December 25, 1984: Bernard King Decks the Halls

December 25, 1984: For about a year now, the best basketball player in the world has not been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Magic Johnson, or Larry Bird, or Julius Erving, and certainly not newly-minted NBA rookie Michael Jordan. It's been Bernard King.

The Brooklyn native, who had starred at the University of Tennessee with later Knick teammate Ernie Grunfeld -- they called it "The Bernie and Ernie Show" -- had just turned 28, and was dropping stunning performances, game after game. On January 31 and February 1, 1984, he became the 1st NBA (or ABA) player in 17 years to score at least 50 points in back-to-back games.

On this Christmas Day, he came down the chimney at Madison Square Garden and scored 60 points, a record for the "new" Garden that opened in 1968. He scored 21 points in the 1st quarter, 19 in the 2nd, 11 in the 3rd, and 9 in the 4th.

In spite of this performance for the New York Knicks, the cross-river New Jersey Nets beat them, 120-114. Micheal Ray Richardson scored 36 for New Jersey. (Yes, he spells his name "Micheal," not "Michael.")

King was only the 10th player in NBA history to score at least 60 in a game. Joe Fulks was the 1st to do it, with 63 in a 1949 game for the Philadelphia Warriors. George Mikan scored 61 in a 1952 game for the Minneapolis Lakers. Fulks and Mikan were the only players to do it before the 1954 institution of the 24-second shot clock.

Wilt Chamberlain had done it 32 times, topping out at 100. At the time, the record for anyone other than Chamberlain was 73, by David Thompson, on the last day of the 1977-78 season. On the exact same day, George Gervin scored 63, and won the scoring title for the season.

Elgin Baylor had scored 60 or more 4 times, including a Playoff record 61 in 1962. On November 15, 1960, Baylor topped out at 71, against the Knicks at "the old Garden," and that remains a record for any building named Madison Square Garden, college or pro.

The other players to score 60 in an NBA game before King were Jerry West with 63 in 1962, Rick Barry with 63 in 1974, and Pete Maravich with 68 in 1977.

Sadly, 'Nard saw his reign come to an end on March 23, 1985, with a terrible knee injury in Kansas City. He had been averaging 32.9 points per game up until then, and that would lead the league. That game ended up being the 1st of 12 straight games the Knicks, already plagued with injuries, lost to end the season. Then they got the 1st pick in the 1985 NBA Draft, and selected Patrick Ewing.

King came back for 6 games at the end of the 1986-87 season. The Knicks thought that was all they could get out of him, so they traded him to the Washington Bullets. Incredibly, he played 4 seasons for them, including 1988-89, when he played in 81 out of 82 games; and 1989-90, when he played in all 82. He missed 1991-92 in its entirety, again due to the knee, and closed his career with the team with whom he started -- the Nets, playing 32 games in 1992-93.

He was 37 years old. Knick fans can only wonder what they could have done from the Autumn of 1985 to the Spring of 1993 with a healthy Bernard King added to Patrick Ewing, Mark Jackson and Charles Oakley.

His injuries kept his career numbers down. He was belatedly elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was not named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players in 1996, but was named to their 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players in 2021.

King's 60 remained a record for the new Garden until January 24, 2014, when Carmelo Anthony set a building record, and a Knick franchise record, with 62 points in a 125-96 win over the team then known as the Charlotte Bobcats. Baylor's 71 remains a record for any Garden. The college record was set by Oscar Robertson of the University of Cincinnati, scoring 56 points to outscore Seton Hall all by himself on January 9, 1958.

Scoring 60 points in an NBA game has now been done 87 times.

*

December 25, 1984 was a Tuesday. Elsewhere in the NBA that Christmas Day:

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 109-106 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Detroit Pistons, 109-108 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Golden State Warriors, 106-97 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

The day saw no games in the NHL, and no bowl games in college football.

Also on this day, twin Australian singers, actresses and fashion designers Jessica and Lisa Origliasso were born.

November 28, 1925: The "Old" Madison Square Garden Opens

November 28, 1925: Madison Square Garden, the 3rd building with the name, opens between 49th and 50th Streets, between 8th and 9th Avenues, in Midtown Manhattan, at the northern end of the Theater District. The front entrance is on 8th Avenue, topped by a marquee that will soon be world-famous.

Note: This was also the day that The Grand Ole Opry radio show premiered on Nashville radio station WSM. I have a separate entry for that event.

The 1st Garden was built at the northeast corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue, catty-corner from Madison Square Park, in 1879. It had no roof. 

It was replaced in 1890 with a Moorish-style building, designed by the renowned architect Stanford White, that not only had a roof, but a tower with a roof garden where shows were hosted, and an apartment for White atop that.

Atop that was a statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. This statue, sculpted of gilt copper by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was nude, and the hoity-toity critics of the day hated it.

One of the nastiest reviews came from a Philadelphia newspaper. Ironically, when the 2nd Garden was demolished, the Diana statue was taken to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (you know, the one whose steps Rocky Balboa ran up), and is still there. A copy now stands in New York's equivalent, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For both versions, the bowstring has been lost.

Otherwise, they are intact.

White would take showgirls up to his rooftop apartment, for a pre-movies version of a "casting couch." One was Evelyn Nesbit, whom he then made a star. She left him for a man named Harry Thaw. 

On June 25, 1906, jealous over Evelyn still having feelings for "Stanny," Thaw went to the roof garden during a show, and shot White. Evelyn's star faded: Late in life, she said, "Stanny White died. My fate was worse: I lived."

The New York Life insurance company owned the mortgage on the 2nd Garden, and decided to tear it down to build their new headquarters. George "Tex" Rickard, the top boxing promoter of the era, decided to build his own arena, where he wouldn't have to worry about anybody else's whims. He was lucky that New York Life was willing to sell him the rights to the name "Madison Square Garden": It was already a valuable brand name, which is a big reason why the "new Garden" has never sold naming rights.

When his Garden proved successful, he decided to build 6 copies, all over America. It didn't work out that way: He built the Boston Madison Square Garden in 1928 -- soon, it became simply "The Boston Garden" -- but died early the next year. He had gone to Miami to escape the cold New York weather, and to make a deal on a prizefight featuring up-and-coming heavyweight Jack Sharkey (who would hold the title from mid-1932 to mid-1933), but came down with appendicitis. This was before antibiotics, and he was dead at age 59.

The 1st event at The Garden was a six-day bicycle race. It sounds ridiculous today, but this kind of competition was huge in the "Roaring Twenties," especially in Europe, where it's still popular 100 years later. Teams of 2 men take turns riding for 6 days straight, from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM, and the winner is the team that completes the most laps.

The 1st prizefight was held on December 8, for the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World. Paul Berlenbach defended the title by winning a unanimous decision over Jack Delaney. The following July, Delaney took the title from Berlenbach in a rematch at Ebbets Field.

Also in 1926, James. A. Farley, Commissioner of the New York State Athletic Commission, got the Madison Square Garden Corporation to allow racially-mixed fights. It was also Farley's insistence that Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey fight Harry Wills, the black man who was then ranked the Number 1 contender, or else not fight in the State of New York at all, that led to Dempsey caving in to an audience that didn't want to see such a fight. That led to his epic fights with Gene Tunney being held in Philadelphia and Chicago. Farley went on to become Chairman of the Democratic Party of the State of New York, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and the U.S. Postmaster General.

The Garden became known as "The Mecca of Boxing." Heavyweight Joe Louis, light heavyweight Archie Moore, middleweight Sugar Ray Robinson, lightweight Henry Armstrong, and more became internationally-known superstars from their fights at The Garden.

It would also be known as "The Mecca of Basketball," with collegiate doubleheaders starting in 1934. It became a secondary home court for the City's college teams: New York University (NYU), City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), Columbia, Fordham and St. John's.

It also hosted the annual National Invitational Tournament (NIT), starting in 1938. And it hosted what would now be called the NCAA Final Four in 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950, the last of these won by CCNY, which also won the NIT that year, the only time this "double" was ever achieved. 

The point-shaving scandal the next year crippled college basketball in New York City, and not only led to St. John's, not accused in the scandal, being the only major program that has survived on that level, but the NCAA ruling that teams could no longer compete in both their tournament and the NIT. The Final Four did not return to the New York Tri-State Area until 1996, when it was held at the Meadowlands.

That scandal coincided with the 1st trip to the NBA Finals for the New York Knicks, who debuted at The Garden in 1946. The scandal may have saved the Knicks, and thus may also have saved the NBA: Hoop fans needed something to turn to.

Rickard, who didn't always do things on the up-and-up, offered use of The Garden to Big Bill Dwyer, a bootlegger, who founded a hockey team, the New York Americans. The 1st NHL team in New York debuted on December 15, 1925, losing to the Montreal Canadiens 3-1.

The "Amerks" did so well at the box office that Rickard, noting that New York had 3 Major League Baseball teams, decided that it could support 2 hockey teams. So he founded his own team, and when the media found out, they nicknamed the new team "Tex's Rangers." He decided to go with it, and the New York Rangers debuted at The Garden on November 16, 1926, beating the Montreal Maroons 1-0.

With Rickard's promotional skills, the Rangers proved even more successful than the Americans. World War II knocked the Amerks out, as the manpower drain caused by the American and Canadian military drafts forced them to suspend operations after the 1941-42 season, and they never returned.

But the Rangers, the Knicks, college basketball games, prizefights, circuses, musical performances, ice skating shows, rodeos, and an event that predated even the 1st Garden, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, continued at The Garden through the 1930s, the '40s, and the '50s. Madison Square Garden was right up there with the Empire State Building and Grand Central Terminal as the most famous building in the City.

But poor sight lines, and the need for more space and more dates, proved the arena's undoing. In 1960, the Pennsylvania Railroad, desperate for money, sold the air rights above Pennsylvania Station, between 31st and 33rd Streets and 7th and 8th Avenues, to the Madison Square Garden Corporation. The plan was to build a new station on the site, and a new arena on top of that.

On the afternoon of February 11, 1968, the Rangers played their last game at "the Old Garden," a 3-3 tie with the Detroit Red Wings, which was followed by a final skate with several NHL legends, including the Wings' still-active Gordie Howe. That night, "the New Garden" opened with "The Night of the Century," a salute to the USO, the United Service Organizations, which since 1941 has worked with the armed forces to provide supplies and entertainment. The co-hosts were old film partners and golfing buddies Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

The last event at the Old Garden was 2 days later, February 13, the Westminster Dog Show. Demolition soon began. The site became a parking lot while various parties haggled over what to build on the site. Finally, in 1989, the 778-foot office and residential tower Worldwide Plaza opened there. The Subway station at 50th Street includes a mural dedicated to the Old Garden.

Worldwide Plaza

*

November 28, 1925 was a Saturday. Baseball season was over. There was no NBA yet. It was the 1st season for the American Basketball League, but that could hardly be called "major league," and I can't find a list of games played there that day. For all I know, there might not have been any.

Three games were played in the NHL. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0 at the Mount Royal Arena in Montreal. The Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Maroons, 3-2 at the Ottawa Auditorium. And the Boston Bruins beat the Toronto St. Patricks, 3-2 at the Mutual Street Arena. (The St. Patricks became the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927.)

There were also college football games played that day. Most of them did not involve teams currently in major conferences. But one was the Army-Navy Game, played at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. Army won, 10-3.

Montana beat Montana State, 28-7 at Montana State's Dornblaser Field in Missoula. Baylor and Rice tied, 7-7 at Rice Field in Houston. And 2 games were played in the Pacific Coast Conference, the league that would eventually evolve into the Pac-12. Washington beat Oregon, 15-14 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. And Washington State beat USC, 17-12 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

There was 1 NFL game played on that Saturday. The Frankford Yellow Jackets beat the Green Bay Packers, 13-7 at Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philadelphia. The Jackets won the NFL Championship in 1926, but the Great Depression did them in, and they folded in 1931. The Pennsylvania law banning professional sports on Sunday wasn't repealed until 1933, making the founding and profitability of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers possible.

The Cleveland Bulldogs were then an NFL team. The Atlantic City Roses were not: They were a semipro team run by the Melrose Athletic Club of Atlantic City, New Jersey. But the Bulldogs played the Roses on this day, winning 12-0 at Bader Field, a minor-league ballpark next to the airport of the same name, where The Sandcastle, later the home of the minor-league Atlantic City Surf, was built.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat North-East team Sunderland, 2-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

November 16, 1962: "One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Is Published

November 16, 1962: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn begins to be serialized in Novy Mir (New World), a Soviet literary magazine. It was assigned to my high school English class, and it took me most of the book before I realized that "Shukhov," the apparent protagonist, and "Ivan Denisovich," as he was addressed by the gulag guard, were the same person. It was even longer -- seeing an interview in which Gorbachev was addressed by the journalist as "Mikhail Sergeyevich" -- before I understood that Russians informally addressed each other by "(First name) (middle name)" instead of "(First name)."

The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the early 1950s, when Joseph Stalin was still alive and in charge of the Soviet Union. The book's publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history, since never before had an account of Stalinist repressions been openly distributed.

Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), like his character Shukov, had been a dedicated Communist who was falsely accused of being a spy during World War II, and spent 8 years in a gulag. He was then sent into exile for criticizing Stalin in a private letter. This led him to return to his family's Russian Orthodox Church. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

But his 1973 publication of The Gulag Archipelago made him a chelovek ne privetstvuyetsya -- that's Russian for "persona non grata." He lived in America from 1976 to 1994, having had his Russian citizenship restored, and he moved back to his homeland.

*

November 16, 1962 was a Friday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. And no NHL games were scheduled. But there were 3 NBA games played that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the San Francisco Warriors, 127-111 at the old Madison Square Garden. Wilt Chamberlain had a good night for the Warriors, scoring 73 points.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 113-105 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Cincinnati Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 120-111 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

November 10, 1971: The Knicks Find a Pearl

November 10, 1971: The New York Knicks trade 2 of the players who helped them win the 1970 NBA Champions, Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth, to the Baltimore Bullets for Earl Monroe.

At John Bartram High School in Philadelphia (named for a city native who was an early American botanist), Monroe's teammates called him "Thomas Edison," because he seemed to "invent" moves on the court. His performances on the playgrounds of Philadelphia, and New York, 100 miles away, gained him the nicknames "Earl the Pearl" and "Black Jesus." He starred at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, and helped the Bullets reach the 1971 NBA Finals, where they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Monroe and the Knicks' Walt "Clyde" Frazier are widely regarded as the 2 best all-around players in the NBA at this point. Frazier once said, "I dreamed of many women, but Pearl was the only man I dreamed about." In other words, Pearl appeared in Clyde's nightmares. What's more, a joke went around that the Knicks would need 2 balls: Both men's egos were such that they would both need the ball at all times.

It didn't work out that way: Riding this "Rolls-Royce Backcourt," the Knicks reached the NBA Finals in 1972, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers; and again in 1973, beating the Lakers, for Monroe's only NBA Championship. Frazier and Monroe remained together in the Knick backcourt until 1977, and Monroe remained a Knick until 1980, the last remaining player who had been on a Knick title winner.

Monroe, Frazier, and teammates Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Jerry Lucas were named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players in 1996, and to its 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players in 2021. Each of them was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, as was teammate Bill Bradley, and head coach William "Red" Holzman. Cazzie Russell, who played on the Knicks' 1970 title, but not the 1973 team, was also elected to the Hall.

The Bullets, now known as the Washington Wizards, retired Monroe's Number 10. Since Frazier already had Number 10 when Monroe got there, he switched to Number 15, previously worn on the Knicks by Hall-of-Famer Dick McGuire. The Knicks retired Number 15 for both men.

*

November 10, 1971 was a Wednesday. Christopher Lee Rios, who became the rapper Big Pun, was born.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The Knicks lost to the Cincinnati Royals, 99-85 at the Cincinnati Gardens. The trade hadn't yet taken effect, and Stallworth, going to the Bullets, played for the Knicks.

* The Bullets lost to the Chicago Bulls, 125-106 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Monroe did not play for either the Bullets or the Knicks on the night. Future Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan played for the Bulls in this game, and scored 35 points.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 143-103 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 116-110 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta. The building is now named the Hank McCamish Pavilion.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 139-122 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 142-103 at the Astrodome in Houston.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Utah Stars, 127-110 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bill Melchionni scored 34 in defeat for the Nets.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Miami Floridians, 119-116 at the Bayfront Arena in St. Petersburg, Florida. Charlie Scott scored 35 points for the Squires, and rookie Julius Erving, already known as "Dr. J," scored 20. (The Tampa Bay region has never had a permanent NBA, ABA or WNBA team. Due to COVID restrictions, the Toronto Raptors played their 2020-21 "home games" at Amalie Arena in Tampa.)

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 115-89 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 154-125 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis. George Thompson led all scorers on the night, scoring 36 in defeat for the Condors, formerly the Pittsburgh Pipers. That team folded in 1972, and, in spite of the 1979 film The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, the Steel City hasn't had an NBA, ABA or WNBA team since.

There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 7-1. Rod Gilbert and Vic Hadfield each scored 2 goals.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues, the California Golden Seals and the Buffalo Sabres were not scheduled.

November 9, 1965: The Night the Lights Went Out

November 9, 1965: It was "The Night the Lights Went Out." At 5:27 PM, just as the Tuesday night rush hour was getting rough, a blackout hit the Northeastern United States, hitting New York City especially hard. Over 30 million people were without power.

Given the time of year, it was already dark out. Traffic lights went out. People got stuck in elevators. People got stuck in the City's Subway system.

The Consolidated Edison Company, a.k.a. Con Ed, managed to spare Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn from the blackout when they disconnected their Arthur Kill Generation Station, on Staten Island, from the grid. Some parts of New Jersey, powered by Public Service Electric & Gas, a.k.a. PSE&G, were not affected, allowing the City's newspapers to use the printing presses of the Newark Evening News to print their next day's editions, such as they were: Even The New York Times only printed 10 pages.

The New York Police Department later said that the City had the fewest reported crimes of any night since records began to be kept, breaking the record of February 9, 1964, the night The Beatles made their 1st appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. This would end up in sharp contrast to the next major blackout, in 1977, when rioting developed, and it was the most arrests the NYPD ever made in 1 night.

Power was restored before the morning rush hour. Ever since, while there were also blackouts in New York in 1961, 1963, 1967, 1977 (as mentioned), and in 2003, people old enough to remember it mean November 9, 1965 when they asked, "Where were you when the lights went out?" (UPDATE: There was a brief blackout in 2023 as well.)

And there is no truth to the (pardon my choice of words) urban legend: There were no more babies born in New York in early August 1966, 9 months later, than there were in early August 1965 or in early August 1967.

*

As I said, November 9, 1965 was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over, as the Los Angeles Dodgers had won the World Series 26 days earlier, beating the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. Both the NFL and the AFL were in midweek.

It was early in the NBA and NHL seasons. However, because of the blackout, for only the 2nd time in their history, the New York Knicks had to postpone a game. The 1st was on November 22, 1963, the night of the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

The New York Rangers were not affected by the blackout, as they were not scheduled. None of the NHL's 6 teams were. But there were 3 games played in the NBA that night -- 2 of them, surprisingly, in the Northeast:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Baltimore Bullets, 130-116, at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 118-110 at the Philadelphia Civic Center's Convention Hall. Wilt Chamberlain scored 39 points, and Hal Greer scored 32. In a losing effort, Jerry West scored 32.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 107-102 at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, California. Nate Thurmond scored 18 points, and grabbed 42 rebounds.

November 1, 1946: The 1st NBA Game

The 1946-47 New York Knicks

November 1, 1946: The the 1st NBA game is played, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. (Until 1949, the National Basketball Association was known as the Basketball Association of America, or the BAA.) A crowd of 7,090 -- about half of capacity -- attends, and the New York Knickerbockers beat the Toronto Huskies, 68-66.

For the Knicks, coached by Neil Cohalan, 41, and formerly head coach at Manhattan College:

* Number 6, guard Ossie Schectman, 27, from Kew Gardens, Queens, and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where he was coached by Hall-of-Famer Clair Bee, scored the 1st NBA basket, and ended up with 11 points on the night.

* Number 9, guard Leo Gottlieb, about to turn 26, from The Bronx, never went to college, led all scorers with 14.

* Number 7, forward Stan Stutz, 26, from Worcester, Massachusetts, and the University of Rhode Island, scored 9.

* Number 5, forward Ralph Kaplowitz, 27, from The Bronx, where he was a teammate of Gottlieb at DeWitt Clinton High School, and also played for Hall-of-Famer Howard Cann at New York University, scored 7.

* Number 11, center Jake Weber, 28, from Rushville, Indiana, and Purdue University, scored 6. At 6-foot-6, he was the tallest player on the team.

* Number 12, Hank Rosenstein, 26, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and played for Hall-of-Famer Nat Holman at City College of New York, scored 5.

* Number 15, guard Dick Murphy, 25, from College Point, Queens, and played for Cohalan at Manhattan College, scored 5.

* Number 4, forward Nat Militzok, 23, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Cornell University, scored 5.

* Number 14, forward Tommy Byrnes (not to be confused with Yankee pitcher Tommy Byrne), 23, from The Bronx, another Clinton High graduate but too young to have played with Gottlieb and Kaplowitz, scored 4.

* Number 8, Sidney "Sonny" Hertzberg, 24, from Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a CCNY teammate of Rosenstein, scored 2.

* And guard Bob Mullens, on his 24th birthday, from Staten Island, and Fordham University played but, scored none. In a weird twist of fate, before the season was out, Mullens would be traded to the Huskies. So would Militzok.

So that's 11 players, only 2 of them from outside New York City, 3 of them Irish and the rest Jewish. This would not have been odd for a college team from New York at that time, so it's not odd for the 1st real major league team from The City.

For the Huskies: Ed Sadowski scored 18, George Nostrand 16, Charlie Hoefer 8, Mike McCarron (from Elmhurst, Queens, and Seton Hall) 6, Ray Wertis 6, Dick Fitzgerald 6, his brother Bob Fitzgerald (both from Elmhurst, and Fordham) 4, Harry Miller (from West Orange, New Jersey, and Seton Hall) 1, Frank Fucarino (from Astoria, Queens, and an LIU player) 1, Roy Hurley none, and Hank Biasatti none. (I wonder if anyone attended the game thinking they were actually getting a recent college star, Stanford's Hank Luisetti.)

Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, site of the 1st NBA game

This film purports to be from that first game. Is it? It could be: The teams are the Knicks and the Huskies, and the Huskies are wearing white as home teams tend to do in basketball. However, the Knicks did make 2 more visits that season, winning both, on December 20, 1946 and March 28, 1947, so this film could be from any of those 3 games.

The Knicks are 1 of only 2 charter NBA teams still playing in their current city. The other is the Boston Celtics. These 2 teams have just started their 76th season. The Celtics started their 1st on November 2, 1946, losing to the Providence Steamrollers, 59-53 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

Neither, however, is pro basketball's oldest franchise. The Philadelphia SPHAs were founded in 1917, as the team of the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. They, too, were a charter BAA/NBA team, as the Philadelphia Warriors. They are still playing today, as the Golden State Warriors, having moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962. On November 7, the Warriors made their debut, beating the Pittsburgh Ironmen, 81-75 at the Philadelphia Arena.

The Knicks went 33-27, good enough to make the Playoffs. The Huskies went 22-38, going through 4 head coaches, the last being former New York Yankees 3rd baseman Red Rolfe, who lasted the longest, going 17-27. They missed the Playoffs, and went out of business after just 1 season. The NBA did not return to Toronto until 1995 with the Raptors.

Maple Leaf Gardens, built for the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs in 1931, closed in 1999, the last of the NHL's "Original Six" arenas in use. It has been converted into retail space, like its great rival, the Montreal Forum.

Also missing the Playoffs: The Celtics, who took a few years to get going; the Providence Steamrollers, named for a 1920s football team, and went out of business after the 1948-49 season; the Detroit Falcons, who folded after that 1st season; and the Pittsburgh Ironmen, whose 15-45 record was the worst in the league, and also folded after the 1st season.

The NBA has never returned to Pittsburgh, although the Pipers won the 1st ABA Championship, in 1967-68. The Ironmen's most notable attribute is that their players included Petar Maravich, known as "Press" because he had delivered The Pittsburgh Press newspaper as a boy. If his name sounds familiar, it's because, 20 years later, at Louisiana State, he was the head coach, and his players included his son, Peter Press Maravich, a.k.a. Pistol Pete.

In the 1st Round of the Playoffs, the Knicks defeated the Cleveland Rebels, who folded after that 1st season. The Warriors eliminated the St. Louis Bombers, who lasted through the 1949-50 season.

In the Semifinals, the Warriors eliminated the Knicks. And the Chicago Stags beat the Washington Capitols, whose 49-11 record had been the best in the league. They lasted through the 1950-51 season.

In the Finals, the Warriors beat the Stags, 4 games to 1, clinching the title on April 22, 1947, at the Philadelphia Arena: Warriors 83, Stags 80. Joe Fulks of the Warriors was the league's 1st scoring champion.

As I mentioned, Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the 1st NBA basket. He died on July 30, 2013, at the age of 94. He was the last surviving player from the original Knicks, and, as far as I can tell, the last surviving player from the NBA's 1st season.

*

November 1, 1946 was a Friday. Ric Grech, who played bass guitar with the British bands Traffic and Blind Faith, was born on this day.

Baseball season was over. No football games were played. And no other pro basketball games were played.

The 2 Canadian teams in the National Hockey League, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens, played each other to a 1-1 tie at the Montreal Forum. Gus Bodnar put the Leafs ahead with a power play goal, with 5:22 left in the 1st period. But with 9:55 left in regulation, George Allen (no relation to the Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the same name) tied the game for the Habs. 

October 24, 1959: Wilt Chamberlain's 1st Game

October 24, 1959: The greatest player in the history of basketball makes his NBA debut. If you're paying attention to the date, you will notice that Michael Jordan hasn't been born yet, and neither have LeBron James' parents.

The place is the old Madison Square Garden. The home team is the New York Knicks. The visiting team is the Philadelphia Warriors. Unfortunately for the Knicks, it is the Warriors who have the player in question: West Philadelphia native Wilton Norman Chamberlain.

Wilt, at this point a 23-year-old, 7-foot-1-inch center, scores 43 points and grabs 28 rebounds. Kenny Sears scores 35 for the Knicks, but it's nowhere near enough, as the Warriors beat the Knicks, 118-109. Basketball will never be the same again.

A little more than 2 years later, on March 2, 1962, these teams will play at the Hershey Arena outside Harrisburg, and Wilt will score 100 points in a 169-147 Warriors victory.

*

October 24, 1959 was a Saturday. There were 3 other games in the NBA that day:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 121-109 at the Onondaga County War Memorial Arena in Syracuse.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Detroit Pistons, 108-103 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers begin their last season before moving to Los Angeles with a 94-87 win over the St. Louis Hawks, at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

There were 2 NHL games that day. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a 1-1 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

There were also college football games, including the following:

* Number 1 Louisiana State beat Florida, 9-0 at Florida Field in Gainesville.

* Number 2 Northwestern beat unranked Notre Dame, 30-24 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Yes, you read that right: Northwestern was ranked Number 2, Notre Dame wasn't ranked at all, and the Wildcats beat the Fighting Irish in South Bend. It really happened.

* Number 3 Texas beat Rice, 28-6 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas.

* Number 4 Mississippi beat Number 10 Arkansas, 28-0 on neutral ground at Crump Stadium in Memphis.

* Number 5 USC beat Stanford, 30-28 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 6 Syracuse beat West Virginia, 44-0 at Archbold Stadium in Syracuse, New York.

* The day before, Number 7 Auburn beat the University of Miami, 21-6 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* Number 8 Penn State beat Number 13 Illinois, 20-9 on neutral ground at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Only 15,045 fans came out. If it had been played on either campus, it would have been a sellout.

* Number 9 Georgia Tech beat Tulane, 21-13 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

* The biggest upset of the week came when Number 11 Oregon lost to the University of Washington, 13-12 at Multnomah Stadium (now Providence Park) in Portland, Oregon.

* Number 12 Wisconsin beat Number 20 Ohio State, 12-3 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Number 14 Purdue beat Number 15 Iowa, 14-7 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Two days earlier, Number 17 Clemson beat arch-rival South Carolina, 27-0 at Carolina Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. It would be renamed Williams-Brice Stadium in 1972.

* In a rare post-World War II example of an Ivy League team making the Top 20, Number 19 Yale beat Colgate, 21-0 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Army beat Colorado State, 25-6 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* Navy and the University of Pennsylvania played to a 22-22 tie at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* In a cross-State matchup, Brown University beat Rhode Island, 6-0 at Brown Stadium in Providence. (URI is located across the State, in Kingston.)

* Michigan beat Minnesota, 14-6 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis, to win the Little Brown Jug.

* Rutgers beat Lehigh, 23-0 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.

* And Princeton beat Cornell, 20-0 at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, New York.

And in English soccer, Arsenal played Leicester City to a 2-2 draw, at Filbert Street in Leicester.

July 8, 2010: "The Decision" Airs On ESPN

July 8, 2010: The Decision airs on ESPN. LeBron James had played out his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Where would he go? The New York Knicks? The Chicago Bulls? The Los Angeles Lakers? Surely, it would be one of the big-market teams.

(The idea that he would go to one of the "little brother franchises," the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets or the Los Angeles Clippers, was ludicrous. Thanks to Kyrie Irving with the former and Kawhi Leonard with the latter, it is not ludicrous anymore.)

But there was also talk that he would join Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat to form a "superteam." And, yes, Miami is a big market, if not as big as New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

ESPN reporter Jim Gray pitched the idea of a show covering James' choice to the network. Interviewing James himself, it was essentially the pregame show for the next phase of James' career. He said, "In this Fall, I'm going to take my talents to South Beach, and join the Miami Heat."

Heat fans -- the ones who supported the team before this, and soon found themselves outnumbered by people who were merely LeBron fans -- were ecstatic. Everybody else felt betrayed:

* Knick fans couldn't figure out why he wouldn't want to play in New York, "The Greatest City in the World," in Madison Square Garden, "The World's Most Famous Arena." (James Dolan was running the Knicks, that's why.)

* Bulls fans couldn't figure out why he wouldn't want to play on the team of Michael Jordan. (Jordan's shadow, maybe? After all, everything LeBron had done, and has gone on to do, has been measured against Jordan's career and life. Or maybe the Ohio native was just tired of the cold Midwestern weather.)

* Laker fans couldn't figure out why he didn't want to play for, if not the historically most successful (2nd only to the Boston Celtics), then certainly the most glamorous franchise in the NBA.

Did it work? Sort of: LeBron was with the Heat for 4 seasons, and reached the NBA Finals all 4 times -- but only won 2 of them. Then he finished that contract, and went back to the Cavs, and led them to the Finals 4 straight times, all against the Golden State Warriors, but only won 1 of them -- but it was still the title they had waited the team's entire existence for. Then he finished that contract, and went to the Lakers, leading them to a title in 2020, but that was in a COVID-interrupted season and an entire Playoffs in a "bubble," so Laker haters tend to put an asterisk on it. Otherwise, with the Lakers, he has fallen short.

The Decision showed that, unlike every other league, the NBA was now player-driven, not coach-driven, owner-driven, or even TV-driven. LeBron was driving TV. He had become the most influential figure in the league, more so than Commissioner David Stern and his eventual replacement, Adam Silver. The NBA was now The LeBron Show, with hundreds of supporting characters.

*

July 8, 2010 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 3-1 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle. The Yankees trailed 1-0 going into the 8th inning, but tied it, and won it in the 9th on a 2-run single by Alex Rodriguez against the team with whom he came up. This made a winning pitcher out of Andy Pettitte.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Brian Schneider won it with a home run in the bottom of the 12th.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Washington Nationals, 9-1 at Nationals Park in Washington.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-1 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4 at Rangers Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Houston Astros beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston. Roy Oswalt allowed a single to Neil Walker in the 1st inning, and no more hits the rest of the way, although he walked 2 batters and hit another. Lance Berkman provided all the scoring with 2 solo home runs for the Astros.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 1-0 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Guaranteed Rate Field) in Chicago. The only run of the game came on a sacrifice fly by Paul Konerko in the bottom of the 1st inning. John Danks pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-3 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Florida Marlins, 10-4 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the New York Mets, the Atlanta Braves, the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics were not scheduled to play.

The 2010 World Cup was also nearing its conclusion in South Africa. The Semifinals had been held: On July 6 in Cape Town, the Netherlands beat Uruguay, 3-2; and on July 7 in Durban, Spain beat Germany, 1-0. In the Final on July 11, Spain beat the Netherlands, 1-0 in extra time in Johannesburg.

June 25, 1999: San Antonio's 1st Title

June 25, 1999: The San Antonio Spurs win their 1st league championship, after 3 years in the ABA and 23 years in the NBA. They defeat the New York Knicks, 78-77 at Madison Square Garden, to win Game 5 and the NBA Championship.

For the only major sports team in a city now with over 1.14 million people, this is a huge moment. It begins a stretch where, in 16 seasons, coach Gregg Popovich and forward Tim Duncan will lead them into 6 NBA Finals, winning 5 of them, the 1st 2 with center David Robinson.

For the Knicks, it is their 8th trip to the NBA Finals, and it remains their last. They managed to get there despite an injury to their star player, center Patrick Ewing. Forward Larry Johnson put the team on his back, and was 3 wins away from becoming a New York sports legend.

Coach Jeff Van Gundy -- short, bald, scrawny, looking nothing like a basketball player -- had built a team that played scrappy ball. Bill Gallo, sports cartoonist for the New York Daily News, drew him as a boxer, calling him "Rocky Van Gutsy."

But "Coach Pop" had as much guts, more brains, and more talent, and there was little the Knicks could do. In 1997, the Knicks had been bought by Cablevision, and James Dolan has run them ever since. And competitiveness has been a rarity.

Founded in 1967, in the American Basketball Association, as the Dallas Chaparrals, the team moved in 1973, becoming the San Antonio Spurs. They were 1 of the 4 ABA teams invited to join the NBA in 1976. By 1978, they had won a Division title, followed by trips to the Western Conference Finals in 1979, '82 and '83.

After a few down years, the arrival of coach Larry Brown in 1988 and Robinson in 1989 made them a Playoff team again. They got back to the Conference Finals in 1995, Popovich's 1st year as general manager. In 1996, after a bad start, he named himself head coach, and the arrival of Duncan the following season made them a title team in just 2 more seasons.

The Spurs would win the title again in 2003, Robinson's last year. Sports Illustrated named Robinson and Duncan their Sportsmen of the Year. The Spurs won again in 2005, 2007 and 2014, losing in the Finals in 2013, as Duncan straddled the NBA's Shaquille O'Neal era and the first half of the LeBron James era, as it was LeBron's Heat that beat the Spurs in the 2013 Finals, before the Spurs turned the tables in 2014.

By 2022, the population of San Antonio was believed to be 1.47 million people, and its metropolitan area 2.6 million. Yet the Spurs remain its only major league team: They lost the WNBA's Silver Stars after the 2017 season; the Missions are in baseball's Class AA Texas League; despite several minor professional football teams, including the Gunslingers of the 1980s USFL and the Brahmas of the current UFL, they've only hosted 3 NFL regular-season games, all as an emergency home for the 2005 New Orleans Saints after Hurricane Katrina; San Antonio F.C. are in the USL Championship, the 2nd tier of American soccer; and they have no pro hockey team at all.

UPDATE: The Spurs do not yet have a team Hall of Fame, but they have retired uniform numbers. From the 1970s: 13, for guard James Silas; and 44, for guard George Gervin. From the 1980s: 00, for guard Johnny Moore.

From their 1999 NBA Championship: 6, for guard Avery Johnson; 21, for forward Tim Duncan; 32, for forward Sean Elliott; 50, for center David Robinson; and a banner with his total coaching wins, 1,390, for head coach Gregg Popovich. From their 2003 Championship: Duncan, Robinson, Popovich; 9, for guard Tony Parker; 12, for forward Bruce Bowen; and 20, for guard Manu Ginóbili.

From their 2005 and 2007 Championships: Duncan, Popovich, Parker, Bowen and Ginóbili. From their 2014 Championships: Duncan, Popovich, Parker and Ginóbili. The Spurs reached the NBA Finals again in 2026, but lost to the Knicks.

Gervin, Robinson and Parker have been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. When the NBA announced its 50th Anniversary Team in 1996, and its 75th Anniversary Team in 2021, Robinson and Duncan were named to it. So was earlier Spurs star Gervin.

*

June 25, 1999 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-8 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The Yankees scored a tying run in the 8th and the winning run in the 9th, a home run by Shane Spencer, making a winning pitcher of Dan Naulty in relief of Hideki Irabu. Tino Martinez went 4-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Derek Jeter went 1-for-4. So did Cal Ripken.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 10-2 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta. Rick Reed was the winning pitcher. John Olerud went 4-for-6 with 2 RBIs. Benny Agbayani went 2-for-3 with a walk. Both hit home runs. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-5 with a walk.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Florida Marlins, 4-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-1 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 11-4 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Brian Moehler pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Sammy Sosa went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-2 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 10-7 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 1-0 at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix. José Jiménez (not the Bill Dana character of the same name) pitched a no-hitter, and still needed Thomas Howell to single Darren Bragg home in the top of the 9th to beat Randy Johnson. Mark McGwire went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Colorado Rockies, 10-1 at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium). Tony Gwynn did not play.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-3 at Edison International Field of Anaheim (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at Candlestick Park (then named 3Com Park at Candlestick Point) in San Francisco. Barry Bonds went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* And the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 11-4 at the Kingdome in Seattle. This was the last series the Mariners played there, before moving into Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park). Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-4. Ken Griffey Jr. did not play.

June 22, 1994: The Rockets Make Houston Clutch City

June 22, 1994: Game 7 of the NBA Finals, at The Summit in Houston. The New York Knicks can still make it a title double for New York City, and for Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately for them, John Starks turned The Summit into a brick house.

The Houston Oilers had won the AFL Championship in 1960 and 1961, but had lost the Championship Game in 1962 and 1967, the AFC Championship Game in 1978 and 1979, and the biggest blown lead in NFL Playoff history in 1993.

The Houston Aeros had won the World Hockey Association title in 1974 and 1975, but lost the Final in 1976, and folded in 1978, and the NHL has never put a team in Houston. The Housotn Astros had won the National League Western Division title in 1980 and 1986, but had lost the NL Championship Series both times. And the Houston Rockets had reached the NBA Finals in 1981 and 1986, but lost to the Boston Celtics both times.

Not that Texas' other major city, Dallas, had much sports success. But the Dallas Cowboys had won 2 Super Bowls in the 1970s, and, at this time, had just won the last 2. In contrast, Houston had become known as "Choke City."

But with head coach Rudy Tomjanovich, a former star player for the Rockets, and center Hakeem Olajuwon leading the way, the Rockets reached the Finals again in 1994. They had to get past the Utah Jazz, with their 2 big stars, forward Karl Malone and guard John Stockton. Malone was nicknamed "The Mailman," because he always seemed to "deliver." But Game 7 of their series was at The Summit on a Sunday, and a fan held up a sign saying, "There's no mail on Sunday!" (Unless you're in the British newspaper business.)

With Michael Jordan taking time off, the Knicks were finally able to get past the Chicago Bulls, after losing to them in the Playoffs in 1992 and 1993. It took them 7 games, but they did it. Then they beat Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Knicks took a 3-games-to-2 lead in the Finals, but Games 6 and 7 would be at The Summit. And the Rockets came through in Game 6, winning 86-84. The entire series was close: The Rockets won Game 1 by 7 points, Game 3 by 4, and Game 6 by 2; while the Knicks won Game 2 by 8, Game 4 by 9, and Game 5 by 7.

Game 7. The biggest game in Rockets history, and the biggest game for the Knicks in 21 years. The Rockets led 22-21 after the 1st quarter, 45-43 at the half, and 63-60 after 3 quarters. They never quite pulled away, but won, 90-84, for their 1st NBA Championship.

Olajuwon scored 25 points, and Vernon Maxwell added 21. Derek Harper led the Knicks with 23. The stat that really stands out, though, belonged to John Starks: He made 2 out of 18 shots from the field, including taking 11 3-point shots and missing all of them. He was 4-for-4 on free throws, for a total of 8 points. So maybe it wasn't so much that the Rockets were finally clutch, as Starks went the other way, putting up the most infamous "bricklayer" performance in basketball history.

Houston had so often known as "Choke City" for its sports performances. The Rockets printed up signs reading "CLUTCH CITY," for the fans to hold up. They lived up to it.

The following year, the Rockets acquired Portland Trail Blazers star Clyde "the Glide" Drexler, Olajuwon's teammate at the University of Houston. They got back to the Finals, and swept the Orlando Magic in 4 straight. During Game 4, a fan held up a sign saying, "Hey, Clyde: What's your ring size?" He had made 2 NBA Finals with the Blazers, losing both of them. Now, Clyde the Glide and Hakeem the Dream had won an NBA Championship together.

It's easy to forget now, just how good the 1994 and '95 Houston Rockets were. Don't assume that, just because Michael Jordan wasn't there that year, the Chicago Bulls would have beaten them.

Olajuwon, Drexler and Ewing were named to the NBA's 50th and 75th Anniversary Teams.

UPDATE: The Rockets do not have a team Hall of Fame, but they do retire numbers. From their 1981 NBA Western Conference title, they have retired 23, for guard Calvin Murphy; 24, for center Moses Malone; 44, for forward Elvin Hayes; and 45, for forward Rudy Tomjanovich. From their 1986 Western Conference title: 34, for center Hakeem Olajuwon.

From their 1994 and 1995 NBA Champions: Tomjanovich, by then the head coach; Olajuwon; and 22, for guard Clyde Drexler. From since then, 11, for 2000s center Yao Ming. They have also raised a banner for longtime general manager Carroll Dawson.

Hayes, Tomjanovich, Olajuwon, Drexler and Dawson have been elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. 

*

June 22, 1994 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The hockey season ended 8 days earlier, when, to my dismay, the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup. And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins, 9-2 at Yankee Stadium. Scott Kamieniecki was the winning pitcher. Paul O'Neill hit a home run. Don Mattingly went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-2 at Atlanta-Fulton Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-2 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Cal Ripken Jr. went 1-for-3.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Barry Bonds and Matt Williams hit home runs for the Giants. As far as I know, neither was using steroids yet.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers, 4-0 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago. Wilson Álvarez pitched 8 innings of 2-hit shutout ball, and Paul Assenmacher struck out the side in the 9th.

* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Houston Astros, 14-5 at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-6 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-2 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 12-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* And the Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 10-1 at the Oakland Coliseum.

June 17, 1994: Split Screen

June 17, 1994: NBC has a problem. Through its sports department, it is contractually obligated to show one thing. But its news department has a big story to cover, and it might be more dramatic than the sporting event in question.

This is no "Heidi Bowl" for the Peacock Network. And it certainly isn't for kids.

*

In 1983, James Cameron was casting The Terminator. He wanted O.J. Simpson, an actor and one of the greatest running backs in football history, to play the seemingly unstoppable cyborg from the future. But focus groups told him that there was no way that O.J. would be taken seriously as a killing machine.

In 1994, Simpson had finished filming Frogmen, an action film about U.S. Navy divers, and had been interviewed on the set for Entertainment Tonight. He seemed enthusiastic about this film.

He was 46 years old, going on 47. He was dating budding actress Paula Barbieri. He was a member of the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. He had a fabulous house in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He walked with kings, presidents and his fellow stars. He was rich, famous and popular beyond most people's wildest dreams.

Like Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby, he had transcended his status as a black man in a white-dominated society, to become one of the biggest celebrities in America, and he remained one even though he hadn't played a down of football in nearly 15 years.

But, as happened to Jackson the year before, and has happened to Cosby since -- and as had recently happened to white celebrities Pete Rose (also an ex-athlete) and Woody Allen (also involved in movies), his image was about to change in ways that we could not have possibly imagined.

Oh yeah: Frogmen has never been released. It remains in someone's vault, never seen by the general public. And O.J. has never been cast in another feature film.

*

When we went to bed on the night of June 12, 1994, we thought of O.J. Simpson as one of the greatest football players ever, a good sideline reporter on NBC's NFL telecasts, and a decent actor. If he had been the one who died that night, by whatever means, it would have been sad -- as far as the public knew at the time.

And, as it turned out, a lot of people would have been better off. Himself included.

We knew he had been married and divorced twice. What most of us did not know was that he had beaten both of his wives. The 2nd wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, had repeatedly called the police about it. One of the times, one of the responding lawmen was a young Detective named Mark Furhman.
Nicole told lots of people that she believed O.J. would kill her one day. On the night of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson had dinner with her mother, Juditha Brown, at Mezzaluna Trattoria, an Italian restaurant in the Brentwood section of the Westside (it's always spelled as 1 word) of Los Angeles, where a friend of hers, Ronald Goldman, was a waiter.
Nicole drove her mother home. When she got home to 875 South Bundy Drive, about half a mile southwest of the restaurant, her mother called, saying that she left her sunglasses at the restaurant. Nicole called the restaurant. The glasses were found, and Ron agreed to deliver them.
Both Nicole and Ron were murdered at Nicole's house that night, brutally stabbed to death. She was 35, he was 25.
The middle of June 1994 was a weird time in America. Republicans were pushing hard against the agenda, and indeed the legitimacy as President, of Democrat Bill Clinton. We were beginning to hear about something called the Internet. Nirvana bandleader Kurt Cobain committed suicide at age 27. The threat of a baseball strike loomed, a threat that was, unfortunately, realized in August.
And both the teams playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the NBA's New York Knicks and the NHL's New York Rangers, reached their sport's Finals. On June 14, the Rangers won the Stanley Cup for the 1st time in 54 years, defeating the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7. By that point, O.J. was already a suspect in the murders.
On June 17, Game 5 of the NBA Finals was played at The Garden. While the Knicks were on their way to beating the Houston Rockets that night (though the Rockets would win the series in Game 7 in Houston on June 22), NBC went to a split screen.
Because Al Cowlings was driving a white 1993 Ford Bronco, California license plate 3DHY503, on Interstate 405, the San Diego Freeway, with O.J. Simpson in the back seat, with a gun to his head, and the police were following it. It was one of the most surreal events in television history.

It was surreal in part because it didn't seem to be all that fast a chase. The Bronco averaged about 45 miles per hour. It was also surreal because there were people on overpasses, cheering O.J. on, as if they believed he was innocent, and being unfairly persecuted by the cops.

Some time later, on the talk show The View, panelist Star Jones, a former Brooklyn prosecutor, defined friendship this way: "Who do you want driving the Bronco?" In other words, if you're in as much trouble as O.J. was in, who do you want to help you attempt to get out of it? Frankly, I think a better definition is, "For whom would you drive the Bronco?" As in, for whom would you risk your own criminal prosecution?

But since, by that point, everybody knew "A.C." not as a former football player, but as O.J.'s yes-man, Star did not have to explain her point. We all knew what she meant.
 

A.C. drove O.J. back to the house, where he was arrested. The ensuing legal process, including the "Trial of the Century," has been blamed for everything from the ruining of the American criminal justice system to the worsening of American race relations, from the dumbing down of American culture through "reality TV" to the rise of the Kardashian family. (One of O.J.'s "Dream Team" lawyers, and one of his best friends, was Robert Kardashian Sr., ex-husband of Kris Jenner, and father of Rob, Kourtney, Kim and Khloe.)

The infamous '93 Ford Bronco is on loan on display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, 25 miles southeast of Knoxville, and 4 miles west of Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park. It sits next to serial killer Ted Bundy’s 1968 Volkswagen Beetle and bank robber John Dillinger’s 1933 Ford V-8 getaway car.

*

June 17, 1994 was a Friday. The Knicks won that Game 5, 91-84. They were up 3 games to 2. But the next 2 games were at The Summit in Houston. (That arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.") The Rockets won Game 6, 86-84; and Game 7, 90-84. Hakeem Olajuwon had lost to Patrick Ewing in the 1984 NCAA Tournament Final, when Ewing's Georgetown beat Hakeem's University of Houston.

Now, Hakeem had revenge, and the Rockets had their 1st NBA Championship. Still, with the Rangers having won the Stanley Cup, this gave the 1968 version of Madison Square Garden a status it still holds: The closest any arena has ever come to having the NBA and NHL Champions at the same time.

Football was out of season. These Major League Baseball games were played that night:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 8-1 at Yankee Stadium. Mike Stanley hit a solo home run, but Cal Eldred allowed only 2 other hits, a double by Danny Tartabull and a single by Pat Kelly. Scott Kamieniecki didn't make it out of the 5th inning for the Pinstripes.

* The New York Mets lost to the Florida Marlins, 6-5 at Joe Robbie (now Hard Rock) Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 10-8 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Minnesota Twins, 9-2 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Cal Ripken went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 4-2 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Rickey Henderson went 0-for-4, but did draw a walk.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-1 at Jacobs (now Progressive) Field in Cleveland.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-5 with a solo home run.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Houston Astros, 3-2 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 13-5 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Barry Bonds went 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk.

This was also the opening day of soccer's World Cup, the 1st to be held on American soil. Luckily for NBC, and for American soccer, it was ABC and its sister company ESPN that had the rights to that. There were 2 games played on the day. Germany beat Bolivia, 1-0 at Soldier Field in Chicago. And Spain and South Korea played to a 2-2 draw at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.