A Wrigley Field Intro, a Record Inning, a Scorecard Mess

 IT WAS SCORCHING HOT that day at Chicago's Wrigley Field. 

The game time temperature hovered near 95 degrees with a real feel of about 104. I arrived at my field box seat just past first base adorned in my black New York Mets road jersey and matching cap.

Twenty years ago...

"Man, you look like my roof!" the guy seated next to me said.

It was July 16, 2006, a Sunday. I'd been a Windy City resident for about six weeks and savoring my first chance to see my home town team at the legendary Friendly Confines. This game did not disappoint, though -- truth be told -- I'd gone to the game a day earlier with a new friend from my new job and that one definitely did.

Seated Saturday on the field level, but in the shade of the third base stands, my pal Kevin and I watched the Cubs spank the Mets, 9-2. 

Hall of Fame Mets starter Tom Glavine gave way after six plus, having allowed four hits, three walks, and three runs -- all started with a triple by infielder Ryan "The Riot" Theriot, before being replaced by submariner Chad Bradford, who allowed two more. 

... a weekend at the Friendly Confines.

It was 5-2 Chicago after six, then someone named Henry Owens surrendered four additional runs in the seventh, all he'd ever allow in his Mets career, and that was basically the ballgame. 

Tempestuous Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano got the win, running his record to 9-3. Glavine took the loss, just his third against 11 wins.

Unsatisfied, I returned alone the next day. Sunday's game before a crowd of more than 40,000 would be historic, record-setting even.

Armed and Ready

The 2006 Mets were packed and arguably the most talented team they've fielded in this century. Their roster included Hall-bound center fielder Carlos Beltrán, slugging first baseman Carlos Delgado, all-star third baseman David Wright, all-star shortstop José Reyes and slugging left fielder Cliff Floyd. 

Carlos Delgado

The rotation included Glavine, Hall-bound Pedro Martinez, stolid Steve Trachsel and El Duque, the Cuban veteran Orlando Hernández. In the pen, Hall-bound reliever Billy Wagner.

Beltrán, Reyes, Wright and Delgado finished fourth, seventh, ninth and 12th in National League MVP voting. Wagner finished sixth in the Cy Young race. 

This was a very good ball club. The Cubs, on the other hand, were not, even as they were assembling the pieces for back-to-back playoff appearances in 2007 and 2008. 

As a lifelong National League Mets fan, I wasn't about to change allegiances... at least not for the perennially sorry Cubs. The team across town, however, was the then-defending World Series champion White Sox. I had no problem at all with rooting for them.

Sunday's starters would be Hernández and the rookie left-hander Sean Marshall. And, after the Mets went down meekly in the first, the Cubs made quick work of El Duque. 

Fleet center fielder Juan Pierre led off with a single, stole second and and with one away scored on catcher Michael Barrett's double. Third-sacker Aramis Ramirez doubled Barrett home. Hernández got an out, walked two to load the bases then escaped further damage by getting shortstop Ronny Cedeño looking. 2-0 Chicago.

The Mets went in order in the second and the Cubs resumed pounding New York's starter, starting with Marshall who belted a homer, the only one of his nine-year MLB career.

David Wright

Pierre singled again, stole second again and scored again after an out when Barrett doubled again. Hernández fanned Ramirez for out number two, but then Cubs RF Jacques Jones singled to plate Barrett and El Duque was done, having yielded five runs on seven hits and two walks in just an inning and a third.

New York went down in order again in the top of the third and it looked as though the day would belong to the cruising Marshall and the Cubs.

Lefty Darren Oliver, who'd relieved Hernández, surrendered a single and a double in the bottom of frame, yet somehow avoided allowing a run. Then Mets backup shortstop Chris Woodward crashed a homer to start the fourth, one of just three he'd hit that year, and New York was finally on the board.

Oliver surrendered another double in the bottom of the fourth, the Cubs' fifth of the afternoon, but again kept them at bay. Chicago 5, New York 1.

Detonation

Cliff Floyd opened the fifth with the Mets' second homer off Marshall. Right fielder Xavier Nady singled and it looked like New York might have something going, but the 23-year-old lefty retired the next three men in order. 

The Mets' Pedro Feliciano held the Cubs off the board next and it was 5-2 after five. But things were about to change in a record-setting manner.

Cliff Floyd

It happened like this:

With one out, Beltrán reached on an error. Delgado singled. Then David Wright did too, loading the bases for Floyd, who crashed his second homer of the afternoon -- this one a granny -- putting New York up 7-5 and chasing Marshall from the game in favor of righty Roberto Novoa.

Novoa promptly walked Nady. Catcher Ramon Castro reached on a fielder's choice with Nady safe at second on an error. OF Endy Chavez, batting for Feliciano, singled, scoring Nady and moving Castro to third. 8-5, New York.

Chavez then stole second. 2B José Valentin reached on an infield hit to reload the bases and Woodward's grounder to third forced Castro at home, bringing up Beltrán with the bases loaded again.

And for the second time in the inning a New York hitter unloaded them with a home run. That second slam increased the Mets' lead to 12-5 and they weren't finished.

Delgado doubled off the reeling Novoa, bringing up Wright, who drove a 2-0 pitch over the ivy and into the right field bleachers -- their ninth hit of the inning -- mercifully driving Novoa from the game. 

The Mets' messy record-breaker

It was 13-5. The Mets had homered three times in a single frame, twice with the bases loaded, scoring 11 runs, the biggest inning in their history to that day, bettering a 10-run effort by the lowly 1979 edition against the Cincinnati Reds.

New York got just two more hits the rest of the way. A Phil Nevin two-run homer off the Mets' Aaron Heilman made the score a slightly more cosmetic 13-7 and that's the way it ended. Feliciano -- he of the scoreless fifth inning -- was credited with the win. Marshall took the loss.

The Mets single-inning runs record would stand for nearly a decade before being bested by a 12-run performance against the San Francisco Giants in April 2016.

Post-Script

That Sunday loss dropped the Cubs' record to 35-56. They'd finish 66-96, last in the NL Central, costing manager Dusty Baker his job. Sweet Lou Piniella would take over the next year and bring them home in first.

The Mets' offensive explosion was one highlight of what proved to be a bittersweet year. They ran away with the NL East, rolling up a 97-65 record, finishing 12 games ahead of the second-place the Philadelphia Phillies, their first outright division title since 1988.

Carlos Beltrán

They swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series, only to run into a hot, but inferior, St. Louis Cardinals team in the NLCS. The climactic seventh game featured Chavez making one of the all-time greatest catches in post-season history, robbing Cards HoF 3B Scott Rolen of a sure two-run homer and keeping the game knotted 1-1 after six. 

There it stayed until the top of the ninth when Cards catcher Yadier Molina, who'd hit just .216 on the season, drilled a two-run shot off Heilman in the top of the ninth. 

The Mets would load the bases in the bottom of the inning against rookie reliever Adam Wainwright, bringing up Beltrán with two outs. The Mets had signed the outfielder to a seven-year, $119 million deal in 2005 for a moment just like this.

Wainwright quickly got head of Beltrán, 0-2, then broke off an unhittable 12-6 drop curveball that caught the Mets centerfielder looking, the bat frozen on his shoulder, ending their season.

-- Follow me @paperboyarchive on ex-Twitter

When the New York Cosmos Ruled the World, Part II

NOBODY LIKES TO LOSE, especially not a team of global superstars.

The New York Cosmos' failure to advance to the North American Soccer League's Soccer Bowl '79, because of a shootout time clock violation would reverberate up and down the organization. Changes would need to be made.

But first an excursion.

Two days after being capped in that conference finale by the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Cosmos embarked on a 13-game Asian/Pacific tour, playing friendlies in Hong Kong; Pusan and Seoul, South Korea; Djakarta; Singapore; Osaka; Tokyo; Kuala Lumpur; Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, Australia, recording six wins, three losses and four ties.

Chinaglia and the exchange of flags with Sporting Lisbon, from the 1981 yearbook.

Two year earlier, they'd visited Europe, Asia and South America, staging matches in Venezuela, Switzerland, China, India, Brazil and Bermuda, building their global brand while leaving virtual calling cards for those who may want to come to the NASL, if not to the Cosmos.

And come they did.

Read more: When the New York Cosmos Ruled the World, Part I

Teófillo Cubillas, hailed as the greatest Peruvian soccer star, joined the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, teaming with der Bomber, German forward Gerd Mueller. Already there, fading Northern Ireland star George Best, who'd been lured years earlier by the Los Angeles Aztecs as a West Coast counterpart to the Cosmos' Pelé.

L.A. replaced Best with Dutch master Johan Cruyff, who later decamped to the Washington Diplomats. The Portland Timbers inked Dutch forward Rob Resenbrink while another Hollander, Johan Neeskens, signed with New York.

The Cosmos had their obligatory annual imports too: Brazilian defender Jose Oscar Bernardi, Paraguayan midfielder Julio Cesar Romero, and Belgian forward François Van der Elst.

The Return

They were just part of the retooling. Midway through the '79 season, Coach Eddie Firmani had been sacked in favor of his top aide, Ray Klivecka. Now he was out, at least temporarily in favor of the man they called the professor, Pelé pal Julio Mazzei, and then by the German Hennes Weisweiler. 

One thing the Cosmos didn't do was partake in the NASL's first full season of indoor soccer, joining 13 other clubs in sitting out the league's embrace of the soccer-hockey hybrid prompted by the emergence of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Their 1980 season started slowly with a shoot-out win, a loss, another shoot-out win, a regulation win and another loss. Then, on April 29, they took off, winning seven straight before a 1-1 tie, then reeled off four more wins before a loss on June 14.

The 1981 yearbook center spread.

On the year they went 24-8, pacing the league with 87 goals -- 32 by ex-Lazio star Giorgio Chinaglia -- while allowing just 41. Aided by the Aztec's elimination of the second-best regular season team, the Seattle Sounders, the Cosmos marched through the playoffs, trampling the Tulsa Roughnecks, Dallas Tornado and the Aztecs before trouncing the Strikers, 3-0, at Washington's RFK Stadium in Soccer Bowl '80.

After a one-year hiatus, they were champions again.

Darkening Skies

They'd led the league with an average attendance of 42,754. The Tampa Bay Rowdies, Sounders and White Caps were the only others to exceed 20,000. Ten of the 24 franchises didn't draw more than 11,000. The Atlanta Chiefs and Philadelphia Fury didn't crack 5,000.

That offseason, the Houston Hurricane and Rochester Lancers folded. The Diplomats did too, but were immediately reincarnated as the relocated Detroit Express. The Memphis Rogues became the Calgary Boomers, the New England Tea Men moved to Jacksonville, Fla., and the Fury were reborn as the Montreal Manic. The net loss of three trimmed the NASL to 21 teams.

The 1981 Cosmos were slightly dominant, winning just 23 matches, while losing nine. Weisweiler clashed with Carlos Alberto, prompting the Brazilian midfielder to quit. 

The upswing years, 1977-79

Chinaglia again led the NASL in goals with 29 and was the league's MVP. And again they made the playoffs, drawing a first-round bye as top seed in the reconfigured tourney, then dispatching the Rowdies and Strikers in pair of best-of-threes, winning four matches while dropping just one.

Then they met their match in Soccer Bowl '81, the Chicago Sting. Led by German star Karl-Heinz Granitza, they'd scored more goals than New York during the season while allowing only one extra. They'd finished 23-9, beating the Cosmos twice.

In a game shown only on tape delay after years of live telecasts, the teams battled to a 0-0 tie through regulation and overtime at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium before Chicago won in a shootout. 

Stung.

The Descent

For the only time in their history, the Cosmos made the big game and lost. And the league itself was now in trouble.

The off-season dawned with the folding of five franchises -- the Atlanta Chiefs, Calgary Boomers, California Surf, Dallas and Washington -- with the Aztecs and Minnesota Kicks giving up two months later. 

In just two years the league had fallen from 24 teams to 14, weakened by poor attendance and attendant financial pressures exacerbated by the need to keep up with the Cosmos and the rise of the MISL. The era of signing big international stars was largely over.

Adjusting to the new reality, the NASL mandated that each team must have four North Americans on the field at all times, up from a two-year-old requirement of three. Easy-peasy for the perennially-advantaged Cosmos who already featured US-born stars Ricky Davis and 1980 Rookie of the Year Jeff Durgan.

At the same time, Best, Cruyff, Muller and others began an exodus the other way.

For the Cosmos' 1982 season, Weisweiller was out and the man in charge again was Mazzei. The team got out of the gate quickly, winning eight of 10 en route to a 23-9 record and their customary first place finish.

Eight of the 14 teams made the playoffs, with the Cosmos needing just five games to dispose of the Roughnecks and San Diego Sockers before beating the Sounders, 1-0 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, winning the Soccer Bowl for their last time.

The End

The Cosmos had again led the NASL in attendance, but now their average crowd was only 28,743. Only Montreal breached the 20,000 mark. Six teams, including the defending champion Sting, didn't even hit 10,000.

The Timbers, Tea Men and Edmonton Drillers wouldn't be back in '83. Bringing membership up to an even dozen would be a DC-based US National Team project called Team America that included Durgan and ex-Cosmo Chico Borja. 

Underscoring the sorry state of soccer in America, they finished last, winning just 10 of 30 matches and scoring a league-low 33 goals.

New York finished first again, but were quickly knocked out by the Manic, who were summarily eliminated by the eventual champion Tulsa Roughnecks. Cabañas was league MVP. But it didn't matter. The end was near.

Seattle, Montreal and Team America would all fold. The Strikers moved to Minnesota. Down to just nine franchises, the 1984 season would be the NASL's last, the Sting its final champions. 

On top of the world, 1980-82.

New York, led by Firmani who'd coached them at their peak of popularity, finished third and missed the playoffs altogether. Their average attendance drooped to 12,187. Vancouver led the league at 15,208.

There were plans for a 40-game indoor league, but the Sting, Sounders, Strikers and Cosmos elected to bolt for the MISL instead. Even that was a bridge to far for New York, which quit both leagues in February. 

When only the Strikers and Sockers expressed interest in playing an outdoor season in 1985, the league was finished.

The Legacy

The NASL's 17-season existence had put big time soccer on the map in the US for the very first time, inspiring a generation of kids who grew up with youth leagues across America.

From the '78 yearbook,
the inimitable Pelé

From those humble beginnings emerged the talent that allowed the US to field a credible World Cup team in 1994, in a tournament hosted by the US and won by Brazil at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

Major League Soccer was formed in 1993 and played its first full season in 1996. Having avoid the missteps and excesses that doomed its star-studded predecessor, 30 years later it's still here. And the US is a World Cup host nation again.

The Cosmos exist too, the brand having been revived for a since-failed Tier Two iteration the NASL. Today they're a Tier Three USL League One franchise playing in Paterson, New Jersey. 

But playing nonetheless.

-- Follow me on fka-Twitter @paperboyarchive

When the New York Cosmos Ruled the World, Part I

"WE ARE MADE OF STAR STUFF," Carl Sagan said in his PBS TV series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.

The year was 1980. The astronomer and his viewers were exploring space and time via a 13-episode documentary. His oft-quoted remark was an effort to simply and concisely explain that elements helping to make up life here on Earth -- carbon, nitrogen, calcium and iron -- were formed in ancient collapsing stars, then scattered across the galaxy.

A lot of that star stuff coalesced in the form of a professional soccer team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and serendipitously called The Cosmos, the reigning three- (and soon to be four-) time champs of the North American Soccer League.

They were the league's first, last and only dynasty.

The NASL was America's original foray into big time professional soccer. The Cosmos, backed by Warner Communications, was its most dominant franchise, its biggest draw and a major cause of its downfall. 

Pelé, left, takes flight, Giorgio Chinaglia, right, exults.
from the 1977 Cosmos yearbook.

Sagan's series fell smack in the middle of an era when soccer's Cosmos were gravitically drawing star stuff from across the planet, creating an international super team featuring at one time or another players from Brazil, Yugoslavia, West Germany, Paraguay, Iran, the US, Italy and elsewhere.

The attention they garnered helped the league swell like a supernova from just nine teams in 1973, to 24 in 1978, as less well-capitalized franchises frantically tried and failed to keep pace with its flagship before the NASL collapsed in 1985.

The Dawning

Across six seasons, 1977 through 1982, the Cosmos went to the league's championship Soccer Bowl five times, winning four of those matches.

Their unmatchable accrual of talent started in 1975 with the signing of the sport's preeminent player of his time, Pelé, to a three-year deal for an estimated $7 million.

Carlos Alberto,
from the '78 yearbook

Two years later, led by the retirement-bound Pelé, German legend Franz Beckenbauer, plus the charismatic and combustible Italian import Giorgio Chinaglia -- and bolstered by the mid-season addition of Brazilian National Team captain Carlos Alberto -- the Cosmos rolled up a 15-11 record in the 18-team league, good for second in their division behind the Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

They proceeded to knock off English superstar Rodney Marsh and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the playoffs, then the Strikers, drawing more than 70,000 to see their 8-3 win at New Jersey's Giants Stadium, the Rochester Lancers and finally the Seattle Sounders in Soccer Bowl '77. 

The Cosmos led the league that year in average attendance, 34,150, with the Sounders placing third at 24,226. For their other two post-season opponents the drop was precipitous and telling: 8,140 for Fort Lauderdale and just 6,065 for Rochester. 

At the league bottom: the Hartford-based Connecticut Bicentennials averaged 3,902.

Back to Back

Still, buoyed by the attention drawn by the upper echelon teams, the league elected to add six more: the Detroit Express, Houston Hurricane, the Caribous of Colorado, Memphis Rogues, Philadelphia Fury and New England Tea Men. Four others moved. The Bicentennials became the Oakland Stompers, and the ill-advised Team Hawaii, average attendance 4,543, turned into the Tulsa Roughnecks.

The Chicago Sting added German forward Karl-Heinz Granitza. The Tea Men, owned by Lipton and named for an anti-British rebellion, signed English forward Mike Flanagan. He potted 30 goals in just 28 games, helping his squad to a first place finish and nabbing the Most Valuable Player award.

The sweet, if unhygienic, 
taste of victory.

Now minus Pelé, the Cosmos continued shopping too, securing the services of Yugoslavian midfielder Vladislav Bogicevic and future US Men's National Team Captain Ricky Davis among others. 1978 would be their most dominant regular season ever, going a league-record 24-6, with Chinaglia scoring an astonishing 34 of the team's 88 goals, while their opponents tallied just 39.

The playoffs however proved to be a challenge. The Cosmos quickly squelched the Sounders in the opening round, then ran into a hot Minnesota Kicks team. Led by Black South African star Ace Ntsolengoe and a five goal performance from Brit Alan Willey, the Kicks trounced the defending champs 9-2 in the second round's first game.

New York regrouped for a 4-0 win before more than 60,000 fans in Giants Stadium, then took the series in a bonus mini-game with a 1-0 win. Then they easily disposed of the Portland Timbers, advancing to the final where they defeated the Rowdies and repeated as champs at home before nearly 75,000 in Soccer Bowl '78.

Great Expectations

The 1979 season dawned with the Cosmos seemingly unstoppable, starting 12-2 before a cooling stretch of merely 12-4, and seemed poised for a three-peat that didn't happen.

They reeled off a trio of dramatic road wins -- in overtime agains the San Diego Sockers, and in shootouts against the Washington Diplomats and Atlanta Chiefs fka the aforementioned Caribous -- before downing the Strikers in front of 72,342 at their Meadowlands home opener.

They posted three more wins before finally losing to the rival Rowdies and their new import, Argentine star Oscar Fabbiani, in Tampa.

That winter the Cosmos had gone shopping again, returning home with Eskandarian and Marinho (they already had a Seninho), household names, even if those households weren't necessarily in the US. 

More popular than ever, they drew an average of 46,690. Baseball's defending world champs, the New York Yankees, averaged 31,330. The pathetic last place-bound Mets, 9,621. The NASL's league-wide average draw: 14,201, except when the Cosmos arrived. Then it was 25,205.

They blew past the Toronto Blizzard in the first round of the post-season, before being staggered by the relocated Roughnecks, narrowly escaping elimination at home in front of 76,031.

Their stay of execution was brief. Only a week later, the Cosmos were knocked out by the Vancouver Whitecaps, dropping game one of the conference finals 2-0 on the road, winning game two in a shootout at home, then falling in a shootout time violation after the decisive minigame produced no victor. 

Vancouver would go on to beat Tampa Bay in the Soccer Bowl, painfully held at Giants Stadium. 

Fabbiani won the league's scoring title, but its most valuable player was Dutch import Johan Cruyff of the Los Angeles Aztecs. For the first time in league history, every franchise survived the offseason and the Cosmos hit the road.

To be continued...

-- Follow me @paperboyarchive on formerly Twitter.

Eight Men In: The Blackhawks' Plug-and-Play Dynasty

THIRD PERIOD, GAME SIX of the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals: With 77 seconds left, the home team Boston Bruins -- trailing three games to two -- led the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-1.

It was win or go home time for Boston. Win and go home for Chicago. 

Seventy-eight seconds later, the Blackhawks were Stanley Cup champions.

Extra! Extra! Extra!
June 16, 2015

What happened in those final ticks of the clock was textbook Chicago hockey for a eight-year span almost unparalleled in the modern era.

They potted two goals in 18 seconds, each by a man who was for all intents and purposes an x-factor, a replaceable spare part for a star-heavy juggernaut that would capture the cup three times in six years, a championship hat trick.

Bagging the tying goal at 18:44 was Bryan Bickell, a bottom six winger who'd netted nine goals in a lockout-shortened 48-game season, assisted on the scoresheet by future Hall of Famers Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith, and off the sheet by the third star in that constellation, winger Patrick Kane.

Starting deep in their own zone, Keith corralled a loose puck and dropped it to Kane. He carried it up ice facing all five skating Bruins, flowed through three of them, broke to his left and fired a shot that B's netminder Tuukka Rask deflected to his blocker-side corner. 

There the stars went to work digging out the puck, from Kane to Keith to Toews who spotted Bickell just outside the blue paint. With a perfect pass through the skates of towering Boston d-man Zdeno Chara the puck was on Bickell's stick, then behind Rask and in the net.

Tie game.

The Bruins, who had won the cup just two years earlier with substantially the same cast, were rattled. Eighteen seconds later, they were beaten.

Cup I: 2010 vs. the Flyers,
four games to two

Boston had won the ensuing faceoff but immediately lost possession. Chicago quickly reentered the Bruins' zone. Rask kicked away Michael Frolik's shot from above the right circle, Marcus Krüger retrieved the puck from the left boards, sliding it back to defenseman Johnny Oduya. He flung a shot from the blue line. Rask stopped but didn't control it. 

Hawks' center Dave Bolland at the edge of the crease quickly punched it home. 3-2 Chicago. A minute later it was official, for the second time in four years, the Hawks were champs. 

Two years later -- and now 10 years ago -- they'd capture the cup again, this time on home ice. Cue the Fratelli's Chelsea Dagger, that mocking goal song hated by opponents but loved by Hawks' fans, all 110% of the United Center's nightly SRO crowds.

Three cups in six seasons. And just eight men played for all three squads.

The remainder of the roster was strictly plug and play, a master class in roster and cap management by Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman. Win, back up, retool and do it again. And again. Forty-nine different men are listed across the team's three Cup final program rosters.

Keith, the Norris Trophy and Conn Smythe Award-winning defensive anchor, voted with Kane and Toews as one of the top 100 NHL players of all time, appeared in 1,192 games over 16 years, second most in franchise history. 

Kane, played 1,161, also in 16 seasons, the third most. Toews, the captain, would play 1,062 games in 15 years, good for fifth all time, but second all time in team points with 1,225 (446G/779A). (For the curious, HoFer Stan Mikita heads games, points and assists, Bobby Hull in goals.)

Bickell played 364 games, tallying 135 points but sticking for all three cups Bolland, with 168 points in 332 GP, stayed for just two, part of the ever changing cast.

Cup II: 2013 vs. the Bruins,
also four games to two

Forward Kris Versteeg was there in 2010 for Cup One, a nail-biting six game triumph over the Philadelphia Flyers. Four of those matches were decided by a single goal, two in OT, including the decider via a sotto voce dagger from Kane.

Versteeg had bounced from the 'Hawks to the Toronto Maple Leafs, to the Flyers and the Florida Panthers before being reacquired by Chicago in 2013, and taking part in the cup-hoisting of 2015, their defeat of the up-and-coming Tampa Bay Lightning at the Madhouse on Madison.

Stars weren't safe either. Defenseman and part-time winger Dustin Byfuglien looked like a keeper after Cup one. Nope. Dealt to the Atlanta Thrashers in the off-season where he blossomed into a Norris candidate. Just six days later, the man called Buff was joined there by 19 goal/38 point man Andrew Ladd, who went on to captain the reincarnated Winnipeg Jets.

Even the goalies didn't stick. For 2009/10 it was Antti Niemi and Cristobol Huet. For 2012/13 it was Corey Crawford and Ray Emery. Finally, by 2015 it was Crawford, Scott Darling and Antti Raanta.

Cup III: 2015 vs. the Lightning,
four games to two after being
down two games to one.

Rounding out the core group retained for all three cups: forwards Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp, plus d-men Niklas Hjalmarsson and Brent Seabrook. And that's it.

In all: nine men played for the first and second champs: the eight plus Bolland. Nine played for the first and third thanks to Versteeg's return.

Five others got to stay for just championships two and three: agitator Andrew Shaw, fellow forwards Daniel Carcillo and Krüger, plus Oduya, and Crawford.

Churn, churn, churn. Win. Win. Win.

Three cups in six years, plus trips to the conference finals in '09 and '14. It was, and remains, as good a run as any team has had in the hard cap era.

Postscript

To be sure, behind the scenes all was not well in the Hawks organization as it later became public that the team's video review coach in 2010 had been the subject of player sexual assault allegations quashed by the team as it strove for that first championship. 

Eleven years later, the NHL fined the team $2 million. Bowman and Quenneville were each banned for nearly three years for their failure to deal with the situation when it arose.

 At the end of the day, winning isn't everything.

-- Follow me on f/k/a Twitter @paperboyarchive

The Calm Before the Crazy: Springtime for the '75 Yankees

NO GEORGE. NO BILLY. No Yankee Stadium. No feuding amongst the owner, the manager and the superstar. No fistfights in elevators or with marshmallow salesmen. All those things were still in the future. 

But they did have Bobby Bonds before almost everyone else did.

It was Spring 1975 and strange times for the storied New York Yankees, then deeply entrenched in how the other half lived.

Ephemeral Yankee Bobby Bonds,
from the team's '75 Yearbook

It had been 10 years since their last American League pennant, 12 since the last championship, and it would be the second in which they'd play their home games in someone else's ballpark.

From 1921 through 1964, the Yanks had appeared in an astonishing 29 World Series, winning 20 titles in an era where there was no divisional play and no playoffs. Ten of those championships came in 1947 or later. Their dominance created a cavalcade of household names: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and Casey Stengel.

The Yankees weren't just baseball's best, but in an age when the sport was America's pastime, they were America's best. 

And then they weren't.

Bronx Bummers

In 1965, the Yanks finished sixth in the 10-team A.L. A year later they finished dead last, 26 games behind the eventual champion Baltimore Orioles. The next three seasons saw them finish ninth, fifth and fifth again.

And while they were being mediocre in their decaying stadium, the newfangled cross-town New York Mets went from atrocious to miraculous, winning the World Series in 1969, just their eighth season of existence, capturing the hearts and minds of New Yorkers and the nation. 

The 1970 Mets drew more than 2.6 million fans to their seven-year-old multipurpose stadium in Queens, while the Yankees attracted only 1.3 million to the House that Ruth Built.  

In '72, The Mets drew 2,134,185. The Yanks? Just 966,328.

In '73, managed by Berra, the Mets made it to the series again, losing to the Oakland A's in seven games, and outdrawing the Yankees again, by nearly 700,000.

Forget about being number one in the nation, the Yanks weren't even number one in their home town.

Enter George and Bill

In between their bottoming out at the box office and the Mets' second flag, the Bronx Bombers were acquired by Cleveland businessman George Steinbrenner -- a man who didn't take losing lightly -- and a collection of limited partners. 

Shea Stadium Under-Tenants

Prior to buying them however, Steinbrenner had allegedly made illegal contributions to President Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign and to those of other politicians. In April, 1974, he was indicted on 14 felony counts by a federal grand jury, and later pleaded guilty to two of them. That August he was fined $15,000, his American Shipbuilding Co. hit for $20,000 more.

That November, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended the Yankees's new principal owner for two years, a punishment later trimmed to 15 months.

Adding to their woes, the Bombers were temporarily homeless. Their stadium, open since 1923, was undergoing a two-year renovation. In 1974 and '75, the Yanks were forced to play their home games in the Mets' ballpark, Shea Stadium, where they'd continue to be outdrawn by its primary tenants.

As the '75 season dawned, the Yankees were led by former Pittsburgh Pirates skipper Bill Virdon. Crowding the owners' box were 15 people not named George Steinbrenner, among them businessman John DeLorean, Broadway producer James Nederlander, former Cleveland Indians star Al Rosen, former Indians general manager Gabe Paul and Mike Burke, who'd ran the Yanks while they were owned by CBS Broadcasting.

Bill, not Billy
from the 1975 yearbook

Photos of the team's limited partners all would appear in the team's yearbook. But the general partner's would not, nor would his name be mentioned. 

The '74 squad had done well, winning 89 games and finishing second in the A.L., just two back of the perennial powerhouse Baltimore Orioles, who copped their fifth division title in six years. 

Virdon was named manager of the year by The Sporting News. Not bad for a consolation prize. Steinbrenner had really wanted Dick Williams, who'd quit the A's after they beat the Mets, because of Oakland owner Charlie Finley's endless interference. 

Finley demanded compensation because Williams was still under contract. So the Yanks settled for Virdon, who'd been fired by the Bucs a year earlier.

Importing Stars

Suddenly not under contract after the '74 season, due to a Finley flub was A's ace Jim "Catfish" Hunter, coming off a 25-12 season where he made 41 starts, hurled 318.1 innings and won the A.L. Cy Young Award.

The Yankees reeled him in for five years and a record $3.75 million.

The Yanks' other big off-season pickup was Bonds, acquired from the San Francisco Giants for home-grown Mantle heir-apparent Bobby Murcer. 

Murcer failed to meet enormous expectations despite finishing in the top 10 of Most Valuable Player voting three years running. He had a sub-par year in '74 and that was that.

From the '75 yearbook

Bonds had a great talent for hitting home runs and stealing bases, but also for striking out. He did that a record 189 times in 1970, a mark that endured until 2004.

He would join the a lineup featuring catcher Thurman Munson, infielders Chris Chambliss, Jim Mason and Graig Nettles, outfielders Lou Piniella, Roy White and Elliott Maddox.

Hunter would lead a pitching staff including Pat Dobson, real life physician George "Doc" Medich, Larry Gura, Rudy May, Tippy Martinez and Sparky Lyle. 

Despite the two marquee additions, the Yanks were a .500 ball club wobbling along at 53 and 51 on August 1. Hunter's record on that date stood a decent 14-10. Bonds was batting .251, with 21 homers, 19 steals and more than a few strikeouts. A change was needed. A catalytic spark.

Exit Bill, Enter Billy

Virdon was sacked in favor of scrappy one-time Yanks infielder Billy Martin, recently pink-slipped by the Texas Rangers.

Though he'd steered Texas to a second place finish in the A.L. West a year earlier, Martin's characteristic combativeness wore out his welcome, just as it had with the Minnesota Twins after a first-place finish in 1969 and in Detroit after an A.L. East title for the Tigers in '72.

Hunter, the Yanks' big catch
from the '75 team yearbook

The Yanks took a while to get going under the new regime, ending August at a flat 67-67. A 16-10 September brought them home at 83-79, a game better than their Shea stablemates. They finished third, 12 1/2 games behind the eventual A.L. champion Boston Red Sox.

Catfish earned his keep, going 23-14 on the year. Leading the league with 328 innings pitched, he finished second in Cy balloting behind Orioles star Jim Palmer. 

Hunter would be back, though in ever decreasing quantities as his workload took its toll. 

So too would Munson, who had driven in 102 runs while batting .318. Other returnees for 1976 included Chambliss, Nettles, White, Piniella, Lyle, a slim rookie left-hander named Ron Guidry, and Martin.

All of them would be part of a team that once again ensconced at Yankee Stadium, and with Steinbrenner back in charge, would win the A.L. flag in 1976 and a drought-ending World Series championship in '77.

Billy and George

After spending just a single season in the Big Apple, hitting .270 with 32 homers, 30 steals and 137 strike outs, Bonds was sent to the California Angels in exchange for CF Mickey Rivers and pitcher Ed Figueroa.

It was the beginning of an odyssey that would see him also play for the Chicago White Sox, the Rangers, the Indians, the St. Louis Cardinals and finally the Chicago Cubs, all by the end of 1981.

Bonds died in 2003, at just age 57, leaving behind a legacy of unfulfilled promise as well as his son Barry, whose career would be greater and more controversial.

The Yankees would win the series again in 1978. Martin -- perpetually feuding with Steinbrenner and resident superstar Reggie Jackson -- would be forced to resign in midseason.

His replacement, Hall of Famer Bob Lemon, would pilot them to the championship, by which time Martin had already been anointed Lemon's successor for 1979.

Both victories were over the Los Angeles Dodgers, who returned the favor in 1981. During that series, the Yankees owner broke his hand in an alleged elevator fight with two L.A. fans. After it was over he apologized to his team's fans for losing. 

Martin did manage the Yankees in '79, then was fired after a fight with a marshmallow salesman. 

He came back again, and stayed, for all of '83 after a three-year tour in Oakland, during which Steinbrenner cycled through Dick Howser, Gene Michael, Lemon again, Michael again, and Clyde King.

Martin would also manage the Yanks for parts of 1985 and '88, but never win another championship. He died a passenger in a one-car accident on Christmas Day in 1989.

-- Follow me on no-longer Twitter @paperboyarchive

SNL Mementos: Messages in a Bottle From the 1970s

"STARRING THE NOT READY FOR Prime Time Players!"

With that weekly declaration announcer Don Pardo in the Fall of 1975 introduced to the world the cast of Saturday Night Live, seven relatively unknown comic talents who would usher an entire generation into the concept of counter-culture sketch comedy. 

In the show's infancy, Pardo's intro was always preceded by a cold open featuring its first breakout star, Chevy Chase, as a stumbling, bumbling President Gerald Ford, falling over his desk, a chair, an easel or anything else in sight before rising up to shout, "Live from New York! It's Saturday Night!"

Sometimes cutting, sometimes cruel, Chase's pratfalls were rooted in President Lyndon B. Johnson's legendary quip that Jerry Ford in college had played too much football without a helmet. That and oft-heard claim that Ford couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Live from New York!

More than a little of SNL's ire was rooted in the 38th president's refusal of a bailout when New York City faced bankruptcy in 1975. "Ford to City: Drop Dead," a Daily News headline famously blared.

Early SNL was very New York, very edgy and maybe just bit angry. It was a rough era.

President Richard Nixon, whom Ford replaced, had resigned in disgrace a year earlier, done in by the Watergate Scandal, his advisors' criminality and his failed cover-up.

Nixon had plucked Ford from the US House of Representatives to replace his original veep, Spiro T. Agnew. He'd been forced to resign after being accused of crimes dating back to his days as Baltimore County Executive and governor of Maryland and pleading no contest to a single charge of tax evasion.

Ford, almost immediately upon becoming president, pardoned Nixon.

So Ford, the unelected president, was at the top of SNL's shit list. He wasn't alone. The Not Ready for Prime Time Players gleefully skewered everyone and everything, though somehow they persuaded Ford's press secretary, Ron Nessen, to take a turn as guest host. But, in those pre-internet, pre-DVD, primordial days of video recording technology, if you didn't see it, you probably missed it.

The not ready for prime time cast

Sorry, no backsies.

Some of those early hi-jinx were captured in a comedy LP issued after that first season, starring Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner. 

It ran the gamut from Ford to amphetamines, from sex to guns to gays, spoofed commercials and the news. It also included a skit called "Word Association" featuring Chase interviewing guest Richard Pryor for a janitorial job.

It contained language that was inappropriate then. It would -- in most decent circles -- be forbidden today.

A steal at $6.95.

About a year later, SNL issued a kind of scrapbook of those early days: Saturday Night Live, Host: Francisco Franco.

Franco had ruled Spain since 1939 when he took power with the help of forces dispatched by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. 

His drawn out death in November of '75 after a protracted series of illnesses became fodder for Chase's Weekend Update, allowing him to breathlessly report weekly that "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"

Viewed 48 years later, the book is a tangible treasure trove of primordial SNL shtick. It's all there including a legendary Star Trek parody featuring Belushi as Captain James T. Kirk and Chase as Mr. Spock, the Killer Bees, snooty theatre critic Leonard Pinth-Garnell and Morris as Idi "VD" Amin. There's even a never-seen sketch riffing on Hamburger Helper called "Placenta Helper."

Perhaps it was pulled for questionable... taste. Here are some other highlights:

• Curtin, Aykroyd and Newman as The Coneheads

• Radner's Barbara Walters-inspired Baba Wawa

• Aykroyd's manic Super Bass-O-Matic '76 pitch man

• The Weekend Update News Team, and John Belushi's Samurai

• Chase's "Landshark!"

• And the inevitable encounter between the "President Ford" and President Ford

The enmity between SNL and the late Mr. Ford, who died in December 2006 -- and by all reports is still dead -- may have faded, but it's not fully abated.

SNL's 50th Anniversary program, aired on Feb. 16, 2025, featured a kind of flashback mashup chronology of how things have changed since the show first aired in Autumn '75, as all that doom and gloom settled upon the city and the nation, set first to the tune of the Irene Cara hit "Fame."

It ended with the cast gathered on stage, waving I 💗 NY flags while singing Les Miserables' "One Day More," beneath a banner that read, "New York to Ford: Who's Dead Now?"

-- Follow me on no longer Twitter @paperboyarchive

The Not Ready for Prime Time '75 Islanders, an Initiation

YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER your first time, even if things didn't turn out the way you imagined they would.

What I recall most about my first time was the helmets. I didn't expect to see so many of them wearing helmets.

Fifty years ago this week, an unfathomable interval in the life of a sports fan, I went to my first National Hockey League game: the Vancouver Canucks vs. the New York Islanders, at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum.

I'm not sure how many hockey games I'd watched before that on New York's WOR, channel 9. SportsChannel wasn't yet a thing. We wouldn't get cable TV for another six years. 

But I was turning 10 and my folks had an idea. For my birthday I got a stick, a street hockey ball, a pair of roller skates and my first Islanders jersey: royal blue with orange and white trim. That and they were taking me and some pals to my very first game. 

We lived about eight miles from the coliseum and the entire guest list could fit in two good-sized 70s-era sedans. I recall writing out the invites myself, promising each kid would get a box lunch... KFC-style fried chicken in a cardboard box.

Dad had been a Rangers fan, so for him this was something of a concession. The Islanders were still very much the new kids in town. The coli had opened only a few years earlier, first housing the peripatetic Nets of the American Basketball Association and their locally-grown star, Julius Erving.

The Islanders were born out of NHL necessity, or maybe panic, in 1972 because the rival World Hockey Association was setting up and Long Island looked ripe for its New York franchise.

The visitors in their road blues.

Nope said Nassau County's government. They wanted the NHL and the NHL wanted Long Island, even if it was Rangers country. The Blue Shirts' objection to that incursion was mollified by money, a $4 million indemnity fee paid just to allow the Islanders on their turf. 

Their first year was bad. Very very bad. The Isles went 12-60-6, setting league records for the most losses and worst overall record. But badness had a reward and his name was Denis Potvin, the first overall pick in the 1973 amateur draft and a future Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman.

He stiffened the defense as head coach Al Arbour started building a systemically-sound hockey team. They won just seven more games in year two, but reduced their goals allowed by 100. The 74-75 season would be a great leap forward.

Bolstered by the acquisitions of bona fide NHL forwards J.P. Parise and Jude Drouin a month earlier they played better hockey, even if their overall talent level was still relatively modest. First season holdovers Billy Harris and Bobby Nystrom were their big guns on offense, joined by a burly rookie out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, future Hall-member Clark Gillies.

On game day, their record stood at 24-20-15. Portentously their previous three games had been a tie and two losses.

We filed into our mid-ice seats in time to watch the players come out for their warmups, the Islanders in their home whites, the Canucks in their road blues with that weird hockey stick in-a-rink crest.

And there were lots of guys wearing helmets. Remember this was 1975. Helmets were hardly commonplace and wouldn't become mandatory for a few years yet, even then only for players who entered the league after June 1, 1979. 

Me and my friends were a bit perplexed. But this was hockey and here we were. Time to drop the puck.

The lineups.

LET'S GO ISLANDERS!!!

Fleet rookie Bobby Bourne put the home team on the board at 12:33 of the first period, his 14th goal of the season, with assists from Garry Howatt and Bert Marshall. Each team killed a two-minute holding penalty and the first period ended 1-0 Islanders.

Enter John Gould.

Enter who?

John Gould, right wing for the Canucks, in the midst of what would be the best season of his 9-year NHL career. Acquired a year earlier from the Buffalo Sabres for 6'3, 220-lbs defenseman Jerry "King Kong" Korab, Gould, 25, was coming off a season where he'd notched a modest 13 goals and 12 assists.

Today would sort of be his coming out party, starting with a tying goal at 4:24 of the second period, with assists from Mike Robitaille and Paulin Bordeleau. 

Each side killed a minor penalty during that middle stanza and the game went to the third knotted at one. 

For 10 minutes the tension mounted as the time ran down. Then Gould scored his second, beating the not yet legendary Billy Smith, breaking the tie with assists from Bob Dailey and Chris Oddleifson. Seven minutes later Gould tallied another, with a helping hand from Oddleifson and Gregg Boddy. It was his first NHL hat trick. 

With slightly more than three minutes left, it was 3-1 Vancouver. Crap!

His 1976 Topps card.

Arbour gambled, pulling Smith for an extra skater. His gambit backfired. Canucks center Gerry Meehan scored an EN and that was that. Unhappy birthday to me.

Gould had goals 24, 25 and 26, en route to a career-high 34, and 65 total points. He racked up 32 goals and 59 points the next year, after which his production faded away. 

The Canucks finished first in their division, going 38-32-10. But Vancouver was vanquished in the quarter-finals by the Montreal Canadiens, four games to one.

The Islanders, on the other hand, were poised to shock the hockey world. Finishing 33-25-22, they made the playoffs and knocked out the Rangers in a decisive first round game three, winning 11 seconds into overtime on a goal by Parise with an assist from Drouin.

They'd move on to face the Pittsburgh Penguins, lose the first three games of that series, then rally to take the next four. The Isles tried the same trick with the soon-to-be Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers, but their luck ran out in game seven of the semi-finals.

But they Islanders had served notice. Not yet the dynastic powerhouse they'd soon become, they'd be back. Armed with Potvin, Bourne, Gillies, Nystrom, Smith and more, led by Arbour, they'd be back. And so would I.

-- Follow me on no-longer Twitter @paperboyarchive