Replacing A Monument

Originally written March 23, 2010.

It’s a dirty not-so-secret of mine that despite my masochistic dedication to the New York Mets, my parents are both Yankees fans. It helps that their early lives took place when only one Major League Baseball team was in New York, but in the case of my mother, it helps even more when you grow up with Archie and Jughead in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. My father grew up in the Westchester town of White Plains, and while his grandfather was an enormous New York Giants fans – a picture of my father as a toddler in a black and orange uniform is reputed to exist somewhere – by my father’s 7th birthday there were no New York baseball Giants. With nowhere else to go, he held fast to the pinstripes, though it should be noted that for years after I was born he continued wearing his White Plains High School Class of ’69 T-Shirt, which prominently featured a pennant of the Miracle Mets.

I grew up in a different world. While my father occasionally humored me by pulling for the Amazins my mother made no such ambivalence over her loyalty. That is not to say she didn’t appreciate my fandom. She and I went to dozens of Mets games together over the years, but she made no illusions. She pulled for the Bombers. That was that.

Considering her love for the Yankees, something seemed appropriate about the New Yankee Stadium opening on her 55th birthday, but when I attempted to buy us a pair of tickets, the prices were so high even I couldn’t justify it. And then a plan was hatched. Rather than take my mother to Opening Day at the Stadium for her birthday for what would have been at least $500 for nosebleeds, it seemed a far better idea to get better seats for far cheaper to the second game for not just her and I, but the entire family, with a dinner in the Stadium’s steakhouse beforehand.

Because apparently new stadiums have those things.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans of Mets and Yankees, as they often do, ran astray. After tickets were purchased for the Friday night game against Cleveland on April 17, 2009, the game time was shifted to a 1 p.m. start, which threw an awfully large wrench with my sister, brother and sister-in-law to be all working 9-to-5. My brother and his girlfriend would only be able to make it for dinner afterwards, while my sister would be late. All of this put the screws on three extra tickets that had to be dealt with.

With the date fast approaching, my mother’s close friend, Emily and her son Harry, who was one of my close companions for most of my childhood, took two of the tickets and the final one I managed to sell online – at a profit no less.

With the anxiety gone and the day here, I gathered myself on the subway to check out my 15th Major League stadium. My sister Stephanie would be meeting us at the stadium while my mother, Emily and Harry would drive in from New Jersey. I arrived early for my requisite picture taking, and as the subway pulls up near the park, it’s pretty hard to miss. Indeed it dwarfs the rest of the area, fulfilling an intended impression of massiveness. The building sits across the street from the Old Yankee Stadium, which, at the time of Opening Day for the new park was still standing, albeit eerily empty.

The pinstripes’ new home and the various plazas around it bustled, however, with many people playing tourist just like myself. The most noticeable external feature of the building is the limestone wall that surrounds it. While most new stadiums opt for the aged friendly feel of brick on the exterior, Yankee Stadium doesn’t want to be friendly. It wants to intimidate. It wants you to know that you are not walking into a baseball stadium. You are walking into a temple.

And for $1.5 billion, it ought to. That was the price tag for the building, at the time the second most expensive stadium ever built after the renovated Wembley Stadium in London. The $1.5 billion nearly went for naught after a construction worker, who was also a Red Sox fan, boasted he had put a hex on the new building by placing a David Ortiz jersey in the concrete while on the job. As I’ve said, with the exception of the Chicago Cubs, curses are silly, but sports bring out a peculiar anxiety in the masses, and fake or not, the threat of constantly playing on top of buried Red Sox paraphernalia was of deep concern not only to Yankee fans, but the club’s front office.



With the prospect of Hank Steinbrenner’s supremely expensive baby forever being tainted, construction was halted, concrete was torn up, and sure enough a ragged Ortiz jersey was found in the foundation. The jersey itself was donated to charity and while the worker claimed he had also buried a program and scorecard from the 2004 ALCS – he wouldn’t say where – anymore attempts at cursing the building were quickly proven to be fruitless as the Yankees won their 27th World Series in their first year at the park.

Of course, at the time I first showed up that was a ways off. Things hadn’t been hunky dory in the Bronx – the Yankees were coming off their first non-playoff season since 1995 – and it was important to open the pinstripes’ new home with a bang. They didn’t get it the day before. Cleveland beat the Yankees in their first regular season game there, 10-2. Not that this was the worst thing for me. Despite not being a Yankee fan, I still appreciate history, and the team’s home opening loss afforded us the chance to see the first win at the new home.

I took several pictures around the stadium’s external façade. Its limestone was inspired by the original pre-renovation Yankee Stadium and it makes the building seem more fit for the National Mall in Washington than it does for the Bronx. It is, indeed a beautiful and impressive exterior. After rendez-vousing with my mother, Emily and Harry, there were more pictures to take before we finally entered.

Interestingly, the limestone walls are less a wall than an outer shell, which might explain why the plot of land the New Yankee Stadium covers is dramatically larger than the old one. Between the limestone walls and the seating areas is a huge, open, naturally lit area known as “The Great Hall”. While it is decorated with banners and signs echoing the club’s rich history, “great” seems like a bit of a dramatic adjective for a building that hadn’t actually had anything great happen in it yet.

But as the family Mets fan, who am I to argue?

Along the inside it seems as if every square inch of wall space has been set aside for some purpose to symbolize Yankee history, and when you reach the seating area, which continues to reinforce the franchise’s richness and importance, the full impression is complete. If the purpose of Citi Field was to provide you with an adorable, care-free family outing at the ballpark, the New Yankee Stadium’s aim was to impress upon you the grandeur of its tenants. And it pulls it off with flying colors, with the icing on the cake, and personally my favorite aspect, being the wonderful white frieze that crowns the upper deck.

The white fencing was a key characteristic of the original building when it opened in 1923, but when George Steinbrenner renovated the building in the mid-70s, select sections of the frieze were moved to the outfield while the rest of the stadium was bereft. In the decades since, the team acknowledged a mistake was made, and the frieze has since become a symbol incorporated into the franchise that is as ubiquitous as the interlocking NY. The frieze featured prominently in the stadium’s inaugural season logo and mini friezes adorn the top of each player’s locker.

The frieze was a reminder. It may be in a different place, but this was still the Yankees’ home. In fact, great lengths were made to ensure that the New Yankee Stadium was less a change for cash than an update necessitated by the wear on the old building. Of course, that cash did flow. In its opening season, seat prices ranged as high as $2,625 per seat for a regular season game. Unfortunately for the front office, the stadium opened in the midst of a recession and the embarrassment of empty seats behind home plate, as well as the bad press that came with such high prices while a segment of the fan base was seeking work, prompted the team to cut the cost of the most expensive seats in half.

Because $1,250 is clearly more affordable.

We were not sitting in those fancy chairs, nor in any of the other upper class clubs around the building. We sat in the northern reaches of the upper deck, but behind home plate. Perhaps what is most remarkable about the building is that when you sit in your seat it doesn’t feel like you’re in a different building. Certainly it feels newer, cleaner and, given the wider seats, roomier, but it still feels like Yankee Stadium. And considering the team went to pained extremes to ensure that, it makes sense.

The field itself has the exact same dimensions with the lone exception being a backstop that is now 20 feet closer. While the players must have felt as though they were at familiar environs, however, the stadium didn’t play like it. Perhaps it was the slightly different angle of the building or the vaguely different construction of the outfield stands, but as the Yankees would find over the next six months, baseballs flew out to right field at a stunning pace. Through 23 games at the stadium, 87 dingers would be clocked out of the yard. Right field itself was considered a major culprit, with heavy criticism levied by the media and the park being decried as a joke by some. Numerous wind studies were commissioned but as of the first year at the stadium no certain reason had been determined.

Tensions eased when the pace of homers slowed over the course of the season, but Yankee Stadium’s reputation as Coors Field East, would be firmly entrenched, and true to form, the Yankees won their first game at the new park that day by way of the long ball. A solo home run by none other than uber Yankee Derek Jeter in the 8th inning provided the margin of victory, with Mariano Rivera appropriately nailing down the save in the 9th. Jeter’s homer was the fifth by a Yankee that day.

Despite being stunned that the urinals were already dirty, and confused as to why the Yankees were showing H&R Block Provided Tax Tips on the jumbotron two days after taxes were due, the rest of the experience couldn’t be argued with. From the frieze, to the sightlines, to the hand-managed scoreboard along the outfield walls, the stadium feels like a cathedral, a place befitting the most decorated franchise in American sports.

And despite my own opinions of the Steinbrenner family, they got it right.

With our dinner reservations at NYY Steak in the right field corner waiting, we stayed in our seats while most of the fans filed out to the blaring Frank Sinatra. All the traditions remained to a T. We headed to the restaurant where Elliott and Danielle arrived for dinner and while I felt my porterhouse was slightly overcooked, the meal was a pleasant coda to my mother’s birthday. The restaurant itself doesn’t look over the field, but it does have a wall with the signatures of nearly every famous Yankee ever. In addition, my dessert, was a ball of ice cream topped with chocolate, toffee and a flaming shot of Bacardi 151 rum. They tell you the alcohol burns off, but that is a complete lie. It was the drunkest I’d ever gotten from dessert.

I was quite smug paying for the dinner with my New York Mets credit card, but given that I was going to be back the next day, that may not have been the wisest move. My stepmother had decided months earlier to buy tickets for herself, my father, my stepbrother Jake and I for a Saturday afternoon game, and while I wasn’t necessarily going to have the time to explore the stadium nearly as much, given that we were seated with the Bleacher Creatures I was sure to be entertained.

Fans who spend their days beyond the right field wall at Yankee Stadium are notorious for their dedication, rowdiness and enforced sobriety. Beginning in 2000, the Yankees had banned beer sales in the bleachers in an attempt to curb the wild behavior of its denizens, but this was tenuously overturned for the new building. While we would be in the right field bleachers, we were fortunate enough not to be in the almost comically ill-placed seats at the edge of the section that are next to a wall and as a result have the view of left field completely blocked. Those seats, did, however, provide a clear view of the most expensive seats behind home plate which were predictably empty while the cheaper sections were filled to capacity.

The Bleacher Creatures are noted for their first inning roll call. After each pitch they begin chanting one of the fielder’s names until he acknowledges them with a wave, which is met with a cheer, and each game they go through every man on the field. In addition to that heartwarming connection, however, they also live up to their reputation in amusing vulgarity. It became very obvious very quickly that I could be dominating the field were I playing a game of swear word bingo.

The group was emboldened by an early Yankee lead. Mark Teixeira hit a two-run homer in the first inning – to right field of course – and with two-time 19-game winner Chien-Ming Wang on the mound, surely it was a victory in the making. As Indians right fielder Shin-Soo Choo approached the plate with two men on, one fan in the rows in front of us yelled out, “You suck, Choo! You fucking suck!” Ever the classy gentleman, the bleacher creature’s comment was met with a three-run jack by Choo, putting the Indians in front.

Surely, an isolated incident.

Well before the inning was out Cleveland would string together 13 hits and 14 runs, the largest inning ever surrendered by the Yankees in their history. The frame created a number of records for the new building, and the eventual 22-4 loss for New York would be the third most runs ever allowed by the franchise. Remarkably, the first, second and fourth most runs allowed by the Yankees were all reaped by the Indians in a bizarre coincidence.

The early collapse created dissension among the bleacher creatures who were extremely displeased when one frustrated fan started chanting, “Jeter sucks!” There are certain lines you do not cross in Yankeeville. That particular fan tip-toed it ever so precariously. With the entire section’s ire raised, massive booing and grumbling commenced. One thing they did agree on, however, was that with a pitching change needed, right fielder Nick Swisher was the man for the job. Indeed, Swisher, was no pitcher. But as teams will sometimes have position players take in a few innings to spare bullpen arms in blowouts, Swisher had recently gotten his chance.

Five days earlier the Yankees were routed by the defending-AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays, and with arms at a premium, manager Joe Girardi put Swisher on the mound, where he responded with a scoreless inning, including a strike out of Gabe Kapler on a blistering 78-mile-per-hour fastball that made even Swisher laugh. With the Indians in the midst of their second-inning onslaught, cheers of “We want Swisher” rang from the crowd, but the right fielder was unlikely to come out again.

As he said after his 22-pitch outing in Tampa Bay, "I'm walking out of my professional career with a 0.00 ERA.”

With the result not in doubt, I seized the opportunity to check out one of the few areas of the park I missed the day before, the Yankees museum. Evidently I wasn’t the only person with this idea. When I left a line stretched hundreds of feet outside the doors. The museum features a heaping amount of impressive memorabilia from Thurman Munson’s locker, to Babe Ruth’s jersey, to Mickey Mantle’s cap, to several of the Yankees’ World Series championship trophies.

The literal centerpiece of the museum is a wall of autographed baseballs by nearly every man to have worn Yankee pinstripes from the legendary (Joe DiMaggio) to the forgotten (Woodie Held). While there is an impressive amount of items on display, the room itself is small, and I got the sense that they could have done more with it. After all, these are the Yankees, the most historic, successful, renowned franchise in the history of American sports. If the building befits their greatness, why doesn’t the museum, the place that is supposed to put all the accomplishments on display?

Perhaps I’m being picky. It is still worth the trip, particularly given that Monument Park closes well before game time each day. As I walked past the long line outside the museum and back to my seats, the game’s momentum, unsurprisingly, was still firmly behind Cleveland. The Indians had tacked on another run in both the third and fourth innings, but evidently it took until a three-run homer by Mark DeRosa in the fifth inning for fans to finally give up hope. After the 19th marker had crossed home plate, the stands slowly began to empty, as if that 19th run was the final one that had clinched it for the visitors and made a comeback impossible.

Surprisingly, perhaps out of a desire to look around the new building, my father and stepmother stuck it out until the end of the game, which I was fine with. It was a beautiful day and I make it a point not to leave early if I can help it. Good thing, too. Had we left, we would have missed the third go round of the “We Want Swisher” chant in the eighth inning.

As we and whatever fans left exited the stadium – and there weren’t many – there was laughter and disappointment. Sure these blowouts happen and most educated fans know you just have to let them go, but it was clear that after three games and one win in their new building, for many people this didn’t yet feel like home. They wouldn’t suffer the same malaise I did after visits to Citi Field, however. While the Mets collapsed brutally, the Yankees brought home their first title in nine years that November. With another trophy in tow, I’m sure the new residence felt plenty comfy.

And maybe that new trophy would spruce up the museum some.

Why I Love Baseball: Exhibit B

I try to make it a point to watch as many Mets games as I can during the year, which most seasons is a disastrous mistake. The jury is still out on whether or not 2010 will be as painful as some of its predecessors, but it's already provided plenty of interesting moments, and in all likelihood, the most interesting so far was yesterday in St. Louis.

I have seen some crazy baseball games in my life. But I'm not sure I've seen anything as crazy, wild, or absurdly enjoyable as the Mets' 2-1 win over the Cardinals yesterday in a 20-inning epic. In fact, I'm fairly sure I haven't since it was the longest game the Mets have played in my lifetime. But what makes early season epics like this one so much fun is not the triumph of victory so much as the amusing peculiarities that come about in the course of exhausting your bench, your bullpen and, yes your starting rotation.

To wit: Jerry Manuel used four fifths of his starting rotation in this game -- and only two of them as pitchers. While Johan Santana started and tossed seven magnificent shutout innings and Mike Pelfrey came on in the 20th for his first Major League save, John Maine appeared as a pinch runner in extra frames, while Jon Niese was a pinch-hitter. The game was so wild and crazy that by the time it ended no one seemed to remember that St. Louis starter Jaime Garcia actually was pitching a no-hitter at one point, having taken it into the sixth before the Mets finally got a base knock.

And the oddities don't end there. Here's a strange list of the peculiarities produced by the most fun game of the season as per ESPN, Mets.com and the Star Ledger.


-- This was the fourth 20-inning game in Mets history and the fourth in Cardinals history. The Mets had been 0-3. The Cardinals were 3-0.
-- The game was scoreless for its first 18 innings, the first time that had happened in a Major League game since the Dodgers and Expos pulled it off in 1989, going 21 innings without a run on Aug. 23, 1989, according to STATS LLC. The Dodgers won that one 1-0 on Rick Dempsey's leadoff homer in the 22nd.
-- Having warmed up every inning from the 8th to the 19th, Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez estimated that he had thrown 100 warm up pitches before finally taking the mound for his first save opportunity of the season.

-- Rodriguez blew the save.
-- Rodriguez was the pitcher of record however, and after the Mets won it in the 20th, he got the win.
-- A closer won the game (Rodriguez), a starting pitcher saved it (Pelfrey) and a position player lost it (Cardinals outfielder Joe Mather).
-- Two position players took the mound for the Cardinals (Mather and utility infielder Felipe Lopez). While Lopez was pitching, Cards pitcher Kyle Lohse played left field.
-- The Mets won despite allowing a run in the 19th, and despite producing a total of nine hits in 20 innings.
-- Jose Reyes finally pushed the winning run across, with a sacrifice fly off Mather in the 20th. Despite getting the game-winning RBI, Reyes finished 0 for 7 at the plate, calling it "the happiest 0 for 7 I've ever had in my life".
-- Jeff Francoeur plated the game's first run with a sacrifice fly in the 19th.
-- Mather had not pitched competitively since his sophomore year of high school.
-- Tony La Russa, a man who is generally considered one of the best managers in the game also has a tendency to overmanage, which he did yesterday. La Russa began shuffling his lineup early, and his biggest mistake may have come in the top of the 11th inning, when he double-switched cleanup hitter Matt Holliday out of the game because he had been ill. This left the pitcher to hit after Albert Pujols for the next nine innings.
-- In maybe the craziest inning, the Cards put men on second and third with no outs in the 14th. Mets reliever Hisanori Takahashi struck out Skip Schumaker and Ryan Ludwick in succession, intentionally walked Pujols, then struck out pitcher Blake Hawksworth -- batting in Holliday's spot -- to end the threat.

-- The Cardinals also loaded the bases off Fernando Nieve with two outs in the 10th, but Alex Cora -- who entered the game having played four innings at first base in his 13-year career -- tumbled into the stands to make a highlight-reel grab of Holliday's foul pop to send it to the 11th.
-- The Cardinals left the bases loaded three times in extra innings, in the 10th, 12th and 14th, and couldn't score each time.
-- Angel Pagan, who scored the winning run on Reyes' sacrifice fly in the 20th inning, was 3 for 6; the rest of the Mets combined to go 6 for 55 (.109).
-- The teams combined to have 19 different men pitch.
-- The Cardinals were 1 for 18 with runners in scoring position, while the Mets were 0 for 7. The teams went 24-for-130 overall, and left a combined 35 men on base.
-- Of those 35, St. Louis stranded 22 runners, including 14 in extra innings.
-- David Wright and Jason Bay were a combined 1 for 13 with 7 K's.
-- St. Louis left the bases loaded in the 10th, 12th and 14th and stranded 22 runners, including 14 in extra innings.
-- Mets nemesis Yadier Molina, who forced a 20th inning by driving in Albert Pujols in the bottom of the 19th, caught the whole game and went 3 for 9.
-- Mather, who would wind up the losing pitcher of record, didn't even enter the game until he hit for Colby Rasmus in the 10th inning. He played center and third before taking the mound in the 19th for his first major league pitching appearance.

-- Mather became the first St. Louis position player to register a decision since Jose Oquendo got the loss in a 7-5 setback against Atlanta on May 14, 1988.
-- When Mather pitched it was readily apparent that he couldn't hit the strike zone to save his life, and the Mets, for some unknown reason, continued to swing the bat.
-- It was the Mets' longest game since they lost 4-3 to St. Louis in 25 innings on Sept. 11, 1974.
-- The game set five stadium records for the current Busch Stadium: most strikeouts by Cardinals pitchers (16), most strikeouts by opposing pitchers (19), most combined strikeouts (35), longest game by time (six hours, 53 minutes) and longest game by innings.
-- The last time two position players pitched in the same game in the Major Leagues was July 20, 1990, when Dave Martinez and Junior Noboa pitched for the Expos in a 12-6 loss in Houston.
-- When the Cardinals went 18 innings without scoring a run, it tied the longest scoreless streak by them in one game since the legendary Carl Hubbell pitched an 18-inning shutout for the Giants on July 2, 1933.
-- The last 20-inning game in the Major Leagues was two years ago to the day, April 17, 2008. Colorado beat San Diego in that game, 2-1, in 22 innings -- with current Cardinal Matt Holliday playing all 22 innings.
-- There were 652 pitches thrown. There were 159 plate appearances.
-- Pelfrey became the first full-time Mets starter to earn a save since Dwight Gooden did it on Sept. 19, 1989, against the Cubs.
-- Cardinals utility infielder Felipe Lopez may have been the most impressive performer on the day. The only hit he surrendered, bizarrely, came from Mets reliever Raul Valdes, who gave up a decisive grand slam to Lopez the night before and pitched to Lopez in the top of the inning. Valdes promptly was thrown out trying to reach second after the Cardinals' short stop overthrew first baseman Albert Pujols.
-- The game lasted six hours and 53 minutes, featured 46 players (including every Met except pitcher Oliver Perez), had 19 walks and 35 strikeouts.
-- The game had a grand total of three extra-base hits.
-- Supposedly, Jeff Francoeur was scheduled to pitch for New York in the 21st.
-- New York Times Sports Editor Tom Jolly reported leaving his home in the 10th to see a movie with his wife and returning in time to see the first runs scored.
-- Three NHL playoff games were played yesterday, with two of them going into overtime. The Mets-Cardinals game spanned all of them.

Make no mistake. This was a truly crazy and nutty game, with shades of the 2008 MLB All-Star Game that very nearly featured David Wright pitching and Scott Kazmir playing in the outfield.

And what might have been the absolute craziest, nuttiest, bizarre aspect of the afternoon? Two high school teams were scheduled to play on the field after the game. And they still did, as noted by Ledger writer Brian Costa, who reported that the game was 1-0 in the third inning before he left the stadium well after midnight. Cost did take a picture as evidence that the game was, in fact, being played.

The Mets and Cards are particularly lucky in that they won't be playing again until 8:05 tonight, having drawn the Sunday Night Baseball game on ESPN, so they may actually get to be well rested before first pitch. In the meantime, the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which have been phenomenal so far, particularly Washington's wild OT-winning rally over Montreal yesterday, are continuing this afternoon and I will be ready, wearing my brand new Zach Parise Christmas Tree jersey for the Devils pivotal Game 3 with Philadelphia.

Of course, if you're too tired from watching the Mets yesterday, well, I guess I couldn't blame you.

1995 NFL Mail Bag: The Houston Oilers

I'm sure most of you are bleary-eyed after staying up last night to watch Mikael Samuelsson's overtime winner in Game 1 of the Canucks-Kings series. Surely, the Stanley Cup Playoffs has you all rapt at attention. But if I can manage to bring back your attention and wake you up a hair, I just might do it with my latest 1995 NFL Mail Bag installment, and frankly, it's been too long.

This week, I recall the curious case of the Houston Oilers, who sent me no letter, no order form and no offer to join their kids club. The Oilers only sent me a copy of their 1994 NFL Yearbook, without any explanation.

What follows in the yearbook, which has a picture of the immortal Ray Childress on the cover, is an interesting journey through memories that trend the bizarre, the comical and perhaps most of all, the disappointing. I say disappointing, and I specifically note that Childress is on the cover, because Childress is a native of the state of Tennessee, and if you glance in today's NFL standings, you'll notice the Houston Oilers are nowhere to be found.

Two short years after I got my mail from the Oilers, owner Bud Adams pulled up stakes and took his franchise to the Volunteer State, where they now play as the Tennessee Titans. Yes, I know, over the course of sports history, teams move for one reason or another, but it's somewhat distressing to see a team with history as rich, and a place so important as the Oilers leave town.

The Houston Oilers literally changed American professional football in 1960. With the NFL being a tight group unwilling to accept overtures from business men across the country who wished to enter an expansion franchise into the league, Adams and late Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt banded together with six other men, who would come to be known as "The Foolish Club", to create a rival known as the American Football League. While the AFL experienced some hiccups in the early going, and was considered a second tier operation in comparison to the NFL, success soon came that would dramatically alter the game.

A decade later, the NFL had absorbed the new group, nearly doubling its size and laying the foundation for the AFC and NFC Conference structure we have today. While Adams and Hunt are generally considered the founders of the AFL, the Oilers hold an even more noteworthy spot in that they won the first AFL Championship in 1960. It's somewhat maudlin to see such an important franchise leave its historic home, though one might argue the franchise reached new heights in Nashville, when the Titans nearly won Super Bowl XXXIV, but flipping through the pages still manages to give me some laughs.

For one, the very first thing you see is an advertisement for Sony's Surround Sound television system. Normally I wouldn't think twice about this, but I thought it was extremely peculiar that in 1994, they didn't have flat screen TVs. Think about it. When was the last time you saw an ad for a tube television?

But quirky old ads aside, the most amusing thing in these old publications to me is always the stories that, with some hindsight, we can tell didn't quite pan out. In the case of the 1994 Oilers, the sad case of Cody Carlson seems to take the cake.

Carlson had spent the first seven years of his career backing up the legendary Warren Moon in Houston, but with Moon dealt to the Minnesota Vikings in the offseason, the article boasted that it was finally Carlson's time to lead the Oilers into their next period of glory. Of course, Carlson's Wikipedia page also notes that he's "best known for curling into a fetal position whenever he was hit hard," so you can probably see how this wound up. Carlson would be injured early in the season, and miss the remainder of the year. As an interesting coda, he retired after the team let him go following a coaching change.

That coaching change, however, is where things get interesting, as the Oilers promoted first-year defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher to head coach. This is interesting because 16 years later, Fisher is still in charge for the now Tennessee Titans, and he has arguably the strongest job security of any coach in the league after leading the Titans to multiple playoff appearances and an AFC Championship. It is also worth noting that of all the people in this yearbook, he's the only one who doesn't appear to have aged significantly. Sure a few years have been tacked on, but he certainly has fared better than most of the other big names in the front office.

In fact, Fisher may not only have aged the best, but he's also managed to keep his reputation fairly clean, unlike the rest of them. Adams certainly looks to have had a few run-ins with Father Time, but that hasn't prevented him from showing the spunk of a teenager recently. Still, a middle finger is probably less damaging than Kevin Gilbride, who might be most well known for getting into a fistfight on the sidelines with previous Oilers defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan.

Of course, both of them are eons ahead of blogosphere whipping boy Sean Salisbury, who had recently arrived in Houston in 1994 via Minnesota. Aside from being a bombastic and irritating TV personality, Salisbury came under scrutiny three years ago for supposedly showing off pictures of his penis on a cell phone while employed at ESPN -- a charge he recently admitted to. Why couldn't he have just been proud of how awesome his hair looks coming out the back of his helmet?

Other interesting things of note in these pages include the page of Hall of Fame lineman Bruce Matthews, who is referred as "the best offensive lineman in professional football", a charge I might have argued at the time, and the forgotten old-timey cheerleading troupe of the Lone Star State: the Derrick Dolls. The Derrick Dolls seem to have been lost to posterity in the franchise's move to Tennessee, particularly since I imagine they always played second fiddle to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, but there is something about them that seems a bit more wholesome and not quite so overtly sexual and tawdry.

Or maybe that's just my hatred of the Cowboys shining through. But what can I say? I never claimed to be objective.

Also, and this must not be understated, throughout the magazine you get page after page of the old Houston Oilers Derrick logo. It was awesome then, and it was awesome this year when the Titans wore Oilers throwbacks for the AFL's 50th anniversay.

Speaking of uniforms, a bizarre moment in NFL fashion that will interest only me can be found in these pages. When the NFL celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1994, the League required each team to play in throwback uniforms at some point in the season, which led to some entirely awesome duds being strutted around. Interestingly, however, the NFL allowed you to alter your uniforms if you so wish, and the New York Jets apparently decided that their white helmets from Super Bowl III were no longer good anymore. The solution? Let's make them green! For two games! This is particularly odd since the team went with its old white helmets full time just four years later. The Jets were wearing green helmets at the time, but these peculiar buckets made their appearance once and once only, but you can find them in an advertisement in the Oilers yearbook.

Lastly, the joy ends when you get to the final pages of the yearbook. And that's because you are treated with an excited presentation for the stadium that will replace the aging Astrodome and keep the Oilers in Houston. The final page is title "21st Century Sports Facility Proposed by Oilers" and notes that it will be a first class building with a low roof that would save energy savings and create an intimate and exciting atmosphere. While baseball's Astros were not in the mix, the building expected an annual attendance of 3.5 million fans for NFL games, NBA games, concerts, college basketball and football and, and I find this the most interesting part, "44 NHL games". Apparently, the expectation was that Houston would be involved in the wave of 1990s NHL expansion, which, in hindsight seems like a potential disaster, despite the success of the Dallas Stars, but a quick google search shows that some are still looking to bring ice to one of the hottest cities in America.

Regardless the final page of the yearbook is a dour coda to an otherwise amusing trip to the past. Yes, the Oilers later got the expansion Texans, who look to have a bright future ahead of them, but something is classic about the derrick on the side of the helmet. You get the feeling that this team should never have moved. And more than anything else, reading through this simply made me wonder what could have been. In the meantime, I'll just have to be satisfied that my letter writing campaign left me with a little piece of football's past.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Some of you might remember a few years ago when ESPN produced commercials for college football Bowl Season, or "ESPN Capital One Bowl Week" as they call it, where the Worldwide Leader advertised its plethora of Bowl matchups to the strains of Andy Williams' "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". These ads weren't all that annoying -- it's not a bad song -- but they were on all the time. If you so much as turned on your TV for four minutes of Sportscenter, you were bound to come across it, probably more than once.

There rub here comes in the fact that, well, Bowl Season isn't the most wonderful time on the year in the sports calendar. There are a number of sporting events that are far more exciting and intriguing, such as the NFL Playoffs, the MLB Playoffs, March Madness -- well, pretty much all of them really. Bowl season by comparison is utterly lame, and you can trace that to the fact that all but one of the 30-some games that are played are completely and utterly meaningless. And from the looks of it, that won't be changing any time soon, particularly with websites like these promoting a playoff.

No, the most wonderful time of the year on the sports calendar is actually in the spring time, and while I'm sure a number of you will tell me I'm being nepotistic or generally ridiculous, I really believe the most wonderful time of the year is the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For those of you who remember the excitement of watching the U.S. and Canada face off twice in the Winter Olympics earlier this year, that tournament was dramatic, exciting and gripping in all facets. Well, the Stanley Cup Playoffs are like that every night for two months. The change in tension and level of play from the regular season to the postseason is perhaps more dramatic than in any other North American sport with epic overtime moments dotting its historic landscape. Not to mention that the Stanley Cup Playoffs drive women crazy.

Oh yeah, and they start today.

That means a lot of you probably won't be seeing me until June -- hold back your tears -- but it's all for a worthy cause, and if the people of West Africa can find a reason to be excited about hockey, so can the rest of you.

Frankly, it shouldn't be too hard given the excitement of the season as it came down to the final day. In one of the wildest moments I've ever seen in hockey, the Rangers and Flyers played a win-and-you're-in showdown that came down to an unbelievably tense shootout. Meanwhile, Steven Stamkos, in only his second year, was locked up in a neck-and-neck race with golden boy Sidney Crosby, who had an absurd last few games, for the NHL's goal scoring title. Of course none of those goals came close to Daniel Sedin's wild between the legs tally on Miikka Kiprusoff Saturday night, which might have been the single greatest goal I've ever seen, if for no other reason than the amazing blind deflection pass made by his brother Henrik. Oh yeah, and it capped a hat trick.



That score had shades of Marek Malik, who some might recall ending the longest shootout in history with a similar between the legs shot back in 2005, and while moments on the last weekend ranged from the stunning, to the exciting, they also broached the sentimental, as Mike Modano played what is likely to be his last game, but did so in Minnesota, where his Dallas Stars used to toil as the Minnesota North Stars for the first few years of Modano's career. Not only did the Minnesota Wild fans show respect for Modano, who left the North Stars to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1991, but Modano paid it back by donning a North Stars jersey after the game when he was named first star.

Of course, there's little room for sentimentality in the playoffs. The NHL postseason is a grueling test of wills, grit and beard growing. It takes a tough team -- and maybe even some tough, and blunt fans -- to be the last one standing at the top, and as we get ready for this year's rendition to get underway, I have high hopes for my Devils and the Blackhawks as well, but, this tournament is an unpredictable one. And that's why these picks are going to be completely wrong.

East
(1) Washington over (8) Montreal in four
(2) New Jersey over (7) Philadelphia in six
(3) Buffalo over (6) Boston in five
(4) Pittsburgh over (5) Ottawa in four

West
(1) San Jose over (8) Colorado in five
(2) Chicago over (7) Nashville in six
(6) Los Angeles over (3) Vancouver in seven
(5) Detroit over (4) Phoenix in seven

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm going to be incorrect on at least one of those -- I change my thoughts on the Kings-Canucks series every few minutes -- but either way, it should be a particularly exciting playoffs, albeit more so in the West in the opening round. The top four in the East, however, all have ingredients for a deep run. Rather than make a foolish prediction for the finals that will ruin my entire credibility like some tournaments do, I'll simply say my preseason prediction of Caps-Sharks is looking fairly good and leave it at that.

Strap in. The next two months are going to be an awfully fun ride.

Motown And The Matchup That Never Was

Originally written January 8, 2010.

I remember sitting in my college apartment during Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. It was a fairly sizable apartment, number 2N at 2060 Ridge Avenue, near the corner of Ridge and Simpson. It had three very large bedrooms at a relatively reasonable distance from campus and a relatively reasonable price considering. There was ample street parking and a lot that was free on weekends right next door, not to mention a nifty little porch in the back alley where I would sit to study when the weather was nice.

Of course in Evanston, that was about four weeks out of the school year.

There was one problem with the living room, however, in that I’m fairly certain it was, well, slanted. It drifted towards one corner, which everyone noted when they came by. That debate, typically, was reserved for more light-hearted and drunken occasions of which, being that it was my senior year of college, there were many. But the night of Game 7, the lighthearted conversation was scarce.

The Mets were playing that night. After rallying to force Game 7, tonight was the night, at long last, I would see my Mets return to the World Series. They had gone six years earlier, when I was 15 years old, but I didn’t nearly appreciate the staggering difficulty of the feat. I spent most of my teenage years watching the Yankees win titles, and assumed, finally, it was the Mets turn to make a run.

That was foolish. After seeing them drop to the dregs of multiple 90-loss seasons in the early part of the decade, 2006 was an exciting blast of fresh air. That was a year when everything – absolutely everything – went right.

And then the NLCS came against St. Louis, and the bats went cold. All of them.

But after forcing Game 7, at home, the Mets got on the board in the first inning and at that moment I was convinced that all would be right. Everything was in order. Little did I know that would be the last run the Mets would score that year. I wouldn’t realize it for a while. In the bottom of the 6th inning, Endy Chavez made the greatest defensive play in Mets franchise history, and possibly the greatest I had ever seen in my life.

With the game tied, the Cardinals Scott Rolen hammered a fly ball to left field that looked like a no-doubt two-run homer, but instead Chavez leaped over the eight-foot high wall and snow-coned the ball in his mitt, bringing the homer back and throwing out Jim Edmonds at first for an inning-ending double play.

As soon as Carlos Delgado caught the ball at first base I collapsed to the couch and simply repeated “Oh my God” to myself over and over again. That was the moment. That was it. At that moment I knew the Mets were going to the World Series. They had to. How could they not after a play like that. It was a forgone conclusion. God had preordained that the blue and orange would be playing in the fall classic, and that would be the seminal moment we told our children about decades later – the moment when Endy Chavez saved the eventual 2006 World Champion New York Mets.

It wasn’t meant to be.

New York loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning, and surely that would be when the floodgates opened, but instead, the Mets were unable to get the go-ahead run across. Yadier Molina hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth inning, and Carlos Beltran would strike out looking with the bases loaded on a knee-breaking curveball from Adam Wainwright. That was the season. The Cardinals, not the Mets, would faced off with the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series.

I had been text messaging my girlfriend to give her updates, and though she was a Yankee fan, she understood the dire circumstances. When I sent her a text saying “2007 World Series Champions” implying that next year would be the year, she responded with, “OH MY GOD! NO WAY! NO WAY!”

This was followed a few seconds later with, “Oh, I misread… sorry.”

What made this more painful was that Detroit, where Games 1 and 2 of the World Series would be played was but a five and a half hour drive from Chicago. I had already made up my mind that when the Mets got to the World Series in Detroit, I would spend what I had to to make the. But as so often happens, my best laid plans ran astray.

Fortunately for me, I got another chance to see my boys in Motown – albeit with less impressive stakes.

The New York Mets were expected once again to compete for the NL East crown in 2007, but the schedule makers did them no favors. Their interleague slate was a bizarre sampling across all three divisions of the American League, the rhyme or reason behind which I couldn’t quite figure out. But regardless, the Mets visited the Tigers in early June. Not only would this represent a rare chance to see the Amazins in a new park, it happened to be comfortably wedged between my final exams and graduation from Northwestern. With no real plans to occupy my time, the room for a day trip was ample.

So with that in mind, I waited patiently the day tickets went on sale, scooped up four for the Saturday afternoon game and plotted my moves. On June 9, 2007, I would be in Detroit, Michigan at Comerica Park.

Typically when I buy tickets from teams, I’ll have them left at will call rather than sent to my home. This reason is two-fold. Firstly, most teams have individualized ticket stubs that they print out on sight as opposed to generic “Ticket Master” stubs. Since I keep all my stubs, the more interesting the better.

Secondly, and most importantly, if I’m picking up my tickets at the stadium, I can’t lose them in the months before I actually attend the game. That’s a big one.

So with eons before the game it became an after though as I sifted through the final five months of college. The problem this brought about, however, as I sifted through my final classes and graduation arrangements, is that I forgot to find people to take the other three tickets.

Whoops.

Fortunately, Alan Allmen came to the rescue. I originally met Alan when my roommate Sam and I had he and our friend Evan use their senior class priority to net us a better dorm room sophomore year. There was the potential for a snafu, however, and Alan had made it clear he did not want to be stuck rooming with the New Jerseyan.

Yes, it would have been terrible for him.

It would all work out and Alan and I would become friends to the point that I attended his wedding the following summer. By the time my senior year had rolled near its end, Alan and his wife Rachel lived on the south side of Chicago, and Alan, a native of the Detroit suburbs, was more than willing to make the day trip. But what of the other two tickets? Zach Silka, my former compatriot in the Daily Sports office and one-time roommate had since graduated, and moved back home to Toledo. Toledo being within driving distance of Detroit and Zach fancying himself a Tigers fan, he was more than game and brought a friend to take the final ticket.

At times I couldn’t tell if Zach was a baseball fan, trouble-maker or both. This theory was brought to test near the end of my junior year, when I brought my laptop to Intro to Music on Opening Day so I could watch the Mets game online. Zach made sure to grab the seat next to me that day, but this was particularly curious considering Zach was not taking that class.

Beyond that I have two particularly strong memories of living with Zach, the first being that even though he graduated a third of the way through senior year, he left all of his furniture at the apartment so we, and our friend Abe who took his place the rest of the year, could use it. The working idea was that Zach would come back for commencement and leave with all his furniture. No fuss no muss. Of course, Silka curiously had not yet shown up yet by the morning of graduation. When I called him to find out where he was he told me that his family had actually decided not to come. This raised a question however.

“Ok, Zach,” I said. “But what about all of your furniture?”

“Oh…. Um, well, congratulations, Dave! Happy Graduation!”

I wasn’t quite sure what, exactly to do with my new presents: a coffee table, desk, dresser and a mattress, and Zach will swear to this day that he had sold the furniture to Abe and it was no longer his responsibility, but I’m fairly sure that isn’t the case. Fortunately, over the remaining few days I managed to hastily sell all of it on craigslist and pocket a few hundred dollars of walking around money.

The other, and perhaps more relevant memory that comes to mind is from October of senior year when Zach sat on the edge of our couch before screaming and collapsing to the ground after Magglio Ordonez clubbed a three-run walk-off home run off Oakland’s Huston Street in Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS, clinching Detroit’s 10th American League pennant. Zach also likes to claim he was there the last time the Tigers won the World Series in 1984. He was, in fact, not alive yet, but his mother was in attendance and pregnant with him at the time.

With all four tickets spoken for, I got behind the wheel of my 1994 Camry wagon on June 9, 2007 and headed for Alan’s apartment. Alan was one of the more dependable people I knew, and sure enough he was waiting for me on his apartment stoop when I pulled up. In he jumped and off we were for the 330-minute venture to the Motor City.

I had never been to Michigan before and was dutifully impressed with the wide array of fireworks stores at the Michigan-Indiana border along with the periodic billboards boldly proclaiming religious, pro-life or libertarian sentiments. This is not specifically endemic to Michigan. You’ll find these charming bits of local culture in any sparsely populated, rural stretch of highway.

But what you won’t always find is Culver’s. And like nearly every road trip I made across the Midwest, a stop for butterburgers and frozen custard was not optional.

Eventually, we neared Detroit and Alan gave me a brief history of the city and its landmarks, specifically the many buildings that, during the height of the auto boom came to symbolize Detroit’s grandeur and now epitomized its economic struggles. Detroit is not a bad looking city, as many of those from the area had told me. It simply looks like a place where money hasn’t been put into the infrastructure in decades, which, for the most part, is true.

But beyond that, Detroit still has a number of scenic landmarks, and a beautiful riverfront cityscape. The historic Fox Theatre is near the stadium, as are a number of parks and historic churches. Looking back on it, the city of Detroit clearly has its problems, particularly having seen the economic troubles endured by the major automobile companies in late 2008, but it is a hub of culture and character that deserves to be saved and reborn.

The people I came across were generally nice, city and what it has to offer was interesting and the antiquated architecture of some of its buildings gave it an old-timey appeal that I found heart-warming. One of those older buildings which stood at the time and has since been demolished was the original Tiger Stadium nee Navin Field. Amongst the older buildings in the Majors it did not sit far from the Tigers’ new home of Comerica Park, which replaced it in 2000.

Another older building was the one I parked in for $10 a few streets away. It clearly had been built at some time in the 1920s and I found its tight corners fascinating, which is a good thing because they were also treacherous and the fascination forced me to focus on not hitting the walls. In fact, the ramp up to the parking deck was so sharp and narrow that I’m stunned I didn’t.

With the first five-hour plus drive of the day behind us Alan and I walked up to the park to get our tickets. Comerica is a beautiful stadium and while it is similar in its appearance and intimacy inside to most of the current ball parks being built, it has one very notable, and obvious structural difference. If you can’t figure out the Tigers play here you must be extremely visually impaired, because there are statues of tigers everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

The main entrance to the stadium has two enormous prowling tiger statues arched over the top of the gate, with six more tiger statues in other areas of the park, including the two full color statues that stand atop the centerfield scoreboard. In addition, 33 stone tiger heads surround the outside of the building with baseballs in their mouths. The ubiquity almost seems hokey, but I heartily enjoy it. A team’s home should look like its home, and Comerica Park clearly belongs to the Tigers.

We picked up our tickets at will call, left two there for Zach and headed into the building. Comerica on the inside provides all the standard niceties that you’ll find in newer stadiums. It has outfield picnic areas and varied food options, with the usual wide concourses. The most interesting part is the section beyond the outfield wall in left center that pays tribute to the team’s history.

There are enormous statues of each Tiger who has had his number retired such as Al Kaline or my personal favorite, Hank Greenberg. Greenberg’s statue is my favorite not only because of his Jewish background, but also because all the statutes are designed to give them a super-human quality, and Greenberg’s which features not one but three baseballs coming off his bat, looks particularly powerful. The only Tiger whose number isn’t retired that still gets a statue is Ty Cobb. Of course, that comes with the disclaimer that the Georgia Peach’s number isn’t retired because he has played in an era when players did not yet wear them. The only non-player to have a statue in the building is longtime Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell near the first-base side. Given that man’s dedication to the franchise, and the city of Detroit, he may be the most deserving of all of them.

The field itself is absolutely enormous. Center field stretches out to 420 feet, while left center is 370 from home plate, and that’s after the club shortened the fences following the 2002 season. My only real aesthetic problem with the stadium is that the shortened left field fence is a painfully obvious alteration to the park’s original lay out. The space behind the shortened fences was used to create new bullpens, and as well, the flag pole contained within the area is no longer in the field of play. But the wall itself looks flimsy and temporary – the only scar on an otherwise picture perfect stadium.

That afternoon was picture perfect late spring weather, and Comerica had its Sunday finest on – even if it was actually Saturday. The ivy on the fountain in dead center field gave the park a certain natural quality that is rare, even in newer buildings, and matched perhaps only by the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field. Comerica also features two other minor quirks, namely the strip of dirt running from home to the pitchers mound, and the home plate shaped dirt field surrounding the batter’s box.

I dig it.

We were seated near the top of the upper deck and just to the left of the left field foul pole. Despite the nonpreferential viewpoint, the sightlines are still pretty good. There is little on the field of play that I couldn’t see from one of the worst vantage points in the building. As Alan and I stood in our seats, we were joined by Zach and his friend Ryan. I hadn’t seen Zach in nearly six months and it was good to catch up with him, as I told him how the rest of senior year went and he regaled me with the wild stories of Toledo’s bar scene.

The game itself was a fairly unexciting affair because the Mets had Oliver Perez on the mound. The excitement with Perez was that his stuff was so good that any day he stepped on the mound there was a chance of him throwing a no-hitter. He was also absent-minded, lazy and unpredictable, so there was a more likely chance that you’d see him get pasted.

True to form, he served up a three-run shot to Carlos Guillen in the first inning as Detroit jumped ahead 3-1. The Tigers would eventually build an 8-3 lead, and while New York would score four runs in the seventh and eighth innings, you never got much of a feeling that Detroit wasn’t in control.

This didn’t particularly bother me. After all, if you have a great regular season you’re still going to lose roughly 60 times a year. The Mets at the time were 12 games over .500 and in first place and I never would have expected what happened that September when New York took a seven-game lead into the final 17 games before completing one of the great collapses in baseball history. But, this trip was less about the chance to pick up a win than the opportunity to see a new team, a new building, a new city and a new fan base. Of course, when I saw the Tigers fan base it was met by a sizeable Mets contingent. Something I’ve learned in years of traveling to see the Metroplitans is that they travel awfully well.

I’ve run across large crowds in orange and blue in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Boston, Washington and Philadelphia. That this was an afternoon game made this a particularly strong group, but there was no tension, no discord. Instead, there was a jovial and conciliatory atmosphere as opposing fans cheerfully ribbed one another and laughed afterward. A man at a Mets game once told me a Mets-Red Sox game at Fenway was the most peaceful place he’d ever been because everyone was unified in their hatred of the Yankees.

This was not exactly the same, but I drew some clear parallels. After all, the Mets and Tigers almost never play each other. Why should there be any conflict?

That day, was purely about love of the game.

As I walked down the steps of the upper deck and towards the exit ramps, I was stopped by a group of middle aged fans. One who appeared to be in his mid-40s, was wearing a Mets jersey with a script “New York” on the front that they sported in the 1980s. He told me that while Mike Piazza, who was on the back of mine that day, was good, the only guy better was player on the back of his. It was Lenny Dykstra. I think I would argue that. And I'm damn sure Piazza is better at handling finances.

The eldest one of the group, who had to have been in his 60s put his arm around me and patted me on the back with joking condescension as if to say, “Don’t worry, buddy. It’ll be ok.”

“It’s alright,” I told him. “We’ll see you in October.”

And we all laughed. Because that’s what everyone was thinking.

No one in the building that day had thought the Mets and Tigers wouldn’t meet again in the World Series that year, and as a result, everyone was cheery and pleasant.

Little did we know that neither team would even make the postseason, the Tigers themselves would have a tough second half that left them eight games became the surprising Cleveland Indians. In the end both Mets and Tigers fans would have to watch on TV as their stadiums wound up empty.

Despite the final score that day, I was satisfied with another successful trip as Alan and I got back in the car, carefully pulled out of the narrow parking garage, and hit the highways for the five and a half hour ride back to Evanston.

And there was a stop at Culver’s along the way of course.

The day itself was long from end to end, and I was extremely tired by the time I got back to my apartment, but I somehow managed to go to a bar afterwards. In fact, I think I made a point to do so every night for the next two weeks.

I had to. College was almost over.

A Changing Of The Guard in U.S.A. Hockey

The first hockey trading card I ever owned, was a 3-D hologram of Mike Modano taking a slapshot. The year was 1995 and Modano, on his way to becoming the most prolific American-born scorer of all time, was in his sixth season in the NHL at the time with the Dallas Stars (nee Minnesota North Stars). Modano, who has topped 500 goals and 1,300 points during a Hall of Fame career, is the rare breed of star who was prolific, the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft, a champion (Modano won the Stanley Cup with Dallas in 1999) and who spent his entire career with one franchise.

His wife isn't bad looking either.

I am not wanting for new reasons to feel old these days, but I got a new one this week when Modano and one night later Keith Tkachuk, both played their presumptive last games in front of their home crowds. Tkachuk, another one of the greatest American scorers of all time with both 500 goals and 1,000 points to his credit,wasn't fortunate enough to lift Stanley at any point in his 18 year career, but he was still one of the more dangerous and talented American players of his era.

In fact, Modano and Tkachuk were two of the pillars of the vanguard of American hockey. There was no 1980 Miracle on Ice moment for either of them, but the U.S. experienced some of its greatest success on the ice with Modano and Tkachuk in tow. Both were crucial parts of the 1996 World Cup of Hockey team which shocked Canada in the Championship round with two comeback wins in Montreal, as well as the Silver Medal squad from the 2002 Winter Olympics.

While many of the great players of those teams (Mike Richter, Jeremy Roenick, Brian Leetch) have already retired, something seems fitting about Modano, who appropriately will be playing his last game back in Minnesota where his career started, and Tkachuk taking curtain calls on back to back nights and potentially being enshrined in Toronto together. That last part may be a pipe dream -- Modano is a stronger lock to make the Hall than Tkachuk -- but for two players who were so successful over roughly the same period it only seems appropriate for them to walk out together.

Tkachuk didn't spend his entire career where it ended in St. Louis. Tkachuk actually had the remarkable status as one of the four former Winnipeg Jets remaining in the League (along with Teemu Selanne, who may also retire, Nikolai Khabibulin and Shane Doan, the only one still with the Jets/Coyotes franchise). But over nine seasons in the Gateway City, Tkachuk, or as he was affectionately known there, Walt, has become a fan favorite who stated last night that he has no intentions of moving away from his adopted home, and that he plans on still being a part of the Blues organization when it wins its first Stanley Cup.

Modano, too, became a fixture in Dallas, where he was visibly brought to tears during the closing moments of his last game in Texas and again afterwards when he was treated to yet another standing ovation from the home crowd. Of course, Modano seemed to get his emotions in check fairly quickly, and picked a hell of a way to go out to his home fans. The Anaheim Ducks quickly spoiled the party after his tribute by taking the lead, but it was none other than Modano himself who would tie the game with under two minutes left. Mo wasn't done yet, either. After nearly ending the game on a breakaway in overtime, Modano scored the shootout winner as his final act on the ice in Dallas.



Not a bad way for only the second American ever drafted No. 1 to go out, huh? Tkachuk didn't have quite the same sparkling moment, but he was a pivotal part of a 6-3 win for St. Louis, ironically, also against the Ducks. The gutsy winger assisted on two goals in the third period to cap a comeback for the Blues, another appropriate sendoff.

But as we turn the page on two of the more accomplished players in American hockey history, who gets to step into their places on the forefront of USA Hockey? I'm no expert, but put one vote here for Zach Parise and Patrick Kane, and no, not because they happen to play for my two favorite teams. Aside from already showing themselves to be among the most gifted forwards in the League today, Kane is a similarly dynamic player to Modano, while Parise has the same nose for the net that Tkachuk has had throughout his career, with arguably more scoring ability. The pair has already proven themselves more than capable in the NHL Arena, and acquitted themselves extremely well at the Vancouver Olympics.

It became clear this year when the U.S. Olympic hockey roster was announced that there was going to be a clean break from the group that made such hay in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and nearly turned the trick again at Salt Lake City in 2002. Modano, Tkachuk and other luminaries like Bill Guerin were noticeably absent from the roster in favor of younger players like Parise, Kane and gritty forwards like David Backes and Dustin Brown. Parise and Kane both played major roles in the tournament, with Parise memorably scoring with 24.4 seconds left in the gold medal game to force overtime.

If the next generation of USA Hockey is to meet or exceed the standards of what came before it, Parise and Kane's shoulders may very well be where the pressure rests. If they can come close to the legacies of Modano and Tkachuk both in the NHL and in International play, they'll have done themselves and their country proud.

It would be hard to find two better reputations to live up to.