http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/
"Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."
Wrong! Forty-THREE. For some reason historians counted Gover Cleveland twice because his second term did not immediately follow his first term. Even wikipedia describes him as "both the 22nd and 24th President of the United States". Even if that made sense, which it does not, what Obama said is clearly incorrect.
A guy as intelligent as Obama must have known this. Why would he state something so obviously incorrect? The Bushes may not have known, which makes their referring to each other by presidential number even more pathetic. Cleveland won the popular vote each of the three times that he ran (1884, 1888, 1892) but was defeated by Benjamin Harrison in that silly old electoral college in 1888. Maybe since Cleveland won three popular elections we should give him three numbers. Since he had two terms why not count Washington as both our first and second presidents?
Sunday the Pittsburgh Steelers narrowly won their sixth super bowl. ESPN and others are claiming that this is a record. If the definition is limited to what we describe as super bowl victories, that is correct. However, the term super bowl was originally applied to the game played on January 15, 1967 between the champions of the NFL and AFL, during one of the multiple times that there were more than one major professional football league. That lasted four years until the AFL merged into the older NFL with three NFL teams changing to the AFC to balance the number of teams in the two conferences that would then comprise the NFL. After that the super bowl was simply another name for the NFL championship game. The three teams that left the NFL for the AFC were the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Until then Pittsburgh had been a dismal failure with its owner Art Rooney viewed as an affable incompetent. Not only did Pittsburgh never win an old NFL title but it never even played in the championship game. Today Pittsburgh is hailed as a model franchise with the Rooney family as some sort of wizards. Pittsburgh was the NFL team of the 1970s, winning four super bowls in six seasons, the fourth coming Jan. 20, 1980 but for the 1979 season. Funny thing but this model of consistency did not win another super bowl until Feb. 5, 2006. TWENTY-SIX years! Pittsburgh played and lost its only appearance in the NFL title game during those TWENTY-SIX years.
What about NFL championships won before the advent of the super bowl or more to the point before modern memory dominated by television?
During the years (1920-1932) when there was no championship game Green Bay Packers had the best record three times, Chicago Bears twice. Even the Chicago Cardinals who migrated to St. Louis then Arizona lead once. Arizona lost to Pittsburgh Sunday and the Cardinals are described as a team that never won a super bowl.
Championship games were played from 1933 through 1965 between the two conference winners with no playoff system. Chicago Cardinals won again in 1947. Green Bay Packers won six more for a total of NINE before winning the first two super bowls against the AFL champion. Green Bay Packers won another super bowl, really an NFL championship, on Jan. 26, 1997. That would make twelve. Twelve is twice as many as six.
Chicago Bears had won eight old NFL titles through 1963 and won the super bowl on Jan. 26, 1986 for nine. Nine is 50% more than six.
New York Giants won four old NFL titles plus three super bowls for seven. Seven is more than six. The Giants have shown more recent consistency than Pittsburgh having won for seasons 1986, 1990 and 2007. That's one in each of the three most recent decades. Pittsburgh missed two decades, 1980s and 1990s. Oh well.
Last night Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers scored 61 points at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. It was hailed as the most points ever in the garden. Well, yeah, in this garden, which is only forty-two years old despite Kobe's gushing about how much it meant to him to do it in the last of the old buildings. But what about the previous gardens, especially the preceding one? Ignoring that building ignores the big scoring seasons of Wilt Chamberlain. Note that Wilt scored his NBA record 100 points against the Knicks but it was in Hershey, PA. Former player and long time announcer Hot Rod Hundley for decades "bragged" about the night he and teammate Elgin Baylor combined for 73 points in the garden: Elgin scored 71, a new NBA record in 1960.
1 comment:
Ken - Thanks for keeping 'em honest on points scored in "the Garden." How badly does Kobe need the honors that they have to stoop to "forgetting" the other gardens? Pitiful.
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