The American sports landscape has been continually tattooed with dynastic labels like “Team of the Year” or “Team of the Decade.” The NFL in particular has been defined each decade by a juggernaut winning …. a lot. The dominance of franchises like the 70’s Steelers, the 80’s Niners, the 90’s Cowboys, and the Patriots of the new millennium has immortalized the likes of Bradshaw, Aikman and Montana to deific status. The NBA has also provided its share of dynastic runs from the Celtics to the Lakers to the Pistons to the Bulls, and examples abound exist in both hockey and baseball as well.
With the Red Sox being two championships deep this decade, the Celtics with one themselves, and the Bruins…. well….I’ll stop right there for the sake of superstitious Bruin fans; but the current Boston run raises the question: Has any one city or major sports market ever experienced the perfect storm of dominance - that is - has any city with all 4 major professional sports ever won championships in each of the 4 sports in one calendar decade? If the Bruins do hoist the cup this season, Boston would have championships in all four major sports since the Pats got the ball rolling in ’01. But would it be the first time?
And yes. For the point of this research I am presuming (perhaps incorrectly, but that’s another debate) that hockey is still considered one of the four major sports.
With the help of my handy stat-geek (I call him Google) I decided to look into this question. It’s important to note that there is a limited group of markets that have all four major sports; 13 in fact. At least one of these markets won in 3 out of 3 sports in a decade, with the A’s, the Warriors, and the Raiders winning titles in the 70’s, prior to hockey arriving. Furthermore, there are a number of markets with the advantage of having multiple teams in multiple sports. New York, Chicago and the Bay Area jump to mind (and yes Bay folk, while you may not want to hear it, everybody else considers San Fran and Oakland the same market). For the purpose of my research I did not count the New Jersey Nets or Devils as NY teams, but NY still has two teams in each sport except basketball (even though both football teams actually play in Jersey! Hugh?).
The 13 markets with all fours pro sports are Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Philly, the Bay Area, D.C., Phoenix, Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Boston. Of these markets, some have only had all four sports for a short time. The Bay Area, for example, had all four since the Shark’s birth in 1991, but as mentioned above was 3 for 3 in the 79’s; Atlanta’s had four since the Thrashers were born in ’99; Phoenix and Miami also lacked the requisite four teams until the 90s, as did D.C. until the Nats moved there in 2005. So for these markets, the odds of the four-sport decadal championship are clearly much lower.
On the other hand, markets such as New York (’47), Boston (’59), and Detroit (’57) have had far more chances with all four sports being present for up to six decades now.
Many of these markets were easy to eliminate. Atlanta won only in baseball, and that was prior to the Thrashers making the market complete in ’99. Minneapolis, oddly enough, could be immediately eliminated due to the lack of a Stanley Cup, or an NBA title since the Lakers left. How has a city that lives and breathes hockey like Dallas does football never won a Stanley Cup? Speaking of Dallas, it has never won a World Series or an NBA title and the same criteria eliminate Denver. Miami has never won the Cup, and the Dolphins haven’t won since the 70’s, although MLB and the NBA have done well of late. Philly has never won a Superbowl, and the Bay is without a Stanley Cup. D.C. is without a Cup and the Nats are one of only three baseball teams (along with the Mariners and Rangers) to never go to a World Series. And finally there’s Phoenix, which was easily eliminated from the discussion as there has not been an NBA, NHL, or NFL trophy hoisted in the desert.
Not surprisingly, the four markets that are left after eliminating those above are the four markets that have won the most total championships (and not coincidently, 4 ooooold time hockey cities). New York tops the list with 51 professional championships, followed by Boston with 32, Chicago with 23, and Detroit with 22.
The easiest of the big four to eliminate was Chicago. The Bears have had success in multiple decades, but were done winning championships by the time the Bulls came around in the 90’s and White Sox won recently. Also, that the Blackhawks haven’t won since 1961 made it clear that Chicago was out, so analyzing the Cubs’ history…. well, let’s not pile on Chi town. We’ll just say Chicago is out.
Detroit was interesting because the Red Wings win a ton, and have for a long time. However, as dominant as the Wings have been, the Lions have been equally inept, particularly since the merger. And the 80’s, when the Tigers and Pistons got it done, the Wings actually failed to do so, thus eliminating Detroit from the discussion.
So like fall baseball in the Northeast, the discussion comes down to New York and Boston. Boston is easy to eliminate for all decades prior to the new millennium as that 86 year drought for the Sox began before the days of the Celtics. New York, however, has definitely had a sniff at the four-sport decadal ring ceremony. New York has had all 4 major sports since 1946, but failed to win rings in football or basketball until nearly 1970. In the 60’s New York failed to win a Stanley Cup. In the 80’s and 90’s there were no NBA titles in the big apple, and the city’s lack of success in the NHL and NBA have stretched into this decade, and probably will continue until LeBron throws on his new Knicks gear in a couple years.
The 70’s, however, were nearly the pinnacle for New York. The Yankees came through in ’77 and ’78 with a little help from Mr. October. The Knicks came through in ’70 and ’73, while the Islanders won the ’79-’80 Stanley Cup (and the following year). While the cup wasn’t hoisted until 1980, we’ll call it a 70’s crown. That’s baseball, basketball and hockey all taken care of. So what about football? Like B-Ueck once said, “Juusst a bit outside!” That’s right, Namath’s ballsy prediction and equally ballsy performance in the 3rd NFL Championship (and the 1st “Superbowl”) came in early January, 1969. Had Joe waited a year to work his magic, New York would already have claim to the most dominant sports decade ever, but that title was clearly a 60’s title that capped the ’68-’69 season.
If the Bruins are able to hoist the cup this year Boston would have at least three Superbowls, two World Series, one NBA Title and one Stanley Cup from 2001-2009, and hence, in my opinion, the most dominant run in any given decade in the history of American professional sports. While educated minds could certainly disagree, nobody can deny that the city has come a long way since the days of Bill Buckner and Aaron F-ing Boone.
