In the past couple of weeks, I have received several comments about my advancing age as it relates to my having witnessed events that are now taught in history courses and about my austere nature that categorizes me as “old school”. I am not a fatalistic person by nature but there have been enough comments aimed at me with the word “old” in them or associated with them that I started thinking about my perspective on the world – and more generally on the world of sports. And so, I started wondering:
Am I the only one who recalls a time when there were only eight teams in the National League and only eight teams in the American League and only one team from each league played after the season was over by going directly to the World Series? Simultaneous with that taxonomy in baseball, the NHL had six teams; the NFL had twelve teams; the AFL did not yet exist and Monday Night Football was still decades away from popping into the mind of any TV exec.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when baseball teams would “take a swing to the west” and play in St. Louis because that was as far west as major league baseball existed? Moreover, there were two teams in St. Louis then…
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the A’s played baseball in Philadelphia before they moved to Kansas City before they moved to Oakland? In addition, in those times there used to be these things called “doubleheaders” that were put on the schedule intentionally before the season started and you could go to the park for a single admission and see two games. Is this making any sense to anyone out there now?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when Harry Caray called the games for the St. Louis Cardinals and Vin Scully called the games for the Brooklyn Dodgers? It’s true; they did that.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when stadium security was sufficiently lax that Morganna the Kissing Bandit made it onto the field more than occasionally to plant a wet one on a player or coach or manager? For the young’uns out there, Morganna was a woman who would put Dolly Parton or Pamela Anderson to shame. Let us just say that the Good Lord smiled on this specimen of womanhood.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when Julio Franco was not playing baseball?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when starting pitchers actually finished the games they started more than once or twice a year? Oh and the relief pitchers of those days often pitched more than a single inning during their appearances. It was unusual for a pitcher to come into the game to face only a single batter – - unless he arrived with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when a pitcher with an ERA of 3.95 was considered mediocre? Today, a pitcher with that ERA who throws 205 innings and wins 12 games will get a fat free agent contract. Call it the rewarding of mediocrity…
Am I the only one who recalls the time when the American Football League started up with Joe Foss as the AFL Commissioner? The Oakland Raiders actually joined the league after the first draft for the AFL was held and so the Raiders were stocked by a dispersal draft from the other existing teams who had already drafted about 50 players. By the way, it was the American Football League that came up with the idea of putting players’ names on the backs of the uniforms not just the numbers.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Super Bowl was not sold out? That was the case for Super Bowl I; that game was also carried by both NBC and CBS because those two networks had the contracts to carry the games for the two separate football leagues. I believe that game took about three hours to play because there weren’t six jillion ads and a halftime show that was longer than the Mesozoic Era and only half as interesting.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the fans attending Super Bowl games where actually fans interested in seeing the game and not a bunch of rich/well-connected suit dummies who are only there for the festivities and for the chance to be seen attending the game?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when you could watch a telecast of a sporting event without seeing some “rhymes with glass bowl” waving to the camera while talking to someone on his cell phone to be sure he’s on camera? All of those people should be caned; a hundred lashes ought to do the trick.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when you could watch a telecast of a sporting event without seeing even one shot of the owner’s box and/or a player’s wife/girlfriend/significant other/insignificant other/whatever? I think all of this started with shots of “Mom and Dad” in the stands and has now gotten completely out of hand.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Collegiate Football All-Stars played the NFL champs in the first exhibition game of the next season? Oh, and in those times, there were six exhibition games prior to a 12 game season. What was up with that?
Am I the only one who recalls when Penn State actually promoted one of their assistant football coaches to the head coaching job? Some guy named Paterno…
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the Collegiate Basketball All-Stars played the Harlem Globetrotters on a short barnstorming tour each year? They really did that.
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the ABA used red-white-and-blue basketballs?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when the NY Knicks were both a good basketball team and a classy organization?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when you actually looked forward to seeing the Olympics on television?
Am I the only one who recalls a time when poker was a game you played with friends and family and was not a “sporting event” that took up hundreds of hours of television network time?
I guess I am both old school and old. Nevertheless, there are limits on the things I have witnessed in my tenure here on Planet Earth. I surely do not recall the time when – - and perhaps no one does – - the Cubs last won the World Series.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…