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Show Me champions and trouble
Missouri celebrated its second professional sports championship in eight months today in Kansas City, where an estimated crowd of more than 700,000 turned out to cheer on the Chiefs three days after its Super Bowl LIV victory.
In June, the celebration was at the other end of the Show-Me State, as the Blues brought the Stanley Cup to St. Louis for the first time.
Many in St. Louis have jumped on the Chiefs bandwagon since the Rams left in January 2016 to return to Los Angeles. That number has probably grown exponentially since Patrick Mahomes took over as starting quarterback in 2018.
There may be some Bears fans in and around St. Louis, but considering the hatred eastern Missouri, if not all of Missouri, has for the Cubs (and the White Sox among Royals fans), many probably hate the Monsters of the Midway just as well. The Bears played in the Cubs’ park from 1921-70, so there’s a natural tie for that hatred.
Indianapolis is not a long drive east on Interstate 70, but the Cardinals were in St. Louis for 24 seasons before Robert Irsay told the Mayflower vans to drive the Colts’ gear from Baltimore to Indiana. And I doubt any St. Louis football fans would root for another team which relocated.
The Chiefs probably had a sizable St. Louis base from 1988-94 between the Cardinals’ departure for Arizona and the Rams’ arrival. The Chiefs were 4-12 in 1988, the year before Marty Schottenheimer was hired by Kansas City. By 1993, the Chiefs had Joe Montana under center and reached the AFC Championship, where they lost to the Bills.
The Rams were putrid their first four seasons in St. Louis (1995-98). Then projected starting quarterback Trent Green blew out his knee in the Rams’ second exhibition game of 1999, forcing Dick Vermeil to plug in some nobody named Kurt Warner. The Greatest Show on Turf was born, and a little less than six months later, St. Louis had its first sports championship since the Cardinals won the 1982 World Series.
Baseball is currently the only sport where Missouri’s largest cities have a rivalry. The NHL had it for two years with the woebegone Scouts, aka the artists now known as the New Jersey Devils (and the Colorado Rockies in between). Each city had an NBA team, but not at the same time; the Hawks left St. Louis for Atlanta in 1968, four years before the Cincinnati Royals moved to Kansas City. Of course, slimeball Joe Axelson moved the Kings to Sacramento in flagrant violation of the Warriors’ territorial rights in 1985. Had the Warriors had strong ownership in the mid-1980s like they have with Joe Lacob, the Kings never make it to Sacramento. Does that mean the Kings would have stayed in Kansas City? Probably not, because David Stern didn’t mind teams hopscotching the way it was abhorred by Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue, Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth.
Since 2011, the four professional franchises currently residing in Missouri have won a championship. The Cardinals’ most recent World Series win was in 2011 vs. the Rangers; the Royals got theirs four years later vs. teh Mets.
Missouri may have great sports teams and two wonderful metropolises at opposite ends of I-70, but I don’t know if I would want to live in the Show-Me State. I doubt it.
The biggest problem Missouri has is its nonchalant attitude towards regulating nicotine.
The sales tax on a pack of cancer sticks in Missouri is 17 cents. Repeating: SEVENTEEN CENTS.
That’s one dollar and seventy cents per carton. In Illinois, the tax on one pack of cancer sticks is $2.98. I think Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is a tool and the political cronies in Chicago have ruined the rest of the state, but at least it has one thing right (well, Chicago-style hot dogs are awesome).
Kansas’ tobacco tax is a joke as well, although $1.19 per pack is a lot better than 17 fucking cents. I’m sorry I used that word, but I believe smoking cigarettes is the most vile habit a person can acquire, short of violent crime.
Missouri’s smoking laws are a joke, too.
The state does not have a law which bans smoking in all enclosed settings. Bars in many corners of the state allow smoking wherever, whenever.
Kansas City has an indoor smoking ban, but customers can go out to a patio and suck on their cancer sticks, fouling the air for the rest of us who value our lungs.
The Buffalo Wild Wings at Zona Rosa has a large patio, and upwards of 20 smokers have been known to populate it on a given spring day. If Liz and Lisa weren’t working there, I would have quit going many moons ago.
The patio at Buffalo Wild Wings Shoal Creek is smaller, but there are plenty of smokers there on nice days. For a while, a man named Bill, who was a dead ringer for Michael McDonald, played trivia and sucked down on cancer sticks between questions.
St. Louis and the two major counties which make up the metropolitan area on the Missouri side, St. Louis and St. Charles, have adopted some pretty weak smoking bans. The ban is stronger in the city of St. Louis.
The lack of a tough smoking ban in the St. Louis area is why I stuck to getting White Castle to go when I went to St. Louis last year.
Illinois doesn’t have that problem. Smoking is banned in all enclosed areas in the Land of Lincoln, same as Kansas. As much as I dislike many things about my father’s home state, at least it has a smoking ban.
Missouri’s alcohol laws are also troubling.
There is no open container law. Passengers in a car can drink freely except in the cities with a ban, the largest of which are Independence, Columbia and St. Charles.
Every time the Missouri Legislature debates an open container law, it is shot down by the lobbyists from Anheuser-Busch (InBev). By failing to pass an open container law, Missouri has lost out on hundreds of millions of federal highway funds. No wonder I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis is a death trap–the state doesn’t have the funding because it is too stupid to pass a common-sense law.
That’s all I have the energy for tonight. I am beat.
World Champions of NOTHING
Kansas City is celebrating the “World Champion” Chiefs today with a parade and rally.
For the record, the Chiefs are not “World Champions” of anything, even if every vehicle in the parade is displaying the words “World Champions”.
The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV, which gives them the right to forever be called “Super Bowl LIV champions” and “2019 National Football League champions”, the same way the franchise can refer to itself as “Super Bowl IV champions” and “1969 Professional Football champions” (1969 was the last year before the AFL-NFL merger).
The Chiefs may refer to themselves as “NFL champions” without a qualifying year until they are eliminated from the 2020 playoffs (or fail to qualify). If Kansas City wins Super Bowl LV next February in Tampa, the Chiefs may continue to use NFL champions without the year.
The Patriots lost the right to call themselves NFL champions without a qualifying year when they lost to the Titans in the wild card round. New England can refer to itself as NFL champions of 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016 and 2018, but must use the qualifying years. And it cannot call itself a “world champion”, period.
No NFL (or AFL) champion has the right to call itself a “world champion”.
The NFL has never had a franchise in a country other than the United States of America. Save for a few exhibitions in the early 1960s, no NFL team has played a team from the only other major league on earth which sponsors gridiron football, the Canadian Football League.
Two of the other major North American sports leagues use “World Champions” when they should not.
The NBA has referred to the winner of its playoff tournament as “World Champions”. At least the league no longer refers to the final round of the playoffs as the “World Championship Series” as it did through 1985.
Major League Baseball has sponsored the World Series since 1903, with two exceptions (1904 and 1994). Every World Series winner I know has referred to itself as a “World Champion”, even though MLB has never had teams in countries other than the USA and Canada. North American champions is also inappropriate since no World Series winner has played a champion from Mexico, Cuba or another country.
The Associated Press expressly forbids its publications from using “World Champions” to refer to teams. It is SUPER BOWL champions, WORLD SERIES champions and NBA champions.
Baseball and basketball can easily determine a world champion the way FIFA does with the Champions League.
The National Hockey League has it right. Gary Bettman and his predecessor, John Ziegler, never refers to the winner of the Stanley Cup Finals as the “World Champions” of hockey. That team is the STANLEY CUP champion or the NHL champion.
Here’s something to keep in mind about the NHL. A team can win the Stanley Cup X number of times. However, a team cannot win Y Stanley Cups. There is only one Stanley Cup, and unlike the Vince Lombardi, Larry O’Brien and Commissioner’s trophies, a new one is not made each year.
Therefore, the Blues are attempting to win the Stanley Cup for the second time, not their second Stanley Cup. Got it?
Back to football.
There are two world champions of football. They are the French Men’s National Team and the United States Women’s National Team. France won the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and the USA won the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
Every Super Bowl ring is a FRAUD, since every one says “World Champions”.
No Patriots, still not watching
The best thing about Super Bowl LIV Is Thomas Edward Brady is not one of the starting quarterbacks.
If Thomas Edward Brady were not a gigantic douchebag like his coach, not as many people would mind he has played in nine Super Bowls and one six. Instead, Brady adopted the surly manner of William Steven Belichick, answering questions with cliche after cliche after cliche.
Douchebag Brady is a cheater, and I don’t mean fooling with the pressure of footballs. Douchebag Brady ran around on a pregnant Bridget Moynihan with Gisele. I don’t see what’s so great about Gisele. I don’t find her attractive, and she is just as much a douchebag as her husband. If I had to lock 10 people in a room to shut them up forever, Gisele and Tom would be on in the room, as would J-Lo, A-Rod, LeBron, Kim Kardashian and Kayne West. Actually, I wish I could slam at least 10,000 people in a room of complete silence.
People who compare Belichick to Nick Saban are off base. Sure, Saban has too many explosions, but at least he’ll give an honest answer most of the time. Saban is nowhere near as antisocial as Belichick. Many people rave about how great Belichick is away from football. If he’d show it once in a blue moon, a lot of people wouldn’t despise him as much, and the Patriots would not be as hated as they are.
As much as Brady and Belcihick have forged the image of the team America loves to hate, it all starts with the man at the top, Robert Kraft. Kraft was a braggadocio long before Spygate and Deflategate, and being a widower (his wife, Myrna, passed away in 2011) has seemingly emboldened him, thanks to his young new girlfriend, the same as Belichick’s squeeze, Linda Holliday, has done for him.
I’m not saying Brady would do as well on the MasterCard and Nationwide commercials as Peyton Manning. However, he would have done well to show us another side other than the robotic quarterback programmed by his coach. Then again, Brady doesn’t open his mouth and insert his foot like LeBron, and he isn’t outright mean and spiteful towards the media like Barry Bonds.
I didn’t watch the first half of last year’s Super Bowl. I was still angry at how the Rams got away with two penalties late in the NFC championship game vs. the Saints, and I had no desire to watch the Patriots again. The Rams were still the lesser two evils. Too bad they didn’t bother to show up for the game. They would have been better off getting out of Atlanta before kickoff, because their “effort” was beyond pathetic. Sean McVay wet his pants at the thought of facing Asshole Belichick in the Super Bowl, and it showed.
Will I watch tomorrow night? I didn’t watch LSU in the national championship game three weeks ago, and since i don’t have a horse in the Super Bowl, why bother?
Super Bowl, Kobe, impeachment…blah blah blah
Thank God the Super Bowl kicks off in 23 hours and 30 minutes, give or take. Enough talk about Patrick Mahomes. Enough talk about the Chiefs looking for their first Super Bowl victory in 50 years. Enough asking Len Dawson about Patrick Mahomes. If you live in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and parts of Iowa, Arkansas and Oklahoma, you may not realize the 49ers are in the Super Bowl as well.
The Chiefs have been the sole focus of every media outlet in Kansas and western Missouri. If you thought coverage of the Royals during their 2014 and 2015 World Series appearances was excessive, it pales in comparison to the adulation the Chiefs have received. It’s quite the opposite from the other end of Missouri, where the Rams were always a distant third to the Cardinals and Blues during their 21 seasons in St. Louis.
The 49ers are still getting less air time in San Francisco than Nancy Pelosi. People in the Bay Area have witnessed six championships since 2010, three by the Giants and three by the Warriors. Add in the success the Sharks have enjoyed despite the lack of a Stanley Cup, and the 49ers have been an afterthought most of the time since Steve Young’s retirement 20 years ago. There was the trip to Super Bowl XLVII and the crushing loss to the Seahawks in the NFC championship game the next season, but until this year, the 49ers went through their longest downturn since suffering through seven losing seasons out of eight from 1973-80.
If Kansas City wins tomorrow, people in this part of the United States will be hearing about it non-stop until the Chiefs go to training camp in July. Kansas basketball and the Royals will register, but it won’t eclipse the Chiefs.
Andy Reid might retire if the Chiefs win. I would not doubt it. It would allow Kansas City to promote Eric Bienemy and not have to worry about other teams attempting to poach him next January.
If San Francisco wins, we’ll hear about it for a few days, but it will fade. The sports fans of the Bay Area need something good this year, because the Warriors have been reduced to a D-League (sorry, G-LEAGUE) team without Steph Curry, the Sharks are stinking it up, and the Raiders have officially traded Oakland for Las Vegas.
The hype for Super Bowl LIV has been muted. That would normally be a good thing, but not this time.
It’s because almost every sports show, even some on NFL Network, have to mention Kobe.
Yes, Kobe perished last Sunday with his 13-year old daughter, six other passengers, and the foolish pilot who had no business flying a helicopter in thick fog. Sad. Very sad.
However, it happens all the time, and 99.5% of the time, the names of the people on board aren’t mentioned, and it gets all of 20 seconds on the evening news, if that.
I read on the Internet there is a petition circulating to change the NBA logo silhouette to that of Kobe, instead of Jerry West, whose silhouette has been the logo for almost 50 years.
Come on.
Do those who want to make the change realize who brought Kobe to the Lakers? JERRY WEST. Does anyone know of another NBA figure who was as great an executive as he was a player? Hello…hello…
Magic Johnson and James Worthy were both drafted #1 overall by the Lakers, thanks to shrewd trades by West to acquire the picks which helped land them.He took a chance on an unproven assistant named Pat Riley in late 1981 after firing Paul Westhead. He made the trade for Kobe and signed Shaq during the summer of 1996, and three years later convinced Phil Jackson to coach his latest collection of talent.
All 12 Lakers championships in Los Angeles were influenced by Jerry West. Now why should he be taken off the logo in favor of Kobe? Give me a good reason.
Twenty-four second shot clock violations and eight-second backcourt violations have become cool since Kobe’s death, since 24 and 8 were his jersey numbers with the Lakers. To me, that’s making a mockery of the game. Honor him, yes, but don’t do it by disrupting the normal flow of a game.
Golfers have become Kobe worshippers this weekend. Justin Thomas and Tony Finau wore Kobe jerseys during the Phoenix Open. Phil Mickelson, a legend in Phoenix thanks to winning an NCAA championship at Arizona State, smartly skipped out on the Phoenix Open and is playing in Saudi Arabia. Tiger is not playing golf this weekend, choosing to attend the Super Bowl; after all, it’s in his backyard (he lives in Florida, which doesn’t have a state income tax, while his native California has astronomical taxes, especially for rich athletes).
The third and only other thing in the news right now is the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump. No comment.
Too many Monday holidays and not enough money
It’s back to work for state and federal employees after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday yesterday. The civil rights icon, who was tragically assassinated in 1968 by white supremacist James Earl Ray or by Ray as part of a larger conspiracy, has been honored on the third Monday of January since 1986.
I don’t get why the day honoring Dr. King isn’t celebrated every year on January 15, his actual date of birth in 1929. If January 15 happens to fall on a Wednesday like it did this year, then so be it. If it falls on a Saturday, have the holiday on Friday the 14th, or if it’s on a Sunday, have the holiday on Monday the 16th.
It’s the same as Columbus Day being celebrated on the second Monday of October instead of October 12, the actual date of Columbus’ arrival in America. It used to be that way for Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday until the law changed in 1971 to observe most federal holidays on a Monday, and then it was just condensed into President’s Day, which means Washington and Lincoln are given the same honor as William Henry Harrison, Rutherford Hayes and Warren Harding.
Veterans Day (Armistice Day until the American Legion in Emporia suggested it honor all veterans, not just those who fought in World War I) was moved from November 11 to the last Monday of October in 1971 (the law was signed by LBJ in 1968). The Legion and VFW raised hell, so President Carter signed a bill in 1977 which moved it back to the fixed November 11 date in 1978.
I find it insulting to those who gave their lives for this country that Memorial Day is not celebrated every year on May 30 as it was until 1971. Why do all veterans get their own day every year, yet those who made the ultimate sacrifice are honored with the last day of a long weekend?
Two U.S. Senators who served in World War II, Daniel Inyoue (D-Hawaii) and Russell’s own Bob Dole (R-Kansas), introduced legislation on several occasions to move Memorial Day permanently back to May 30. It got nowhere. Apparently those who gave their lives for our freedom are less important than getting post offices named after some random citizen.
I’m surprised Independence Day hasn’t gone to a first Monday in July observance. I heard so much bitching and moaning in 2018 when July 4 fell on a Wednesday. Not so much last year when it was on Thursday, because many employees got the 5th off as well.
With July 4 on Saturday this year, governmental offices (except the U.S. Postal Service) will observe it on the 3rd.
I’m betting Barack Obama will have a holiday in August after he passes, if not sooner. His birth date was August 4, 1961, so I’m guessing it would be the first Monday of August. Besides, August doesn’t have any federal holidays.
Perry County, Alabama, a poor rural county in the Alabama Black Belt not too far from Selma, where the 1965 Civil Rights Marches began, has observed the second Monday of November as “Obama Day” since 2009, the year after his election as POTUS.
From 1936 through 1971, August 30 was a state holiday in Louisiana. Why? It was the birth date of Huey Pierce Long, who was shot to death in the state capitol at age 42 in 1935. The Long family and his rabid supporters believe Dr. Carl Austin Weiss fired the fatal shot, but evidence has come to light through the years that the bullet came from one of Long’s gun-toting thugs.
Louisana’s governor at the time, O.K. Allen, was simply a stooge who did whatever the hell Huey told him to do. If Huey told O.K. to take a dump on the House floor, O.K. did it. So of course O.K. made sure nobody forgot the Kingfish by making his birthday a holiday.
Allen died in 1936 after winning nomination to Long’s U.S. Senate seat (thank God). His successors–Huey’s brother Earl, Richard Leche, James Noe, Sam Jones, Jimmie Davis, Robert Kennon, Earl again, Davis again, and John McKeithen–never saw fit to repeal this joke of a holiday.
Fortunately, Edwin Edwards said enough was enough and told state workers to get their butts in their offices on August 30, 1972.
I just received a message from Dawn. She’s excited the Chiefs will be playing in the Super Bowl in Miami Gardens. Dawn lives in Boynton Beach, about 48 miles north of Hard Rock Stadium along Florida’s Turnpike. She told me she has a small chance to go to the game.
I hope she gets that chance, but if she does, it doesn’t cost her a small fortune.
Current ticket prices on reseller sites (StubHub, Vivid Seats, Tickets for Less, etc.) are running anywhere from $4,800 for a nosebleed seat in the end zone to over $70,000 for prime seats along the 50-yard line. Those prices do not include fees, which will easily push the price of the cheapest ticket well over $5,000.
As much as I love sports, I am not paying that much money to go to a football game. If I had two Super Bowl tickets, I’d sell them and use the profit for something worthwhile, like a nice TV and recliner so I can enjoy the game without any distractions.
My parents went to Super Bowl IX 45 years ago, the last NFL game at Tulane Stadium. The tickets were provided free of charge by my father’s company, Air Products and Chemicals. They carried a face value of $20. That was the face value for all 81,000 seats in Tulane Stadium, whether they be high in the end zone or low on the 50-yard line.
Adjusted for inflation, those tickets would cost $99 today. A bargain. For Super Bowl LIV, you will be fortunate to park for $99 if you drive your own car, or find a cab, Uber or Lyft cheaper than $99. Considering Hard Rock Stadium is in the middle of nothing between downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale, those rides will run well into triple digits.
Tickets for Super Bowl IV, when the Chiefs defeated the Vikings in New Orleans, were $15 at face value. That equates to $102.24 today. Very reasonable.
Air Products and Chemicals had four Saints season tickets in the most expensive section of seats (not including suites) in the Superdome prior to Hurricane Katrina. In 2004, those tickets were an average of $180 when club fees were added in. In 2019, those tickets are $380 per game, and $180 will only get you end zone seats.
For those fans from Kansas City hoping to attend the Chiefs’ first Super Bowl since the good old days of “65 Toss Power Trap”, you have to also add on flights which will cost at least $1,600 round-trip, plus three nights in a hotel for at least $500 per night, probably more.
I cringe when I see hotels in downtown Kansas City going for $329 a night Miami is one of the most expensive places to stay in the United States during slow tourist periods. During the Super Bowl? Heaven help you.
Let’s see: $5,500 for a cheap ticket+$1,800 flight+$1,800 hotel+$600 for transportation+$450 for food+$300 for concessions at the game+$150 in tips. That comes out to at least $10,600.
No thank you. I’ll be fine staying home. Besides, with the Secret Service now in charge of security at the Super Bowl–a sad fact of life after 11 September 2001–getting into the stadium is a gigantic pain.
To those attending Super Bowl LIV, good for you. Glad you can afford. Glad you want to put up with all the problems that come with attending such an event.
Red Sunday assured
It will indeed be Red Sunday in Miami Gardens in two weeks.
The Chiefs defeated the Titans 35-24 for the AFC Championship, and the 49ers easily ousted the Packers 37-20 for the NFC Championship to set up Super Bowl LIV.
Kansas City is in the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, when Hank Stram’s club, led by Hall of Famers Len Dawson, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier, Emmitt Thomas and Johnny Robinson, defeated Bud Grant’s Vikings, who were in their five-year period without Francis Asbury Tarkenton. The 23-7 final at Tulane Stadium was considered an upset since Minnesota was favored by 13 to 14 points, but the Chiefs (or Raiders, whom Kansas City defeated in the last AFL Championship game) were far superior to the Jets club which defeated the Colts in Super Bowl III. Joe Namath’s guarantee was an upset, because that Baltimore team, even without Johnny Unitas, was great. Looking back, the 1969 Vikings weren’t.
Minnesota went 12-2, yes, but lost to the Giants and Falcons, both of whom went 6-8, and Joe Kapp was the worst quarterback to start any of the first four Super Bowls, and probably one of the ten worst ever. The Vikings had no outside running threat, their receivers were nowhere near as good as the Chiefs’ Otis Taylor, and their offensive line, which featured future Hall of Famers Mick Tinglehoff and Ron Yary, had never faced a defensive line as large as Kansas City’s. Viking losses in divisional playoff games to the 49ers in 1970 and the Cowboys in 1971 proved the offense didn’t work without Tarkenton. Tarkenton came back from New York in 1972, and while the Vikings made three more Super Bowls, they were overwhelmed each time.
The Chiefs’ other Super Bowl appearance was in the first one, which was known at the time as the AFL-NFL World Championship game. The Chiefs hung with Lombardi’s Packers for a half, but self-destructed after the break, and Green Bay went on to win 35-10 in Los Angeles. Packer wideout Max McGee became the Super Bowl’s first unlikely hero with seven receptions for 143 yards and two touchdowns.
San Francisco will be making its seventh Super Bowl appearance. The 49ers’ only Super Bowl loss was in their most recent trip, a 34-31 loss to the Ravens in New Orleans where John Harbaugh defeated younger brother Jim. The former is still in Baltimore; the latter is coaching his college alma mater in Ann Arbor. Few outside Maryland and the Bay Area remember much about the game itself, but instead the power outage at the Superdome during the third quarter.
The 49ers’ two previous trips to South Florida for the Super Bowl were quite possibly the best and worst Super Bowls ever.
The worst was in January 1995, when the 49ers mauled the Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX, the only Super Bowl to match two teams from the same state. The 49ers were favored by anywhere from 17 to 20 points, and it quickly became apparent they would cover that spread and then some. Two California teams playing in South Florida and a horrible match drove ticket prices way down. The Chargers’ starting quarterback, Stan Humphries, makes my list with Kapp for the Super Bowl’s worst.
Humprhies has a Super Bowl ring as the backup for the 1991 Redskins. Fortunately for Joe Gibbs, Mark Rypien stayed healthy throughout that season and he never needed Humphries in an important situation. Then again, the 1991 Redskins might have won Super Bowl XXVI if Gibbs played quarterback himself. That team was loaded.
The other 49ers Super Bowl in South Florida, Super Bowl XXIII vs. the Bengals, was one for the ages, and in my opinion, the best I’ve witnessed.
San Francisco fell to 6-5 in mid-November following back-to-back losses to the Cardinals and Raiders. Steve Young pulled out a game vs. the Vikings with a 49-yard touchdown run in the game’s final minute in one of the best plays I’ve seen live, but vs. the Cardinals (in their first season in Arizona), San Francisco blew a 23-0 lead and lost 24-23, while the 49ers were scuttled 9-3 at home by the Raiders in Mike Shanahan’s biggest victory as coach of the Silver and Black.
With a Monday Night Football game vs. defending Super Bowl champion Washington, Bill Walsh named a healthy Montana as his starter.
The 49ers were off and running. They routed the Redskins 37-21, then won their next three, including a 30-17 victory over the Saints at Candlestick to clinch the NFC West. In the playoffs, San Francisco earned revenge for a 1987 playoff loss to the Vikings with a 34-9 rout before going to Chicago and crushing the Bears 28-3 despite a wind chill of minus-10 Fahrenheit (minus-22 Celsius).
San Francisco was considered an underdog to the Cinderella team of 1988, the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Bengals were 4-11 in 1987, and Sam Wyche (who passed away earlier this month; R.I.P,, Sam) had to win or else in 1988 to keep his job. Cincinnati needed a goal-line stand on opening day to outlast the Cardinals 21-14, but it spurred a 6-0 start and a 12-4 regular season to win the Bengals’ first AFC Central championship since 1981, the year they went to Super Bowl XVI and lost to the Bengals in Detroit.
Cincinnati was powered by 1988 MVP Boomer Esiason, and a powerful running back combination of James Brooks and Elbert “Ickey” Woods, who introduced the “Ickey Shuffle” to the football world. Woods was penalized when he did his dance in the end zone, so he was relegated to doing so on the sideline.
Super Bowl XXIII was the first in Miami in 10 years, and the first at Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium), which opened in August 1987. Billy Joel performed a fantastic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner (he repeated it for Super Bowl XLI in the same stadium), but soon thereafter, the sunny skies over South Florida darkened.
Two serious injuries occurred in the first quarter, with 49ers offensive tackle Steve Wallace and Bengals nose tackle Tim Krumrie taken off the field on carts. Krumrie broke a bone in his left leg, an injury so serious an air cast had to be placed over the leg to stabilize it.
The first half produced little offense, with each team kicking a field goal. 49ers kicker Mike Cofer blew a 19-yard chip shot in the second quarter, and at halftime, it was 3-3, the first halftime tie in the Super Bowl.
The Bengals scored the game’s first touchdown late in the third quarter when Stanford Jennings returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, putting Cincinnati ahead 13-6. San Francisco answered on a Joe Montana to Jerry Rice touchdown 57 seconds into the fourth quarter to forge the game’s third tie.
Rice ended the night with 10 receptions for 215 yards, both Super Bowl records, and easily won the game’s MVP award.
Jim Breech’s 40-yard field goal with 3:20 to go put the Bengals up 16-13. When the 49ers were pinned at their own 8-yard line following a penalty on the ensuing kickoff, hearts across northern California sank, while those in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana rose. It looked like Cinderella’s glass slipper would not shatter. It looked like the team with the pumpkin-colored helmets would not turn into pumpkins themselves.
Wyche knew all too well no game was over as long as #16 was in charge for the 49ers. After all, Wyche was the 49ers’ quarterbacks coach when they won Super Bowl XVI seven years prior.
How cool was Joe Montana? As the 49ers huddled in the east end zone of the stadium prior to the first play of the drive, Montana pointed out to his teammates that actor John Candy was being shown on the video board.
Montana Magic was never more apparent than the evening of 22 January 1989 in Miami Gardens, Florida.
San Francisco drove 872 yards on 10 plays, leaving it with third and goal from the Cincinnati 10. With the Bengals focused on Rice, and rightly so, Montana spotted his other top wideout, John Taylor, on a post pattern over the middle. Taylor caught the ball in stride in the end zone with 34 seconds left.
San Francisco 20, Cincinnati 16. Bill Walsh announced his retirement in the locker room after the game, and his successor, George Seifert, led the 49ers to a most dominant 14-2 season in 1989 and a 55-10 destruction of the Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.
The Chiefs and 49ers are infrequent foes, seeing they play in opposite conferences. They don’t even play much in the exhibition season.
They first played in 1971, with Kansas City winning 26-17 at Candlestick on Monday Night Football. The Chiefs did not return to Candlestick until 1985, and they did not defeat the 49ers again until 1994, when the Montana-led Chiefs defeated the Young-led 49ers 24-17 at Arrowhead. In between, San Francisco won in 1975 and ’82 at Kansas City, and again in 1985 and ’91 at Candlestick.
Their last game was in 2018 at Arrowhead, the game where 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was lost for the season with a serious knee injury. Kansas City won 38-28. San Francisco went 4-12, giving it the #2 overall pick in the draft, which it used to take Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa, who will win Rookie of the Year or be a close second.
This will not be the first time the championship of a North American professional sports league will be determined by teams from Kansas City and San Francisco.
In the 2014 World Series, the Giants defeated the Royals in seven games. The teams split the first two games in Kansas City, then the Royals won the third at San Francisco. The Giants rallied to win the next two at AT&T Park (now Oracle park), but Yordano Ventura pitched a gem in game six at Kauffman to take the series to the limit.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy called on ace Madison Bumgarner, the starter and winner in games one and five, to relieve former Royal Jeremy Affeldt to begin the fifth with San Francisco ahead 3-2.
Bumgarner totally shut down the Royals until there were two out in the ninth. Alex Gordon singled and went to third when left fielder Gregor Blanco overran the ball. It looked like Gordon would be able to score, but third base coach Mike Jirschele held up Gordon.
Salvador Perez then popped up to Pablo Sandoval in foul ground. Sandoval squeezed the final out, giving San Francisco its third World Series title in five seasons. Of course, the Royals redeemed themselves one year later, with a lot of help from the bumbling Mets.
Let the hype begin.
Foots Prints 