Interstate 8 West.  This will take you across Arizona and California to San Diego.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours and 30 minutes in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 45 minutes in Indiana, another 2 hours and 45 minutes in Illinois, 5 hours in Missouri, 6 hours in Oklahoma, 3 hours in Texas, 6 hours and 15 minutes in New Mexico, 6 hours in Arizona, and 3 hours in California.  That’s about 45 hours and 30 minutes. Counting rest stops, you're probably talking about 57 hours.

That’s still faster than the bus or the train. Greyhound takes about 70 hours, changing buses anywhere from 2 to 4 times, $438 round-trip. The station is at 1313 National Avenue at Commercial Street -- 3 blocks from the ballpark!)

Amtrak takes nearly 72 hours, and you'd have to take 3 separate trains -- each way. The Lake Shore Limited leaves Penn Station at 3:40 PM Eastern Time on Monday and arrives at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Central Time on Tuesday. The Southwest Chief leaves Chicago at 3:00 PM on Tuesday, and arrives at Union Station in Los Angeles at 8:15 AM Pacific Time on Thursday. Finally, switch to the Pacific Surfliner, leaving Los Angeles at 9:55 AM and arriving in San Diego's Santa Fe Depot at 12:40 PM. The round-trip fare is $640. The Santa Fe Depot is at 1050 Kettner Blvd. at Broadway.

Flights to San Diego International Airport, also known as Lindbergh Field, will be more expensive (at least $800 round-trip), and will usually involve changing planes in Chicago or Dallas.

Once In the City. San Diego was founded by Spain as a mission, San Diego of Alcalá (Saint Didacus in Latin), in 1769, and well into the 19th Century was larger than San Francisco, and even at the dawn of the 20th Century was larger than Los Angeles. Being (just about literally) tucked away in a corner of the country, it was pretty much bypassed, but World War II led to a U.S. Navy base being built there, and its population took off again, to where it was major-league capable by the 1960s.

Today, nearly 1.4 million people live within the city limits, and 3.2 million in the metro area. Front Street is the delineator between streets with East and West as prefixes, while Broadway is that for those running North and South.

Sales tax is a minimum 7.5 percent in the State of California, and 8 percent in San Diego County, which includes, but is not contiguous with, the City of San Diego.

Public transportation in San Diego is pretty good, with the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (SDMTS) running buses, trolleys and light rail. Petco Park is accessible on the Orange Line at Gaslamp Quarter station, and on the Orange and Blue Lines at 12th & Imperial Transit Center station. The fare is $2.50. A 1-day pass is $5.00, and a 4-day pass (the best value if you're going for all 4 games) is $15.
Going In. Petco Park (sometimes listed incorrectly in ALL CAPS), named for the San Diego-headquartered chain of pet and pet supplies stores, has an official address, with the name and uniform number of the greatest Padre of them all (so far), of 19 Tony Gwynn Drive. It is bounded by 7th Avenue/Gwynn Drive on the 3rd base and home plate sides, Park Blvd. on the 1st base side, 10th Avenue on the right field side, and K Street on the center field side. It points north, with a good view of the downtown skyscrapers.
Parking starts at $10, though most spaces will be $15. Padre fans living north of downtown can also do what they used to do, and park at Qualcomm Stadium (except when it's also hosting an event), and take the Trolley in.

The Gaslamp Gate and the Downtown Gate are in left field. The Balboa Park Gate, the East Village Gate (not to be confused with Lower Manhattan's East Village or the Broadway's Village Gate Theater) and the Park Blvd. Gate are in right field. And the Home Plate Gate is, well, you can probably guess.
Being in the California sunshine, the field has nearly always looked good. The left-field corner has the former Western Metal Supply Company warehouse, built into the stadium complex, as was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad warehouse into Camden Yards in Baltimore. Unlike Baltimore, however, seating sections were built into this warehouse.
As with most of the "retro ballparks" built in the 1990s and 2000s, the field is not symmetrical.  The left field pole is 334 feet from home plate, straightaway left is 367, left-center is 390, center is 396, right-center is 391, straightaway right is 382, and the right-field pole is a deceptive 322. The field is natural grass, and points north.

This is a pitcher's park, although a placement hitter like Gwynn or Dave Winfield would have been fine with it. The longest home run at the park is 471 feet, by Adrian Gonzalez, then with the Padres, in 2009. The longest home run at San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium was 499, by Mark McGwire in 1998.

Food. Being just 15 miles from the Mexican border, you might expect Petco Park to feature Mexican and Southwestern-style food. Your expectations would be fulfilled: Behind home plate, on the Field Level, there is Bull Taco and La Cantina Bar; in the Upper Level, another La Cantina Bar is in left field and the Padres Mexican Cafe is in right field.

Team-themed stands abound: Friar Franks are all over, a health-food Friar Fit stand is at Field Level behind home plate, and the PCL Club (named for the city's old-time home, the Pacific Coast League) is at Field Level behind 1st base. On Terrace Level, behind 1st base, are Club 19 (for Gwynn) and Randy Jones BBQ (a variation of the Baltimore Boog Powell and Philadelphia Greg Luzinski theme). And the Hall of Fame Bar & Grill is on Terrace Level in left field.

There are also stands with local flavor: Anthony's Fish Grotto, home of the Padres' famed fish tacos, is behind home plate on both the Field and Terrace Levels. The Brickhouse Deli is on Field Level in left field, inside the warehouse. The Harbor Grill is on Terrace Level behind home plate, the Trolley Station Grill is on Terrace Level behind 1st base, and the Bayview Grill is on Upper Level behind home plate.

Team History Displays. The Padres have 5 retired numbers, displayed in center field, atop the batter's eye wall.  They are: 6, Steve Garvey, 1st base 1983-87; 19, Tony Gwynn, right field 1982-2001; 31, Dave Winfield, right field 1973-80; 35, Randy Jones, pitcher 1973-80; and 51, Trevor Hoffman, pitcher 1993-2008. Also mounted on top of the wall is Jackie Robinson's universally-retired Number 42.
The team has also honored, with notations painted in gold on the front of the press box, former owner Ray Kroc (1974-84) with his initials RAK, and broadcaster Jerry Coleman, the former Yankee 2nd baseman and broadcaster who called games for the team from 1972 to 2013 -- except for 1980, when he served as manager, with unsatisfying results, and returned to the booth in 1981. Instead of retiring a number for him, or mounting an "SD" for San Diego or his initials JC (or GFC for Gerald Francis Coleman), they've hung a star, for his catchphrase for a home run or a great defensive play: "Oh, doctor! You can hang a star on that baby!"

The Padres have a team Hall of Fame. I do not know if it is on display anywhere in the park. In addition to Gwynn, Winfield, Jones, Hoffman, Kroc and Coleman (but not, as yet, Garvey), it includes Emil "Buzzie" Bavasi, the team's 1st president (1969-77, previously general manager of the Dodgers), 1st baseman Nate Colbert (1969-74), shortstop Garry Templton (1982-91), catcher Benito Santiago (1986-92), and manager Dick Williams (1982-85).  Why Colbert's Number 17 and Williams' Number 23 have not been retired, I don't know.
Garvey, Gwnn, Winfield and Jones,
at Petco Park's opening, 2004

In addition to Gwynn, Winfield, Williams and Coleman, the players who have played for the Padres and been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (but not based on what they did as Padres) are Roberto Alomar, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Rickey Henderson, Greg Maddux, Willie McCovey, Gaylord Perry, Ozzie Smith, and, a Padre for just 1 season (2006), Mike Piazza.

Gwynn, Winfield, Fingers and Smith were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1998. A statue of Gwynn stands outside the ballpark. Fortunately, he lived long enough to see it.
The Padres have won National League Pennants in 1984 and 1998, and NL Western Division titles in those years, plus 1996, 2005 and 2006. They have never reached the Playoffs by way of the Wild Card, although they lost a play-in game for the Wild Card to the Colorado Rockies in 2007. Flagpoles flying these Pennants stand beyond the left-center field wall.

The original Padres, Ted Williams' 1st pro team, won Pacific Coast League Pennants in 1937 (with Williams), 1954, 1962, 1964 and 1967. There is no notation for them at Petco Park.

Of note is the fact that, assuming you count Johan Santana's highly asteriskable performance in 2012 as a "Met No-Hitter," the Padres are now the only team among MLB's 30 current that have never pitched a no-hitter.

Stuff. The Padres have a number of team stores, including their main one at the Gaslamp Gate in left field. The good news is, they sell all kinds of Padres merchandise. The bad news is, they sell all kinds of Padres merchandise, including the various uniforms the Padres have worn, ranging from the mustard-yellow and brown uniforms of the 1970s to the "camouflage" jerseys they wear on home Sundays in honor of San Diego's tradition as a military city. Actually, it's a Navy city, not an Army city, so while wearing and selling jerseys that are navy blue in color makes sense, camouflage jerseys make no sense at all.

As far as I know, Padres merchandise does not include monks' (friars') robes with team logos, or a fake "monk wig" simulating a ring of hair around a bald head.

Although the Padres have been around for over 40 years now, and have some history, there aren't very many good books about the team. Baseball in San Diego: From the Plaza to the Padres by Bill Swank, in cooperation with the San Diego Historical Society, is probably the best one, covering the history of professional baseball in the city from the 1899 San Diego Fullers of the Southern California League to the 2004 opening of Petco Park.

Since the Padres have not yet won a World Series, there is no DVD collection of World Series highlight films; you'd have to, separately, get the 1984 (won by the Detroit Tigers) and 1998 (by the Yankees) films.

As of yet, the only team-history video available is Nineteen Summers: Padres 1969-1988 (which would actually be 20 summers), and if you want that, it's only available on Amazon.com on VHS, not DVD. There's also a VHS tape titled Tony Gwynn: Mr. Padre that covers his entire playing career. As yet, there is no Essential Games of the San Diego Padres DVD.

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" ranks Padres fans 26th -- in other words, the 5th most tolerable. Despite San Diego's background as a military city (Navy base, Marine Corps base not far away in Oceanside), these are not particularly aggressive people. Having good weather 350 days out of the year will keep you calmer than typical Northeastern, Midwestern or Northwestern weather.

The Padres' greatest rivals, as you might guess, are the closest NL team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. The AL's Angels are 30 miles closer, but even with Interleague play, Padres fansand Angels fans don't seem to care about each other or their teams -- or maybe they just band together and consider the Dodgers a common enemy.

But due to Fernando Valenzuela having made his name as a Dodger before his brief stopover with the Padres, when Mexican fans come over the border for Padres-Dodgers games, the cheering is about even when the Bums come to San Diego. The Padres also have a budding rivalry with the next-closest team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. But the locals do fit the reputation of the laid-back Southern Californian. No one is going to fight you.

All 4 of these Mets-Padres games in San Diego will be promotions. Thursday, May 5, will be Cinco de Mayo Night, in addition to College Night, which every Thursday night home game is. Friday will be Nurses Night and Teacher Appreciation Night. Saturday will be Faith & Family Night and Boy Scout Night, and Padres hoodies will be given out. (Hoodies? In San Diego, which hardly knows rain, let alone cold weather?) And Sunday will be Compadres Kids Catch on the Field Day, Military Spouse Appreciation Day, and, of course, Mother's Day.
Padres' camouflage jerseys

The Padres are hosting this year's All-Star Game, and are wearing commemorative patches for it. On Sundays, in a nod to San Diego's military history, they tend to wear camouflage jerseys. Not the worst-looking uniforms in team history, but bad enough.
Oscar Gamble, once-and-future Yankee, 1978.
Not even his coolness could save this uniform.

Ted Giannoulas, known in costume as The Famous Chicken, began as the KGB Chicken. No, he wasn't a Russian spy, he was a student at San Diego State University, working for a San Diego radio station, KGB-FM. (He can be seen in his original costume on NFL Films' production of the 1978 Charger-Raider "Holy Roller" game, passing out at the successful result of the Raiders' blatant cheating.)

Following a contract dispute with the station, he got a new costume (one not copyrighted by the station) and was reborn, or rather hatched out of a giant egg, on the field at San Diego Stadium in June 1979 as "the San Diego Chicken."
Starting in 1981, he was part of the cast of NBC's Saturday pregame show The Baseball Bunch, starring Johnny Bench, where he was referred to as simply "The Chicken." He became so much in demand that he could no longer belong only to his hometown, and now goes everywhere. He and the Phillie Phanatic have done more to elevate the baseball mascot to icon status than anyone -- even if they weren't the first guys in silly costumes to entertain at baseball games. (Mr. Met was the first official such mascot, but even he was unofficially preceded by the Brooklyn Dodger Sym-Phony Band.)

Since 1996, the Padres have made their Swinging Friar logo a live-action mascot, and he (sans bat) is the official mascot. As I said earlier, like many cities in California, San Diego was founded by Spanish missionaries -- hence "Padres," Spanish for "Fathers," or priests, monks, friars.
The Friar, trying very, very hard to remember
that priests are supposed to be celibate.

The Padres hold auditions for National Anthem singers, as opposed to having a regular. It will not be Roseanne Barr, who infamously, and purposely, butchered the Anthem at Jack Murphy Stadium in 1990. The Padres don't have a special song to play along with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th Inning Stretch, or a postgame victory song. This could be due to the relative lack of songs about the city, or famous singers or bands from the city. However, with the city's nautical tradition, a foghorn sounds after every Padre home run -- not common, as Petco is one of the best pitcher's parks in the majors.

After the Game.  San Diego's Gaslamp District has plenty of nightspots, so finding a good place for a postgame meal or drink shouldn't be too hard. And although the city has a reputation for gang violence -- as Met fans, you may have heard San Diegan Kevin Mitchell tell horror stories about it -- downtown is very safe.

If you're looking for New Yorker-friendly establishments, Henry's Pub, at 618 5th Avenue between G & Market Streets, is the home of the local New York Jets fan club. It is 6 blocks from the ballpark.

I have heard of 2 separate bars as being home of local Giants fan clubs. The Knotty Barrel is at 844 Market Street at 9th Avenue, 5 blocks from PETCO. And the U-31 Cocktail Lounge is at 3112 University Avenue at 31st Street, however, it is 6 miles northeast of the ballpark. Even if the Knotty Barrel is not a Big Blue hangout, you'd be advised to choose that over the U-31.

Sidelights. San Diego has produced more native sons (and daughters) who were great athletes than its teams have. As a result, there isn't a lot of glory associated with these teams. Some have suggested that there's a curse on the city, with the most common story being the selling of the city's first great major league star, Chargers receiver Lance Alworth, to the Dallas Cowboys. Alworth, a.k.a. Bambi, won Super Bowl VI with the Cowboys, but no San Diego major league team has gone as far as the rules allowed them to do since Alworth and the 1963 Chargers, AFL Champions, who did not get to play that year's NFL Champions, the Chicago Bears, in a Super Bowl.

* Lane Field.  Home to the PCL Padres from 1936 to 1957, including the 1937 PCL Pennant that featured a 19-year-old San Diego kid named Ted Williams. By the time the Padres won another Pennant in 1954, the 8,000-seat pitcher's park, on the waterfront, with a Spanish-style entrance and faraway fences except at the right field pole, was termite-ridden and had to be abandoned.

Broadway, Harbor Drive and Pacific Highway.  The Santa Fe Depot and the USS Midway Museum (a retired WWII-era aircraft carrier) are adjacent to the site.  Number 7 bus.  The Maritime Museum of San Diego is 3 blocks to the north.

* Westgate Park. The PCL Padres' next home was in Mission Valley, at (appropriately enough) Friars Road and the Cabrillo Freeway.  This park seated only a few more than Lane Field, but unlike its predecessor, which had no roof to protect fans from the hot, nearly-Mexican sun, Westgate had a roof covering the entire seating area.

Supposedly, it was expandable to 40,000, in the event that San Diego could do what Los Angeles and San Francisco had done, and bring in a major league team, through move or expansion. But the Chargers wanted a modern stadium, too, so one stadium was built for both teams. The Padres won Pennants at Westgate in 1962, 1964 and 1967, their last season there. The Fashion Valley Mall is now on the site. Fashion Valley Transit Center station on the Green Line.

* San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium. Since 1967, this has been the home of the Chargers and the San Diego State University football team, the Aztecs. It was built to the east of Westgate, at 9449 Friars Road at Mission Village Drive, just off Interstate 15, 5 Green Line stops away from Westgate/Fashion Valley at what's now Qualcomm Stadium station.
Met fans, take note: It was beloved broadcaster Bob Murphy's brother, Jack Murphy, sports editor of the old San Diego Union newspaper, who advocated for the city as a major league sports site, and when he died in 1980, the stadium was named for him -- at least, until the city sold off the naming rights. Statues of Jack and his dog Abe remain outside the stadium. It's hosted the Holiday Bowl and the Poinsettia Bowl, and has hosted 3 Super Bowls: XXII (won by the Washington Redskins), XXXII (Denver Broncos) and XXXVII (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
Before the 1990s expansion

The Chargers have only reached the Super Bowl once, in the 1994-95 season, although they are usually in the Playoff hunt. The PCL Padres played their last season here, 1968, and then in 1969 the NL Padres came in. Holding 47,000 for baseball for most of its history, it was expanded to 65,000 by 1996, and during the 1998 World Series between the Padres and Yankees, the noise was remarkable for an open-air facility -- not that it helped the Padres. The San Diego Sockers of the original North American Soccer League played there from 1978 to 1984.

The Padres moved out after the 2003 season, and the Chargers are looking to get out, hopefully into a downtown stadium. If they can't, they may well move, possibly up the Coast to Los Angeles, from whence they came.

* Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, and Museums. After starting in the AFL at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960, the Chargers moved to San Diego for 1961. Barron Hilton, son of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton -- and the 1st brother-in-law of Elizabeth Taylor, and the grandfather of Paris and Nicky Hilton -- ran the Carte Blanche credit card company, and named the team after the card, sort of: The Chargers, although a horse (also a "charger") and a lightning bolt (which gives off a "charge") has always been the team's logo.

He's still alive, now 88, and although he no longer has anything to do with the team, he is the last surviving member of "The Foolish Club," the 8 original AFL owners, following the recent deaths of Ralph Wilson of the Buffalo Bills and Bud Adams of the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans.

The existing Balboa Stadium, built in 1914 in Balboa Park (named for the Spanish explorer), was expanded to 34,000 seats for the Chargers. While it had a lot of atmosphere, including a columned front gate, and was home to the Chargers' 1963 AFL Championship team, it was too small for the proposed AFL-NFL merger, so what's now Qualcomm Stadium was built.

In 1965, at Balboa Stadium, Jim Ryun became the 1st American high schooler to break the 4-minute mile. On August 28, 1965, the Beatles played there. The old stadium was demolished and replaced in 1978, and now hosts high school football and track. Russ Blvd. & 16th Street.
  
Balboa Park is also home to the famed San Diego Zoo. My mother says her favorite day in her life was the day she spent at the Zoo. Park Road & Zoo Place. 

Adjacent is the Federal Building, which hosts the San Diego Hall of Champions, honoring area natives such as Ted Williams, Bill Walton and 1970s Yankee stars Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss and David Wells, as well as stars from area teams. Padres honored are Nettles, Jones, Winfield, Fingers, Gwynn, Bavasi, Gossage and Hoffman.

Of additional interest to Yankee Fans might be Don Larsen (who, like Wells, went to Point Loma High School), and the father-and-son combo of Ray and Bob Boone -- grandfather and father, respectively, of Aaron (and Bret). 2131 Pan American Plaza. 

The Park is also home to the San Diego Museum of Art, the Timken Museum of Art, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the San Diego Air & Space Museum, the San Diego Automotive Museum, the Museum of Photographic Arts, and the San Diego Museum of Man. The Number 7 bus takes you to the Park and places you within a short walk of all its sites.

* San Diego Sports Arena. Built in 1966, this was the home of the NBA's San Diego Rockets from 1967 to 1971, until they moved to Houston; the NBA's San Diego Clippers from 1978 to 1984, until they moved to Los Angeles; and the World Hockey Association's San Diego Mariners from 1974 to 1977. It's also hosted some minor-league hockey teams, including the current version of the San Diego Gulls.

It hosted the 1975 NCAA Final Four, which included John Wooden's last 2 games as head coach at UCLA, winning his 10th and final National Championship, beating Kentucky. The Sockers became the Major Indoor Soccer League's most successful franchise while playing here from 1980 to 1996. (They played both an NASL and an MISL season from 1980 to 1984.) Elvis Presley sang here on November 9, 1970; April 26, 1973; and April 24, 1976.

The Arena was recently renamed the Valley View Casino Center, although it is not a casino. 3500 Sports Arena Blvd. at Kemper Street. Blue Line light rail to Old Town, then transfer to the Number 9 bus, which drops off outside.

San Diego seems not to have forgiven the Clippers for leaving, and after 30 years of the Lakers nearly always the better team, they are easily the most popular NBA team in town. The Los Angeles teams remain the closest NBA teams, 123 miles from downtown San Diego, while the Anaheim Ducks are the closest NHL team, 93 miles away.

The Clippers missed the Playoffs by 2 games in their 1st season, 1978-79, but didn't come close again until well after moving to L.A. The main reason was that native son Bill Walton was continually injured. He is the only San Diego player who made the Basketball Hall of Fame and the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

The Mariners, formerly the Madison Square Garden-based New York Raiders, the New York Golden Blades and the Cherry Hill-based Jersey Knights, made the Playoffs all 3 seasons they were in San Diego, and got to the WHA Semifinals in 1975 before losing to the Howe family and the rest of the Houston Aeros. But they never made any money, and folded in 1977. Their Andre Larcoix was named to the WHA's All-Time Team.

Despite its size, San Diego has already lost teams in 2 sports, and the Chargers might soon make it 3, so don't expect them to get an NBA team (they'd rank 20th in the league's markets by population) or an NHL team (19th).

San Diego doesn't have a team in Major League Soccer, or any of the other divisions in the American "soccer pyramid." The highest-ranking soccer team in town is the new version of the San Diego Sockers, playing in an indoor league at the Valley View Casino Center.

San Diego isn't known for its skyscrapers, not for height (as is L.A.) nor for style (as is San Francisco). The tallest building in town, and then just barely (2 others are within 3 feet of it) is One America Plaza, 500 feet even, at 600 West Broadway at Keltner Blvd. downtown.

San Diego hasn't had a lot of history, good or bad, happen within its limits. No President has come from the area, so there's no Presidential Birthplace or Library nearby. The closest you can come is Richard Nixon's La Casa Pacifica, a.k.a. the Western White House, 57 miles up the coast in San Clemente. It's still a private residence, and not open to tours, so if you're interested, just take a glance (and/or a picture), and leave them alone.

There are 3 Presidential connections to the city, and they all came in 1996. Sort of: Pete Wilson, Governor of California, former Senator, and the city's former Mayor, launched his campaign in 1995, but his theme of bashing the poor and immigrants, so successful at getting him re-elected in the Republican backlash year of 1994, didn't play well outside California (and has, essentially, poisoned the State for Republicans who weren't action-movie stars ever since), and so he dropped out after the Iowa Caucuses.

The 1996 Republican Convention nominated Senator Bob Dole for President, and former pro quarterback (including for the hometown Chargers), former Congressman from Buffalo, and former Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Jack Kemp for Vice President. That Convention was at the San Diego Convention Center, at 111 W. Harbor Drive, across the railroad and Harbor Drive from the ballpark. And Dole had his 2nd and last debate with President Bill Clinton at the Shiley Theatre on the campus of the University of San Diego. 5998 Alcala Park Way at Marian Way. Green Line to Morena Vista station.

There haven't been a lot of TV shows set in San Diego. The most notable is probably Veronica Mars, unless you're a big Simon & Simon fan. The Marines' Camp Pendleton is in Oceanside, 40 miles north of San Diego, making San Diego the closest major city to Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Major Dad (which, like Simon & Simon, had Gerald McRaney, but it transferred to Quantico, Virginia after just 1 season). Fox tried to copy the success of their Wisconsin-based That '70s Show by setting That '80s Show in San Diego in 1984, the year the Padres first won the Pennant, but it bombed, worse than the Padres did in the World Series.

San Diego has been much more successful as a location for movie settings, especially military-themed ones: Sands of Iwo Jima (John Wayne's troops train at Pendleton), Hellcats of the Navy (the one and only film that Ronald Reagan and his wife, still billed as "Nancy Davis," ever made together), Top Gun and its parody Hot Shots!Flight of the Intruder and Antwone Fisher. But the movie most associated with the city is Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, with Will Ferrell's signoff: "Stay classy, San Diego!"

If the Zoo wasn't enough for you, San Diego, like Orlando and San Antonio, has a Sea World. 500 Sea World Drive at Mission Bay Drive. Green Line to Old Town Transit Center, then transfer to the Number 9 bus.

*

So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Met fans in going coast-to-coast, enjoy the matchup with the Padres, and enjoy the sights and sounds of what Pete Wilson, while he was Mayor, called "America's Finest City." Even if the games aren't good, the weather will be.

Nothing Goes Right for Yankees In Arlington

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The Yankees got great pitching and just enough runs in their game away to the Texas Rangers on Monday night. They got neither at Globe Life Park in Arlington last night.

Luis Severino was only down 1-0 entering the bottom of the 3rd, but then he imploded, allowing 5 runs. Joe Girardi didn't have to consider whether to relieve him after 6 innings: He was gone after the 3rd. The bullpen was no better: Ivan Nova, apparently now the "long man," allowed 3 runs in 4 innings, and Chasen Shreve allowed a run in the 8th.

Why is Shreve even in the major leagues? When people say, "Expansion has diluted pitching, to the point where there are players who just don't belong in the major leagues," Shreve is one of the guys they're talking about.

The only Yankee run came on an RBI single by Mark Teixeira in the 7th. He and Ronald Torreyes each got 2 hits. Brett Gardner and Carlos Beltran each had 1 hit, and Gardner added a walk.

That was it: 7 baserunners. Jacoby Ellsbury: 0-for-4. Brian McCann: 0-for-4. Starlin Castro: 0-for-3. Dustin Ackley: 0-for-3. Didi Gregorius: 0-for-3. Alex Rodriguez got the night off, so we can't blame him.

Rangers 10, Yankees 1. Nothing went right. WP: A.J. Griffin (3-0). No save. LP: Severino (0-3, and he hasn't even looked good in any of the 3).

The series concludes tonight. CC Sabathia starts against Martin Perez. Then a travel day, and then we head into the belly of the beast to play The Scum at Scumway Park.

*

Days until the New York Red Bulls play again: 1, tomorrow night at 7:00, home to FC Dallas.

Days until the 1st Yankees-Red Sox series of the season: 2, this Friday night, at Fenway Park.

Days until The Arsenal play again: 3, this Saturday, 12:30 PM our time, home to East Anglia club Norwich City.

Days until the Red Bulls play a "derby": 16, on Friday night, May 13, against D.C. United (a.k.a. The DC Scum), at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. They next play New York City F.C. (a.k.a. Man City NYC and The Homeless) on Saturday afternoon, May 21, at Yankee Stadium II. They next play the Philadelphia Union on Sunday night, July 17, at Talen Energy Stadium (formerly PPL Park) in Chester, Pennsylvania. And the next game against the New England Revolution is on Sunday night, August 28, at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.

Days until the 2016 Copa America kicks off in the U.S.: 
37, on Friday, June 3. Just 5 weeks.

Days until Euro 2016 kicks off in France: 44, on Friday, June 10. Just 6 weeks.

Days until Arsenal play as the opponents in the 2016 Major League Soccer All-Star Game: 
92, on Thursday night, July 28, at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California, home of the San Jose Earthquakes. Just 3 months. Three days later, Arsenal will play C.D. Guadalajara, a.k.a. Chivas, one of the biggest clubs in Mexico, at the StubHub Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, in Carson, California. This will be just 2 years after The Arsenal came to America to play the Red Bulls in New Jersey. I went to that one. I don't think I'll be going to either of these: Even if I could get a game ticket, paying for a plane ticket would be difficult.

Days until the 2016 Olympics begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 1
00, on Friday, August 5.

Days until the next North London Derby: Unknown, but at least 115. The 2016-17 Premier League season is likely to open on Saturday, August 20, but it's unlikely that Arsenal will play Tottenham (a.k.a. The Scum) in the opener.
 
Days until Rutgers University plays football again: 
129, on Saturday, September 3, away to the University of Washington, in Seattle. A little over 4 months.

Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: 135, on Friday, September 9, probably away, since, while the 2016 schedule hasn't been released yet, the Big Green opened last season at home.


Days until the New Jersey Devils play another local rival: Unknown, but at least 
163. The new season is likely to being on the 1st Friday in October, which would be October 7. But they're not likely to play either the New York Rangers (a.k.a. The Scum), the New York Islanders or the Philadelphia Flyers (a.k.a. The Philth) in the opener.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving game: 
201, on Thursday morning, November 24, at the purple shit pit on Route 9. Under 5 months.

Days until Alex Rodriguez' alleged retirement becomes official: 
552, as his contract runs out on October 31, 2017. Or at the conclusion of the 2017 World Series, if the Yankees make it. Whichever comes last. A little over 18 months.

Days until the 2018 World Cup kicks off in Russia: 
778, on June 14, 2018. Under 26 months. Of course, at the rate manager Jurgen Klinsmann is going, the U.S. team might not even qualify.

How to Be a New York Soccer Fan In Dallas -- 2016 Edition

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“I’m in hell!” – Morgan Freeman
“Worse: You’re in Texas!” – Chris Rock
-- Nurse Betty

On Friday, April 29, the New York Red Bulls host FC Dallas. Due to this year's Major League Soccer schedule, FCD is the only team in the League that will host neither the Red Bulls nor New York City FC.

Nevertheless, I feel it's important to give you a complete picture of the League, so I'm going to treat this home game as if it were an away game. (With the necessary adjustments in Italics.)

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is in what Texas native Molly Ivins – frequently sarcastically – called The Great State.

An example of her writing: “In the Great State, you can get 5 years for murder, and 99 for pot possession.” (I once sent the late, great newspaper columnist an e-mail asking if it could be knocked down to 98 years if you didn’t inhale. Sadly, she never responded.)

Before You Go. It's not just The South, it's Texas. This is the State that elected George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Bill Clements Governor; Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Ron Paul and Louie Gohmert to the House of Representatives; and Phil Gramm and Ted Cruz to the Senate -- and thinks the rest of the country isn't conservative enough. This is the State where, in political terms, somebody like Long Island's conservative Congressman Peter King is considered a sissy. This is a State that thinks that poor nonwhites don't matter at all, and that poor whites only matter if you can convince them that, no matter how bad their life is, they're still better than the (slur on blacks) and the (slur on Hispanics).

So if you go to Texas for this series, it would be best to avoid political discussions. And, for crying out loud, don't mention that, now over half a century ago, a liberal Democratic President was killed in Dallas. They might say JFK had it comin''cause he was a (N-word)-lovin' Communist.

No. I'm not kidding. There are millions of Texans who think like this -- and, among their own people, they will be less likely to hold back. So don't ask them what they think. About anything.

At any rate, before we go any further, enjoy Lewis Black's R-rated smackdown of Rick Perry and the State of Texas as a whole. Perry is so stupid and myopic, he makes Dubya look like Pat Moynihan.

Also within the realm of "It's not just The South, it's Texas," you should be prepared for hot weather. It's not just the heat that's so bad, it's the humidity. And the mosquitoes. You think it was only the heat that made the Houston Astros build the Astrodome? Sandy Koufax said, "Some of the bugs they've got down there are twin-engine jobs." And, unlike Houston (then as now), the Dallas-area team does not have a dome, or even a roof over the stands. It's hot, it's humid, it's muggy and it's buggy, and they have that shit all the time.

So, before you go, check the websites of the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (the "Startle-gram") for the weather. Of course, in this case, since you're not actually going, the current forecast is irrelevant.

Fortunately, despite the State's Southernness and Confederate past, you don't need a passport to visit, and you don't need to change your money.

Texas (except for the southwestern corner, with El Paso) is in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. FC Dallas averaged 15,981 fans last season. That's about 78 percent of official seating capacity. Getting tickets should not be a problem.

Away fans are seated in Section 132, at the northeast corner of the stadium. Tickets are $36.

Getting There. It is 1,551 miles from Midtown Manhattan to downtown Dallas, and 1,542 miles from Red Bull Arena to Toyota Stadium. So unless you want to be cooped up for 24-30 hours, you... are... flying.

Nonstop flights from Newark, Kennedy or LaGuardia airports to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport will set you back close to $1,500 (round-trip). That's a bit expensive and if that’s too much, you may have to wait until next season, in the hopes that it'll be cheaper (or you get a raise). Or find alternate transportation. Which is the best idea, especially if you can go with a supporters group from your club -- especially since getting from Dallas proper to Frisco without a car is damn near impossible.

So, if it’s a choice between being cooped up or spending that much dough, what is being cooped up going to be like? Amtrak offers the Lake Shore Limited (a variation on the old New York Central Railroad’s 20th Century Limited), leaving Penn Station at 3:40 PM Eastern Time and arriving at Chicago’s Union Station at 9:45 AM Central Time. Then switch to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 PM, and arrive at Dallas’ Union Station (400 S. Houston Street at Wood Street) the following morning at 11:30. It would be $501 round-trip, and that’s with sleeping in a coach seat, before buying a room with a bed on each train.

Dallas is actually Greyhound’s hometown, or at least the location of its corporate headquarters: 205 S. Lamar Street at Commerce Street, which is also the address of their Dallas station. (The city is also the corporate HQ of American Airlines.) If you look at Greyhound buses, you’ll notice they all have Texas license plates. So how bad can the bus be?

Well, it is a lot cheaper: $338 round-trip, and advanced purchase can get it down to $278. But it won’t be much shorter. It's a 40-hour trip, and you'll have to change buses at least twice, in Richmond, Virginia (and I don't like the Richmond station) and either Atlanta or Memphis.

Oh... kay. So what about driving? As I said, over 1,500 miles. I would definitely recommend bringing a friend and sharing the driving. The fastest way from New York to Dallas is to get into New Jersey, take Interstate 78 West across the State and into Pennsylvania, then turn to Interstate 81 South, across Pennsylvania, the "panhandles" of Maryland and West Virginia, and across the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia into Tennessee, where I-81 will flow into Interstate 40. Take I-40 into Arkansas, and switch to Interstate 30 in Little Rock, taking it into the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, a.k.a. "The Metroplex." Between the East and West branches of Interstate 35, I-30 is named the Tom Landry Freeway, after the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach.

If you're driving not into Dallas proper, but right to the game -- or if you've got a hotel in or around Frisco -- take I-30 to Exit 94 in Greenville, to U.S. Route 380 West. At Prosper, take the Dallas North Tollway South, to Main Street, and turn left.

Once you get across the Hudson River into New Jersey, you should be in New Jersey for about an hour, Pennsylvania for 3 hours, Maryland for 15 minutes, West Virginia for half an hour, Virginia for 5 and a half hours (more than the entire trip will be before you get to Virginia), 8 hours and 15 minutes in Tennessee, 3 hours in Arkansas, and about 3 hours and 45 minutes in Texas.

Taking 45-minute rest stops in or around (my recommendations) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Charlottesville, Virginia; Bristol, on the Virginia/Tennessee State Line; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock and Texarkana, Arkansas; and accounting for overruns there and for traffic at each end of the journey, and we’re talking 31 hours. So, leaving New York at around 10:00 on Sunday morning (thus avoiding rush-hour traffic), you should be able to reach the Metroplex at around 4:00 on Monday afternoon (again, allowing you to avoid rush-hour traffic, and giving you time to get to your hotel).

And you really should get a hotel. Fortunately, there are hotels available nearby, particularly around the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway and the Sam Rayburn Tollway, near the Stonebriar Centre Mall, about 4 miles south of Toyota Stadium. They’re likely to be cheaper than the ones in downtown Dallas.

Once In the City. Dallas (population about 1,250,000, founded in 1856) was named after George Mifflin Dallas, a Mayor of Philadelphia and Senator from Pennsylvania who was James K. Polk's Vice President (1845-49). Fort Worth (about 800,000, founded in 1849) was named for William Jenkins Worth, a General in the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War. Arlington (375,000, founded in 1876) was named for the Virginia city across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., as a tribute to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. And Frisco (150,000 and rising fast)

The population of the entire Metroplex is about 7.2 million and climbing, although when you throw in Oklahoma, southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana, the total population of the Rangers'"market" is about 19 million -- a little less than the New York Tri-State Area, and soon it will surpass us.

Commerce Street divides Dallas street addresses into North and South. Beckley Avenue, across the Trinity River from downtown, appears to divide them into East and West. The sales tax in the State of Texas is 6.25 percent, in Dallas County 8.25 percent, and in Tarrant County (including Arlington and Fort Worth) 8 percent even.

Public transportation is a relatively new idea in Texas. While Dallas has built a subway and light rail system, and it has a bus service (get a Day Pass for $5.00), until recently, Arlington was the largest city in the country with no public transportation at all.
A Green Line light rail train, just outside of downtown

Going In. The Major League Soccer club FC Dallas (formerly the Dallas Burn) play at Toyota Stadium, at 9200 World Cup Way in the suburb of Frisco. It's actually at the intersection of Main Street and Coleman Blvd., across Main from the new Frisco Square retail complex. (World Cup Way is a block to the west.) I can find no reference to the cost of parking.

It’s 28 miles up the Dallas North Tollway from downtown, so forget about any way of getting there except driving. See if you can sign on with a RBNY or NYCFC fan group that's going.
Toyota Stadium opened in 2004, and FCD have played there since 2005. It was known as the Frisco Soccer & Entertainment Complex from 2004 to 2005, Pizza Hut Park until 2012, and FC Dallas Stadium briefly until 2013, when Toyota bought the naming rights. It also holds the rights to the Chicago Fire's stadium (Toyota Park) and the arena of the NBA's Houston Rockets (the Toyota Center).
The field is natural grass, and is aligned north-to-south, with the north end being the open end of the horseshoe. The south end has been blocked off for the 2016 season.

The stadium seats 20,500. It is surrounded by 17 practice fields (for local youth soccer as well as the MLS club), known as the Toyota Soccer Center. A National Soccer Hall of Fame is planned for the grounds. The U.S. soccer team has played there twice, both against Guatemala, a win and a loss. It also hosts high school football games, and the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision title game -- what used to be known as Division I-AA.

Frisco is also home to Dr. Pepper Ballpark, the 10,600-seat home of the Frisco RoughRiders of the Class AA Texas League; the Dr. Pepper Arena, home of the Texas Legends of the NBA Development League, the Texas Tornado of the North American Hockey League, and the Dallas Stars' practice facility; the Dallas Cowboys' new corporate headquarters and training facilities (I guess Jerry Jones simply can't stop building); and the headquarters of the Southland Conference (NCAA FCS).

Unlike Toyota Stadium, Dr. Pepper Ballpark, which is 5 miles closer to downtown Dallas, can be reached by public transit -- but it would require 3 buses and take an hour and a half.

Food. In Texas, you can expect Tex-Mex, barbecue, and lots and lots of beer, including the hometown brand, Lone Star Beer. FCD is sensitive to the locals' wishes. According to the team website:

Legends took over operations for Toyota Stadium in March 2012. FC Dallas charged Legends with delivering innovation, increasing per capita revenue, improving food quality and changing the fan experience.

To deliver against each of these goals, Legends put a plan in place that included:
  •     The addition of Legends signature brands including Bent Buckle Barbecue, and Los Vaqueros Cantina
  •     The addition of performance cooking in Clubs
  •     A change in the food preparation philosophy by introducing the signature “made from scratch” approach in all areas
Team History Displays. Although the Dallas Burn (FC Dallas since moving to Frisco in 2005) were a charter MLS franchise in 1996, and are (like the Red Bulls) celebrating their 20th Anniversary in 2016, their history is about as bleak as ours. (Though still better than yours, if you are a fan of the Small Club In Da Bronx.) They won the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 1997, and also reached the Final in 2005 and 2007. They were runners-up for the MLS Supporters' Shield in 2006 and (to us) in 2015; and for the MLS Cup in 2010.

There is no display in the stadium's fan areas honoring the 1997 U.S. Open Cup win or the 2010 MLS Western Conference title. And there are no retired numbers, and no team hall of fame.

A statue of Lamar Hunt stands outside Toyota Stadium. Hunt, a Dallas native and the son of oil baron (and funder of right-wing extremism, making him a proto-Tea Partier) H.L. Hunt, wanted to bring professional football to Dallas -- and, by "football," he didn't meant soccer. At first. He wanted an expansion franchise. When the NFL wouldn't give him one, he found out that the Chicago Cardinals were losing money, and offered to buy them and move them to the Cotton Bowl. The NFL wouldn't let him do that, either, and allowed the Cards to move to St. Louis (and later Arizona).

Frustrated, Hunt founded the American Football League and its Dallas Texans, to begin play in 1960. In 1963, knowing he couldn't compete for publicity and fans with the team the NFL did allow, the Cowboys, he moved his team, and it became the Kansas City Chiefs. He was also a founding part-owner of the NBA's Chicago Bulls. Eventually, he made peace with the NFL, got the AFL merged into it, and the AFC Championship trophy is named for him.

So is the American equivalent of the FA Cup, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. Why? In 1962, Hunt and his eventual wife Norman went to Dublin, Ireland, and watched a Shamrock Rovers match. In 1966, he went to England and attended the World Cup -- and was hooked: Over the last 40 years of his life, he attended matches of every World Cup except one.

In 1967, he founded one of the leagues that would, the next year, merge into the original North American Soccer League. His Dallas Tornado won the NASL title in 1971, and nearly did so again in 1973. But the team never made money, and in 1981 he and his partner Bill McNutt merged them with the Tampa Bay Rowdies's owners. They sold the Rowdies in 1983, and the loss of Hunt's prestige, combined with Giorgio Chinaglia's dimwittery killing the League's New York franchise, killed the old NASL.

But Hunt didn't give up on U.S. soccer, and worked to bring the World Cup to the U.S. in 1994, and then found Major League Soccer in 1996. He was a founding owner of the teams now known as Sporting Kansas City and the Columbus Crew, financed the building of what's now Mapfre Stadium in Columbus, and bought the Dallas Burn in 2003, building what's now Toyota Stadium and moving them there.

For his contributions to the game, he was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame (as well as the Pro football, Tennis, and Texas Sports Halls of Fame) in 1992, and in 1999, the U.S. Soccer Federation renamed the U.S. Open Cup after him. He died in 2006, and his son Clark Hunt now owns FC Dallas and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Stuff. The FC Dallas Team Shop is in the northeast corner of the stadium. It is open on non-game days, and on gamedays opens with the stadium gates. Naturally, they also sell cowboy hats and foam 10-gallon hats with the club logo on them.

Despite having 20 years of history, there is no team history DVD of the team. Nor is there an official book history. However, in 2014, Nathan Nipper published Dallas 'Til I Cry: Learning to Love Major League Soccer.

During the Game. FC Dallas fans consider their rivals to be Houston, Kansas City and Los Angeles -- not New York. Keep politics and religion out of it, and you'll probably be fine. And, this being a stadium, you're gonna get searched, and so is everyone else, so Texas' infamously lenient gun laws will be rendered useless. You're not going to get shot. Even J.R. Ewing wouldn't have gotten shot.

The club holds hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular singer. Their mascot is Tex Hooper, a longhorn bull, named for the State and for the "hoops" (vertical stripes) on the club's jerseys. As with London's blue-striped Queens Park Rangers and Glasgow's green-striped Celtic, a common shout at FCD games is, "C'mon The Hoops!"
There are 5 main supporters groups for FCD. The Dallas Football Elite (DFE) and Red Shamrock both sit in Section 101, a.k.a. The Snake Pit. The Budweiser Beer Garden in the stadium's north end is home to the Dallas Beer Guardians (DBG) and the Lone Star Legion (LSL). Section 117 is home to El Matador.
The groups tend to adapt the chants they inherited from the English clubs that, frequently (including in my own case) led them to their local team, rather than the other way around. "We love ya, we love ya, we love ya, and where you go we'll follow... " will be familiar to RBNY fans. Familiar to almost everyone will be "Oh when the Hoops! Go marching in!" The LSL also adapts chants from continental Europe and Latin America. El Matador does chants in both English and Spanish.

Red Shamrock, unlike the others, goes out of its way to be family-friendly, keeping their language kid-appropriate. Example: "FCD ain't nothin' to mess with!" instead of the more familiar and profane version often heard in the Red Bulls' South Ward. Another: "FCD! We are here! To sing our songs and drink some beer!" instead of the more familiar, "(name of group)! We are here! Shag your women and drink your beer!" And, "Can you hear the (opponent) sing? I can't hear a freakin' thing!" as opposed to using the other F-word.

FC Dallas fans hate Houston and the Dynamo the way Metro fans hate D.C. United. To the tune of, "My Darling Clementine":

Build a bonfire! Build a bonfire!
Put Houston at the top!
Put (today's opponent) in the middle!
And we’ll burn the freakin’ lot!

And to "You Are My Sunshine," which English fans adapted for Liverpool, as in, "You are a Scouser... ":


You are from Houston
From friggin’ Houston
You’re only happy
on Welfare Day
Your mom’s a hooker,
Your dad’s a dealer
Please don’t take my hubcaps away!

After the Game. Dallas has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to crime, but you'll be pretty far from it. The stadium is deep into Dallas' well-off northern suburbs, far from any bad neighborhood, it’s one of those ballparks that’s not in any neighborhood. As long as you don’t make any snide remarks about the Cowboys, Texas in general, or religion, safety will not be an issue.

Just across Main Street from the south end of the stadium is the Frisco Square shopping center, which has eateries Jake's Uptown, Mattito's Tex-Mex and Nola Grill Frisco. A block away, at Simpson Plaza, is Pizzeria Testa. To the west, at Main Street and Dallas Parkway (which flanks the Dallas North Tollway), are The British Lion (an obvious attempt to cash in on the soccer vibe) and Fruitealicious. A little further up Dallas Parkway are Icream Cafe and the Blue Goose Cantina. A Panera, a Smoothie King and an IHOP are across the Tollway on the other side of the Parkway.

The only bars I could find that have been mentioned as catering to New Yorkers are Buffalo Joe's at 3636 Frankford Road, home of the local Giants fan club, about halfway between the stadium and downtown Dallas; and Humperdinks at 6050 Greenville Avenue, home of Metroplex Jets fans, a little closer to downtown. The Cape Buffalo Grille, in the northern suburb of Addison, was once described as a home for local Giants fans, and as "a lifesaver for people from New York and New Jersey"; however, it has been permanently closed.

If, on a later trip to Dallas, you want to watch your favorite European team, you can do so at the following locations:

* Arsenal, Liverpool: The Londoner, 14930 Midway Road, Addison. From Union Station, DART Red Line to Forest Lane Station, then transfer to Bus 488.

* Manchester United: Vickery Park, 2810 N. Henderson Avenue. Blue Line to Mockingbird Station, then transfer to Bus 24.

* Manchester City: The British Lion, 5454 Main Street, Frisco, 2 blocks west of Toyota Stadium. Not reachable by public transit.

* Tottenham, Celtic and Bayern Munich: Trinity Hall, 5321 E. Mockingbird Lane, just off the SMU campus. Blue Line to Mockingbird Station.

* Chelsea: British Beverage Company, 2800 Routh Street. Bus 183 to Pearl & McKinney, then a 12- minute walk.

* Newcastle: The Dubliner, 2818 Greenville Avenue. Possible to get within a half-hour walk of it by public transportation, better to drive.

* West Ham: McSwiggan's Irish Pub, 6910 Windhaven Pkwy., The Colony. Possible to get within a half-hour walk of it by public transportation, better to drive.

* Barcelona: Rugby House Pub, 8604 Preston Road in Plano. Possible to get within a half-hour walk of it by public transportation, better to drive.

* Real Madrid: Si Tapas Restaurant, 2207 Allen Street. Blue Line to City Place/Uptown West, then transfer to Bus 36 to Woodall Rogers at Allen.

If you don't see your favorite club mentioned, your best bet is probably Trinity Hall -- but, as I said, it's the local Tottenham fans' pub, and do you really want to be around those cunts?

Sidelights. Despite their new rapid-rail system, Dallas is almost entirely a car-friendly, everything-else-unfriendly city. Actually, it's not that friendly at all. It's a city for oil companies, for banks, for insurance companies, things normal Americans tend to hate. As one Houston native once put it, "Dallas is not in Texas."

In fact, most Texans, especially people from Fort Worth (and, to a slightly lesser extent, those from Houston) seem to think of Dallas the way the rest of America thinks of New York: They hate it, and they think that it represents all that is bad about their homeland. Until, that is, they need a win. Or money. But there are some sites that may be worth visiting.

Globe Life Park, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team, is 17 miles west of downtown in Dallas, and 18 miles east of downtown Fort Worth, about halfway between. Arlington is in Fort Worth's Tarrant County, not Dallas County. The official address is 1000 Ballpark Way, off Exit 29 on the Landry Freeway. It sits right between Six Flags and the new Cowboys stadium (now named AT&T Stadium).
Globe Life Park, with Jerry Jones' Death Star in the background

Across Legends Way from the ballpark is a parking lot where the original home of the Rangers, Arlington Stadium, stood from 1965 to 1993. It was a minor-league park called Turnpike Stadium, built in 1965 for the Texas League's Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs, before the announcement of the move of the team led to its expansion for the 1972 season.

Dallas won Texas League (Double-A) Pennants in 1926, 1929, 1941, 1946 and 1953. They played at Burnett Field, which opened in 1924, and was abandoned after the Dallas Rangers and the Fort Worth Cats merged to become the Spurs in 1965. Currently, it's a vacant lot. 1500 E. Jefferson Blvd. at Colorado Blvd. Bus 011.

The Cats won TL Pennants in 1895, 1905, 1906, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1930, 1937, 1939 and 1948. Those 6 straight Pennants in the Twenties became a pipeline of stars for the St. Louis Cardinals, and the 1930 Pennant featured Dizzy Dean and a few other future members of the Cards' 1930s "Gashouse Gang."

The Cats played at LaGrave Field, the first version of which opened in 1900, and was replaced in 1926, again after a fire in 1949, and one more time in 2002, as a new Fort Worth Cats team began play in an independent league. 301 NE 6th Street. Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth Intermodal Transit Center, then Number 1 bus.

One more baseball-themed place in Texas that might interest a Yankee Fan: Due to his cancer treatments and liver transplant, Mickey Mantle, who lived in Dallas during the off-seasons and after his baseball career, spent the end of his life at the Baylor University Medical Center. 3501 Junius Street at Gaston Avenue. Bus 019.

Merlyn Mantle died in 2009, and while it can be presumed that Mickey's surviving sons, Danny and David, inherited his memorabilia, I don't know what happened to their house, which (I've been led to believe) was in a gated community and probably not accessible to the public anyway; so even if I could find the address, I wouldn't list it here. (For all I know, one or both sons may live there, and I've heard that one of them -- Danny, I think -- is a Tea Party flake, and even if he wasn't, the family shouldn't be disturbed just because you're a Yankee Fan and their father was one of the Yankees.)

If you truly wish to pay your respects to this baseball legend: Mickey, Merlyn, and their sons Mickey Jr. and Billy are laid to rest at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery. Also buried there are Tom Landry, tennis star Maureen Connolly, oil baron H.L. Hunt, Senator John Tower, Governor and Senator W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, bluesman Freddie King, actress Greer Garson and Mary Kay Cosmetics founder Mary Kay Ash. 7405 West Northwest Highway at Durham Street. Red Line to Park Lane station, then 428 Bus to the cemetery.

AT&T Stadium, the new home of the Cowboys (opening in 2009), is close to Globe Life Park; in fact, it’s 7/10ths of a mile. You could walk between them. If you don't mind losing 5 pounds of water weight in the Texas heat. The official address is 925 N. Collins Street, and the Cowboys offer tours of this Texas-sized facility, which will make the new Yankee Stadium seem sensible by comparison.

It has now hosted a Super Bowl, an NCAA Final Four (in 2014, Connecticut over Kentucky), some major prizefights and concerts (including Texas native George Strait opening the stadium with Reba McIntire, and recently holding the final show of his "farewell tour" there), and the biggest crowd ever to attend a basketball game, 108,713, at the 2010 NBA All-Star Game. While the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City hosted a larger regular-season crowd, the biggest crowd ever to see an NFL game on American soil was the first regular-season game there, the Cowboys and the Giants (Lawrence Tynes winning it for the G-Men with a last-second field goal), 105,121.

It hosts several special college football games: The annual Cotton Bowl Classic, the annual Cowboys Classic, the annual Arkansas-Texas A&M game, the Big 12 Championship, and, on January 12 of next year, it will host the first National Championship game in college football's playoff era.

Mexico's national soccer team has now played there 5 times -- the U.S. team, only once (a CONCACAF Gold Cup win over Honduras in 2013). Mexican clubs Club America and San Luis, and European giants Chelsea and Barcelona have also played there.

Don’t bother looking for the former home of the Cowboys, Texas Stadium, because "the Hole Bowl" was demolished in 2010. If you must, the address was 2401 E. Airport Freeway, in Irving. The U.S. soccer team played there once, a 1991 loss to Costa Rica. The North American Soccer League's Dallas Tornado played most of its home games there, featuring native son Kyle Rote Jr., son of the SMU grad who played for the Giants in the 1950s.

The Cowboys' 1st home, from 1960 to 1970, was the Cotton Bowl, which also hosted the Cotton Bowl game from 1937 to 2009, after which it was moved to AT&T Stadium. It also hosted some (but not all) home games of Southern Methodist University between 1932 and 2000, the Tornado in their 1967 and 1968 seasons, the Burn/FCD from 1996 to 2005, some games of soccer’s 1994 World Cup, and 7 U.S. soccer games, most recently a draw to Mexico in 2004.

But it's old, opening in 1930, and the only thing that's still held there is the annual "Red River Rivalry" game between the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma, every 1st Saturday in October, and that's only because that’s the weekend when the Texas State Fair is held, as the stadium is in Fair Park. (Just look for the statue of "Big Tex" -- you can't miss him.) While it doesn't seem fair that Oklahoma's visit to play Texas should be called a "neutral site" if it’s in the State of Texas, the fact remains that each school gets half the tickets, and it's actually slightly closer to OU's campus in Norman, 191 miles, than it is from UT’s in Austin, 197 miles. The address is 3750 The Midway.

Next-door is the African-American Museum of Dallas. 1300 Robert B. Cullum Blvd., in the Fair Park section of south Dallas. Bus 012 or 026, or Green Line light rail to Fair Park station. Be advised that this is generally considered to be a high-crime area of Dallas.

The NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and the NHL's Dallas Stars play at the American Airlines Center, or the AAC. Not to be confused with the American Airlines Arena in Miami (which was really confusing when the Mavs played the Heat in the 2006 and 2011 NBA Finals), it looks like a cross between a rodeo barn and an airplane hangar. 2500 Victory Avenue in the Victory Park neighborhood, north of downtown. Bus 052 or Green Line to Victory station.

Before the AAC opened in 2001, both teams played at the Reunion Arena. This building hosted the 1984 Republican Convention, where Ronald Reagan was nominated for a 2nd term as President. To New York Tri-State Area fans, it is probably best remembered as the place where Jason Arnott's double-overtime goal won Game 6 and gave the New Jersey Devils the 2000 Stanley Cup over the defending Champion Stars. The 1986 NCAA Final Four, won by Louisville over Duke, was held there.

It was demolished in November 2009, 5 months before Texas Stadium was imploded. The arena didn't even get to celebrate a 30th Anniversary. 777 Sports Street at Houston Viaduct, downtown, a 10-minute walk from Union Station.

The Dallas Sportatorium was built in 1935 to host professional wrestling, burned down in 1953 (legend has it that it was arson by a rival promoter), was rebuilt as a 4,500-seat venue, and continued to host wrestling even as it was replaced by larger arenas and fell into a rat-infested, crumbling decline, before a 2001 fire (this one was likely the result of the neglect, rather than arson) finally led to its 2003 demolition. Elvis Presley sang there early in his career, on April 16, May 29, June 18 and September 3, 1955. The site is now vacant. 1000 S. Industrial Blvd. at Cadiz Street, just south of downtown.

The Dallas Memorial Auditorium opened in 1957, and hosted some games of the ABA's Dallas Chaparrals games. The Beatles played there on September 18, 1964. Elvis sang there on November 13, 1971; June 6, 1975; and December 28, 1976. It is now part of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, named for Texas' 1st female U.S. Senator. 650 S. Griffin Street, downtown.

Elvis also sang in Fort Worth, at the Tarrant County Convention Center, now the Fort Worth Convention Center, on June 18, 1972; June 15 and 16, 1974; and June 3 and July 3, 1976. 1201 Houston Street. A short walk from the Fort Worth Intermodal Transportation Center.

If there’s 2 non-sports things the average American knows about Dallas, it's that the city is where U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, and where Ewing Oil President J.R. Ewing was shot on March 21, 1980. Elm, Main and Commerce Streets merge to go over railroad tracks near Union Station, and then go under Interstate 35E, the Stemmons Freeway – that’s the "triple underpass" so often mentioned in accounts of the JFK assassination.

The former Texas School Book Depository, now named The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, is at the northwest corner of Elm & Houston Streets, while the "grassy knoll" is to the north of Elm, and the west of the Depository. Like Ford’s Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, and the area surrounding it in Washington, the area around Dealey Plaza is, structurally speaking, all but unchanged from the time the President in question was gunned down, an oddity in Dallas, where newer construction always seems to be happening.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in downtown Dallas and died, while John Ross Ewing Jr. was shot in downtown Dallas and lived. Where’s the justice in that? J.R. was shot in his office at Ewing Oil’s headquarters, which, in the memorable opening sequence of Dallas, was in the real-life Renaissance Tower, at 1201 Elm Street, Dallas' tallest building from 1974 to 1985. In real life, it's the headquarters for Neiman Marcus. Bank of America Plaza, on Elm at Griffith Street, is now the tallest building in Dallas, at 921 feet, although not the tallest in Texas (there’s 2 in Houston that are taller).

The real Southfork Ranch is at 3700 Hogge Drive (that’s pronounced "Hoag") in Parker, 28 miles northeast of the city. (Again, you’ll need a car.) It’s not nearly as old as the Ewing family's fictional history would suggest: It was built in 1970. It’s now a conference center, and like the replica of the Ponderosa Ranch that Lorne Greene had built to look like his TV home on Bonanza, it is designed to resemble the Ewing family home as seen on both the original 1978-91 series and the 2012-present revival. It is open to tours, for an admission fee of $9.50.

Dallas values bigness, but unless you count Southfork and Dealey Plaza, it isn't big on museums. The best known is the Dallas Museum of Art, downtown at 1717 N. Harwood Street at Flora Street. Nearby is the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, named for ol' H. Ross himself, at 2201 N. Field Street at Broom Street.

The Dallas area is also home to 2 major football-playing colleges: Southern Methodist University in north Dallas, which, as alma mater of Laura Bush, was chosen as the site of the George W. Bush Presidential Library (now open); and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. The Bush Library is at 2943 SMU Blvd. & North Central Expressway, a 5-minute walk from Ownby Stadium, Moody Coliseum, and the university bookstore, which, like so many university bookstores, is a Barnes & Noble (not named for Dallas character Cliff Barnes). Blue or Red Line to Mockingbird Station.

SMU is also home to Moody Coliseum, home court of their basketball team. The Dallas Chaparrals played ABA games there from 1967 until 1973, when they became the San Antonio Spurs. 6024 Airline Road.

SMU has produced players like Doak Walker, Forrest Gregg, Dandy Don Meredith, and the "Pony Express" backfield of Eric Dickerson and Craig James (both now TV-network studio analysts), while TCU has produced Slingin' Sammy Baugh, Jim Swink and Bob Lilly. Both schools have had their highs and their lows, and following their 1987 "death penalty" (for committing recruiting violations while already on probation), and their return to play in 1989 under Gregg as coach, SMU are now what college basketball fans would call a "mid-major" school. Ironically, TCU, normally the less lucky of the schools, seriously challenged for the 2009 and 2010 National Championships, but their own "mid-major" schedule doomed them in that regard. TCU's Amon G. Carter Stadium hosted the U.S. soccer team's 1988 loss to Ecuador.

Aside from Dallas, TV shows that have shot in, or been set in, the Dallas area include Walker, Texas Ranger, Prison Break, the new series Queen of the South (based on a Mexican telenovela), and the ridiculous, short-lived ABC nighttime soap GCB (which stood for "Good Christian Bitches").

Movies about, or involving, the JFK assassination usually have to shoot in Dallas: The 1983 NBC miniseries Kennedy with Martin Sheen, JFK, Love Field, Ruby, Watchmen, LBJ (with Bryan Cranston as the Texan who succeeded him), and the Hulu series 11/22/63, based on Stephen King's fantasy novel.

Other movies shot in the city include the 1962 version of State Fair, Bonnie and Clyde, Mars Needs Women, Logan's Run, The Lathe of Heaven, Silkwood, Tender Mercies, Places in the Heart, The Trip to Bountiful, Born on the Fourth of July, Problem Child, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (not about the football team), The Apostle, Boys Don't Cry, Dallas Buyers Club, the football films Necessary Roughness and Any Given Sunday, and, of course, the porno classic Debbie Does Dallas. However, it might surprise you to know that RoboCop, which was set in a Detroit that was purported to be in a near future when the city was even worse than it then was in real life, was filmed in Dallas. What does that say about Dallas? (To me, it says, "This is another reason why Dallas sucks.")

*

Texas is a weird place, and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is no exception. But it's a pretty good area for sports, and it even seems to have embraced this other kind of "football" between seasons of the football they know.

If you can afford it, and can find a way to get from downtown Dallas to Frisco, go, and help your fellow Metro fans make FC Dallas feel like they’re in New York, or New Jersey. But remember to avoid using the oft-heard phrase "Dallas sucks." In this case, keep the truth to yourself!

Not a Good Way to Hit Going Into a Boston Series

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The Yankees closed their series in Texas by doing what they've done most of April 2016: Failing to score enough runs.

Don't blame CC Sabathia: The Big Fella pitched decently, allowing 3 runs on 5 hits, 3 walks and a hit batsman over 6 innings. He only threw 90 pitches, so he could have gone longer.

But don't blame the bullpen, either. Between them, the slumping Johnny Barbato and the usually awful Chasen Shreve pitched 3 perfect innings. And don't blame Joe Girardi: Clearly, he pulled CC at the right time; equally clearly, he used the right pitchers for the night.

No, blame the offense. Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner both went 0-for-4 at the top of the order. Chase Headley and Ronald Torreyes (Girardi put him at shortstop to give Didi Gregorius a night off) went 0-for-3 at the bottom. Mark Teixeira went 0-for-3 in the middle, but at least he managed a walk.

Alex Rodriguez got 3 hits, including a home run (his 3rd) and a double. Starling Castro got 2 hits, 1 for an RBI. But that was all the Yankees got off Texas pitching.

I don't care how good the other team's pitcher is: The New York Yankees should be getting more than 2 runs off them.

This time, again, they did not: Rangers 3, Yankees 2. WP: Martin Perez (1-2). SV: Shawn Tolleson (7 -- and that's the son of former Ranger and Yankee good-field/no-hit infielder Wayne Tolleson). LP: Sabathia (1-2).

*

So far this season, when the Yankees score at least 4 runs in a game, they're 5-0. When they score 3, they're 3-2. When they score 2 or fewer, they're 0-10.

And now, we have to play the Boston Red Sox. In Boston. In the little green pinball machine in the Back Bay.

We could be looking at a 30-5 aggregate loss.

On the other hand, how many times have we had a high-scoring game right before playing the Sox, especially at Fenway, and gone on to watch our bats fizzle? Maybe this series will have the opposite effect.

Here are the projected starters:

* Tonight, 7:10 PM: Masahiro Tanaka vs. Henry Owens.

* Tomorrow, 7:10 PM: Michael Pineda vs. Rick Porcello.

* Sunday, 8:05 PM (the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game): Nathan Eovaldi vs. David Price.

Let's go, Yankees! Beat The Scum!

The Red Sox Are the REAL "Evil Empire"

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As Christmas approached in 2002, the Yankees signed 2 big foreign stars: Japanese outfielder Hideki Matsui, and Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras.

The Red Sox wanted Contreras badly, but owner George Steinbrenner told Brian Cashman to get him or else, and Cashman got him.

Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino did not take this lying down. When the New York Times reached him for comment on the signing, he said, "The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America." 

People have called the Yankees "the Evil Empire" ever since.

This is stupid.

The most obvious reason that it's stupid is that most of us first heard the expression "evil empire" on March 8, 1983, when President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech at a hotel on the grounds of Walt Disney World outside Orlando, Florida, to a bunch of evangelicals whose Jesus was the one who said to smite single mothers and gays, not the one who said to love thy neighbor as thyself and to give your possessions to the poor:

In your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely, uh, declaring yourselves above it all, and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history, and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding, and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, and good and evil.

Reagan was calling the Soviet Union an evil empire. The Soviet Union was opposed to capitalism, opposed to obscene wealth, opposed to private property.

The New York Yankees, at least since Jacob Ruppert began to build the team that would dominate baseball in the 1920s, have been the most capitalist of all teams, have been obscenely wealthy, and own the greatest private property in all of sports on this planet, Yankee Stadium. (If you're a soccer fan, don't tell me Real Madrid's Bernabeu, Barcelona's Camp Nou, or Manchester United's Old Trafford is greater. What do they host besides their home teams?)

So comparing the Yankees to the Soviet Union, "the evil empire," really is stupid. If Reagan had never made that speech, maybe it would make sense.

*

But it goes beyond that. The comparison is also made to the Galactic Empire, the antagonists in the Star Wars films. Some Yankee Fans get a kick out of this, making it backfire on Sox fans, by showing Darth Vader as a representation of the Yankees, turning, "May the Force be with you" into, "May the Curse be with you" prior to the Sox cheating the Curse of the Bambino to death in 2004.

And, just before the Sox did that, Pedro Martinez made his "call the Yankees my Daddy" remark, and a banner at Yankee Stadium showed Vader saying, "Pedro: I am your father!"

But the media, particularly ESPN and Fox, the duopoly of baseball coverage on national TV, have fed the myth that the Red Sox are the Light Side of the Force, and the Yankees are the Dark Side.

Bullshit. We are the Light Side, while the Red Sox are the Dark Side.

You want to use Star Wars as the template? Okay, let's take the 1st 6 films into context. From 1921 to 2003 was the Republic, then came its downfall.

The 1999 American League Championship Series was Episode I: The Phantom Menace: The Yankees were challenged by a resurgent enemy that we thought was no longer a threat, but we got the message: Take them seriously.

The 2003 season was Episode II: Attack of the Clones: They were really gunning for us now, and we knew we had a war on our hands, but it still looked like we would prevail in the end.

2004 was Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. No explanation necessary.

Time passed. The 2009 season, when it was revealed that the Sox were steroid cheats, and we lost to them for most of the season but began pounding them in early August, and clinched the Division against them in late September, on the way to winning the World Series again, was Episode IV: A New Hope.

2013, when we missed Derek Jeter for most of the season, we said goodbye to Mariano Rivera, and the Sox won the Series for the 1st time since they were outed as cheaters, and nobody seemed to give a damn that they had cheated, was Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The movie that many Star Wars fans say is the best one, but these people need to be slapped: How can it be the best, if it ends with the bad guys winning? These people are ESPN and Fox, celebrating the Sox and David Ortiz, when they know goddamned well how evil they are.

Hopefully, 2016 will be Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

If you still doubt that it's the Red Sox who are the Dark Side, remember that their pitchers have consistently tried to injure our players with pitched balls.

Bronson Arroyo drilled Alex Rodriguez in the back, A-Rod cursed him out, and Jason Varitek, leaving his mask on like the bitch that he is, shoved his mitt in A-Rod's face. This was a far cry from 1976, when Bill Lee, after a brawl that led to his shoulder injury, "The Yankees fought like hookers swinging their purses." How would he know? And what did it say about his team that they lost the fight anyway?

Want more proof? Pedro tried to "execute Order 66" on Don Zimmer. For the last few years of his life, Zim's uniform number as a coach was the number of years he'd been in professional baseball. When he died, still on the staff of the Tampa Bay Rays, the Rays retired the last number that he wore. It was 66.

You want to say that you hate the Yankees? Go ahead. I like to use the line from ancient Rome: Oderint dum metuant. Meaning, "Let them hate, as long as they fear."

But don't insult the evidence by saying that the Yankees are evil. When the Red Sox have been war criminals at least since Pedro the Punk arrived in 1998, and still are long after he's been gone.

Yanks Let Big Fat Lying Cheating B@$+@rd Beat Them Again

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Nothing in sports angers me more than the media's knowledge that David Ortiz was caught cheating and still denies it, and their acting like it was all okay, and then their castigation of the Yankees for what they've admitted to.

It's called "cognitive dissonance."

Ortiz should have been banned from baseball for life years ago.

If the price for that had also been the same punishment for Alex Rodriguez? I would have gladly lived with that.

Anyway, last night, in the opener of the 1st Yankees vs. Red Sox game of the season, at Fenway Park, things were going so well. Masahiro Tanaka had a 3-hit shutout going for 6 innings, and the Yankees had a 2-0 lead, thanks to a home run by A-Rod in the 2nd inning (his 4th of the season) and an RBI single by Brett Gardner in the 5th.

But, for once, Joe Girardi made a mistake not by taking out a pitcher going strong after 6, but leaving him in for the 7th. Tanaka allowed a pair of 1-out singles, then got a strikeout, and then allowed a double by Jackie Bradley, tying the game.

Then Girardi brought Dellin Betances in to pitch the 8th. Suffice it to say, he has not turned out to be the new Mariano Rivera of 1997 to 2013 -- or even the new Mariano Rivera of 1996 (unbeatable 8th inning guy).

It wasn't all Betances' fault: Xander Bogaerts lined a shot that deflected off Starlin Castro's glove, not really a makeable play, so I don't blame Castro, either. But, of course, Ortiz was the next batter; and, of course, he hit a home run.

If you're not going to plunk him in that situation, at least walk him intentionally. True, it puts the potential winning run on 2nd base with only 1 out. But it sends a message: No, you big fat lying cheating bastard, we are not letting you beat us this time.

Red Sox 4, Yankees 2. WP: Koji Uehara (1-1). SV: Craig Kimbrel (7). LP: Betances (0-2).

The series continues tonight. Michael Pineda starts against Rick Porcello.

T.S. Eliot Can Shut Up

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"April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."
T.S. Eliot wrote that in 1922. He titled the poem "The Waste Land."

The Yankees ended April 2016 in last place in the American League Eastern Division, at 8-14. Only Minnesota, Houston and Atlanta have lesser records.

The Yankees are now 0-12 when score less than 3 runs, 8-2 when they score at least 3.

This is unacceptable.

*

The Red Sox scored 2 runs off Michael Pineda in the 2nd inning last night, and we already got the sense that the game was lost, because the Yankees simply haven't been hitting.

At the top of the order, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner each went 0-for-4. Why do we have either of these guys in the lineup, if they can't get on base to provide potential RBIs for Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez? Speaking of whom, each of those went 0-for-3, and was replaced for his final at-bat.

Here's who got on base: Carlos Beltran with a single, Chase Headley with a single, Starlin Castro with a single and a walk, and Brian McCann with 2 singles. That was it.

It's almost irrelevant that Pineda didn't have his good stuff again, and that Chasen Shreve and Johnny Barbato were horrible again: If Pineda had gone 7 innings, and allowed 1 run, and Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller had each added a perfect inning, we would have lost this game 1-0.

Instead, Red Sox 8, Yankees 0. WP: Rick Porcello (5-0). No save. LP: Pineda (1-3).

Of course, I want to beat the Red Sox. But, at this point, winning is important, never mind against whom.

The series concludes tonight. Nathan Eovaldi starts against former Tampa Bay pain in the ass David Price.

T.S. Eliot can shut up: As any baseball fan, especially a Red Sox fan, can tell you, the cruelest month is October.

But you've got to get there first.

Maybe the Yankees should send out a Mayday?

How to Be a Red Bulls Fan In Orlando -- 2016 Edition

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On Sunday, April 24, the New York Red Bulls won a home game, 3-2, over Orlando City SC (Soccer Club), featuring Brazilian legend Kaká, U.S. national team star Brek Shea, and former Real Madrid and Arsenal player Júlio Baptista, a.k.a. The Beast.

This coming Friday, they play each other again in Orlando. (This past Saturday night, the Red Bulls throttled FC Dallas in Harrison, 4-0.

Before You Go. Florida must be where the saying, "It's not the heat that's so bad, it's the humidity" was first used. Indeed, when Miami got its expansion baseball team in 1991, someone joked that, since they already had the Heat, a basketball team that was then so bad, the baseball team should be named the Miami Humidity. (It was named the Florida Marlins instead, and is now the Miami Marlins.)

Orlando isn't as far south as Miami, but I've been there in November, and the place simply doesn't recognize what the calendar says for the Northeast. It can be 85 degrees and 100 percent humidity. It can be unbearable. The Orlando Sentinel website currently has projections for next Friday for the high 80s in the afternoon, and the low 70s at night. Wear short sleeves, and stay hydrated.

Orlando is in the Eastern Time Zone, so you won't have to fool with your timepieces. Florida was part of the Confederate States of America, and Central Florida (outside of Disney World itself, which is its own fiefdom under "Uncle Walt," who was very conservative) is still very much Southern, but you won't need to bring your passport or change your money (although Disney World does use "Disney Dollars" as coupons).

Tickets. Orlando City averaged 32,847 fans per home game last season. By the way they measure soccer capacity at the Citrus Bowl, that's a sellout. That could have been due to the novelty factor. But the women's league team, the Orlando Pride, also sells very well by that league's standard. In Orlando, soccer is in. So getting tickets could be difficult.

But this is one sport where fans of the visiting team have a built-in advantage: You only have to look in one particular section, and it's going to be cheap. It's Section 101, the northeast corner of the stadium, and it will be just $26.

Getting There. It's 1,080 miles from Times Square to downtown Orlando. Reading this, your first thought is going to be to fly.

Amazingly, you can get a round-trip flight for around $300, if you don't mind making a stopover. This turns out to be a bargain by anyone's standards, especially when you see the Orlando airport and its fantastic monorail. The only problem is, you've got to start at Newark Airport. At least they've finally built their monorail.

(Orlando International Airport's airport code of MCY comes from its former status, up until 1975, as McCoy Air Force Base, named for Colonel Michael Norman Wright McCoy, a hero pilot of World War II who was killed in a crash at what was then named Pinecastle Air Force Base in 1957.)

Amtrak's Silver Meteor leaves New York's Penn Station at 3:15 PM, and arrives in Orlando at 12:49 the following afternoon, a 21-and-a-half hour trip. It's $278 round-trip. Be advised that the Florida trains, the Silver Meteor and the Silver Star, are notoriously late on their returns to the Northeast Corridor. So flying is the better option. The Amtrak station is on Slight Blvd. at Copleand Drive, downtown.

Greyhound runs 5 buses a day from New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal to Orlando, with a round-trip fare of $318, but it can drop to $182 with advanced purchase. This trip takes 25 hours, with a change of buses and an hour-and-a-half layover in Richmond, which is not fun. So far, flying remains the better option, which is a rarity on these Trip Guides. The Greyhound station is at 555 N. John Young Parkway. 2 miles west of downtown. Number 25 bus.

If you do prefer to drive, see if you can get someone to split the duties with you. Essentially, you’ll be taking Interstate 95 almost all the way down. At Exit 260, take Interstate 4 West, and Exit 82B for downtown Orlando.

It should take about 2 hours to get through New Jersey, 20 minutes in Delaware, an hour and a half in Maryland, 3 hours in Virginia, 3 hours in North Carolina, 3 hours in South Carolina, 2 hours in Georgia, and about 2 hours and 45 minutes in Florida. Given proper 45-minute rest stops – I recommend doing one in Delaware, and then, once you’re through the Washington, D.C. area, doing one when you enter each new State, and then another around Orlando, for a total of 7 – and taking into account city traffic at each end, your entire trip should take about 23 hours -- faster than Greyhound, but not faster than Amtrak.

Once In the City. Founded as Jernigan in 1875, and home to about 255,000 people with a metropolitan area of just under 3 million, Orlando was named for Orlando Reeves, an American soldier who was killed within what is now the city limits during the Second Seminole War in 1835.

There's just one problem: It never happened. There was no fighting in said war in what's now the Orlando area, and the only Orlando Reeves who lived nearby owned a plantation with a sugar mill on it. He carved his name in a tree, and somebody presumed later on that he must have been buried there. How he became a war hero, who knows. Maybe it was Southern pride, something the locals tried to cling to after General Sherman kicked the Confederacy's redneck ass.

The sales tax in Florida is 6 percent, and an additional 6 percent is placed on all hotel rooms. Central Blvd. divides city addresses into North and South, and Orange Avenue divides them into East and West.

Lynx is the local bus service. A single ride is $2.00. Orlando recently began their SunRail commuter service, which, by sometime next year, will extend, north-to-south, from DeLand in the north to Poinciana in the south. (For the moment, it runs from DeBary to Sand Lake Road.) They also want to expand to the airport, and to Daytona Beach; the former will happen next year, but the later remains only a plan.
A SunRail train in downtown Orlando

Going In. The Citrus Bowl complex used to include an old football stadium and an old baseball park. Opened in 1936 as Orlando Stadium, the stadium became the Tangerine Bowl in 1946, and from 1947 onward (with the exception of 1973, when it was held at the University of Florida) hosted the game of the same name, often on New Year's Day, which was renamed the Florida Citrus Bowl in 1983, and Camping World Stadium earlier this year.

It seated a mere 8,900 people at its opening, and just 15,900 as late as 1975. But a major expansion boosted it to 52,000 the next year, and 65,438 in 1989. A 2014 renovation, complete with wider seats, brought the total to 61,348, which still gives it more seats than 1 current NFL stadium, the Oakland Coliseum. While OCSC limit seating capacity to 33,000 for most games, they do sometimes open the upper deck.
The official address is 1 Citrus Bowl Place, at the southwest corner of W. Church Street and Rio Grande Avenue, about 2 miles west of downtown. Parking is $10. The stadium is in a horseshoe shape, open at the north end. The field is artificial.

The stadium actually hosts 3 bowl games: The Citrus Bowl, the Russell Athletic Bowl, and, starting last year, the AutoNation Cure Bowl, raising money for breast cancer research. Since 1997, it's hosted the Florida Classic, between historically black schools Florida A&M of Tallahassee and Bethune-Cookman of Daytona Beach -- a copy of New Orleans' Bayou Classic between Grambling State and Southern University. And from 1979 to 2006, it hosted games of the University of Central Florida.

Pro teams that have called it home include the Florida Blazers of the World Football League in 1974, the Orlando Renegades of the United States Football League in 1985, the Orlando Thunder of the World League of American Football in 1991 and '92, and the Orlando Rage of the XFL in 2001.

Orlando City Soccer Club has played there since 2011, and got promoted to MLS in 2015. The Orlando Pride of the National Women's Soccer League just began playing, and playing there. Both soccer teams hope to move into a new stadium for the 2017 season. The team's badge features a lion, in homage to the Orlando Lions, who played in various minor leagues from 1985 to 1996. The lion's mane has 21 flares, looking like a sun but also paying tribute to the fact that OCSC is the league's 21st team.

The Bowl hosted 5 games of the 1994 World Cup, and 8 -- 5 men's, 3 women's -- in the 1996 Olympics (mostly based in Atlanta). It hosted the 1998 MLS All-Star Game, and 3 games of the U.S. national team, most recently in 1998, resulting in a win and 2 draws.
Food. Florida is Southeastern Conference territory, where tailgating is a holy rite. And Orlando City do allow tailgating in their parking lot. But they do serve food inside the Citrus Bowl.

On the East Sideline, they have Halftime Stand (generic food), Rio Grande (Mexican food), East Central Grill (generic), Champion Pizza, Monster Sandwich (including pulled pork and pulled chicken), and All-American stand (generic).

On the West Sideline, they have All-American Stand, Rio Grande, Mid Field Grill (featuring "Salad in a Jar" and trail mix along with generic stuff), Monster Sandwich and Halftime Stand. And at the North End, they have MVP Goal Stand (generic).

Team History Displays. They've only played since 2011, and in MLS since 2015, so, as the song goes, "You ain't got no history."

Stuff. As a new team, there are no books or videos about Orlando City SC. And while the new stadium will have a team store, the Citrus Bowl does not. But there are souvenir stands around the stadium.

During the Game. This is the South, but it's not football: It's "football." There is no rivalry between the Red Bulls and Orlando City. The fact that OCSC and New York City FC came into the league at the same time has resulted in lots of comparisons (so far, mostly favoring Orlando's operation), but that's not a rivalry, either. You're not going to be in physical danger unless you provoke someone. So don't do that.

Orlando City hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. Their mascot is Kingston the Lion (as in the lion is the king of the jungle), whose mane appears to be in Jamaican-style braids (as in Kingston is the capital of Jamaica).
Since OCSC are, for the moment, the only MLS club in Florida -- the Tampa Bay Mutiny and the Miami Fusion both failed, and David Beckham's new Miami team isn't yet close to being underway -- supporters' groups throughout Florida have taken to them.

The leading group is The Ruckus, and includes the Tallahassee-based Capitol City Ruckus. The Iron Lion Firm separated from The Ruckus shortly after its founding in 2009 (with the hope of getting into MLS), and can be identified by their ILF 407 banners (their initials, and Orlando's Area Code). The ILF, as befitting their Bob Marleyesque name, are more Caribbean and Latin American in style, if not necessarily in ethnic makeup.

These 2 groups (and stand) in the south end, and form "The Wall." This massive support gave OCSC the 2nd-highest per-game attendance in the league, behind only Seattle.
Like the Red Bulls' ultras, they sing the various on Little Peggy March's "I Will Follow Him": "We love ya (3 times), and where you go we'll follow (3 times)..." Like the Red Bulls, and the D.C. Scum, they sing "Vamos... " ("Vamos, Vamos Orlando, esta noche, tenenos que ganar... " Let's go, let's go Orlando, this night, we have to win... ")

To the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," they sing "Orlando City Anthem":

From miles around we come to town
to see our team
We're gonna score and sing some more
you better believe
Orlando City, Hey!
Sing of Victory!
Orlando City, all... the way!

They're a new club, so maybe next year they'll learn that songs are supposed to rhyme. They also endured some controversy last season, when objections were raised to a chant that included the word "retarded." Both the Ruckus and the ILF agreed to replace the offending word in the chant, and have been publicly commended by the advocacy groups that had objected.

After the Game. Orlando is not known as a high-crime city. You should be safe going out, and, if you drove to the game, you car should be in one piece.

I was not able to find any place to eat or drink that is known to cater to New York teams' fans. And there don't seem to be a lot of bars near the stadium. But there's a New York International Bread Company a block east, at 1500 Church Street.

If you visit Orlando during the European soccer season, unless you're a fan of a very big club, you're probably out of luck. Aces, at 825 Courtland Street, about 6 miles north of downtown, is an Arsenal pub. Two possibilities for other English clubs, most likely Liverpool-friendly, are The Harp and Celt, 25 S. Magnolia Avenue, downtown; and The George & Dragon, 6314 International Drive, about 9 miles southwest of downtown, across from Universal's theme parks.

Sidelights. Orlando doesn't have much of a sports history. And if you're not interesting in going to the nearby theme parks, there's not a whole lot to do there except experience serious humidity all year long.

* New Stadium. Orlando City Stadium was supposed to open for this season, but construction delays have pushed it back to next year. When Orlando City and the women's team Orlando Pride move in for the Spring of 2017, the stadium is set to seat 25,500 (making it less than half the size of the Citrus Bowl, but slightly larger than Red Bull Arena), and will have a natural grass surface.

700 block of W. Church Street, at Parramore Avenue, about 7 blocks east of the Citrus Bowl, and 3 blocks west of the Amway Arena. SunRail to Church Street.
Artist's depiction of the new "Lions' Den"

* Tinker Field site. Just to the west of the Citrus Bowl, Tinker Field opened in 1914. It was the longtime spring training home of the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise, and when the stadium was rebuilt in 1963, seats from Griffith Stadium were added to it, since the Senators had moved to Minnesota and the new Senators had moved into RFK Stadium.

Pennants in the Class A Florida State League were won by the 1921 Orlando Tigers, the 1923 Orlando Bulldogs, the 1927 Orlando Colts, the 1940 and 1946 Orlando Senators, the 1955 Orlando C.B.'s, and the 1968 Orlando Twins. Pennants in the Class AA Southern League were won by the 1981 Orlando Twins, the 1991 Orlando Sun Rays, and the 1999 Orlando Rays. That's 10 Pennants.

The Orlando Rays moved to Alabama after the 2003 season, becoming the Montgomery Biscuits. Despite metropolitan Orlando having a population greater than 7 MLB markets (St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee), it has been without professional baseball since the Aaron Boone Game. Rumors of the Tampa Bay Rays moving to Orlando if they can't get a new stadium either in Tampa or St. Petersburg continue to swirl, but if they ever do move, it probably won't be to Orlando, not to the Tinker Field site or to the 9,500-seat Champion Stadium on the Disney World campus.

Unfortunately, the recent renovation of the Citrus Bowl meant that the 100-year-old Tinker Field would have a right field that was much too short, and it was torn down last year. It seated 5,100 people at the end. 1610 W. Church Street at Rio Grand Avenue.

According to an April 24, 2014 article in The New York Times, despite being 106 miles away -- or, perhaps, because they aren't considerably closer than that -- the Rays only get about 10 percent of MLB fandom in the Orlando area. The Boston Red Sox get about 15 percent. And the Yankees average about 30 percent.

Orlando has never had a team in the NFL, unless you count the Orlando Breakers, the fictional team on the sitcom Coach in the 1995 and 1996 seasons. Real pro football teams that have played there include the Orlando Broncos of the Southern Football League (1962-63), the Orlando Panthers of the Continental Football League (1966-70), the Florida Blazers of the World Football League (1974), the Orlando Renegades of the USFL (1985), the Orlando Thunder of the World League of American Football (1991-92), and the Orlando Rage of the XFL (2001).

According to the September 2014 issue of The Atlantic, even though the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 88 miles from downtown Orlando and the Miami Dolphins are 222 miles away, and the Buccaneers won a Super Bowl 13 seasons ago while the Dolphins are now 42 seasons without a title, the Dolphins remain the most popular NFL team in the Orlando area. (The Tampa Bay Lightning, 85 miles away and coming off a Stanley Cup Finals berth, are the closest and most popular NHL team.)

Despite its growing metropolitan area population, Orlando would still rank only 24th in MLB, and 20th in the NFL.

* Orlando City Stadium. Currently under construction, and set to open next Spring, Orlando City SC and their sister club the Orlando Pride will play here. 700 Church Street at Glenn Lane, downtown, between the Amway Center and the Citrus Bowl complex.

* Amway Center. Since 2010, the NBA's Orlando Magic have played at this downtown arena. It is also home to the Orlando Solar Bears of minor-league hockey, and the Orlando Predators of arena football. The official address is 400 W. Church Street. It is bordered by Church Street, Hughey Avenue, South Street and Division Avenue.
* Orlando Arena site. "The O-rena" was the Magic's home from their 1989 beginnings until 2010, and also hosted the Solar Bears, the Predators, and, from 1999 to 2002, the Orlando Miracle of the WNBA. (The team moved to become the Connecticut Sun. Funny how they became the Sun after moving from Florida to New England, instead of the other way around.)

The Magic played the 1995 and 2009 NBA Finals at this building, later renamed the TD Waterhouse Center and the Amway Arena (the Magic are owned by Amway chairman Rich DeVos, hence his company's name on arenas old and new). It was a major arena for Arena Football, hosting the ArenaBowl in 1992, 1994 and 2000. The Orlando Predators won the ArenaBowl in 1998 and 2000.

But it opened right before the design of Baltimore's Camden Yards rewrote the rules for sports venues. The skyboxes had the worst sightlines in the arena, and many of them went unleased, denying the Magic precious megarevenues. (Never mind that DeVos is one of the richest men in America: He was going to be damned if he was going to let his fellow owners laugh at him for his revenue issues.)

As early as 2000, DeVos started whining to the City of Orlando about building him a new arena, even though he's worth $6 billion and could have funded building the $480 million arena he eventually got all by himself -- 12 times over. The O-rena was imploded in 2012, and the site is being redeveloped for both residential and office space. 600 W. Amelia Street at Alexander Place, downtown, about 7 blocks north of its replacement.

* Bright House Networks Stadium. This 44,206-seat stadium opened on the University of Central Florida campus in 2007. The stadium has a flexible seating section that can safely allow students to bounce, similar to the effect of the metal seating in the west end zone at RFK Stadium in Washington, giving it the nicknames the Bounce House and the Trampoline.

4465 Knights Victory Way at Plaza Drive, 16 miles northeast of downtown. Any bus that goes to Lynx Central Station Terminal, then Bus 104.

* Site of Orlando Sports Stadium. Like the Chicago Stadium and the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, this "stadium" was actually an arena, opening in 1967. It was later renamed the Eddie Graham Sports Complex, after a pro wrestler and promoter, since pro wrestling was its main feature. But it was also a major concert venue, hosting Led Zeppelin in 1971, Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1976, and, on February 15, 1977, Elvis Presley.

The building was not well maintained, and was demolished in 1995. A housing development named Econ River Estates is now on the site.

* Theme Parks. Disney World is 17 miles southwest of downtown Orlando, and, like its counterpart Disneyland in Anaheim, California, is a bit of a walk from the nearest public transportation. It's definitely a car place, although it does have a monorail on the grounds.

Sea World 14 miles southwest of downtown, but can be reached by public transit: SunRail from Lynx Central Station Terminal to Bus 50. 7007 Sea World Drive. Universal Orlando Resort (formerly Universal Studios Orlando) can be reached from downtown via Bus 40: 6000 Universal Blvd., 8 miles southwest.

Orlando isn't big on museums, but there are 3 that may be worth a look. The Orange County Regional History Center is at 65 E. Central Blvd. at Court Avenue. The Orlando Science Center and the Mennello Museum of American Art are both in Loch Haven Park, at 777 E. Princeton Street. SunRail to Florida Hospital Health Village.

The Beatles never performed in Orlando, but, as I said, Elvis did, toward the end. Toward the beginning, on May 11, 1955, Elvis did 2 shows at the Municipal Auditorium. He performed there again on July 26 and 27, 1955, and twice on August 8, 1956. The building is now named the Bob Carr Theaer, for the Mayor who desegregated the city in the 1960s. 401 W. Livingston Street at Hughey Avenue, downtown, about 5 blocks north of the Amway Center.

The University of Florida is in Gainesville, 113 miles northwest of downtown Orlando. Florida State University is in the State capital of Tallahassee, 258 miles northwest.

Miami has several skyscrapers. Tampa has a few. Orlando really doesn't. The tallest building in town is the SunTrust Center, 441 feet high, at 200 S. Orange Avenue at Church Street, 3 blocks (counting I-4) east of the Amway Center.

Outside of the Orlando-area theme parks, the biggest tourist attraction in Central Florida is the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, 45 miles east of Orlando, on the Atlantic Coast. You'll have to drive: Public transportation simply isn't available.

Aside from Coach, which used stock footage of the Citrus Bowl (as it had with the University of Iowa, standing in for the fictional Minnesota State) but was filmed in Southern California, there haven't been many TV shows set in Orlando, aside from sitcoms doing the trope of the family going to Disney World for a two-parter.

A few movies have been set at Disney World, including the recent George Clooney film Tomorrowland. The only movie I know of that was filmed and set in Orlando proper, rather than in Mickeystan, is Ernest Saves Christmas, part of Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell ("Hey, Vern!") franchise. Christmas in Orlando? Could be worse: Could be Christmas in Miami. Or Christmas in L.A. Or Christmas in Vegas.

*

So if you're a Red Bulls fan, or even a New York City FC fan, head down to Orlando to see them take on the local XI. Who knows, you might have a good time even if you never set foot in "The Happiest Place On Earth."

Yanks Score 7 But Lose, Swept at Fenway

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Going into this series with The Scum, I was concerned that we might lose on an aggregate score of 30-5, because we weren't hitting and we were going into the little green pinball machine in the Back Bay.

It was 20-9. Bad enough.

Last night at Fenway Park, neither starter had his good stuff. Nathan Eovaldi pitched 5 innings, David Price 7, and each allowed 6 runs.

The Yankees fell behind 1-0 in the bottom of the 1st inning, but took a 3-1 lead in the top of the 3rd, thanks to Alex Rodriguez hitting his 5th home run of the year. Then we gave it right back, to trail 4-3.

With 1 out in the top of the 5th, Jacoby Ellsbury was hit by a pitch. The Red Sox fans loved that. But not for long: Price walked Brett Gardner. At the rate that Ellsbury and Gardner are getting on base, putting them on without the benefit of a hit is bad news. A-Rod doubled them home, and Mark Teixeira doubled him home. 6-4 Yankees.

But in the bottom of the 5th, Eovaldi gave the cushion right back, surrendering a leadoff single to the big fat lying cheating bastard, David Ortiz, and a home run to Travis Shaw. 6-6.

Eovaldi walked Jackie Bradley to start the 6th, and Joe Girardi removed him for Ivan Nova. Unlike a lot of Girardi's bullpen moves, this one was totally understandable, and I can't fault him for it: If Eovaldi had pitched as well as he had in his last start, taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning, the Yankees would have won this game easily.

Nova deepened the jam, then got out of it, then let Shaw single in the 7th. Now, Girardi blew it: He brought in Dellin Betances, who really has disappointed. Maybe we shouldn't have expected him to be the new 1997-2013 version of Mariano Rivera, but we thought he could become the 1996 version, the unbeatable 7th & 8th inning guy. Instead, he blew it again, giving up a home run to Christian Vazquez that made the final score.

Red Sox 8, Yankees 7. The one game in this series that looked like a 2003-13 Yanks-Sox game at Fenway. For the 1st time this season, the Yankees had scored at least 4 runs in a game and lost. WP: Price (4-0). SV: Craig Kimbrel (8). LP: Nova (1-1).

Games Girardi has blown for the Yankees this season with bad bullpen management: 3.

*

So, 4 weeks into the 26-week MLB season, here's what the American League Eastern Division looks like:

Boston Red Sox - 15-10
Baltimore Orioles - 14-10, 1/2 game back
Tampa Bay Rays - 11-13, 3 1/2 back
Toronto Blue Jays - 12-14, 3 1/2 back
New York Yankees - 8-15, 6 back

Not good.

The Yankees have today off. Then they have 3 in Baltimore. Luis Severino starts against Chris Tillman tomorrow night, but the projected starting pitchers for both sides have yet to be decided for Wednesday and Thursday.

They couldn't use Fenway as a bandbox to work their hitting woes out. Maybe Camden Yards is just what the doctor ordered.

How to Be a Met Fan In Los Angeles -- 2016 Edition

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Next Tuesday, the Mets go to Los Angeles to play one of the teams whose place in New York they took, the Dodgers.

Perhaps Met fans should be glad that the Dodgers left Brooklyn after the 1957 season, and that the Giants left Manhattan at the same time.  After all, if they hadn't, the Mets never would have been created, and the fans of the 2 former clubs, the Capulets and Montagues of baseball (or the Hatfields and McCoys, if you prefer), would not have been united in the love of a new club, the canonization of the National League, and hatred of the Yankees.

Before You Go. Unlike the Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas, the Los Angeles area has very consistent weather. It’s a nice place to visit. If you don’t mind earthquakes. And mudslides. And wildfires. And smog. Check the weather forecast on the Los Angeles Times' website before you, so you'll know what to bring. Currently, projections for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are in the high 60s in daylight, and the mid-50s at night.

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

Tickets.  With basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson having bought the Dodgers, settling their ownership situation, and injecting some much-needed cash into what had been one of the wealthiest baseball teams from their last few years in Brooklyn until owner Frank McCourt's spectacularly messy divorce, the Dodgers are again perennial Playoff contenders.

And, as in days of old (specifically, the 1960s through the 1980s), they again have the best attendance in baseball, averaging 46,479 fans per home game last season, at the stadium with the largest current capacity in the major leagues, an even 56,000 seats. (In recent times, there have been a few stadiums with larger capacities that hosted Major League Baseball teams, including the old Yankee Stadium, but all have been replaced, except for nearby Anaheim/Angel Stadium, which has been remodeled and now has a much lower capacity.)

So getting tickets could be tough. But compared to most teams, including the Angels down the freeway, they're relatively inexpensive. Infield Boxes are $92, Infield Loge Boxes $68, Preferred Loge Boxes (down the baselines) $50, Infield Reserve $29, Preferred Reserve $21, Pavilion (what they call Bleachers) $28. The top deck -- infield-only seats, although they may be the highest in baseball history, even higher than the upper decks at the old Yankee Stadium and Shea -- go for $21.

Getting There. It’s 2,779 miles from Times Square in New York to City Hall in downtown Los Angeles, and 2,789 miles from Citi Field to Dodger Stadium. In other words, if you’re going, you’re flying.

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

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

Assuming you're not going to a hotel first (and you really should), either in Los Angeles or near the stadium or Disneyland in Anaheim), you’ll get off I-15 at Exit 109A, and get on Interstate 10 West, and almost immediately onto U.S. Route 101 North, the San Bernardino Freeway.  Take that road's Exit 3 to State Route 110, the Pasadena Freeway, and Exit 24 will drop you off at Dodger Stadium.



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

That’s still faster than Greyhound and Amtrak. Greyhound will take about 68 hours, changing buses twice, $438 round-trip. The station is at 1716 E. 7th Street, at Lawrence Street.

If you go by Amtrak, it's about 85 hours. You'd leave Penn Station on the Lake Shore Limited at 3:40 PM Eastern Time on Friday, arrive at Union Station in Chicago at 9:45 AM Central Time on Saturday, transfer to the Texas Eagle at 1:45 PM, and arrive and Union Station in Los Angeles at 5:35 AM Pacific Time on Monday. It's $418 round-trip, Union Station is at Alameda & Arcadia Streets).

Flights will be more expensive, and you'll almost certainly have to change planes at least once, probably in Chicago or Dallas. But if you play your cards right, you can get a round-trip flight for a little over $500. The LAX2US bus will take you, as its name suggests, from Los Angeles International Airport to Union Station, taking 45 minutes and costing $8.00; from there, bus and subway connections can be made to downtown. 

Once In the City. Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spain as a Catholic mission, and means "The Angels" -- and so, that was the name of the Pacific Coast League team, and the subsequent American League team: The Los Angeles Angels. The city continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and is now just under 4 million people, making it the 2nd-largest city in North America, behind New York. (Unless you count Mexico, and thus Mexico City, as "North America" instead of "Central America.") The metro area has about 18.3 million people.

The "centerpoint" of the city, where east-west and north-south addresses begin, is 1st Street and Main Street. Numbered streets are east-west.

The Los Angeles Times is the leading (most-circulated) newspaper in the Western United States, and has long been known for a great sports section. The legendary columnist Jim Murray has been dead for some time now, but if you watch ESPN's Around the Horn, you'll recognize the names of Bill Plaschke and J.A. Adande.

The sales tax in the State of California is 7.5 percent, in the City of Los Angeles 9 percent. A single ride on a bus or subway is $1.75. A 1-day pass is $7.00, and a 7-day pass (which might be a better value even if you're only staying for the 3 games of the series) Is $25.

Yes, L.A. has a subway now, the Metro, with Red, Blue, Green, Gold, Purple and Expo lines. (Expo? It goes from Los Angeles all the way to Montreal? No.)
Going In. The official address of Dodger Stadium used to be 1000 Elysian Park Avenue. In honor of the legendary broadcaster, now calling his 67th and final season with the franchise, an all-time major league record, it has been officially changed to 1000 Vin Scully Avenue.

It's about 2 miles north of downtown, in the Elysian Park neighborhood. Public transportation in L.A. is a lot better than it used to be, with the addition of the Metro -- and now, the Dodger Stadium Express bus. It will pick up fans at the Patsaouras Bus Plaza adjacent to the east portal of Union Station and continue to Dodger Stadium via Sunset Blvd. and Cesar Chavez Avenue. Service will be provided starting 90 minutes prior to the beginning of the games, and will end 45 minutes after the end of the game. Service will be provided every 10 minutes prior to the start of the game and run approximately every 30 minutes throughout the game. Dodger tickets will be honored as fare payment to ride the service. Those without a ticket will pay regular one-way fare of $1.75.

Thankfully, Dodger Stadium is not one of those 1960s or '70s stadiums that was built as a multipurpose facility for any event promoter willing to pay Walter O'Malley's rent. But a major similarity it shares with those stadiums is that it is an island in a sea of parking. Parking will cost you $15 at the gate, but only $10 if you purchase online.

Dodger Stadium points away from downtown, but -- all jokes about L.A.'s infamous smog aside -- on a clear day you'll get a view of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was built in 1962 and is thus more than half a century old -- meaning it has now lasted longer than Ebbets Field, which hosted 45 seasons of baseball. But its age is hidden well, with its architectural style (that zig-zaggy roof over the bleachers can be seen on a few New Jersey public schools built in the JFK years) giving it away much more than its condition.
The Dodgers have usually been nuts on maintenance, including cleanliness. The old saying is, "You can eat off the floor at Dodger Stadium." Begging the question, "Even if you can, why would you want to?"

You’ll most likely be going into the stadium through the home plate entrance. From this angle, the stadium may look odd, due to not being very tall. This is an illusion, as it was built into the side of Chavez Ravine. Along with the Oakland Coliseum, up the coast, this is the only active MLB stadium where you can walk in the front gate and go downstairs to your seat. (Ironically, this was once true for the Dodgers' arch-rivals: It could be done for Giants games at the Polo Grounds.)
The home plate entrance. Note the flags
representing the home countries of the players
that the Dodgers had at the time.

Being in the California sunshine, the natural grass field has nearly always looked good. But Walter O'Malley's old policy of no advertising inside the stadium, save for the two Union 76 logos (for the gasoline station chain now owned by ConocoPhillips) on the scoreboards, is long gone. It doesn't make the place look tacky, though. (Tommy Lasorda can do that, if he shows up.)

The field points northeast, and is symmetrical: 330 feet to the poles, 360 to "Medium Left-Center" and "Medium Right-Center," 375 to "True Left-Center" and "True Right-Center," and 400 to center -- although that 400 mark is not shown, instead there are 395s to either side of dead center.
For a long time, the stadium's status as a pitcher's park, aiding such stars as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Tommy John, Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser, led to suggestions that the Dodgers were cheating: That the pitcher's mound was really closer than the required 60 feet, 6 inches, perhaps as much as 4 feet closer.

This has never been proven, and the fact that the Dodgers' pitching hasn't been as good the last 25 years (until Clayton Kershaw came along, that is) suggests 1 of 2 things: Either something happened to change the park's conditions to make it less unfriendly to hitters (what that would be, I don't know); or the Dodgers realized that, sooner or later, someone was going to prove the too-close-mound claim, and the game was up, and they had to move it back.

Oddly, from the park's opening in 1962 to 1970, there were 5 no-hitters pitched there, 3 by Koufax, and all by home pitchers (including Angel Bo Belinsky in '62 and Dodger Bill Singer in '70); from 1971 to 1989, none at all, in spite of all the good Dodger pitching, from 1990 to 1995, 5 more, 3 by Dodgers (Fernando, Kevin Gross and Ramon Martinez) and 2 by opponents (Dennis Martinez and Kent Mercker). Then, none until June 18, 2014 (Kershaw), and another on August 30, 2015 (Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs).

In spite of its pitcher's park status, 4 home runs have been hit completely out of the stadium. Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates did it twice, in 1969 and 1973, the 1st of these measured at 507 feet, still the park's longest. Mike Piazza hit one all the way out in 1997, and Mark McGwire roided one out in 1999.

Because of its proximity to Hollywood, Dodger Stadium can be seen in lots of movies, including Superman Returns, where the Big Red S safely deposits a distressed airliner on the field. (A skyline for Metropolis was CGI'ed in behind the bleachers, where one would normally see the San Gabriels.) A space shuttle wasn't so lucky in The Core, crashing into the stadium.

But while it filled in for Anaheim Stadium in The Naked Gun (Reggie... must kill... the Queen), Rookie of the Year had a scene set at Dodger Stadium, but because they were filming all in Chicago, they used the White Sox' U.S. Cellular Field as a stand-in for Dodger Stadium.

It hosted an NHL Stadium Series game on January 25, 2014, a local rivalry game, with the Anaheim Ducks beating the Los Angeles Kings 3-0. In 2013, it hosted games of the International Champions Cup soccer tournament, featuring hometown team Los Angeles Galaxy and renowned European soccer teams Real Madrid (of Spain), Everton (Liverpool, England) and Juventus (Turin, Italy). London's Arsenal hasn't played there, but in the film Rock of Ages, set in L.A. in 1987, Tom Cruise played the lead singer of a band named Arsenal, who played the stadium in the film's closing scene.
Landon Donovan playing for L.A. Galaxy in 2013

The Beatles played their next-to-last concert at Dodger Stadium on August 28, 1966, before concluding their last tour up the coast at Candlestick Park the next night. It didn't host another concert until 1975, when Elton John sold it out on back-to-back nights (wearing a sequined Dodger jersey designed by Bob Mackie), and then not again until the Jacksons' 1984 Victory Tour. Pope John Paul II delivered a Mass there in 1987, and the Three Tenors held a concert there, telecast worldwide. During a 2008 concert, Madonna brought on Britney Spears (they didn't kiss this time) and Justin Timberlake as guests.

Food.  The Dodger Dog has long been renowned as one of the best hot dogs in baseball. (You are, of course, free to disagree. Personally, the best hot dog I've ever had at a ballgame was at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.) In 2013, they introduced the Brooklyn Dodger Dog. After what O'Malley did to Brooklyn, the natives old enough to remember 1957 could say, "Youse got some noive, pal!" (Translation: You are showing a considerable about amount of nerve, sir.) This variation has lots of garlic and spices, so an Italian Brooklynite (or otherwise New Yorker, or New Jerseyan) could appreciate it.

Keeping with the "Dodger Blue" motif, they also have the Big Blue Burger. Despite the name, there isn't bleu cheese on it. Rather, it has tomatoes, caramelized onions (so far, so good), chipotle aioli and pasilla chili peppers (you had me, and then you lost me). They serve classic grilled cheese, and "Street Style Carne Asada Tacos" (presumably in the style of L.A. taco trucks).

As for team-themed stands: Campy's Corner (named after Roy Campanella) is behind Section 4, Think Blue at 5, Brooklyn Dodger Pizza (because you can't get a decent pizza in L.A., "California Pizza Kitchen" be damned) at 8 and 130, and Dodgertown Deli (named for their longtime spring training home in Vero Beach) at 47. Tommy Lasorda's Trattoria is on the right field concourse: As the man himself says, his favorite food is "anything ending in a vowel."

Fast-food chain Carl's Jr. is at 10 and 140. And while their arch-rivals, the Giants, were the first to sell them at a ballpark, the Dodgers have stands seling garlic fries. As you might imagine in California, they have Veggie Dogs at Sections 22, 23 and 108, and Healthy Cart at 30.

Roger Owens has been a peanut vendor for the Los Angeles Dodgers for as long as there's been a Los Angeles Dodgers, starting at the Coliseum in 1958 and having been at Dodger Stadium since it opened in 1962. He is renowned for his accuracy in tossing peanut bags, still managing to toss a bag 30 rows despite his age.

When the stadium opened, O'Malley had it built without water fountains, so there would be no free water. The old bastard didn't want to give anything away. The team website says that they have been installed since.

Team History Displays. The facade of the upper deck in left field has notations for the Dodgers' retired numbers: 1, Harold "Pee Wee" Reese, shortstop, 1940-58; 2, Tommy Lasorda, pitcher, 1954-55, and manager, 1976-96; 4, Edwin "Duke" Snider, center field, 1947-62; 19, Jim "Junior" Gilliam, 3rd base, 1952-66, and coach, 1967-78 (making him the 1st black coach in MLB); 20, Don Sutton, pitcher, 1966-80 (with a brief comeback in 1988); 24, Walter Alston, manager, 1954-76; 32, Sandy Koufax, pitcher, 1955-66; 39, Roy Campanella, catcher, 1948-57; 42, Jackie Robinson, 2nd base (mostly), 1947-56; and 53, Don Drysdale, pitcher, 1956-69. The Dodgers do not have a team Hall of Fame.
Note the difference in Robinson's 42,
showing its universal retirement.

Although Jackie's Number 42 was retired for all of baseball on April 15, 1997, the 50th Anniversary of his major league debut, in a game at Shea Stadium between the Mets and the Dodgers, his number was previously retired by the Dodgers, on June 4, 1972 (as it turned out, not long before his death), along with Campy's 39 and Sandy's 32, the 1st such ceremony by the Dodgers.

(For perspective, the only numbers already retired in MLB at that point were: 3, 4, 5, 7 and 37 by the Yankees for Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Casey Stengel; 37 by the Mets for Casey; 4, 11 and 24 by the Giants for Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell and Willie Mays; 36 by the Phillies for Robin Roberts; 21 and 41 by Atlanta for Warren Spahn and Eddie Mathews; 20 by Baltimore for Frank Robinson; 1 by Cincinnati for Fred Hutchinson; 5 and 19 by Cleveland for Lou Boudreau and Bob Feller; 32 by Houston for Jim Umbricht; 1, 20 and 33 by Pittsburgh for Billy Meyer, Pie Traynor and Honus Wagner; and 6 by St. Louis for Stan Musial.)

Jackie grew up in nearby Pasadena, but he never actually played for the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Neither did Campy, who was paralyzed in a car crash in the off-season when the move happened, although he was kept employed by the Dodgers until his death in 1993. Reese barely played in L.A. But Snider, born in L.A. and raised in adjoining Compton (that's right, the Duke of Flatbush was straight outta Compton), was a member and indeed a key cog of their 1959 World Championship team in his hometown, as were Brooklyn "Boys of Summer" Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo.

Aside from Gilliam, who died while he was their 1st base coach (they wore black Number 19 patches on their sleeves in the 1978 World Series against the Yankees), all of these men are in the Hall of Fame. Aside from team owner Walter O'Malley (at least part-owner 1942-79, sole owner 1950-79), all of the Dodgers' Hall-of-Famers from the Los Angeles move onward have had their numbers retired.

This could be why they have not officially retired Number 34 for Fernando Valenzuela (pitcher 1980-91, number not issued since), or Number 6 for Steve Garvey (1st base 1969-82, only briefly issued since, including for Joe Torre while he managed the Dodgers), neither of whom is in the Hall, and to be fair each is at least a step short of it. Oddly, while 23 is not retired, Don Mattingly chose to wear 8 instead when he became a Dodger coach under Torre -- presumably, in Yogi Berra's honor -- and continued to wear it as a manager (and still does, now that he manages the Miami Marlins). 

The Dodgers' 6 World Series Championships are shown on the facade of the right field Stadium Club: 1955 (in Brooklyn), 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981 and 1988. As with the Yankees, Pennants and Division titles without going all the way are not shown; unlike their rivals up the Coast, the Giants, they do mention a World Championship won in New York.
Robinson and Koufax were named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. The same year, they, Snider, Campanella, and 1890s Brooklyn star Willie Keeler were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players. At 5-foot-4 and maybe 140 pounds, Wee Willie was the earliest and smallest player so honored.

When the 1st All-Star Game was played in 1933, only 1 Dodger was selected: Tony Cuccinello. This was after Dazzy Vance, their great pitcher of the 1920s, was traded and before their stars of the 1940s arrived.

Stuff. The Dodgers have a "Top of the Park Gift Store" in the upper deck behind home plate. On non-game days, it's open 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Contrary to its image as a city whose "idea of culture is yogurt," there is a Los Angeles literary tradition. Much of it is in the "hard-boiled detective story," as pioneered by Raymond Chandler through his creation of the private eye Philip Marlowe. Writers influenced by the city include Nathanael West, Charles Bukowski, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley and Bret Easton Ellis. And the Los Angeles Times has produced many fine sportswriters. But as for books about the Dodgers? Uh...

Lasorda and Scully recently collaborated on The Dodgers: From Coast to Coast, as they are 2 living links to the club's Brooklyn days. (Lasorda pitched for them there, although not well; and Scully began at Ebbets Field in 1950.) Plaschke wrote I Live For This: Baseball's Last True Believer for Lasorda. Robinson (I Never Had it Made), Campanella (It's Good to Be Alive), and Drysdale (Once a Bum, Always a Dodger) all wrote good memoirs, although you should remember that Jackie and Campy never played for them in Los Angeles.

Arnold Rampersad's Jackie Robinson: A Biography is highly regarded, and Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy is fantastic. So is Tom Adelman's Black and Blue: The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the World Series That Stunned America, which covers the 1966 season (and its leadup), culminating in the shocking World Series upset of the defending World Champion Dodgers by the then-upstart Baltimore Orioles, and is an excellent examination of both cities in that turbulent time, and is nearly as superb as Leavy's work in its discussion of Koufax. (In this case, "the Robinson Boys" has nothing to do with the already-retired Jackie: They were the Orioles' Brooks Robinson, the white 3rd baseman from Little Rock, and Frank Robinson, the black right fielder born in Texas and raised in Oakland, who showed a racially-divided city that they could get along and win.)

Paul Haddad, who grew up in the Seventies and Eighties like I did, recently published High Fives, Pennant Drives and Fernandomania: A Fan's History of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Glory Years. He was referring to 1977 to 1981, including outfielder Glenn Burke and his claimed invention of the high five -- and Burke's struggle as the closest thing MLB has yet had to an openly gay player, drummed out of the team by Lasorda, who has never been Catholic enough to curb his foul mouth, nor Christian enough to accept that his own son, model Tommy Lasorda Jr., was gay, or that his son's death was due to AIDS.

If you read any of the books that try to justify O'Malley's move of the team out of Brooklyn, you have only yourself to blame when your head explodes due to the ingestion of bullshit through your eyes. The truth is, O'Malley did have a choice. If he was "visionary" enough to see that Los Angeles was a great baseball market, he wasn't the first to have that vision (though he was the first to truly act on it), and he should also have had the vision to get around New York's Mayor Robert Wagner and construction boss Robert Moses.

As for videos, of particular interest to Met fans is Gil Hodges: The Quiet Man, one of several hourlong videos about the Brooklyn Dodgers that were narrated by David Hartman, about the Dodger 1st baseman who became the Mets' first baseman and the manager who brought them the 1969 "Miracle." The Dodgers also have a collection of the official World Series highlight films of their 5 L.A. titles, a collector's edition DVD set of the 1988 World Series, which remains their last Pennant. (This drought, currently 28 years, is their longest period out of the Series since the Series began in 1903. The previous longest was 1920 to 1941.)

Los Angeles Dodgers: From Coast to Coast - The Official Visual History of the Dodgers is available on DVD. So are various pieces on Jackie Robinson, including the recent film 42 starring Chadwick Boseman as the pioneer and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. Ken Burns' new film Jackie Robinson should be available on DVD soon. However, as yet, there is no Essential Games of the Los Angeles Dodgers or Essential Games of Dodger Stadium.

During the Game. On April 3, 2016, Thrillist published an article titled, "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans, Ranked." To my shock, Dodger fans came in at Number 1 -- meaning they were the least tolerable fans in the major leagues.

I was flabbergasted. I thought Dodger fans were only bad when the Giants were in town, carrying over the rivalry from New York. Their fans go from laid-back Southern Californians to rabid dogs when the Giants are in town.

But they have no ill will toward the Mets. Sure, they want to beat New York. Los Angeles always wants to beat New York -- doesn't everybody? And it's been so long since their last World Series against the Yankees, in 1981, that the animosity of that time (which was quite real) has long since dissipated. So, I figured, "Just don't speak well of the Giants, or ex-Dodger owner Frank McCourt, and you should be fine."

Thrillist begs to differ:

Unlike a Lakers game, which is really just an excuse for plastic narcissist actors and the power grubbers who fund their films to figure out a different way to be on camera, Dodger Stadium is less about the flash, and more about two very real, very different elements:

A) The people in the expensive seats really do get there late, take off their shirts to reveal smaller, tighter shirts, stay four innings, knock around six to eleventy thousand beach balls they mostly bring in themselves, eat a crappy Dodger Dog, tell a made-up Vin Scully story they heard from their uncle, leave early, and listen to the You Must Remember This podcast on the way home instead of the game. And yes, we get that this is because the traffic is horrible, and parking at the stadium is an exercise in self-flagellation, and the entire idea of L.A. was founded on the idea that it would be a majestic series of villages for no more than 35 people with cars to travel around, but still, maybe just don't go?

B) The people in the cheap seats really do beat up opposing fans. Or call them horrible things until they leave. Every single person we talked to who is either a Dodgers fan, or has been to the game as a visitor, recalled some of the most uncomfortable, unprintable stories of fights, or things being poured on women, children, and the like, just to provoke a fight. Cool, guys. Way to show your passion.

Oh also: your beloved Dodger Dogs are basically limp, under-salted, un-snappy Slim Jims that no one would ever consider eating were they not trapped in an enclosed space four miles from their car surrounded by people hitting beach balls and trying to fight their children.


Indeed, after Game 1 of last year's National League Division Series, a Met fan living in Bakersfield was put in the hospital by a vicious beating -- allegedly, by not a father and son, but by a mother and son. And yet, it was reported that "Good Samaritans" were using the rally towels that the Dodgers had given out to stanch his bleeding.

So, now, I don't know who to believe. Well, you're New Yorkers, and, while they may be Southern Californians, they will almost certainly not be gangbangers from Crenshaw, Inglewood, Compton or Long Beach. If push literally comes to shove, I think you can take them. Then again, you're Met fans, so, who knows?

Listen, in spite of my usual view of Met fans' brainpower, I'm going to trust you to be intelligent for 4 days: The 1 on which you're reading this, and the 3 you're in L.A. So I need you to trust me, and follow the advice that I give to Yankee Fans going to Boston: If the fans around you are okay, and are willing to talk baseball with you, by all means return the favor; but don't provoke anybody. And if someone provokes you, walk away. It's better to be an uninjured coward than a hospitalized tough guy.

All 3 games of this series come with promotions. The Monday game is part of the Dodgers' retired number pin series. It will be a special one for New York fans, as it's Number 1: Pee Wee Reese, the last Captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who was a part of every Dodger Pennant between 1920 and 1959. On Tuesday, they're giving out T-shirts in honor of the Vin Scully Avenue ceremony. And on Wednesday, they're giving out bobbleheads of new Dodger manager Dave Roberts. If you've got a friend who's a Yankee Fan, you can taunt him with it, as it's the same Dave Roberts who stole that base in 2004, the one that succeeded Jackie Robinson's steal of home plate in the 1955 World Series (also against the Yankees) as the most famous stolen base in baseball history.

The Dodgers hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. they don’t have a guy in a suit to act as a mascot, not even unofficially, as the Dodger Sym-Phony Band dressed like "Dodger Bums" in the last 20 or so years in Brooklyn. The Dodgers don't really need a mascot, as long as Lasorda is still alive.

Like the Yankees, the Dodgers play "God Bless America" before "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th Inning Stretch. In the middle of the 8th inning, they play "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. This pissed off Journey lead singer Steve Perry, who is from Hanford, about halfway between L.A. and San Fran, and is a big Giants fan. He got the last laugh, as the Giants invited him to sing the song during their 2010 victory parade.

After the Game. Because it's an island in a sea of parking, you won't be in any neighborhood, much less a bad one. That's the good news. The bad news is, if you're looking for a postgame meal, snack, or even a pint, you won't find any nearby, unless you want to count The Short Stop, at 1455 Sunset Blvd., half a mile to the west. At least, as I said, there will be cabs waiting in Parking Lot G.

In and around Los Angeles proper, there's some places that may interest you. A recent Thrillist article called Big Wangs the best sports bar in the State of California. In this case, "Wangs" is a countrified version of "wings," as in chicken wings. (Although a male rooster is sometimes called a "cock.") 801 S. Grand Avenue, downtown, near the Staples Center.

West 4th Jane is owned by a New Yorker and is an L.A.-area haven for Met fans. 1432 4th Street, Santa Monica. Bus R10. Rick's Tavern On Main is the home of the L.A. area's Yankees fan club. 2907 Main Street in Santa Monica, 2 blocks in from the beach. Bus 733 from downtown L.A. (While the 1970s sitcom Three's Company was set in Santa Monica, close to the beach, I cannot confirm that Rick's was the basis for the bar across from the apartment building, the Regal Beagle.)

O’Brien’s Irish Pub at 2226 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica is the home of the local fan club of the New York Giants football team. Bus R10. (Although it's also in Santa Monica, it's 3 miles in from the beach and Rick's.) On The Thirty is the home of L.A. area Jets fans. 14622 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. Metro Red Line to Universal/Studio City, then transfer to Bus 150.

Sidelights. The Los Angeles metropolitan area, in spite of not having Major League Baseball until 1958, has a very rich sports history. And while L.A. is still a car-first city, it does have a bus system and even has a subway now, so you can get around.

* Site of Wrigley Field. Yes, you read that right: The Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels played at a stadium named Wrigley Field from 1925 to 1957, and the AL’s version played their first season here, 1961.

The PCL Angels were a farm team of the Chicago Cubs, and when chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. bought them both, he built the Angels’ park to look like what was then known as Cubs Park, and then named this one, and then the Chicago one, Wrigley Field. So this ballpark was Wrigley Field first.

The Angels won 12 PCL Pennants, the last 5 at Wrigley: 1903, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1916, 1918, 1921, 1926, 1933, 1934, 1947 and 1956. Their rivals, the Hollywood Stars, shared it from 1926 to 1935. It hosted a U.S. soccer loss to England in 1959 and a draw vs. Mexico the next year.

Its capacity of 22,000 was too small for the Dodgers, and the AL Angels moved out after 1 season. Torn down in 1966, it lives on in ESPN Classic rebroadcasts of Home Run Derby, filmed there (because it was close to Hollywood) prior to the 1960 season. Mickey Mantle was a fixture, but the only other guy thought of as a Yankee to participate was Bob Cerv (then with the Kansas City A’s). Yogi Berra wasn’t invited, nor was Moose Skowron, nor Roger Maris (who had just been acquired by the Yankees and whose 61 in '61 season had yet to happen). And while Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Gil Hodges were on it, and all did briefly play for the Mets, the Mets hadn't gotten started yet, so no one on the show wore a Met uniform.

42nd Place, Avalon Blvd., 41st & San Pedro Streets. Metro Red Line to 7th Street/Metro Center station, transfer to Number 70 bus. Be careful: This is South Central, so if you're overly nervous, you may want to skip this one.

* Gilmore Field. Home to the Hollywood Stars, this 13,000-seat park didn’t last long, from 1939 to 1957. A football field, Gilmore Stadium, was adjacent. The Stars won 5 Pennants, the last 3 at Gilmore: 1929, 1930, 1949, 1952 and 1953. CBS Television City was built on the site. 7700 Beverly Blvd. at The Grove Drive. Metro Red Line to Vermont/Beverly station, then either the 14 or 37 bus.


* Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Probably the most famous building in the State of California, unless you count San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge or the HOLLYWOOD sign as "buildings." The University of Southern California (USC) has played football here since 1923. The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) played here from 1928 to 1981, when they inexplicably moved out of the Coliseum, and the city that forms their name, into the Rose Bowl, a stadium that could arguably be called USC’s other home field.

The Coliseum was the centerpiece of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games. It was home to the NFL’s Rams from 1946 to 1979 and the Raiders from 1982 to 1994, and to a number of teams in other leagues, including the AFL’s Chargers in 1960 before they moved down the coast to San Diego.

The Dodgers played here from 1958 to 1961 while waiting for Dodger Stadium to be ready, but the shape of the field led to a 251-foot left-field fence, the shortest in modern baseball history. They got the biggest crowd ever for an official baseball game, 92,706, for Game 5 of the 1959 World Series; 93,103 for Roy Campanella’s testimonial, an exhibition game against the Yankees on May 7, 1959; and the largest crowd for any baseball game played anywhere in the world, 115,300, for a preseason exhibition with the Red Sox on March 29, 2008, to celebrate their 50th Anniversary in L.A.
The 2008 exhibition game

A crowd of 102,368 on November 10, 1957, for a rivalry game between the Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, stood as a regular-season NFL record until 2005. Ironically, the first Super Bowl, held here on January 15, 1967 (Green Bay Packers 35, Kansas City Chiefs 17) was only 2/3 sold -- the only Super Bowl that did not sell out. Super Bowl VII (Miami Dolphins 14, Washington Redskins 7) was also played here.

It has hosted 20 matches of the U.S. soccer team -- only Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington has hosted more. The U.S. has won 9 of those games, lost 7 and drawn 4. In 1967, as 2 separate leagues bid for U.S. soccer fans, it hosted the Los Angeles Wolves and the Los Angeles Toros. Those leagues merged to form the original North American Soccer League, but the Coliseum only hosted that league in 2 more seasons, for the Los Angeles Aztecs in 1977 and 1981.

Officially, the Coliseum now seats 93,607, and will again be the home of the Rams for the 2016, '17 and '18 seasons, before their new stadium in Inglewood is ready. It would likely be a stopgap home for the Raiders or the Chargers if they should move back. Oddly, since both teams moved away after the 1994 season, the Oakland Raiders seem to be the most popular NFL team in Los Angeles County, but the much closer San Diego Chargers, 90 miles away, are the most popular team in Orange County.

* Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Next-door to the Coliseum, the Sports Arena it opened in 1959, and hosted the Democratic Convention the next year, although John F. Kennedy gave his acceptance speech at a packed Coliseum, debuting his theme of a "New Frontier."

The NBA’s Lakers played here from 1960 to 1967, the NHL’s Kings their first few home games in 1967 before the Forum was ready, the NBA’s Clippers from 1984 to 1999, the ABA’s Stars from 1968 to 1970, the WHA’s Sharks from 1972 to 1974, the 1968 and 1972 NCAA Final Fours (both won by UCLA, the former over North Carolina and the latter over Florida State), USC basketball from 1959 to 2006, and UCLA basketball a few times before Pauley Pavilion opened in 1965 and again in 2011-12 due to Pauley’s renovation.

Due to its closeness to Hollywood studios, the Sports Arena has often been used for movies that need an arena to simulate a basketball or hockey game, a prizefight (including the Rockyfilms), a concert, or a political convention. Lots of rock concerts have been held here, and Bruce Springsteen, on its stage, has called the building "the joint that don’t disappoint" and "the dump that jumps."

The Sports Arena will probably be torn down this year, so that a soccer-specific stadium for the new Los Angeles FC can be built on the site.

3900 Block of S. Figueroa Street, just off the USC campus in Exposition Park. The California Science Center (including the space shuttle Endeavour), the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the California African American Museum are also there, and the Shrine Auditorium, former site of the Academy Awards, is but a few steps away. Number 40 or 42 bus from Union Station. Although the Coliseum and the Sports Arena are on the edge of South Central, you will probably be safe.

* Rose Bowl. Actually older than the Coliseum by a few months, it opened in 1922 and, except for 1942 (moved to Durham, North Carolina for fear of Japanese attacks on the Pacific Coast right after Pearl Harbor), it has hosted the Rose Bowl game every New Year’s Day (or thereabouts) since 1923. As such, it has often felt like a home away from home for USC, Michigan and Ohio State. UCLA has used it as its home field since the 1982 season.

It hosted 5 Super Bowls, including the first ones won by the Raiders (XI) and Giants (XXI), plus the all-time biggest attendance for an NFL postseason game, 103,985, for Super Bowl XIV (Pittsburgh Steelers 31, Rams 19, the "home" field advantage not helping the Hornheads). And it hosted the 1983 Army-Navy Game, with Hollywood legend Vincent Price serving as the referee. The transportation of the entire Corps of Cadets, and the entire Brigade of Midshipmen, was said to be the largest U.S. military airlift since World War II.

It's hosted 18 games of the U.S. soccer team, most recently a loss to Mexico last October 10; and several games of the 1994 World Cup, including a Semifinal and the Final, in which Brazil beat Italy on penalty kicks. It also hosted several games of the 1999 Women's World Cup, including the Final, a.k.a. the Brandi Chastain Game. It was home to the Los Angeles Galaxy from their 1996 inception to 2002, including the 2000 CONCACAF Champions League and 2002 MLS Cup wins.

In NASL play, it hosted the Los Angeles Wolves in 1968, and the Los Angeles Aztecs in 1978 and 1979. They played at Weingart Stadium at East Los Angeles College in 1974, their 1st season, when they won the NASL title; and Murdock Stadium, at El Camino Junior College, in 1975 and '76. Yes, the defending champions of America's top soccer league played at a junior college. This was what American soccer was like in the Seventies.

Rose Bowl Drive & Rosemont Avenue. Number 485 bus from Union Station to Pasadena, switch to Number 268 bus.

* Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion. Following their 1964 National Championship (they would win it again in 1965), UCLA coach John Wooden wanted a suitable arena for his ever-growing program. He got it in time for the 1965-66 season, and it has hosted 9 more National Championships, making for 11 banners (10 coached by Wooden).

The building was named for an oil magnate who was also a Regent of the University of California system, whose donation to its building went a long way toward making it possible. Edwin Pauley was a friend of, and appointee to several offices by, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, but the student protests of the 1960s led him to switch parties and support Ronald Reagan for Governor.

Speaking of politics, Pauley Pavilion was the site of the 2nd debate of the 1988 Presidential campaign, where CNN anchor Bernard Shaw asked the question that shattered the campaign of Governor Michael Dukakis – not that the Duke helped himself with his answer. Oddly, Dukakis chose to hold held his Election Eve rally there, despite being a Bostonian. (In contrast, Boston’s JFK held his Convention in the Coliseum complex but his Election Eve rally at the Boston Garden.)


Metro Purple Line to Wilshire/Normandie station, switch to the 720 bus, then walk up Westwood Plaza to Strathmore Place. "Westwood" is the name of the neighborhood that UCLA is in, and Coach Wooden was known as "the Wizard of Westwood."


A few steps away is Drake Stadium, the track & field facility that was home to 1960 Olympic Decathlon champion Rafer Johnson and another UCLA track star you might've heard of, named Jackie Robinson. And also his brother Mack Robinson, 1936 Olympic Silver Medalist.

On the way up Westwood Plaza, you'll pass UCLA Medical Center, now named for someone who died there, Ronald Reagan. Wooden, John Wayne and Michael Jackson also died there. The UCLA campus also has a Dykstra Hall, but it wasn't named after Lenny Dykstra.

* The Forum. Home of the Lakers and the Kings from 1967 to 1999, built by their then-owner, Jack Kent Cooke, who went on to sell them and buy the NFL's Washington Redskins. From 1988 to 2003, it was named the Great Western Forum, after a bank. The Lakers appeared in 14 NBA Finals here, winning 6, with the Knicks clinching their last title over the Lakers here in 1973. The Kings appeared in just 1 Stanley Cup Finals here, in 1993, losing it to the Montreal Canadiens.

Now owned by the Madison Square Garden Corporation, thus run by James Dolan, which means it's going to be mismanaged. Elvis Presley sang here on November 14, 1970 and May 11, 1974. The Forum is not currently being used by any professional team, but was recently the stand-in for the Sunshine Center, the arena in the ABC sitcom Mr. Sunshine. 3900 W. Manchester Blvd. 


* City of Champions Stadium. This is the current name (which will almost certainly be tossed aside for a corporate one) for the project to build a new stadium for the Rams in Inglewood, on the site of the Hollywood Park horse racing track.

Set to seat 70,000, it will have a retractable roof, and be expandable to 100,000 for Super Bowls and NCAA Final Fours. It is scheduled to open for the Rams in time for the 2019 NFL season, and, by then, may host another NFL team as well. If the U.S. ever gets to host another World Cup (the next available one is 2026), it would likely be a site, possibly even for the Final (as the Rose Bowl was in 1994).

Prairie Avenue and Arbor Vitae Street, across Pincay Drive from the Forum. For both facilities, use Metro Silver Line to Harbor Transitway station, switch to Number 115 bus. (Be careful, this transfer is in South Central.)

* Staples Center. This new downtown arena has been home to the Lakers, Clippers and Kings since 1999. The Lakers have won 5 Championships here, to go with the 6 they won at the Forum, and the 5 they won in Minneapolis. The Clippers, as yet, have won 2 Division Championships, but have never reached a Finals in any city since their founding in 1970 (as the Buffalo Braves, San Diego or L.A.). The Kings finally won a Stanley Cup in 2012, although, as a Devils fan, I'm trying to put that fixed Finals out of my mind. They've now won another, although, if you're a Ranger fan, you may want to do the same.

According to a recent New York Times article, there is not one place where the Clippers are more popular than the Lakers. Not in the City of Los Angeles, not in the County of Los Angeles, not in Orange County, not even in the Clippers' former home of San Diego (City or County). In fact, there are places in Southern California where the Chicago Bulls, as a holdover from the 1990s, have almost as many fans as the Clippers -- but not, despite all that LeBron James achieved, the Miami Heat or the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Staples Center holds the Grammy Awards every other year (alternating with New York), and hosted the 2000 Democratic Convention, which nominated Al Gore. 1111 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles. The nearest Metro stop is Westlake/MacArthur Park, 8 blocks away.

(Yes, that MacArthur Park, the one where songwriter Jimmy Webb used to take the girlfriend who ended up leaving him and inspiring the song of the same title recorded by Richard Harris and later Donna Summer. Their relationship also inspired Webb to write "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Where's the Playground Susie" by Glen Campbell, and "The Worst That Could Happen" by Johnny Maestro's later group, the Brooklyn Bridge. The worst that could happen there now, you don't want to know: Since the 1980s the park has been a magnet for gang violence, although this was significantly reduced in the 2000s.)

* Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Home of the Angels since 1966, and of the Rams from 1980 until 1994, it was designed to look like a modernized version of the old Yankee Stadium, before that stadium's 1973-76 renovation. The football bleachers, erected in 1979, were demolished in 1997 and replaced with a SoCal-esque scene that gives the place some character. Unfortunately, the old "Big A" scoreboard that stood in left field from 1966 to 1979 was moved out to the parking lot, and now stands as a message board.

It was known as Anaheim Stadium from 1966 to 1997, and Edison International Field of Anaheim from 1998 to 2003. 2000 E. Gene Autry Way at State College Boulevard. Metrolink's Orange County Line and Amtrak share a train station just to the north of the stadium.

* Honda Center. Previously known as the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, it is across the railroad, the Orange Freeway and Katella Avenue from Angel Stadium. It has been home from the beginning of the franchise in 1993 to the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks – formerly the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and I still tend to call them the Mighty Dorks and the Mighty Schmucks.

The Clippers, with their typical luck, had to move one of their few home Playoff games there in 1992 during the South Central riot. 2695 E. Katella Avenue. Anaheim Metrolink stop.

* Titan Stadium. On the campus of California State University, Fullerton, this 10,000-seat facility is better known for soccer, having been used for NCAA Tournament games, U.S. Open Cup matches by the Los Angeles Galaxy, and 8 games by the U.S. national team -- which is undefeated there, winning 4 and drawing 4. 800 N. State College Blvd. Metrolink Blue Line from L.A. to Buena Park, then Number 24 bus. Or Number 57 bus from Angel Stadium.


* StubHub Center. Formerly the Home Depot Center, this 30,500-seat stadium has been home to MLS' Los Angeles Galaxy since it opened in 2003, and Chivas USA from its formation in 2004 until it went out of business in 2014. The Gals (yes, their opponents call them that) have won a league-leading 5 MLS Cups: 2002, 2005, 2011, 2012 and 2014, all but the 1st while playing here. They were also the 1st U.S.-based team to win the CONCACAF Champions League, in 2000.

It's hosted the MLS Cup Final in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2014. It's hosted 12 games by the national team, most recently a win over Canada this past February 5, winning 8, losing 2 and drawing 2. It hosted 6 games of the 2003 Women's World Cup, including the Final, in which Germany beat Sweden. 18400 Avalon Blvd. in Carson, adjacent to Cal State-Dominguez Hills. Metro Silver Line to Avalon/Victoria, then Number 130 bus.

* Hollywood Bowl. This 17,376-seat outdoor amphitheater in the Hollywood Hills, with the HOLLYWOOD sign in the background, is one of the best-known concert venues in the world. Opening in 1922, it should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the original 1937 version of A Star Is BornDouble Indemnity, Xanadu, and Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Beatles played here on August 23, 1964, and again on August 29 & 30, 1965. 2301 N. Highland Avenue. Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland Station, then walk almost a mile up Highland.

* Academy Award ceremony sites. The Oscars have been held at:

** 1929, Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd. (Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland).

** 1930-43, alternated between the Ambassador Hotel, 3400 Wilshire Blvd.; and the Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Avenue, downtown.

** 1944-46, Grauman's Chinese Theater (more about that in a moment).

** 1949-60, Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. (Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland).

** 1961-68, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium (which also hosted The T.A.M.I. Show in 1964), 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica (Number 10 bus from Union Station).

** 1969-87, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Avenue, downtown.

** 1988-2001, Shrine Auditorium, 665. W. Jefferson Blvd. (Metro Silver Line to Figueroa/Washington, transfer to Number 81 bus; Elvis sang here on June 8, 1956.)

** 2002-present, Kodak Theater (which also hosted American Idol), 6801 Hollywood Blvd. (Metro Red Line to Hollywood/Highland).

All of these still stand, except the Ambassador, demolished in 2005. The site of a legendary nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove, and filming site of a lot of movies, the last movie filmed there was Bobby, in honor of the building's real-life most tragic event, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968. (Directed by Emilio Estevez, one of its stars was his father Martin Sheen, who may be the only actor ever to play both Jack and Bobby Kennedy, although he didn't play either in this film.)

In addition to the above, Elvis sang at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on June 7, 1956, the Pan Pacific Auditorium on October 28 & 29, 1957; the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino on November 12 & 13, 1972, and May 10 & 13, 1974; the Long Beach Arena on November 14 & 15, 1972 and April 25, 1976; and the Anaheim Convention Center on April 23, & 24, 1973 and November 30, 1976. (The Kings had to play a few games at the Long Beach Arena in their 1st season, 1967-68)

The Los Angeles area is home to a few interesting museums, in addition to those mentioned at Exposition Park. The Getty Center is an art museum at 1200 Getty Center Drive, off I-405. The Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way, was founded by the Singing Cowboy and Angels founder-owner to celebrate and study the Western U.S. and Native Americans. (Metro Red Line, Hollywood/Western.) Also at Griffith Park, the Griffith Observatory, at 2800 E. Observatory Avenue, should be familiar from lots of movies (including Rebel Without a Cause) and TV shows.

The Hollywood section of town (not a separate city) has a few interesting sites, and the studio tours may be worth it, but do yourself a favor and skip the tours of stars' homes. You’re probably not going to see any of the celebrities. You've got a better chance of seeing one back home on the streets of New York.

And you don't need to see the HOLLYWOOD sign. You might remember the shot of it in the ESPN film The Bronx Is Burning, when the Yankees went out to L.A. to play the Dodgers in the 1977 World Series. Their shot of the sign was accurate: In 1977, it was falling apart, a genuine ruin. A year later, it was restored, but it’s still no big deal up close. It was meant to be seen from afar.

Grauman's Chinese Theater, with its cemented signatures and footprints of stars, is the centerpiece of the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the legendary intersection of Hollywood Blvd. & Vine Street (6931 Hollywood Blvd., also at the Hollywood/Highland Metro stop).

Jackie Robinson grew up in Pasadena, at 121 Pepper Street. In a bit of foreshadowing, Pepper Street and Claremont Street are connected by an alley named Progress Lane. Pepper Street extends from Sunset Avenue, and at its foot is Brown Memorial AME Church, which the Robinsons attended. Gold Line from Union Station to Del Mar, then Bus 260 to Fair Oaks & Claremont. Be advised that this is still a private residence, not a museum dedicated to Jackie, and the people living there now will not want to be bothered.

Casey Stengel, the 1st manager of the Mets and the greatest manager of the Yankees, retired to Glendale, in Los Angeles County, and after his death on September 29, 1975, he was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. So was Don Drysdale, and early 1950s Brooklyn manager Chuck Dressen.

Also laid to rest there are Lou Gehrig's successor Babe Dahlgren, football star turned actor Johnny Mack Brown, 1930s boxing champion Jimmy McLarnin, Chicago Cubs owners William Wrigley Jr. and Philip K. Wrigley, Laverne and Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, James Arness, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney Sr., Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, Sam Cooke, Sammy Davis Sr. and Jr. and Sammy's widow Altovise, Walt Disney and other members of his family (he was not cryogenically frozen), W.C. Fields, Larry Fine (the other members of the Three Stooges are buried elsewhere in Los Angeles County), Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow, Rex Harrison, Phil Hartman, Michael Jackson, Ted Knight, Harold Lloyd, Chico and Gummo Marx (but not Groucho or Harpo), Aimee Semple McPherson, Tom Mix, Lone Ranger star Clayton Moore, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, David O. Selznick, Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg, Red Skelton, Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy. 1712 S. Glendale Avenue. Bus 90, 91, 92 or 94 from downtown.

Roy Campanella is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. So is another Hall-of-Famer associated with the Dodgers, Leo Durocher. So is John Roseboro, who succeeded Campy as Dodger catcher. So are John Wooden, Gene Autry, longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Steve Allen, Lucille Ball, David Carradine, Bette Davis, Annette Funicello, Marvin Gaye, Andy Gibb, Batman creator Bob Kane, Buster Keaton, Jack LaLanne, Dorothy Lamour, Charles Laughton, Stan Laurel (but not Oliver Hardy), Liberace, Ed McMahon, Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Nelson, Ricky Nelson, Freddie Prinze, John Ritter, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, Dick Van Patten, Paul Walker and Jack Webb.

Despite his connections to L.A., Jackie Robinson is buried in Brooklyn, at Cypress Hills Cemetery, which is bisected by the Interborough Parkway, now named the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Gil Hodges is also buried in Brooklyn, at Holy Cross Cemetery. Pee Wee Reese is buried in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Duke Snider lived in Fallbrook, California during his retirement, and is buried there, about 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

If you’re interested in American history, especially recent history, Southern California is home to 2 Presidential Libraries. Richard Nixon's is not far from Anaheim, built adjacent to the house where he was born in 1913 at 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd. in Yorba Linda, Orange County. Metrolink Orange County Line from Union Station to Fullerton, then Number 26 bus to Yorba Linda.

Nixon's "Western White House" at San Clemente can be reached by I-5 or by Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner to San Juan Capistrano (the former Spanish mission where, as the song goes, the swallows return on the first day of spring), and then transferring to the Number 191 bus. However, the house, which Nixon called La Casa Pacifica, is privately owned (no longer by the Nixon family), and is not open to the public. So unless you're a major Tricky Dick fan, I'd suggest skipping it, as you'd only be able to stand outside it.

Ronald Reagan's Presidential Library is at 40 Presidential Drive in Simi Valley in Ventura County. (Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, about 130 miles west of Chicago.) Unfortunately, the Reagan Library is next to impossible to reach without a car.

Reagan's Western White House, Rancho del Cielo outside Santa Barbara, is owned by a private foundation that can be contacted for tours. Until her death a few weeks ago, Nancy Reagan still lived at their post-Presidential home in the Bel Air section of L.A., and while I’m no fan of the Reagans, I’ll respect her privacy and not list the address (or how to get there) even though it’s been published elsewhere. It’s been remarked that the ranch was his home, whereas anyplace they lived in
"Hollywood" was hers.


The tallest building on the West Coast, for now, is the U.S. Bank Tower, formerly named the Library Tower. It stands at 1,018 feet at W. 5th Street & Grand Avenue downtown. The Wilshere Grand Tower will surpass it in 2017, at 1,100 feet -- unless a tower planned for San Francisco the same year ends up taller -- at 900 Wilshere Blvd. at Figueroa.

However, the two most famous tall buildings in Los Angeles are 444 S. Flower Street, at 5th Street, famous as the location for the law firm on L.A. Law; and City Hall, recognizable from LAPD badges, the early police series Dragnet, and as the stand-in for the Daily Planet building on the George Reeves Adventures of Superman series in the 1950s. 200 S. Spring Street at Main Street.

Did I forget anything important? Oh yeah, Southern California's original tourist destination, outside of the Hollywood studios. Most people I've talked to who have been to both Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World outside Orlando, Florida have said that the Florida one is a LOT better. Anyway, the address is 1313 S. Harbor Blvd. in Anaheim, and if you're staying in Los Angeles, just drive down I-5. Public transportation is possible, but it's a mile and a half from the closest bus stop to Disneyland's gates.

*

So, if you can afford it, go on out and join your fellow Met fans in going coast-to-coast, and enjoy the Mets-Dodgers matchup, and enjoy the sights and sounds of Southern California. Just don't yell out, "Go back to Brooklyn where you belong!" After all, if the Dodgers had never left Brooklyn, there never would have been a New York Mets.
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