December 9, 2023: The NBA's 1st In-Season Tournament

December 9, 2023: The Final of the NBA's 1st "In-Season Tournament" is held at the T-Mobile Arena, on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada.

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

I've often compared English soccer's FA Cup to college basketball's NCAA Tournament, except that it preceded the NCAA Tournament by 67 years, and it runs all season long. The In-Season Tournament -- hereafter abbreviated as "IST" -- wasn't quite all season long, but it was comparable to "March Madness." November Nuthousery, and December Delirium?

The NBA introduced the Tournament for the 2023–24 season, with all games except the championship final counting towards the regular-season standings. It was structured as follows:

* Six intraconference pools of five.

* Tuesdays and Fridays during November featured group games against each of the other teams in their pool, 2 at home and 2 on the road. These games still counted as regular season games.

* The winners of each pool, and two wild-card teams, advanced to a single-elimination tournament.

* The Semifinals and Final were to be played in Las Vegas. (Well, in the suburbs of Las Vegas.)

* Players for the Tournament Champion will each receive $500,000.

* To compensate, the NBA's regular season scheduling formula was modified, so only 80 games for each team are initially announced during the offseason. The 1st 2 rounds of the in-season tournament would then count as regular-season games 81 and 82. The Championship Game would then be an extra 83rd game that would not count toward the regular season.

* Teams that did not qualify for the in-season tournament knockout round, or were eliminated in the quarterfinals, would then be scheduled additional games against each other that are eliminated in the same conference (if possible) and round to reach 82 games.

The Tournament began on November 3. In the East, the Groups were won by the Indiana Pacers, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Boston Celtics. In the West, it was the Los Angeles Lakers, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Sacramento Kings. The New York Knicks from the East and the Phoenix Suns from the West qualified for the Knockout Stage as the remaining teams with the best records.

Despite accusations that the IST was just a money grab for the NBA, and that the hyper-decorated courts were a bad look, it was an overwhelming success, in both attendance and television viewership. And the quality of play was considered excellent.

Two games of the Quarterfinals were held on December 4: The Pacers beat the Celtics, 122-112 at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis; and the Pelicans beat the Kings, 127-117 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. The other 2 Quarterfinals were held on December 5: The Bucks beat the Knicks, 146-122 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, with Julius Randle scoring 41 in defeat but Giannis Antetokounmpo scoring 35; and the Lakers beating the Suns, 106-103 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

The Semifinals were held on December 7. The Pacers beat the Bucks, 128-119 in Milwaukee, and the Lakers clobbered the Pelicans, 133-89 in Los Angeles. Having covered that game for ESPN, Michael Wilbon said this while co-hosting the network's Pardon the Interruption the following night:

LeBron wants his name on that hardware, the first one! So, guess what? Russell's name can't be on it. Magic's name, Bird's name, Jordan's name, Isiah, none of their names, Hakeem, none of their names are on it. Not Kobe. His name is gonna be on it, 'cause they're gonna beat Indiana, and they're gonna beat 'em convincingly. So his will to win is what matters... The fact that he wants it is what matters.

Wilbon had a point: Pretty much everything else that can be done in the NBA, LeBron had already done: Winning the Championship, leading the league in scoring, winning the Most Valuable Player award in the regular season, winning it in the All-Star Game, winning it in the Finals. Winning this tournament, leading a team to victory in it, is something that nobody had ever done before.

In that Final, the Pacers hung with the Lakers most of the way, getting within 4 points in the 4th quarter. But the Lakers pulled away, and won, 123-109. Anthony Davis was the star of the Final, scoring 41 points. But the MVP award was for the entire Tournament, and, of course, it went to LeBron.

UPDATE: In 2024, the tournament was renamed the Emirates NBA Cup, sponsored by Emirates Airways, the airline owned by the royal family of the United Arab Emirates. In 2024, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Final.

*

December 9, 2023 was a Saturday. This was also the day that "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" hit Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, making Brenda Lee, at age 78, the oldest singer ever to have a Number 1 hit. I have a separate entry for that event.

This was the only NBA game scheduled for the day. Baseball was in the off-season, although this was the day on which the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to the biggest contract in North American sports history to that point, $700 million over 10 years. One college football game was played: Army beat Navy, 17-11 at Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

There were 12 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Washington Capitals, 4-0 at the Capital One Arena in Washington.

* The New York Islanders beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2 at the UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island, New York. Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored the winning goal, 13 seconds into overtime.

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Calgary Flames, 4-2 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Arizona Coyotes, 5-3 at the TD Garden in Boston.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Nashville Predators, 4-0 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2 in a shootout at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Dallas Stars, 6-1 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Colorado Avalanche, 5-2 at the Ball Arena in Denver.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Seattle Kraken, 4-3 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal with 1:48 left in overtime.

* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-3 at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

In American soccer, the MLS Cup Final was played: The Columbus Crew beat Los Angeles F.C., 2-1 at Lower.com Field in Columbus, Ohio. And in English soccer, Arsenal F.C., the North London team I support, lost to Aston Villa, 1-0 at Villa Park in Birmingham, West Midlands.

November 23, 2008: The New York Red Bulls Lose Their 1st MLS Cup Final

The Captains, holding hands with the mascots,

leading the teams out: Frankie Hejduk of Columbus,

and Juan Pablo Ángel of New York

November 23, 2008: For the 1st time in their history, the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer reach the Final of the MLS Cup. It doesn't go so well.

The Red Bulls were a founding member of MLS in 1996, using the name of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars until 2005. In 2006, they were bought by Red Bull, the Austrian soft-drink maker, and rebranded as Red Bull New York. The American media, while sometimes using the initials "RBNY," usually sticks to North American convention, calling them "the New York Red Bulls" or just "the Red Bulls," and the initials "NYRB."

Fans of the team's original rivals, Washington-based D.C. United, call them "The Pink Cows." Many New York fans have resisted the rebranding, and still wear their old MetroStars shirts to games, and refer to the team as "Metro" for short, as they always had.

Under any name, they had not reached the MLS Cup Final until 2008. Their closest call was a trip to the Semifinals, in 2000. But, in 2008, under manager Juan Carlos Osorio, with Captain Juan Pablo Ángel, a fellow Colombian, as leading scorer, they finished 5th in the Eastern Conference, beat the Houston Dynamo in the Quarterfinals, and beat Real Salt Lake in the Semifinals.

The Final was to be held on neutral ground, at the Home Depot Center, in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. This is no longer done: Since 2011, the Final has been held at the home of the team with the better regular-season record.

The opponent was the Columbus Crew, another charter member of MLS, also in their 1st Final, winners of the Supporters' Shield for best overall record in the regular season, and seeking the 1st league championship for any major league team from Columbus, Ohio, ever -- unless you count the Columbus Bullies, who won the Championship of the 3rd American Football League in 1940 and '41. (That league folded due to World War II. The AFL of the 1960s was the 4th league with the name. And the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets have rarely done well.)

The game kicked off at 3:30 PM, Eastern Time. It was scoreless for the 1st half-hour, but Alejandro Moreno put the Crew on the board in the 31st minute, and it was 1-0 Columbus at halftime. John Wolyniec, popular with Metro fans as he was a local boy made good, from Staten Island, tied the game in the 51st.

But just 2 minutes later, the Crew went back ahead, on a goal by Chad Marshall. The Crew's Captain, Frankie Hejduk, put the game away in the 82nd. Final score: Crew 3, Red Bulls 1. Guillermo Barros Schelotto, an Argentine of Italian descent, assisted on all 3 Columbus goals, and was named the game's Most Valuable Player, as he had been for the league in the regular season.

Having previously won it with the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2002, Siegfried "Sigi" Schmid became the first manager to win the MLS Cup with two different teams. Before the founding of MLS, Schmid led UCLA to the College Cup, the NCAA Championship for men's soccer, 3 times.

Born in Germany, and raised in Southern California, Schmid then left the Crew to become the 1st manager of the revived Seattle Sounders, and returned to the Galaxy before heart trouble forced him to retire. He and Bruce Arena, due to both men having "coaching trees" that extend throughout MLS, are known as "the godfathers of American soccer." Sigi died on Christmas Day 2018, at the age of 65. Within weeks, MLS renamed its Coach of the Year award for him.

Schmid remains a beloved figure in the league. The Crew were favored to win the game. And no one has ever alleged that they used unfair tactics to win, or that the referees blatantly favored them. So Red Bull fans don't begrudge the Crew the win, or consider them to be a rival team. (The Red Bulls have enough rivals: In descending order of hate, D.C. United, New York City FC, the Philadelphia Union, the New England Revolution, and the LA Galaxy.) Still, the fact that the MetroStars/Red Bulls have, through 2022, played 27 seasons and reached only 1 MLS Cup Final, and lost it, is galling.

The Red Bulls crashed in 2009, putting together the worst record in the League. It was their last season on the hard artificial turf, and in front of the vast unsold seats, at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands of East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey. In 2010, they moved to a venue over which they had ownership and control: Red Bull Arena, in Harrison, Hudson County, New Jersey, across the Passaic River from Newark, the State's largest city, and closer to their fan base of Irish, Italians, Portuguese, Brazilians, and various Latin American ethnicities in the Newark-Harrison-Kearny corridor.

The Red Bulls, more often than not, have reached the MLS Cup Quarterfinals. But, since 2008, they have only reached the Semifinals in 2014, '15 and '18, and never again reached the Final. Nor have they ever won the American version of the FA Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, losing the Final in 2003 and 2017. They have won the Supporters' Shield, for best overall record in the MLS regular season, in 2013, '15 and '18, so they are not without trophies.

But they are known for their postseason collapses, losing games to teams they were favored to beat. Of the original 10 MLS teams, 9 are still in existence, and 6 of those have won at least 1 MLS Cup. The Red Bulls are not one of them.

To make matters worse, there are teams that have been founded since that lone Finals appearance that have won it, including, to Metro fans' horror, New York City FC, an expansion team that began play at Yankee Stadium in 2015, and winning it in 2021. The Red Bulls have dominated the regular-season series between them, but don't have an MLS Cup. "The Smurfs" (for their light blue uniforms) have one.

With all the resources at their disposal -- they are owned 80 percent by Manchester City, and 20 percent by the Yankees -- they should have reached more than 1 Final by now. But then, with all the resources at their disposal -- Red Bull aren't exactly hurting for cash, and they're also in the New York market -- so should the Red Bulls.

*

November 23, 2008 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. These NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants beat the Arizona Cardinals, 37-29 at University of Phoenix Stadium (now State Farm Stadium) in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, California.

* The New York Jets beat the Tennessee Titans, 34-13 at LP Field (now Nissan Stadium) in Nashville.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 36-7 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers, 45-28 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 30-12 at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium (now EverBank Stadium.)

* The New England Patriots beat the Miami Dolphins, 48-28 at Dolphin Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Houston Texans beat the Cleveland Browns, 16-6 at Cleveland Browns Stadium (now Huntington Bank Field).

* The Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Detroit Lions, 38-20 at Ford Field in Detroit.

* The Chicago Bears beat the St. Louis Rams, 27-3 at the Edward Jones Dome (now The Dome at America's Center) in St. Louis.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 54-31 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Denver Broncos, 31-10 at Invesco Field at Mile High (now Empower Field at Mile High).

* The Indianapolis Colts beat the San Diego Chargers, 23-20 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the San Francisco 49ers, 35-22 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Seattle Seahawks, 20-17 at Qwest Field (now Lumen Field) in Seattle.

* The preceding Thursday, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 27-10 at Paul Brown Stadium (now Paycor Stadium) in Cincinnati.

* And the next night, on ESPN Monday Night Football, the New Orleans Saints beat the Green Bay Packers, 51-29 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Golden State Warriors, 89-81 at the Wachovia Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors, 118-103 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-80 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-101 at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings, 118-108 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. New York wasn't more successful in either of them, but New Jersey was: The New Jersey Devils beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 7-3 at the St. Pete Times Forum (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa. Dainius Zubrus scored 4 goals for the Devils. In the other game, the Nashville Predators beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-2 at the RBC Center (now the Lenovo Center) in Raleigh, North Carolina.

October 30, 1998: The Great Chicago Fire... Soccer Team

October 30, 1998: The Chicago Fire beat the Columbus Crew, 2-1 at Soldier Field in Chicago, to win the U.S. Open Cup. Following their win in the MLS Cup Final 5 days earlier, this gives them the American version of the Premier League and the FA Cup: They have "done The Double."

It is only their 1st season.

Chicago Sparta, a team of Czech-Americans, had won the Open Cup in 1938 and 1940; the Chicago Vikings, a Scandinavian team, had won it in 1946; the Chicago Falcons, a Polish team, had won it in 1953; and the Chicago Sting had won the North American Soccer League Championship in 1981 and 1984 (the League's last season).

Despite Soldier Field being one of the venues for the 1994 World Cup, and the city's history as one of America's great multiethnic centers and one of its great sports cities, Chicago did not get a charter franchise in Major League Soccer. The team, officially named Chicago Fire Football Club (to match the "F.C." names of so many British teams) was founded on October 8, 1997, the Anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Their logo, or "badge," as British clubs would call it, matched that of the city's Fire Department.

They began regular-season play on March 21, 1998, beating the Miami Fusion, 2-0 at Lockhart Stadium in the Miami suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Their 1st home game was also a 2-0 win over a Florida team that would be folded after the 2001 season, the Tampa Bay Mutiny. A crowd of 36,444 attended at Soldier Field.

They lost their next 5 games, but won their next 11. Then they lost their next 5, but won their next 4 of their next 5, before losing their regular-season finale.

The U.S. Open Cup works the same way the FA Cup works in England: It runs concurrent with the League season. As an MLS team, the Fire got a bye into the 3rd Round, and ended up playing another area team, the Chicago Stingers, sort-of named for the former NASL team. They were based in the United Soccer League (USL), then the 2nd tier of U.S. soccer, and hosted the July 6 game in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The Fire didn't have to try too hard to win, and did so, 3-1.

On July 22, the played the San Jose Clash in the Quarterfinals, on neutral ground, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. It ended in a 1-1 draw, but the Fire advanced on penalties, 4-3. The Semifinal would be against the Dallas Burn (the team now known as FC Dallas), but it wouldn't be in Dallas or Chicago. Instead, this one was also at neutral ground, at Zephyr Field in Metairie, Louisiana, home of the minor-league baseball team representing New Orleans. The Fire won, 3-2, and advanced to the Final, which they would host.

In the MLS Cup Playoffs, they needed a shootout to beat the Denver-area team, the Colorado Rapids, at home, 3-2 after a 1-1 draw on October 1; then beat them 1-0 away on October 5. In the Western Conference Finals, they beat the Los Angeles Galaxy, 1-0 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on October 10; but, on October 16, at Soldier Field, again, they could only manage a 1-1 draw, before winning 2-1 in a shootout.

That set up the MLS Cup Final on October 25, on neutral ground, again at the Rose Bowl, against D.C. United, the Washington-based team that had won the 1st 2 league titles, including "The Double" in 1996. Attendance was listed at 51,350, but that left the old bowl nearly half-empty.

Despite D.C. having such talents as John Harkes, Jeff Agoos, Eddie Pope, Roy Lassiter, Marco Etcheverry and Jamie Moreno, it was the Fire who emerged victorious. Polish striker Jerzy Podbrożny scored in the 29th minute. Colombian midfielder Diego Gutiérrez added another just before the half. Another Pole, Chicago's Captain Piotr Nowak, was named Man of the Match, much to the delight of the large Polish rooting section among the Fire's ultra support, known as Section 8.

Zach Thornton kept a clean sheet in goal. Manager Bob Bradley could also count among his starting lineup Jesse Marsch, later to manage the New York Red Bulls to 2 Supporters' Shields.

Five days later, at home at Soldier Field, the Fire faced the Columbus Crew. The Fire tended to wear white, with red and blue trim, similar to the City flag, but, on this occasion, wore white with black trim. By a weird coincidence, the Crew wore black and gold, which, given the "insect" theme, were the usual colors of the Fire's NASL predecessors, the Chicago Sting.

A much smaller crowd of 18,615 saw the Fire awarded a penalty just before halftime, converted by Podbrożny. Stern John -- apparently, the Trinidadian forward's full birth name -- scored for the Crew in the 53rd minute.

The game went to extra time, and, in the 99th minute -- no "Golden Goal" in this tournament -- Fotios "Frank" Klopas, a Greek forward who came on at the start of extra time, scored the goal that gave the Fire The Double.

The Fire have since won the Open Cup again in 2000, 2003 and 2006, losing the Final in 2004 and 2011; and the Supporters' Shield, the MLS regular-season title, in 2003. But they have never again won the MLS Cup, losing the Final in 2000 for a just-missed-Double and 2003 for a runner-up-Double.

*

October 30, 1998 was a Friday. Baseball season had ended 9 days earlier, when the New York Yankees completed a 4-game World Series sweep over the San Diego Padres. The NBA's team owners had locked the players out, and so the season started late. There were 7 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 1-0 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat their arch-rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at the Marine Midland Arena (now the KeyBank Center) in Buffalo.

* The Florida Panthers beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 7-3 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Dallas Stars and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim played to a tie, 3-3 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Washington Capitals and the Calgary Flames played to a tie, 0-0 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 2-2 at General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena) in Vancouver.

The NFL and the NCAA had no football games scheduled. But in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, beat South Brunswick, 36-10 at Mike Elko Stadium in South Brunswick.

October 12, 2018: Columbus Saves the Crew

October 12, 2018: The Columbus Crew are "saved." This was not a given.

One of the founding franchises of Major League Soccer in 1996, the team in Ohio's capital city were the 1st to move into a soccer-specific stadium, in 1999, which became known as Historic Crew Stadium. The Crew won the U.S. Open Cup in 2002, won the Supporters' Shield as regular-season champions in 2004, won the Shield and the MLS Cup in 2008, won the Shield again in 2009, and reached the MLS Cup Final again in 2015.

In 2013, hedge fund manager Anthony Precourt bought the team from Clark Hunt, owner of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs. (and son of Lamar Hunt, the founding owner of both teams). Like so many other sports team owners, decided he didn't like the team's current playing venue. (So why buy the team, stupid?) On October 17, 2017, he announced intentions to relocate the franchise to Austin, Texas if a downtown stadium could not be secured in Columbus.

Following this news, fans and supporters of the club began a campaign and movement known as #SaveTheCrew. Later in the month, it was revealed that Precourt had a clause in his purchase of the club that would allow him to relocate the franchise, but only to Austin.

This made no sense. First of all, by playing in a Summer league, the Crew had no competition. The city's baseball team, the Columbus Clippers, was only Class AAA. There was competition early in the season, from the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets, but the Crew are arguably more popular, and the closest NBA teams were in Cleveland and Indianapolis. And at the end of the season, there was no NFL team to hog the schedule, although Ohio State football sure does.

Second of all, Precourt moving the team to Austin made no sense. It was a metropolitan area that had never previously had any major league sports team, not even in a secondary "rebel league" like the AFL, the ABA, the WHA, the WFL or the USFL. He'd still have to get a stadium built, no matter where he wanted to play, unless he wanted to play before 90,000 empty seats at the University of Texas' Memorial Stadium, or fill a high school stadium.

And the location made no sense for Precourt himself: He grew up in Denver, went to high school in Connecticut, went to college at Pepperdine outside Los Angeles, worked at Merrill Lynch in New York, and started his firm in San Francisco. He had no connection to Austin, or even to Texas.

Responding to fans' demands, on March 5, 2018, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein filed a lawsuit against Precourt, citing a previously untested 1996 State law that prevents sports teams that benefited from public facilities or financial assistance from relocating to another city without a six-month notice and attempting to sell the team to a local ownership group. This was known as the Modell Law, and was passed after Art Modell moved the original version of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore.

The new Browns franchise was established in 1999, and was now owned by Jimmy Haslam, who owned the Pilot Flying J chain of truck stops, and the Browns, and also a share of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. His brother, Bill Haslam, was then the Governor of Tennessee, owns minor-league baseball's Knoxville-based Tennessee Smokies, and, as of 2022, is in the process of buying the NHL's Nashville Predators. So the family is involved in all 5 sports at the professional, if not major-league, level.

On October 12, 2018, Jimmy Haslam revealed that he was in the process of buying the Crew from Precourt. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that if this deal went through, Precourt would get an expansion team in Austin. The State's lawsuit against Precourt was dropped, and the Modell Law remains untested. The fans and the State government, working together, had #SavedTheCrew. It is one of the few examples of fan power saving their team.

Haslam officially became owner of the Crew on January 1, 2019. With the fans getting a second chance, the Crew won the MLS Cup in 2020. In 2021, the Crew moved into Lower.com Field. Their former home, now named Historic Crew Stadium, remains in operation as the team's training facility and a concert venue. (UPDATE: The Crew won the MLS Cup again in 2023.)

Precourt began operating Austin FC almost immediately after the sale to Haslam went through, hiring coaches and other staff starting in July 2019, and signing players starting in July 2020. They began play on April 17, 2021, losing 2-0 away to Los Angeles F.C. Served Precourt right. They played their 1st 8 games on the road, until the stadium that Precourt wanted so badly, Q2 Stadium, opened on June 19. Austin and the San Jose Earthquakes played to a dull 0-0 draw. Also served Precourt right.

*

October 12, 2018 was a Friday. Game 1 of the National League Championship Series was played at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5. But the Dodgers won the series in 7 games, and then lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox.

The NBA season hadn't started yet. The NHL season had, but no games were scheduled for the day.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, lost to Edison, 31-14 at Matthew J. Drwal Stadium in Edison.