Half a Century Since the Ice Bowl

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"I'm going to take a bite of my coffee."

Frank Gifford, CBS color commentator

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I have written here before of the legendary Ice Bowl of 1967. I am a lifelong student of history so I often write in my blogs about historic events — but my policy has been not to write about events I have written about before.

As my grandfather would say, I don't like to chew my cabbage twice.

But today is the 50th anniversary of that NFL championship game played between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., and on this milestone occasion, it deserves more than a cursory examination.

The game got its moniker from the extreme conditions in which it was played. The game-time temperature was about –15°. Under standards in use at the time, the wind chill was –48°. (National Weather Service standards have since been revised; under those standards, the wind chill would be a comparatively balmy –36°.)

Lambeau Field had a heating system installed beneath the playing surface, which was supposed to keep it in good condition in inclement weather, but the system failed. When the tarp was removed before game time, moisture was left on the field that froze instantly.

That gave rise to the rumor that Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi had manipulated the system in some way so that the brunt of the conditions would be more difficult on the visitors from Texas than the hometown Packers. That rumor was fueled by the perception that Dallas' players were more athletic than the aging Packers.

But it wasn't just the weather that contributed to the game's almost mythical status. In the few short years of the Cowboys' existence, the teams had developed a rivalry that persists to this day, which included a down–to–the–wire battle in Dallas for the NFL championship the year before. That added to the drama going into the game; it was punctuated by a thrilling conclusion.

Once, when I was working on the sports desk of the Denton, Texas newspaper, the sports editor and I had lunch with a friend of his — sportscaster Bill Mercer, a local icon who covered the Ice Bowl for Dallas radio station KLIF. My memory of that lunch conversation is that Mercer was a virtual walking encyclopedia of North Texas sports history. Much of it he had witnessed personally — and much of it focused on the Ice Bowl.

Now retired and living on the East Coast, Mercer reflected on the game for a new documentary about it.

"I can still see that game in my mind," Mercer said. "I'm 91 years old now and it's like it was yesterday. ... I can imagine it's going to go on and on. That game will live forever."

In such brutal weather, many myths gained traction. If they weren't entirely true, they had at least a nugget of truth in them — unlike the allegations about Lombardi.

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Most of those allegations were made in jest, though. Even Lombardi's players joked about Vince's influence on the weather and the field conditions.

"I figure Lombardi got on his knees to pray for cold weather," said Green Bay defensive tackle Henry Jordan, "and stayed down too long."

The Packers and Cowboys brought decidedly different histories into the game.

The Packers had been fixtures in the National Football League for nearly half a century. They were two–time defending NFL champions and winners of more NFL championships than any other franchise.

The Cowboys began as an expansion team in 1960, but Dallas coach Tom Landry built them into Super Bowl contenders in less than a decade.

And they had plenty of motivation to win this time. They lost the NFL championship game the previous year in Dallas to those same Packers.

Adding to the intrigue was the fact that Lombardi and Landry had served together on Jim Lee Howell's New York Giants coaching staff in the 1950s.

Dallas had not played in Green Bay since its first year of existence. When the Cowboys arrived in Green Bay a couple of days before the game, the temperature was in the 50s, and quarterback Don Meredith mugged for the cameras, cupping his hands and saying the championship game was going to be "easy money."

The Cowboys knew a cold front was coming, but it was not expected until after the game was over.

It wasn't the first time meteorologists got it wrong.

The Packers scored first, capping a nine–minute drive with an eight–yard touchdown pass from Bart Starr to Boyd Dowler in the first quarter.

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The conditions seemed to have put the Dallas offense in the deep freeze as it continued sputtering, but the Packers kept rolling.

In the second quarter, Green Bay took a 14–0 lead when Starr hit Dowler for another touchdown, this time from 46 yards.

It looked like the Cowboys were in trouble. In fact, it looked like the Cowboys would rather be anywhere else than Green Bay. As cold as it was, who could blame them?

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And, indeed, the offense continued to struggle against the Packers' defense.

But now the Packers' offense began to struggle, too.

Later in the second quarter, as Starr went back to pass, the Cowboys' pass rush trapped him behind the line and stripped him of the ball. George Andrie picked it up and ran seven yards for a touchdown, cutting the deficit in half with about four minutes remaining before intermission.

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After recovering a fumbled punt on Green Bay's end of the field with less than two minutes to play, the Cowboys added a field goal.

In keeping with the freakish nature of the game, Dallas did not get a single first down in the second quarter yet scored 10 points and trailed by only four at halftime.

The Cowboys' offense performed much better in the third quarter but still failed to generate a touchdown. The Packers were the ones who were sputtering, and the third period was scoreless. Going into the final quarter, Green Bay still led 14–10.

That would soon change.

On a halfback option, Dan Reeves hit Lance Rentzel for a 50–yard touchdown strike, and Dallas had its first lead of the game 17–14 with only eight seconds gone from the final period.

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Finally staked to a lead, the Dallas defense appeared to have new life while the Green Bay offense seemed to have none.

The score remained 17–14 until the game was nearly over.

With just under five minutes to go, the Packers fielded a punt and started their final offensive possession of the game at their own 32. Field conditions were deteriorating by the minute.

All things considered, the Packers' effort in that final drive may never be matched in terms of execution or heroism.

The drive seemed to stall in the final minute with the Packers in the shadow of the Cowboys' goal post. Green Bay called its last timeout with 16 seconds remaining and the Packers a yard away from the end zone on fourth down.

Green Bay could have kicked a field goal and hoped to win the game in overtime. That would have been in character for Lombardi, who was not known as a gambler — in fact, he was noted for saying that "everybody loves a gambler until he loses" — and the field goal certainly would have been the conservative option. But apparently, it was never seriously considered.

"I didn't figure all those people up there in the stands could take the cold for an overtime game," Lombardi said. There was probably more to it than that, but he told Starr to take it in for the touchdown. And he did.

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Fullback Chuck Mercein, a late–season acquisition for the Packers, played a key role in the winning drive — and is the person you can see with his hands raised in the photos of Starr after he scored the winning touchdown (he is number 30 in the photo at the top of this post).

Many people assume Mercein was signaling that Starr had scored, but he said he was trying to show the referees that he hadn't pushed Starr into the end zone. That would have resulted in a penalty, and the Packers almost surely would have had to settle for a field goal.

"I realized that was a singular moment in my career," Mercein, who made some important gains to set up Starr's game–winning play, said. "It means more to me because I was able to pay it forward, the faith that Vince Lombardi had in me. There were plenty of other backs he could have picked up. Seldom does it happen where you can repay someone for their faith in you."

For half a century the Ice Bowl has remained vivid in memories and no doubt would continue to do so with little help, but Meredith's son Michael, who was only a few months old when his father played in the game, has made a film about it that premiered recently on the NFL Network.

Sadly there is no known complete copy of the Ice Bowl telecast in existence. Radio broadcasts do still exist, including the one of Mercer calling the game for KLIF. Meredith used video clips that do exist and interviews with participants to tell the story.

That should heat up those memories of an already memorable day.

Telling It Like It Is

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I really admire Dale Hansen, weeknight sports anchor and sports director at WFAA — the ABC affiliate here in Dallas.

He has the courage to tell it like it is, which shouldn't come as a surprise, really. Nearly 30 years ago, he exposed NCAA violations at Southern Methodist University that ultimately led to the imposition of the NCAA's "death penalty" on SMU's football program. His work earned some awards for distinguished journalism — and several death threats, as I recall.

Football is virtually a religion in Texas. It's that way across the South, but it seems especially true of Texas.

And I love to watch football as much as anyone. I grew up in Arkansas, and we love our Razorbacks. It's the only thing that nearly everyone in Arkansas agrees on.

We love to like win, like just about everyone, I guess, but I honestly do believe that we also have standards in Arkansas. I think that was proven when the head coach was found to be carrying on an intimate relationship with a young female assistant. He is now coaching elsewhere, and the football program was subjected to some excruciating growing pains after he left, but the ship seems to be going in the right direction now — and it appears to be doing so with a group of young men who seem to know the meaning of the word honor.

That is part of what makes it so difficult to live here in the Metroplex and see how Jerry Jones has mismanaged the Cowboys for more than a quarter of a century now. I've lived here for all but four of those years — I even covered Jimmy Johnson's first press conference as Jones' new head coach hire — but I might as well have grown up here, given that most of the people in central Arkansas in those days were Cowboys fans.

Then, as now, there was no professional football team in Arkansas — and only a few professional teams within driving distance. The Cowboys were televised there every week. It was only natural, I suppose, for football fans there to gravitate to the Cowboys. Those who are still living — and many of their children and grandchildren — have carried on the tradition.

The Cowboys of those days played aggressive football — for which they were either admired or loathed, but, either way, no one could deny they carried themselves with dignity and honor. Tom Landry and Tex Schramm wouldn't have it any other way. Their players played hard on the field, and the Cowboys had something like 20 consecutive winning seasons, which I am sure put them under a great deal of pressure — including all the talk locally that they couldn't win "the big one" — but they didn't beat their wives, their girlfriends or their children when they were off the field.

Recently, though, Jones signed defensive lineman Greg Hardy. In case you aren't familiar with Hardy's background, you can get a pretty good idea of his personal history by reading this by Judy Battista of NFL.com.

You could get a really good idea of his background by listening to Hansen for three minutes earlier this week.

And, while it is tempting to summarize for you what Hansen said, it is far more effective if you see it and hear it for yourself.

So I urge you to watch the attached video.

Dale, I agree with you 100%

The Incredible Comeback

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Like many other Americans, one of my most cherished Thanksgiving traditions is watching football.

And what happened 40 years ago is as vivid in my memory as anything that happened five minutes ago — because it was the fulfillment of every young boy's fantasy, and I was a young boy.

The Dallas Cowboys have been playing home football games on Thanksgiving since the '60s. On this day in 1974, they had been doing it for less than a decade. In 1974, they had a really special matchup planned — with the Washington Redskins, a rival and the NFC's representative in the Super Bowl two years earlier.

There have been some great games played on Thanksgiving, but none had such an improbable story line.

The Cowboys were losing to the Redskins, 16–3, when quarterback Roger Staubach was knocked out of the game in the third quarter, and Clint Longley, a rookie, was summoned off the bench to fill in.

That particular Thanksgiving, my parents had invited some friends of theirs to come to our house in the country. They came, along with their son who was a few years older than I was. After we all ate dinner, the men gathered in front of the TV to watch the Cowboys and Redskins. I wasn't a Cowboys fan, but I was a Staubach fan as was our visitors' son.

However, when Staubach was knocked from the game and an unknown rookie was called in to run the offense, we lost interest and excused ourselves. I think we went outside to shoot some baskets, but we were soon drawn back inside by the sound of our fathers whooping. Clint Longley was leading a comeback.

He threw a 35–yard TD pass to tight end Billy Joe Dupree to cut the deficit to six points, then Walt Garrison's one–yard TD run gave the Cowboys a one–point lead going into the fourth quarter.

Ex–Cowboy Duane Thomas scored his second touchdown of the game, giving the Redskins the lead again, then Longley connected with Drew Pearson for a 50–yard TD pass to win the game.

It was probably the best Thanksgiving a rookie quarterback ever had.

A Baker's Dozen at Barnhill South

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Today I continue my retrospective on the Arkansas Razorbacks' 1994 national basketball championship run.

Twenty years ago today, the Razorbacks defeated Michigan in the Elite Eight, 76–68, earning their third Final Four berth in my lifetime.

There is one thing you have to understand about the Razorbacks' relationship with Dallas' Reunion Arena, where the Midwest Regional semifinals and final were played in 1994. It was their home away from home.

Before they left the Southwest Conference, the Razorbacks played in Reunion Arena several times a year — the annual Southwest Conference tournament was played in Reunion Arena, and I think the Razorbacks used to play SMU there, too — and they won with such regularity there that it had come to be known among Arkansas fans as Barnhill South. Barnhill, you see, had been the name of the basketball arena on the Arkansas campus for four decades; in fact, the Hogs moved in to their new home, Bud Walton Arena, earlier in that 1993–94 season.

Coming into their game with the Wolverines 20 years ago today, the Razorbacks had won 12 straight games in Reunion Arena. They seldom played in Dallas after they moved to the Southeastern Conference, but they had dominated Reunion Arena when they were in the SWC — going back to their last loss in Dallas, to Baylor in the 1988 SWC Tournament.

In the NCAA Tournament, Reunion Arena was technically considered a neutral site, but, informally, it was regarded as a home court for Arkansas.

Dallas was within easy driving distance for most Arkansas fans, and the Razorbacks had a large, vocal fan presence that weekend. As I watched on TV, it didn't take much for me to imagine how loud the fans were with "Woo Pig Sooie!" rattling the rafters.

The Wolverines were nearly 1,000 miles from their campus. It might as well have been a home game for the Hogs.

Michigan had problems early. Junior Juwan Howard picked up two fouls in the first two minutes, and, thanks to the way that prevented him from being as aggressive as the Wolverines would have liked, the Razorbacks took a nine–point lead to the locker room, but they had to overcome an early deficit. They missed their first six shots, but a 17–0 first–half run propelled them to their lead.

In the second half, all the Razorbacks had to do was stay even with the Wolverines, and they would punch their ticket for the Final Four in Charlotte, N.C. They never looked back.

Howard was the leading scorer in the game with 30 points, connecting on nearly 65% of his attempts, but the Razorbacks had four starters in double figures.

Attention, TWC and CBS: Settle Your Differences

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I'm a football fan.

If you are also a football fan, you will understand what I am about to say.

Time Warner Cable has the concession in my apartment complex. As you may have heard, TWC is squabbling with CBS — and, until this matter is resolved, TWC is blacking out CBS affiliates and CBS–owned stations in certain cities.

One of which is Dallas.

Whether a city is blacked out depends on local terms of agreement, I suppose, because some cities, like Dallas, are blacked out, and others are not.

Now, I'll admit — without hesitation — that I don't know much about the business side of cable television.

But I do know that I have been waiting for football since February. And, because of this squabble, I haven't been able to watch the first two Cowboys preseason games.

Fox broadcasts NFC games during the regular season so I'll be able to watch the Cowboys play on Fox when the season begins.

Actually, missing the Cowboys games wouldn't bother me too much. See, I'm not a Cowboys fan. As I have mentioned here before, I am a Packers fan. Been one since I was a child. And the Packers, like the Cowboys, play in the NFC.

But I still like to watch the area teams, even if I don't tend to pull for them.

And if I don't have CBS when the season begins, I will be deprived of AFC games — and there are several teams in the AFC I would like to watch.

One more thing: Each teams plays a few interconference games which might be carried on CBS.

For me, this is a bad arrangement all the way around — and there are only a few weeks left before football season begins in earnest.

My advice to TWC and CBS is simple — Stop acting like petulant children, and settle your differences.

If this squabble drags into the official start of football season — and Bill Carter of the New York Times writes that this seems to be more and more likely — there are going to be some pretty angry subscribers, including yours truly.

Some of TWC's customers are pursuing a legal resolution. Frankly, I prefer to avoid being a part of that.

Perhaps most discouraging of all is BusinessWeek's Justin Bachman's conclusion that no one on either side has the influence necessary to resolve the dispute. Bachman writes that it may take the arrival of football season — and the blackouts of games involving NFL stars like Denver's Peyton Manning and New England's Tom Brady.

In the meantime, I suspect there are going to be a lot of increasingly frustrated football fans.

"The contract dispute is approaching the two–week mark with no hint of an imminent settlement," Carter writes. He goes on to quote a media analyst who believes "these guys are going to need the NFL to add a sense of urgency to this."

It isn't just the NFL. I'm a graduate of the University of Arkansas, and I've been pulling for the Razorbacks since I was a child. Back in those days, there were fewer college football broadcasts, and teams were restricted to one, maybe two appearances on TV during a regular season.

But now there are multiple channels carrying college football from morning until late at night on Saturdays in the fall.

Arkansas plays in the SEC, and CBS carries an SEC game of the week every Saturday. Now, Arkansas can appear — and has appeared — on other stations. But the big games — the ones with Texas A&M and Alabama and the LSU game on the Friday after Thanksgiving (which is always carried by CBS) might not be available to me.

What does the future hold? Well, Bachman reports that a spokesman for American Television Alliance, a pay–TV coalition, says, "If it goes to football season, I think Congress will definitely get involved."

Great. Congress can't agree on what to have for lunch.

Winning a City's Heart

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I didn't grow up in Dallas, but my parents did, and we made about three or four trips to Dallas every year to visit my grandparents.

And I have lived here for the better part of the last 25 years so I feel I have a pretty good grasp of certain facts about this area.

Particularly sports allegiances.

And, even though I did not grow up here, there is one thing that I have always known about this area. I don't remember if anyone ever told me this. Maybe it's just been understood. Or implied.

Football reigns.

And, while it is hazardous to make generalizations about any state, I think that is true of Texas, not just the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. It is the eternal truth of Texas. Football is king.

That is why an article by Drew Davison in today's Fort Worth Star–Telegram has been provoking discussions everywhere you turn — TV, radio, internet.

According to Davison, "The Texas Rangers are more popular than the Dallas Cowboys," a conclusion that is based on the fact that, in a survey of Dallas–Fort Worth area adults, more respondents said they had watched the Rangers play, either in person or on TV, or listened to a radio broadcast in the last year than had watched or listened to the Cowboys.

It's the first time the Rangers have outperformed the Cowboys in the survey, Davison wrote, and it made the DFW area one of a handful of places in the country where the baseball team is more popular — by that yardstick — than the football team.

I would argue that a couple of factors are at work here, and they both really relate to the same thing — Sports fans around here love winners.

Consequently, the survey shows fans gravitating to the team that is winning. The Rangers, long the doormats of the American League West, have been in the playoffs the last three years. In 2010 and 2011, they advanced to the World Series. They lost both, but they took the 2011 Series to seven games and were on the brink of winning it all a couple of times.

I have seen more people wearing Rangers apparel in the last few years. More folks wear Rangers caps in public. Attendance at home games has been stunningly high.

I've seen this at work here before. A few years ago, when the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title, I noticed more Mavericks bumper stickers and window decals on cars and more people wearing Mavericks apparel. When the Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999, there was a similar explosion in hockey's local popularity.

Call it the bandwagon effect, and, typically, it has been a fleeting thing. Within a couple of years of winning their championships, the Stars and Mavericks had reverted to their usual form, and their fan bases were back to the diehards.

I'm not entirely sure that will happen with the Rangers. But I'll get back to that.

Because of that affection for winners, I'm inclined to wonder if some of the respondents to the survey — frustrated by the Cowboys (22–26 with zero playoff appearances in the last three years and 2–7 in the postseason since their last trip to the Super Bowl in January 1996) — simply told the survey takers that they didn't pay attention to the Cowboys even if they did.

There's been plenty of local anger directed at Cowboys owner Jerry Jones since he bought the team 25 years ago and unceremoniously dumped iconic coach Tom Landry. Telling the pollster that they didn't pay attention to the team would be one way to get back at him, I suppose.

Most fans forgave him for firing Landry when Jones' choice to succeed Landry, Jimmy Johnson, won two Super Bowls, but then Jones' now–legendary ego apparently interfered, and he and Johnson came to a parting of the ways. He brought in Barry Switzer to lead the team for a few seasons, and Switzer did manage to win a Super Bowl with, essentially, the team Johnson had pieced together, but he couldn't co–exist with Jones, either.

The Dallas coaching job has been a revolving door ever since. Big–name players have signed high–dollar contracts, but there has been little to show for the investment.

It's frustrating for football fans. Can they be blamed for not wanting to be affiliated with this squad?

Even more frustrating is the fact that, in spite of the franchise's instability, the organization continues to raise ticket prices.

How sweet it would be for football fans if enough people refused to pay the ticket prices that the organization had no choice but to lower them. Unfortunately, however, enough people are willing to pay the price.

The Rangers were once an area joke. There have always been serious baseball fans around here, just as there are serious basketball fans and serious hockey fans, but they remained mostly silent until their local team began to win.

Things really started to turn around in the late 1980s when the Rangers signed veteran pitcher Nolan Ryan, who came here for the final five years of his Hall of Fame career. Now he runs the team, and he's built a solid winner that should be a contender on a regular basis.

Sure, there have been some complaints in the offseason about personnel developments for the Rangers, but, as Davison writes, "it's nothing compared to the vitriol thrown daily at the Cowboys." Even after losing star Josh Hamilton, the Rangers' popularity seems to be undiminished.

As Davison points out, the Rangers have raised their ticket prices, too, and it remains to be seen what kind of impact that will have on attendance. But I get the sense that, thanks to three consecutive playoff appearances, the Rangers will be harder to dislodge from the top of this local popularity poll than the Stars or Mavericks.

They don't seem to be a flash in the pan. That's good news for the Rangers and their followers.

And, although they probably don't think so, that's good news for the Cowboys, too. Because this area is so predisposed to love football, it's been as if the Cowboys have been given a pass since winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s.

But that reservoir of goodwill has been used up as far as many fans are concerned. It's time to put up or shut up.

The Cowboys now must work to regain the area's sports fans' allegiance. It won't be handed to them.

From time to time, one still hears talk about big–name coaches or big–name players who are being courted by the Cowboys. We've been through this all before many times, and I really thought the lesson had been learned.

Winning teams tend to have a certain chemistry, not a collection of resumes.

That's what wins a city's heart.

A New Attitude

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There is a new attitude here in north Texas these days — at least among baseball fans.

Some things haven't changed.

Diehard football fans are still living and dying — mostly dying — with the outcomes of Cowboys games.

Diehard basketball fans continue to wonder if they will get to see the Mavericks defend their NBA title this year.

There are still some diehard hockey fans around here, too. The bandwagon jumpers who followed the Stars when it was trendy — after they won a Stanley Cup more than a decade ago — have mostly jumped off now so the Stars crowds are almost entirely genuine hockey enthusiasts.

But until last year, the Texas Rangers were lovable losers who had never even caught much of a whiff of the World Series — let alone been immersed in its magical waters. For many years, if one went to a Rangers game, it was for the entertainment value alone, not because the Rangers were anything approaching legitimate contenders.

Now, I'll admit that I feel pulled by both sides when it comes to this year's World Series. I have friends who live in the St. Louis area. My goddaughter lives in the St. Louis area with her young son. But my family's roots are here in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. I have lived here for most of the last 20 years.

So I am torn. As Mark Twain replied when asked whether he preferred heaven or hell, I have friends in both places.

The Cardinals have been here many times before. In fact, no other major league team — except the Yankees — has won as many world championships as the Cardinals.

When the Rangers finally scaled that mountain last year, they and their fans celebrated winning the American League championship — and were glad merely to be in the big show.

Not too surprisingly, the Rangers went down in five games.

Now that the Rangers are back in the World Series, just getting there won't be enough. Even this area's most casual baseball fans — the ones for whom a trip to Arlington still qualifies as entertainment and not some sort of pilgrimage — know that.

Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star–Telegram mentioned that difference in attitude in yesterday's column. But Wilson wrote that the difference for the players was visible on their airplane ride home from St. Louis.

The pressure they felt being down 0–2 to San Francisco when they returned to Texas for Game 3 last year was nowhere to be seen this year. These Rangers are more relaxed, more confident.

No, just being there won't be satisfactory this time. I've heard countless people around here speaking of how the momentum of the series shifted in the Rangers' favor when they rallied to win Game 2 the other night — and how home field advantage belongs to Texas now.

But the games that will be played here almost certainly will be different from the ones that we saw played in St. Louis. They will require both managers to make different kinds of strategic decisions.

And, frankly, while the first two games were thrillers, these lineups just have too much pop for either team to settle for 2–1 and 3–2 victories. A persuasive argument can be made that both teams are overdue for an offensive explosion.

As most people acknowledge, The Ballpark in Arlington is much more hitter–friendly than Busch Stadium, but that doesn't seem special to me. St. Louis has always been tough for hitters.

I went to many games in the old Busch Stadium, and it was never known as a hitters' park. Mark McGwire was probably the only genuine power hitter to play in St. Louis since the days of Stan the Man — until Albert Pujols came along.

For as long as I can remember, the Cardinals built teams around pitching and defense. On offense, they scratched out hits and were aggressive on the base paths, but, at best, their power hitters supplied 20 or 25 home runs a season.

That's not a very good description of the modern version of the Cardinals, though. Everyone already knew about Pujols, but the postseason has given the rest of the country the opportunity to become familiar with a whole roster of guys who can produce at the plate.

Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post–Dispatch writes that "[t]here's no reason to believe the Cardinals will remain in the slumber mode."

In 2011, Miklasz points out, "the Cardinals averaged more road runs than every American League team. And the Cardinals will have a DH in their lineup over the next three games. So there's really no excuse for Cardinals hitters to struggle."

Except, perhaps, for the sheer resolve of the Rangers — and their devoted followers — to win it all this time.

I teach writing at the local community college, and one of my students will be at tonight's Game 3. We talked about it the other day in class. He is part of the emerging generation of Rangers followers, the ones who don't remember the long years of losing their elders endured after the old Washington Senators moved here in the early 1970s.

He remembers only the years when the Rangers have contended, even made the playoffs, but fallen short. He can't understand the frustration of people around here who have been following this ball club for four decades.

He doesn't remember the time when the Dallas Cowboys ruled the football world. The Cowboys haven't played in a Super Bowl in his memory. But he has seen the hockey team win it all and the basketball team win it all, and he wants to see the baseball team win it all, too.

He isn't alone. Then again, everyone seems to have an opinion about this series.

Joe Lemire of Sports Illustrated anticipates a jump in run production now that the Series has moved southwest about 550 miles.

The weather will be warmer, he points out — can't argue with that since today's high around here is supposed to be 84° while the high in St. Louis is expected to be 70°, but we're in the unpredictable time of year in these parts.

Perhaps you've heard of that devastating drought we've been experiencing here this year? We hardly had a drop of rain all summer, but suddenly rain has emerged as a threat in the baseball postseason. Already at Arlington they've had one playoff game delayed for a couple of hours by rain, and another game was rained out and had to be played the following day.

We may be in for more of the same tonight. The National Weather Service says there is a 50% chance of rain after the sun goes down.

If they're able to play, Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News writes that St. Louis starter Kyle Lohse might struggle tonight. His previous appearances in Arlington didn't go well — but it's been more than five years since he started a game here, and he is a different pitcher now.

And, if this series goes six or seven games — and, consequently, must return to St. Louis — the outlook is for wetter, cooler weather on the days when the last two games are scheduled to be played.

We might see some high–scoring games in Arlington over the next few days — only to go back to St. Louis next week to see that offensive fire doused by a cold rain and harkening the return of the 2–1 and 3–2 scores.

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com thinks we might be on the brink of "something special." The first two games were nail–biters, he observes. If you aren't watching, you're missing out.

Let's get it on.

A Must-Win for Mavs?

I was having an e–mail conversation with a friend of mine shortly before the Dallas–Miami game on Sunday.

I asked my friend if he thought Dallas would win the game. He wasn't sure, but he did say he believed the winner of the game would go on to win the series — and, hence, the NBA title.

I agreed with him — but, I will admit, it was a pretty safe bet. The teams split the first two games, which meant the series had become a best–of–five. The winner would only need to win two of the remaining four games while the loser would need to win three.

While I don't know the exact numbers, I think the finalists have split the first two games about 40% of the time since the NBA introduced its current schedule in the finals — the first two games played at one site, followed by three games at the other site, followed by the last two games at the original site — about 25 years ago.

By the time the game tipped off on Sunday night, I had heard from numerous sports writers — in both interviews and columns — that the winner of the third game had always gone on to win the whole thing.

That must mean that history is on the side of the Miami Heat, who held on for a two–point win.

Sean Deveney of The Sporting News sums it up for many when he says Miami is "clearly ... the much better team."

I would admit that Miami has been the better team in the first three games. But much better? Clearly better? I don't think so.

As I have conceded on many occasions, I am hardly an expert on the NBA. I am, at best, a casual observer. I haven't followed the NBA closely since I was a kid. I usually don't get interested in the NBA until it reaches this point in the playoffs.

Nevertheless, there are some things that I know — and that I will continue to believe until I am proven wrong.

One is that, although home court/field is an advantage in the early going, by the time you reach this stage of the playoffs, home means little, if anything, beyond being able to sleep in one's own bed.

For a true champion in any sport, a game is played within the confines of the playing surface, and whatever is happening outside those boundaries is separate from what is taking place within them.

Oh, sure, I suppose some of the younger, inexperienced players may be affected by opposing fans' efforts to distract them, but not championship–caliber veterans.

I think my point has been proven in the first three games of this series. The home team won the first game; the visiting team has won the last two.

And the last two games were decided by two points each. One was a great comeback (although, when compared to the epic comeback against Oklahoma City in the previous round, Dallas' come–from–behind victory in Game 2 wasn't as impressive — at least not numerically).

That doesn't necessarily suggest that anyone has dominated things yet.

Actually, it reminds me more of this year's Triple Crown in horse racing. The winner of the Kentucky Derby had to come from way behind to win that race, then almost did the same thing but came up just short in the Preakness a couple of weeks ago. Now, the horses will run in Saturday's Belmont Stakes, which is the longest of the three races.

The winner of the Derby has proven to be the fastest horse at the end of the first two races. His speed and endurance could well pay off in Saturday's Belmont when his rivals start to fade.

After three games of the NBA Finals, you knew that someone was going to have two wins — at least. Regardless of what led up to them, the final margins suggest that the teams were competitive at the end — and that suggests that the rest of the games in this series, however many that turns out to be, will be entertaining.

That makes me believe that tonight's game is not a must–win for the Mavericks — although a loss will certainly make things much more difficult for them.

It is an important game, though. If I were you, I'd watch.

Will Third Time Be the Charm for Big D?

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It's been a long time since a professional sports championship came to Dallas.

Ironically, that championship was won in hockey.

This is a city that, for decades, was accustomed to being a legitimate factor in championship conversations. More than that, it is part of a state that has long been accustomed to being a factor in such discussions.

Usually, it has been in the context of football — but it has been nearly 15 years since the Cowboys played in a Super Bowl.

For that matter, Dallas as a city has been away from the national sports radar through most of the still nascent 21st century.

Sports supremacy has been tantalizingly close in recent months, though.

The Texas Rangers have been playing baseball around here for 40 years, and they brought a World Series to these parts for the first time last October. They didn't win it, but they brought it here, and they gave local fans a taste of what it is like to host the Fall Classic.

Most sports fans around here might not have noticed, however, if the Dallas Cowboys had lived up to their preseason hype. When the season began, local fans knew that the Super Bowl would be played in the Cowboys' new stadium, and many believed the Cowboys were practically a lock to become the first team from the host city to actually play in a Super Bowl.

But the Cowboys stumbled out of the gate and never came close to competing for a playoff spot. The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl as the NFC's representative.

Now, it is the Mavericks' turn — that's Dallas' NBA franchise — to try to do what the others could not.

They dispatched the Oklahoma City Thunder, four games to one, in the Western Conference finals, and they await the winner of the Chicago–Miami series.

No one knows how long the Mavericks will have to wait on that one.

Miami can finish off Chicago with a single win. Chicago needs three straight wins to turn back Miami.

If the series goes seven games, Dallas will have a week to prepare for its next foe. If the Miami–Chicago series is completed tonight or Saturday, the championship series will start on Monday.

Folks around here don't seem to care when the dance begins. All that matters is that the dance can't be held without them.

And my guess is that a line is going to start forming for tickets soon, if it hasn't already. They go on sale Saturday morning. The latest weather forecast calls for daily highs in the 90s, but I have no doubt that people will be camping out for the next couple of nights.

There is clearly a sense in this city that destiny is beckoning.

But the thing is, people around here always feel that way when the local team is playing for a title. They felt that way when the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999 — even though most of the Stars' "fans" that year probably were more appropriately bandwagon jumpers.

They felt that way when the Rangers faced the San Francisco Giants in the World Series last year. (Much was made locally of the "long–suffering fans" who had waited 40 years for a world championship, but I recall little being said of the long–suffering Giants fans, who had been waiting almost 20 years longer for a world title.)

That probably isn't uniquely Texan. The fans of every team in every sport believe they are entitled to a championship — until, at some point, their teams are eliminated and they must face the truth that most fans must accept at some point.

The fans around here aren't ready to accept that truth. Nor is it necessary for them to do so.

Oh, sure, there are some naysayers. Some say the Mavericks won't be able to handle the Miami Heat, their most likely foe.

And that may be true.

But that doesn't really matter right now.

The Promised Land?

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Here in Dallas, Texas, there is a sense of inevitability settling in after last night's astonishing come–from–behind triumph over Oklahoma City in the NBA Western Conference finals.

The Christian Science Monitor called it "one of the most jaw–dropping comebacks in NBA history."

That may be true. I've seen some pretty amazing comebacks in my life, but nothing to compare with what happened about 200 miles north of here last night.

I'm not an NBA fan, but I will admit that I have been watching more lately. However, I had given the game up for lost. I left my TV on and went about some other things in my apartment. I could monitor the game, but, having conceded defeat, I didn't feel I needed to sit and watch it.

I changed my mind a few minutes later.

Down by 15 points with about five minutes to play, the Mavericks doggedly chipped away at the upstarts from OKC, forced the game into overtime and, as Eddie Sefko writes in the Dallas Morning News, never trailed in overtime (after never leading during regulation).

When the Mavericks returned to Dallas early this morning, a couple hundred people were on hand to meet them.

Today the giddiness and disbelief from last night seems to be morphing into supreme confidence, even cockiness. Sure, I heard one man say, there have been teams that have come back from a 3–1 deficit but not many.

Not many, but some. To pull that one off, it seems to me that a team has to be loaded with playoff veterans with the discipline and the concentration to remain focused on the task at hand.

I have my doubts that Oklahoma City can do that.

But as my friend who used to cover horse racing during our mutual Arkansas Gazette days like to say, there is no such thing as a sure thing.

It could happen. It isn't likely, but it could happen.

However, I will assume that the Mavericks — who would have to lose at home not once but twice for the Thunder to leapfrog them into the NBA Finals — will face either Miami or Chicago for the NBA title.

That would mean that the Dallas area will have hosted

• the World Series


• the Super Bowl and


• the NBA Finals

within a single calendar year.

As far as I know, that would be a first.

Mind you, I'm not talking about cities that had teams that participated in three major professional sports championships within a calendar year.

(I think New York came close to that when the Jets played in the Super Bowl in January 1969, the Mets played in the World Series that autumn and the Knicks played in the NBA Finals in the spring of 1970. Technically, that exceeded a calendar year, but New York did win all three.)

The site of the Super Bowl is decided years ahead of time. It has been played annually for 45 years, and, while it is not the NFL's explicit policy to prohibit cities without NFL teams from hosting Super Bowls, no city without an NFL franchise has ever hosted one.

And no host city's team has ever played in one.

For awhile, folks around here figured the Cowboys would be the team to change that. It didn't happen. Instead, two of the Cowboys' old postseason rivals met in the Super Bowl in February.

But it was played here in Dallas. In October, the Texas Rangers brought the World Series here for the first time — and now it appears the NBA Finals will be played here, too.

I think that's a first.

The Final Days of Texas Stadium

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Texas Stadium will soon be a memory after 37 years.

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It won't be long before a local landmark here in Dallas–Fort Worth — Texas Stadium — is bulldozed to the ground.

We're moving in that direction. The statue of Tom Landry that has been greeting people as they arrive at the stadium for nearly 10 years was removed a couple of days ago. It will be put in storage until it is time to put it back up in front of the new stadium in Arlington.

Texas Stadium is perhaps one of the three most recognizable structures in this city, with the other two being the Texas School Book Depository (now the home of the Sixth Floor Museum) and the Southfork Ranch, which was the home of TV's Ewing family.

I did not grow up in Dallas, but my grandparents lived here and we came here for holidays and summer vacations. Texas Stadium opened in October 1971, when I was 11 years old, and I remember that my grandmother got tickets for my father, my brother and me to go to a Cowboys game in that inaugural season. I don't remember who the Cowboys played — it might have been the Cardinals.

Over the years, I went to several events in Texas Stadium.

Among them:

• In 1979, while my family was visiting my grandmother for the Christmas holidays, an old friend of the family called and told me that her husband's company had provided several seats for them in their private box for that afternoon's playoff game.
  
  The friend had decided not to attend, but her son and daughter, who were about my age, would be going and they wanted to know if I would go with them. I agreed to go and had a blast that afternoon, eating roast beef sandwiches and drinking Bloody Marys.
  
  The Cowboys lost that game to the Rams, and it turned out to be Roger Staubach's final professional football game.


• Three years later, as a young reporter for a newspaper in Arkansas, I got press credentials that would permit me to observe a crucial college football game from the Texas Stadium press box.
  
  The game was between SMU and Arkansas. It ended in a 17-17 tie, and SMU represented the Southwest Conference in the Cotton Bowl in January.


• In the spring of 1988, my brother and I attended a Pink Floyd concert at Texas Stadium. I found that the acoustics weren't particularly good — it seemed like that hole in the roof sucked a lot of the sound out and it was hard to tell what the performers were singing.
  
  Consequently, it wasn't the best performance I ever saw, but I will always remember walking in to the stadium and passing by cars and vans in the parking lot with their somewhat perplexing "Roger Who?" messages on the windows.
  
  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, "Roger Who?" was a reference to longtime band member Roger Waters and his legal squabbles with the rest of the band at the time.


• In 1989, I went to Texas Stadium for what I believe was the last time. Anyway, I can't recall going back to Texas Stadium again.
  
  On Christmas Eve, my father and I went to see the Cowboys (who were completing a miserable 1-15 season) play the Green Bay Packers in the season finale. The Packers still had a shot at the playoffs. It should be obvious from the record that the Cowboys did not.
  
  I guess the thing that was noteworthy about that day was that a severe cold front had moved through the Metroplex and the pipes at the stadium froze. Some of them may have burst.
  
  My father and I wore several layers of clothes and sat huddled in our seats, which seemed to be located in a section that drew every cold gust of wind that found its way into the stadium.
  
  I didn't care, though. I've been a Packer fan since Vince Lombardi was roaming the sidelines, and it was the first (and so far, only) opportunity I've ever had to watch the Packers play in person.
  
  But it did bother me that the concession stands ran out of hot chocolate long before the game was over!
  
  And, about midway through the third quarter, my father and I decided it was simply too cold to stay for the rest of the game so we left.

Last month, the Dallas Morning News posted a video that combined some noteworthy clips from radio broadcasts of Cowboy games at Texas Stadium with photos of the stadium as it appears today.

I include that here to remind you of the stadium's memorable history — and to prepare you for this fall. Even though everyone knows the Cowboys will be calling a new stadium "home" this fall, it is still apt to be something of a shock when it comes to pass.