SWC75
Bored Historian
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I like to find something to think about while I’m moving my lawn. I do some of my best thinking while doing an easy chore like that, (actually, some of my only thinking). I pick something to have a conversation with myself about. Today’s subject was: How many championships have I rooted for in my time as a sports fan? This could be at the high school, collegiate, minor league, or major league level but with this stipulation: it has to be a team I rooted for and followed the entire season. And I have to have rooted hard enough that the losses hurt and the wins helped my mood. The championships have to be the ultimate championship the team could have won. This is not about divisional or conference titles.
I went to Cicero High School, which is now Cicero- North Syracuse. I grew up rooting for North Syracuse High School teams although the only games I saw were games the football team played. NS, C and CNS all have one thing in common: they’ve never won a football or men’s basketball title. Those are the sports I really care about, along with baseball. I’m proud that the greatest women’s basketball player, (at least at the collegiate level), Breanna Stewart, when to my high school alma mater, but I never saw any of her games so I can’t include any of the titles she won there.
At SU, it’s all about football and basketball for me. Those are the sports that put this community on the map. If we win national championships there, we’ll be on the cover of Sports Illustrated and get one of those commemorative issues about our heroes. The rest of the nation has to sit up and take notice. If we don’t do well in those sports, become a laughingstock or, at worse, irrelevant. You can’t say that about the other sports. I’m glad when men’s lacrosse or women’s basketball do well but it doesn’t rise to the same level. If they don’t do well, I feel no pain. I’d love to add in the 11 lacrosse titles but I really can’t. SU’s appearances in the Final Four have given me one more interesting think to look at on the Memorial Day weekend but no more than that. I’ve bene happy when we won. When I’ve lost, I’ve gone for a walk to remind me that it’s summer, or virtually so and I don’t feel sports pain in the summer.
There have thus been two ultimate championships at SU for me: the 1959 football championship and the 2003 basketball championship. I’m immensely proud that we are one of seven schools to have won both titles. Alas, at the time of the football title I was a little boy running around in my back yard presenting to be a solider or a a super hero and had no interest in organized sports. I have no living memory of that season. The 2003 title was the culmination of nearly four decades of bleeding orange basketball.
I’m no0t a hockey fan. I thought I would become one after the Lake Placid Olympics. I started watching NHL games but nothing happened. It didn’t seem to be the same sport. Also, I was a basketball fan. I’ve met a lot of Baseball-football basketball fans or baseball-football hockey fans but I haven’t met too many people who are both basketball and hockey fans, at least not at the same level. I feel that I’m missing a lot not following the Crunch but I’ve just never connected with them. I do follow the Chiefs, but I find attending their games to be more of a cultural event. I like to sit in the sun after a long winter with a hot dog and a coke and watch the sun set with a ball game below. I want to see the Chiefs win but the losses are painless. I just hope to see a long home run, a great catch, a well turned double play and a close play at the plate. I remember the Governor’s Cups the team won in 1969, 1970 and 1976 and the pennants they won in 1970, 1985 and the divisional pennant of 1989, as well as the junior World Series win of 1970. They seemed like a big deal at the time and I did follow those teams. But the joy of those achievements didn’t have a big shelf life and they came a long time ago. Maybe I’ll count 1970: The pennant, the Governor’s Cup and the Junior World Series. It deserves to be remembered. That’s two ‘ultimate championships’.
We’re not a pro town, at least not these days. We used to have the Nats but I was year and a half old when they won their title. I should be a 76er fan as they used to be the Nats but somehow that never quite took. I liked the “Showtime” Lakers because back in the 80’s I felt that we were their equivalent on the collegiate level. Sherman Douglas was a pint-sized Magic Johnson. But somehow I’ve just never had a ‘team’ in the NBA that I really identified with. I think the problem is that I’m really and SU fan and I tend to follow the teams that have former SU players as their stars. We’ve produced two star players, (at least that maintained that level) and both, (Dave Bing and Carmelo Anthony) have played for mediocre or worse teams throughout their careers. We’ve had three former SU players who ever played in the NBA championship final: Billy Gabor in 1950 and 1954, (He had to retire due to an injury before the 1955 final), Dennis Duval for 5 minutes in 1975 and Marty Byrnes for 1 minute in 1960. I need more positive reinforcement than that. As for hockey, see my comments on the Crunch, above.
That leaves the NFL and MLB. Unlike the NBA, SU had produced a long list of NFL players, many of them very prominent and a few who became the “face of their franchise”. Not living in an NFL city, I have always been a free agent and there are several teams I have found myself rooting for over the years. The first was the Cleveland Browns. It was 1961 when my Dad, searching for something to do with his youngest son, announced that he and I were going to watch NFL football games on Sunday afternoons. Dad explained that the greatest player in the sport was a guy named Jim Brown who had come from Syracuse and now played for the Cleveland Browns. So the Browns became my favorite team, simple as that. I thought they’d named the team for Jim. It the connection was doubly forged when the Browns were able to draft Ernie Davis, even though poor Ernie never got to play. I remember the Browns 1961 season came down to a game against the Bears in Chicago that they had to win. The box score of that game is one of the saddest I’ve ever seen:
Cleveland Browns at Chicago Bears - December 10th, 1961 | Pro-Football-Reference.com
But it’s worse than that. Bobby Mitchell made a long run on the alst play of the game but just got pushed out at the 4 yards line. The announcer said that my Browns had been ELIMINATED! Dad had to explain to me that there would be another season next year and the Browns would be a part of it.
Three years later, the Browns won their last of 8 championships, (the first four in the All-America conference, 1946-49). I was unaware of the previous 7 and those three years seemed like three decades in my young life. The 27-0 victory over the heavily favored Colts was like a dream sequence. It was 0-0 at halftime and then the Brown scored three TDs and Lou Groza kicked two field goals to make it a rout. The Browns were the champs!!!!
I continued rooting for them for years afterwards because, even after Jim Brown retired because they still had good teams and it was still fun. But I also followed the careers of Floyd Little and Larry Csonka when they entered the pros. Their teams weren’t very good but they were my heroes at SU so I rooted for them to do well. Then the Dolphins suddenly blossomed, making the playoffs in 1970, the Super Bowl the next year and having that amazing 17-0 season the next year. I wanted to kill Garo Yepremian when he totally botched the play that could have allowed the 17-0 team to win the Super Bowl 17-0. But there was no miracle ending for the Redskins and the Dolphins made history. They were probably even better the next year when they went 15-2 and crushed the Vikings in the big game. They looked like the 70’s version of the Lombardi Packers. Then came the WFL and Csonka, Kiick and Warfield left and took the dynasty with them, opening the way for the Steelers, (whom the Dolphins had beaten three years in a row), to become the team of the decade.
The Broncos never did become contenders with #44 in their backfield. But they did rise from being the worst team in football in the 60’s to being respectable and shortly after Floyd retired, they rose to the height of making the Super Bowl. It began a string of six Super Bowls I had a team I root for in and they all lost – by a combined 145 points, including the worst blow-out loss in Super Bowl history, 10-55 by the Broncos to the 49ers in SB 24.
Then John Elway shook hands with Terrell Davis and the Broncos were suddenly the best team in the NFL. They may have bene the best team in 1996 but overlooked a combative Jacksonville team and got upset. They came back to beat the Packers the next year and handle the Falcons for two in a row. It was a wonderful feeling to root for two champions in a row after all the years of disappointment and even humiliation. John Elway retired but the Broncos were still a top team until they, especially Davis, got wiped out by injuries and had to start over again.
My loyalties began shifting again when Donovan McNabb went to Philadelphia, who hadn’t won a title since 1960. The fact that some idiots booed him because they wanted Rickie Williams made me root all the harder for McNabb to lead the Eagles to victories and shut up the boo-birds. At the same time, the Indianapolis Colts showed a preference for drafting players who had played in a Dome because they played in one. They had about half a dozen former Orangemen on their roster at one point, including stars Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. I liked Peyton Manning and found myself rooting for the Colts, as well. That gave me one NFC team and one AFC team so unlike with the Browns-Dolphins-Broncos, I could have a lock on the Super Bowl if the Eagles and Colts could make it at the same time.
They both made it but not at the same time. The Colts managed to get me another Super Bowl win in 2006 and I still have a bit of fondness for them even after Peyton moved to Denver. But I totally lost interested in the Eagles, who refused for years to surround Donovan with top talent and then, just as they were bringing in some big-time talent, got rid of him. Manning’s move to Denver re-ignited my interest in the Broncos. I endured another old fashioned blow-out loss after the 2013 season but was very happy Peyton could go out on top with the Bronco’s victory two seasons ago. Now the NFL field lies pretty fallow for me and SU isn’t producing NFL stars these days so I’m just sitting back and enjoying the games as a sports fan, which is OK- for now.
I wasn’t a baseball fan until Dad made me go out for Little League. He had an ulterior motive- he had been a little coach when my big brother played a few years before and enjoyed it so much he couldn’t wait for me to get of age to play. I was never much of a player but found I enjoyed it anyway, especially since we won the championship. The teams in our league were named after big league teams and we were the Pirates. We won the “National league” pennant and the Tigers won the “American League” pennant. When the Tigers never even showed up for the championship game, we won by forfeit and figured, in our 10 year old minds that they were scared of us. Actually, nobody had called the Tigers up to tell them they’d won the pennant. I guess that’s the difference between the little leagues and the big leagues. In the big leagues they call you up to tell you that you won the pennant!
Anyway, I decided to start following baseball and decided I’d be a Pirate fan. I went out and got my first package of baseball cards and found one that listed the top batters in the real National League the previous year, (1963). #1 was Tommy Davis of the Dodgers but the Pirates had #2, somebody named “Bob” Clemente, whose last name I presumed to be “Clement”. So I would be a Pirate fan and “Bob Clement“ would be my hero. Roberto Clemente turned out to be a really good hero and the Pirates were a fun team to root for- a swashbuckling team that used bats instead of swords but never seemed to have enough pitching. So, (not unlike those first few Browns teams), they always had hope but they weren’t quite good enough to win a championship.
Then, in 1971, they emerged as a true contender, easily winning the NL East and beating the Giants in the NLCS. Still, they seemed no match for the Baltimore Orioles and their four 20 game winners in the World Series, especially when the defending champion Orioles won the first two games. But then, in another dream sequence, the Pirates won three in a row in Pittsburgh before dropping game 6 back in Baltimore. Then they closed it out with a 2-1 win in game 7 with my hero, Roberto Clemente hitting a home run. He hit .414 for the series and was named MVP. He died in a plane crash two years later, trying to help the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
The Pirates remained major contenders throughout the 70’s but didn’t make it back to the series until the decade’s last year. They had to fight off a red-hot Montreal Expos team that won 17 of 18 late in the season but did so and then swept what had bene the Big Red Machine in the NLCS. The Orioles were waiting for them in the World Series and looking for revenge, which it seemed like they were going to get when they scored 6 runs in the 8th inning of game four, three of the Pirates bullpen ace, Kent Tekulve to win 9-6 and take a 3-1 lead. I remember being very upset to the point of being unable to sleep after that game. But I finally got to sleep and awake with a tremendous feeling of euphoria and a conviction that everything was going to work out just fine. And it did. The Pirates won the last three games to win the championship. Anybody remember this?
But they weren’t family after that. The team fell apart on and off the field. Willie Stargell retired. The new Pirates star, Dave Parker, proved moody and out of shape and wasted his talents. The owners, the Galbraith family, were not equipped to compete in the era of free agency. The team came to be the definition of an unsuccessful small market team. They also got involved in the first of the drug scandals – not over performance enhancing drugs but over street drugs, which were being sold, it was said, right in the Pirates locker room. I withdrew not only from the Pirates but from baseball for a while.
When I did watch the game, I had four choices: the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Mets and the braves. I found myself watching Mets games simply because I liked their announcers the best. Ned Martina nd Bob Montgomery in Boston put me to sleep. Phil Rizzuto in New York talked more about pizza places than the game. The Braves announcers were like listening to Donald Trump. Everything the braves did was the greatest thing ever. The Mets guys, (Ralph Kiner, Tim McCarver, Steve Zabriskie and Fran Healy, were clam, honest, analytical and professional. I learned more baseball listening to them than I have from any other source. My best friend at work was also a long-time Mets fan and we used to discuss their games in the break room.
Then the Mets got good- real good. From 1984-90, they averaged 95 wins a year. The next best team in baseball was the Tigers who averaged 87. The entire 1986 season was a dream sequence, full of dominating performances, comebacks, walk-off wins, etc. They won 108 games. Then the wheels seemed to been falling off in the post season but they beat the Astros in a 12 inning game and then a legendary 16 inning game to win that series, (and avoid a confrontation with the unbeatable Mike Scott). Then they lost the first two games to the Red Sox in the World Series but gritted out two wins in Boston and won another legendary game with a 10th inning comeback in game 6. Finally, they overcame an 0-3 deficit in game seven to finish off the dream season. Yep, I was now a Mets fan.
There’s been more frustration than joy since them. Nine pitchers were on the DL in ’87. We rallied to almost overtake the Cards anyway until the Terry Pendleton home run, (I still don’t believe it went out). We had another dominating year in 1988 but blew the NLCS to a Dodger team we’d owned all year. We seemed to sleep-walk through 1989. We had one amazing 23-3 stretch in 1990 but were otherwise mediocre. Everything fell apart in 1991, 92 and 93, when the team should have been at its peak. The team fell all the way to last place with a 59-103 record. It took the rest of the decade to rebuild the team and we got back to the World Series, only to lose to the Yankees in 5 games. Then we fell apart again, tumbling back into last place in 2003 with a 66-95 record.
The team resurfaced with the best team in the National league in 2006 at 97-65 only to face a repeat of ’88, losing the NLCS to a team they’d beaten all year, the Cardinals, who, like the Dodgers in ’88, went on to win the World Series in 5 games. Both those years should have bene Mets championships. Then the Mets got caught in the last week of the season by the Phillies in 2007 and 2008. Then the team got ripped part by injuries by injuries and we had to stop all over again.
Off the field, there were street and performance enhancing drug scandals and the Bernie Madoff mess. Why did I abandon the Pirates but not the Mets? I never got the Pirates games on TV or radio. They occasionally turned up in a national TV game. But ti was mostly looking at box scores in the newspaper. With the Mets I get their games every night on TV and the radio. Again, I love their announcers, Gary Cohen and Howie Rose, along with Keith Hernandez, Ron darling and Josh Lewin and enjoy listening to them. It’s just a par to my summer.
The Mets rebuilt themselves again and got back to the World Series again. Now injuries are again ripping the team part. But they are getting some guys back just now and today they swept the braves 8-1 and 6-1, behind a grand slam by Cepedes and a 7 inning, 1 run pitching performance by Steven Matz. So hope springs eternal and the lawn’s lookin’ good.
My final tally:
Cleveland Browns 1964
Syracuse Chiefs 1970
Pittsburgh Pirates 1971
Miami Dolphins 1972
Miami Dolphins 1973
Pittsburgh Pirates 1979
New York Mets 1986
Denver Broncos 1997
Denver Broncos 1998
SU Basketball 2003
Indianapolis Colts 2006
Denver Broncos 2015
That’s a dozen. How many you got?
I went to Cicero High School, which is now Cicero- North Syracuse. I grew up rooting for North Syracuse High School teams although the only games I saw were games the football team played. NS, C and CNS all have one thing in common: they’ve never won a football or men’s basketball title. Those are the sports I really care about, along with baseball. I’m proud that the greatest women’s basketball player, (at least at the collegiate level), Breanna Stewart, when to my high school alma mater, but I never saw any of her games so I can’t include any of the titles she won there.
At SU, it’s all about football and basketball for me. Those are the sports that put this community on the map. If we win national championships there, we’ll be on the cover of Sports Illustrated and get one of those commemorative issues about our heroes. The rest of the nation has to sit up and take notice. If we don’t do well in those sports, become a laughingstock or, at worse, irrelevant. You can’t say that about the other sports. I’m glad when men’s lacrosse or women’s basketball do well but it doesn’t rise to the same level. If they don’t do well, I feel no pain. I’d love to add in the 11 lacrosse titles but I really can’t. SU’s appearances in the Final Four have given me one more interesting think to look at on the Memorial Day weekend but no more than that. I’ve bene happy when we won. When I’ve lost, I’ve gone for a walk to remind me that it’s summer, or virtually so and I don’t feel sports pain in the summer.
There have thus been two ultimate championships at SU for me: the 1959 football championship and the 2003 basketball championship. I’m immensely proud that we are one of seven schools to have won both titles. Alas, at the time of the football title I was a little boy running around in my back yard presenting to be a solider or a a super hero and had no interest in organized sports. I have no living memory of that season. The 2003 title was the culmination of nearly four decades of bleeding orange basketball.
I’m no0t a hockey fan. I thought I would become one after the Lake Placid Olympics. I started watching NHL games but nothing happened. It didn’t seem to be the same sport. Also, I was a basketball fan. I’ve met a lot of Baseball-football basketball fans or baseball-football hockey fans but I haven’t met too many people who are both basketball and hockey fans, at least not at the same level. I feel that I’m missing a lot not following the Crunch but I’ve just never connected with them. I do follow the Chiefs, but I find attending their games to be more of a cultural event. I like to sit in the sun after a long winter with a hot dog and a coke and watch the sun set with a ball game below. I want to see the Chiefs win but the losses are painless. I just hope to see a long home run, a great catch, a well turned double play and a close play at the plate. I remember the Governor’s Cups the team won in 1969, 1970 and 1976 and the pennants they won in 1970, 1985 and the divisional pennant of 1989, as well as the junior World Series win of 1970. They seemed like a big deal at the time and I did follow those teams. But the joy of those achievements didn’t have a big shelf life and they came a long time ago. Maybe I’ll count 1970: The pennant, the Governor’s Cup and the Junior World Series. It deserves to be remembered. That’s two ‘ultimate championships’.
We’re not a pro town, at least not these days. We used to have the Nats but I was year and a half old when they won their title. I should be a 76er fan as they used to be the Nats but somehow that never quite took. I liked the “Showtime” Lakers because back in the 80’s I felt that we were their equivalent on the collegiate level. Sherman Douglas was a pint-sized Magic Johnson. But somehow I’ve just never had a ‘team’ in the NBA that I really identified with. I think the problem is that I’m really and SU fan and I tend to follow the teams that have former SU players as their stars. We’ve produced two star players, (at least that maintained that level) and both, (Dave Bing and Carmelo Anthony) have played for mediocre or worse teams throughout their careers. We’ve had three former SU players who ever played in the NBA championship final: Billy Gabor in 1950 and 1954, (He had to retire due to an injury before the 1955 final), Dennis Duval for 5 minutes in 1975 and Marty Byrnes for 1 minute in 1960. I need more positive reinforcement than that. As for hockey, see my comments on the Crunch, above.
That leaves the NFL and MLB. Unlike the NBA, SU had produced a long list of NFL players, many of them very prominent and a few who became the “face of their franchise”. Not living in an NFL city, I have always been a free agent and there are several teams I have found myself rooting for over the years. The first was the Cleveland Browns. It was 1961 when my Dad, searching for something to do with his youngest son, announced that he and I were going to watch NFL football games on Sunday afternoons. Dad explained that the greatest player in the sport was a guy named Jim Brown who had come from Syracuse and now played for the Cleveland Browns. So the Browns became my favorite team, simple as that. I thought they’d named the team for Jim. It the connection was doubly forged when the Browns were able to draft Ernie Davis, even though poor Ernie never got to play. I remember the Browns 1961 season came down to a game against the Bears in Chicago that they had to win. The box score of that game is one of the saddest I’ve ever seen:
Cleveland Browns at Chicago Bears - December 10th, 1961 | Pro-Football-Reference.com
But it’s worse than that. Bobby Mitchell made a long run on the alst play of the game but just got pushed out at the 4 yards line. The announcer said that my Browns had been ELIMINATED! Dad had to explain to me that there would be another season next year and the Browns would be a part of it.
Three years later, the Browns won their last of 8 championships, (the first four in the All-America conference, 1946-49). I was unaware of the previous 7 and those three years seemed like three decades in my young life. The 27-0 victory over the heavily favored Colts was like a dream sequence. It was 0-0 at halftime and then the Brown scored three TDs and Lou Groza kicked two field goals to make it a rout. The Browns were the champs!!!!
I continued rooting for them for years afterwards because, even after Jim Brown retired because they still had good teams and it was still fun. But I also followed the careers of Floyd Little and Larry Csonka when they entered the pros. Their teams weren’t very good but they were my heroes at SU so I rooted for them to do well. Then the Dolphins suddenly blossomed, making the playoffs in 1970, the Super Bowl the next year and having that amazing 17-0 season the next year. I wanted to kill Garo Yepremian when he totally botched the play that could have allowed the 17-0 team to win the Super Bowl 17-0. But there was no miracle ending for the Redskins and the Dolphins made history. They were probably even better the next year when they went 15-2 and crushed the Vikings in the big game. They looked like the 70’s version of the Lombardi Packers. Then came the WFL and Csonka, Kiick and Warfield left and took the dynasty with them, opening the way for the Steelers, (whom the Dolphins had beaten three years in a row), to become the team of the decade.
The Broncos never did become contenders with #44 in their backfield. But they did rise from being the worst team in football in the 60’s to being respectable and shortly after Floyd retired, they rose to the height of making the Super Bowl. It began a string of six Super Bowls I had a team I root for in and they all lost – by a combined 145 points, including the worst blow-out loss in Super Bowl history, 10-55 by the Broncos to the 49ers in SB 24.
Then John Elway shook hands with Terrell Davis and the Broncos were suddenly the best team in the NFL. They may have bene the best team in 1996 but overlooked a combative Jacksonville team and got upset. They came back to beat the Packers the next year and handle the Falcons for two in a row. It was a wonderful feeling to root for two champions in a row after all the years of disappointment and even humiliation. John Elway retired but the Broncos were still a top team until they, especially Davis, got wiped out by injuries and had to start over again.
My loyalties began shifting again when Donovan McNabb went to Philadelphia, who hadn’t won a title since 1960. The fact that some idiots booed him because they wanted Rickie Williams made me root all the harder for McNabb to lead the Eagles to victories and shut up the boo-birds. At the same time, the Indianapolis Colts showed a preference for drafting players who had played in a Dome because they played in one. They had about half a dozen former Orangemen on their roster at one point, including stars Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. I liked Peyton Manning and found myself rooting for the Colts, as well. That gave me one NFC team and one AFC team so unlike with the Browns-Dolphins-Broncos, I could have a lock on the Super Bowl if the Eagles and Colts could make it at the same time.
They both made it but not at the same time. The Colts managed to get me another Super Bowl win in 2006 and I still have a bit of fondness for them even after Peyton moved to Denver. But I totally lost interested in the Eagles, who refused for years to surround Donovan with top talent and then, just as they were bringing in some big-time talent, got rid of him. Manning’s move to Denver re-ignited my interest in the Broncos. I endured another old fashioned blow-out loss after the 2013 season but was very happy Peyton could go out on top with the Bronco’s victory two seasons ago. Now the NFL field lies pretty fallow for me and SU isn’t producing NFL stars these days so I’m just sitting back and enjoying the games as a sports fan, which is OK- for now.
I wasn’t a baseball fan until Dad made me go out for Little League. He had an ulterior motive- he had been a little coach when my big brother played a few years before and enjoyed it so much he couldn’t wait for me to get of age to play. I was never much of a player but found I enjoyed it anyway, especially since we won the championship. The teams in our league were named after big league teams and we were the Pirates. We won the “National league” pennant and the Tigers won the “American League” pennant. When the Tigers never even showed up for the championship game, we won by forfeit and figured, in our 10 year old minds that they were scared of us. Actually, nobody had called the Tigers up to tell them they’d won the pennant. I guess that’s the difference between the little leagues and the big leagues. In the big leagues they call you up to tell you that you won the pennant!
Anyway, I decided to start following baseball and decided I’d be a Pirate fan. I went out and got my first package of baseball cards and found one that listed the top batters in the real National League the previous year, (1963). #1 was Tommy Davis of the Dodgers but the Pirates had #2, somebody named “Bob” Clemente, whose last name I presumed to be “Clement”. So I would be a Pirate fan and “Bob Clement“ would be my hero. Roberto Clemente turned out to be a really good hero and the Pirates were a fun team to root for- a swashbuckling team that used bats instead of swords but never seemed to have enough pitching. So, (not unlike those first few Browns teams), they always had hope but they weren’t quite good enough to win a championship.
Then, in 1971, they emerged as a true contender, easily winning the NL East and beating the Giants in the NLCS. Still, they seemed no match for the Baltimore Orioles and their four 20 game winners in the World Series, especially when the defending champion Orioles won the first two games. But then, in another dream sequence, the Pirates won three in a row in Pittsburgh before dropping game 6 back in Baltimore. Then they closed it out with a 2-1 win in game 7 with my hero, Roberto Clemente hitting a home run. He hit .414 for the series and was named MVP. He died in a plane crash two years later, trying to help the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
The Pirates remained major contenders throughout the 70’s but didn’t make it back to the series until the decade’s last year. They had to fight off a red-hot Montreal Expos team that won 17 of 18 late in the season but did so and then swept what had bene the Big Red Machine in the NLCS. The Orioles were waiting for them in the World Series and looking for revenge, which it seemed like they were going to get when they scored 6 runs in the 8th inning of game four, three of the Pirates bullpen ace, Kent Tekulve to win 9-6 and take a 3-1 lead. I remember being very upset to the point of being unable to sleep after that game. But I finally got to sleep and awake with a tremendous feeling of euphoria and a conviction that everything was going to work out just fine. And it did. The Pirates won the last three games to win the championship. Anybody remember this?
But they weren’t family after that. The team fell apart on and off the field. Willie Stargell retired. The new Pirates star, Dave Parker, proved moody and out of shape and wasted his talents. The owners, the Galbraith family, were not equipped to compete in the era of free agency. The team came to be the definition of an unsuccessful small market team. They also got involved in the first of the drug scandals – not over performance enhancing drugs but over street drugs, which were being sold, it was said, right in the Pirates locker room. I withdrew not only from the Pirates but from baseball for a while.
When I did watch the game, I had four choices: the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Mets and the braves. I found myself watching Mets games simply because I liked their announcers the best. Ned Martina nd Bob Montgomery in Boston put me to sleep. Phil Rizzuto in New York talked more about pizza places than the game. The Braves announcers were like listening to Donald Trump. Everything the braves did was the greatest thing ever. The Mets guys, (Ralph Kiner, Tim McCarver, Steve Zabriskie and Fran Healy, were clam, honest, analytical and professional. I learned more baseball listening to them than I have from any other source. My best friend at work was also a long-time Mets fan and we used to discuss their games in the break room.
Then the Mets got good- real good. From 1984-90, they averaged 95 wins a year. The next best team in baseball was the Tigers who averaged 87. The entire 1986 season was a dream sequence, full of dominating performances, comebacks, walk-off wins, etc. They won 108 games. Then the wheels seemed to been falling off in the post season but they beat the Astros in a 12 inning game and then a legendary 16 inning game to win that series, (and avoid a confrontation with the unbeatable Mike Scott). Then they lost the first two games to the Red Sox in the World Series but gritted out two wins in Boston and won another legendary game with a 10th inning comeback in game 6. Finally, they overcame an 0-3 deficit in game seven to finish off the dream season. Yep, I was now a Mets fan.
There’s been more frustration than joy since them. Nine pitchers were on the DL in ’87. We rallied to almost overtake the Cards anyway until the Terry Pendleton home run, (I still don’t believe it went out). We had another dominating year in 1988 but blew the NLCS to a Dodger team we’d owned all year. We seemed to sleep-walk through 1989. We had one amazing 23-3 stretch in 1990 but were otherwise mediocre. Everything fell apart in 1991, 92 and 93, when the team should have been at its peak. The team fell all the way to last place with a 59-103 record. It took the rest of the decade to rebuild the team and we got back to the World Series, only to lose to the Yankees in 5 games. Then we fell apart again, tumbling back into last place in 2003 with a 66-95 record.
The team resurfaced with the best team in the National league in 2006 at 97-65 only to face a repeat of ’88, losing the NLCS to a team they’d beaten all year, the Cardinals, who, like the Dodgers in ’88, went on to win the World Series in 5 games. Both those years should have bene Mets championships. Then the Mets got caught in the last week of the season by the Phillies in 2007 and 2008. Then the team got ripped part by injuries by injuries and we had to stop all over again.
Off the field, there were street and performance enhancing drug scandals and the Bernie Madoff mess. Why did I abandon the Pirates but not the Mets? I never got the Pirates games on TV or radio. They occasionally turned up in a national TV game. But ti was mostly looking at box scores in the newspaper. With the Mets I get their games every night on TV and the radio. Again, I love their announcers, Gary Cohen and Howie Rose, along with Keith Hernandez, Ron darling and Josh Lewin and enjoy listening to them. It’s just a par to my summer.
The Mets rebuilt themselves again and got back to the World Series again. Now injuries are again ripping the team part. But they are getting some guys back just now and today they swept the braves 8-1 and 6-1, behind a grand slam by Cepedes and a 7 inning, 1 run pitching performance by Steven Matz. So hope springs eternal and the lawn’s lookin’ good.
My final tally:
Cleveland Browns 1964
Syracuse Chiefs 1970
Pittsburgh Pirates 1971
Miami Dolphins 1972
Miami Dolphins 1973
Pittsburgh Pirates 1979
New York Mets 1986
Denver Broncos 1997
Denver Broncos 1998
SU Basketball 2003
Indianapolis Colts 2006
Denver Broncos 2015
That’s a dozen. How many you got?
