Best of Myspace: Still the City of Champions

Originally posted on May 21st, 2008.

Could this be a battle for the City of Champions?

Ever notice how some cities always seem to have one of their sports teams in the finals of a particular sport? Since 1971, the city of Pittsburgh has witnessed two World Series appearances, 6 Super Bowl appearances, and thanks to their 6-0 throttling of the Philadelphia Flyers this past Sunday, the Penguins have reached the Stanley Cup finals 3 times. That's a total of 11 finals appearances over a span of 37 years. I'm no math major, but that means that someone like me, who just turned 36, has had the pleasure of witnessing a finals appearance once every 3 or 4 years on average. For a city the size of Pittsburgh, that's pretty damn impressive. Pittsburgh's teams have won 9 of the previous 10 finals appearances with number 11 pending, of course.

I was doing some research online yesterday and some other cities of similar size don't match up to the success of Pittsburgh's sports franchises. For example, Miami sports teams have had 9 finals appearances over roughly the same time-span but only 5championships. The St. Louis sports franchises have been in 7 finals appearances and 3 titles to show for it.

I thought Pittsburgh couldn't be touched in this area until I researched Detroit and was amazed to see that since 1984, a Detroit-area team has been to a final 12-times. That is pretty damn impressive. That means that if you're a Detroit native in your early 30's and were about 8 or 9 in 1984, an age when most kids get into sports, you've witnessed a finals appearance every other year on average. At this point, you're probably "ho-hum" about the Red Wings being in the Stanley Cup finals. You've seen a Tigers World series victory, the Bad-Boys back-to-back NBA titles in the late-80's and the Wings winning three Cups since the '90s along with another Pistons title a few years ago. You've seen a lot of championships.

For two cities that have had their share of financial problems, that have been the butt of many jokes over the years, 23 finals appearances and 16 titles over a 4-decade spand is something to be very proud of.

Sure cities like Boston, Los Angeles and New York have seen more finals appearances and more titles than Detroit and Pittsburgh over the previously mentioned 37 year time-span, but they've also had more teams to draw from. For example, the New York area has had seven-teams to draw from over that period, and Pittsburgh has had three professional teams.

And look at the city of Chicago. Everyone talks about what a great sports town it is, but if it wasn't for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, they'd have two titles since the 60's. Still, though, even with the 8 titles, Chicago is still 1 behind Pittsburgh and 1 ahead of Detroit.

The New York area has had 15 world champion teams during the period I first mentioned, but as I said, they've had a 7 on 3 power play (to jump on the band-wagon and use a hockey term) the entire time. That's 6 teams producing 15 for New York and 3 producing 9 for Pittsburgh. And the New York Islanders won 4 of those titles in the early 80's, they play in Long Island. Is Long Island even considered part of the New York metro area?

You can even argue that Detroit's run of 12 title appearances in 24 years isn't as impressive as Pittsburgh's 11 in 37. Detroit has had 4 teams to draw from compared to Pittsburgh's 3. Yes, you can argue that the Detroit Lions aren't really a professional sports team so that would take it down to 3, but people have said that the Pittsburgh Pirates have been playing minor-league baseball since 1993, so that's another power play of 3 on 2 in favor of Detroit. Besides that, of the combined 16-titles between the two cities that I mentioned before, 9 belong to Pittsburgh. That means that no matter what happens in the Stanley Cup finals, the city of Pittsburgh would still be ahead, 9-8. That is, of course, if you started keeping score in 1971, and since this is my blog, that's what I'm doing.

And just a warning to the city of Detroit, Pittsburgh's sports teams simply do not lose in the championship round. If you go all the way back to 1927 when the Pirates were swept by Murderer's Row in the World Series, the city of Pittsburgh has seen their team lose a championship just once, Super Bowl XXX when Neil 'O Donnell threw those two baffling interceptions.

I don't know what's going to happen in the Stanley Cup finals, but I think if you crunch all the numbers, pound for pound, Pittsburgh truly is the City of Champions.

Just as a follow-up to this blog, the Red Wings did go on to defeat the Penguins in six games that year, bringing Detroit's championship titles to 8 compared to Pittsburgh's 9. However, the Steelers went on to capture another Super bowl title in 2008 and the Penguins dethroned the Red Wings in their Stanley Cup rematch last Summer. The city of Pittsburgh now has 11 titles in 13 finals appearances since 1971 and Detroit has 8 in 13 championship round appearances since 1984. Still pretty impressive, but not up to Pittsburgh's standards.