The Lions were four years removed from their breakout NFC Championship Game appearance of 1991. They had made the postseason two times since, in 1993 and 1994, but were eliminated in the first round both times. The 1995 Detroit Lions, after a slow start, had all the markings of a team that was peaking at […]
The 1975 AL MVP vote was historic—the award went to Boston Red Sox centerfielder Fred Lynn in a landslide, but that wasn’t the historic part. Lynn also became the first rookie in either league to win the MVP. And, nearly a half-century later at this writing, he remains the last. Here’s a look at the […]
The New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners came into the 2000 ALCS with very different histories. The Yankees were the most decorated franchise in all of professional sports, and the two-time defending World Series champions to boots. The Mariners were a team whose very existence was still less than 25 years old. They had never […]
The League Championship Series round had just been instituted in 1969. The decade of the 1970s would see this round’s great rivalry develop between the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates. They played for the pennant four different times in this decade. The 1970 National League Championship Series marked the beginning of both the decade and […]
Dennis Green arrived in Minnesota in 1992, and promptly won a division title. The 1993 Minnesota Vikings didn’t quite match that feat. But they made it back to the playoffs and solidified what would be a perennially contending team throughout the 1990s. The defensive front was the foundation on which this team was built. John […]
The 1993 Green Bay Packers were looking to end a drought. The franchise had not made the playoffs since 1982. They only gone to the postseason twice since the departure of the great Vince Lombardi following the 1967 season. Most of those seasons were simply hopeless. 1992 had seen some hope—the emergence of a young […]
The Houston Astros are set to make their first appearance in the American League Championship Series on Friday night against the New York Yankees. If the franchise’s history in the National League is any indication, there are some thrills in store. Over the course of their 50-year run as an NL team (1962-2012), the Astros […]
Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of sports history articles aimed at preserving the best moments of the modern sports era, from 1976 to the present. The focus is team sports—college & pro basketball and football, major league baseball and hockey. This article offers a snapshot of 1992 sports, a year defined by an epic shot in the NCAA Tournament, and a parade of teams either closing repeat titles, getting close to doing such, or starting repeat runs.
The city of Minneapolis had been the epicenter of the sports world from late 1991 to the end of March in 1992. The Twins had made—and won—the World Series the previous October. The Super Bowl, won by the Washington Redskins, was held there in January. Now the Metrodome was set to play host to the 1992 Final Four, as the Duke Blue Devils sought to become the first repeat national champion since the John Wooden era.
The Chicago Bulls were looking for a repeat championship in the 1992 NBA Finals. The Portland Trail Blazers were no strangers to the big stage themselves, having reached the Finals in 1990 before losing to the Detroit Pistons. The question for the postseason was, could anyone slow down Chicago?
The 1986 Fiesta Bowl brought together two traditional powers, Michigan and Nebraska, who had narrowly missed being in position to play for a national title, but still had a top-five national finish on the line when they met. Here’s a look back on the road the Wolverines and Cornhuskers took through the 1985 college football […]
There’s a lot going on at TheSportsNotebook in the way of sports history articles, activity that’s not always—or even usually—visible on the home page. Here’s a breakdown of some of the highlights in our Sports Museum, and some of the additions currently taking place.