Sports in the ‘90s: Fasten Your Seat Belts

Having thought about it for several unencumbered moments and drawing on long and laborious experience in this precinct, it is now time to disclose what sports holds for us prior to the dawning of the Third Millennium.

--Sometime in mid-decade, after a few years of indescribable success and support, total rapture will be achieved when the Baltimore Orioles drop the price of tickets 15 cents across the board. Only problem is the new joint, named Tom Phoebus Stadium, will be sold out constantly.

--John Thompson, justly proud at what his Georgetown basketeers have been able to accomplish against St. Leo’s, Shenandoah and Hawaii Loa in the early season, schedules the Hoyas against the toughest women’s teams he can find.

--The Seniors Tour, after outstripping the regular Professional Golfers’ Association Tour in value and interest, splays into an over-65 division (as soon as Arnold Palmer reaches that age, of course).

--As the first recipient of a brain transplant, Wade Boggs sees the error of his earlier ways and switches to a constant diet of turkey, not chicken.

--With total parity achieved and all 32 teams possessed of 12-12 records, several clubs bring a class action suit against the NFL when excluded from the playoffs. Almost without notice, the Super Bowl is canceled.

--Ronald Reagan, seeking an Academy Award-type role, sorts through several picture offers before deciding to play Earl Weaver in the epic diamond tale entitled “Spunky and Our Gang.” Weaver ends up playing the part of Billy Martin.

--Seeking ultimate exposure, Michael Jordan will end up playing for an NBA team in each time zone with game starting times staggered to accommodate him.

--The World Cup in 1994 finds European hooligans, provided one-way tickets to attend, going berserk repeatedly in stadiums across the land. After a series of upsets, forfeits, cancellations, court cases and just plain bad officiating, the upstart U.S. team prevails in nine overtimes against the Arab Emirates.

--The plum for the TV networks in 1999, drawing a bigger rights fee than the Olympics, baseball and the NCAA hoops show, will be the Pro Bowl.

--Wayne Gretzky becomes the first owner-player-commissioner in sports since George Halas.

--Reinserted as a medal sport in the 1998 Winter Olympics, which will end up being conducted in Capetown, will be choral singing.

--After an ugly incident on a Metroliner, a pro wrassler will alight, rip up three miles of track and disrupt service between New York and Washington for four days.

--After experimenting with first six, then eight fouls, college hoop referees will refrain from calling charging and blocking fouls and a whole new game will be created--bruiseball.

--Arguments persist concerning a national playoff in college football until Columbia makes off with No. 1 in the polls by going unbeaten and unscored upon in the Ivy League. The initial playoff in ’97 involves 16 teams and consumes January with the players picking up four credits for their mini-mester efforts.

--In 1994, Centre Court at Wimbledon will be condemned when one of the Third Reich’s U-2 rockets (still alive) is discovered under the right net post. On Court 2, the one famous for upsets, Steffi Graf is beaten in straight sets in the final.

--Sugar Ray Leonard, on the 20th anniversary of his Olympic gold medal in Montreal, will engage Roberto Duran in “Ocho Mas” and not one punch will be landed.

--Marketing itself as “the slowest game on two feet,” cricket becomes the rage in the Northeast, relegating lacrosse to the ignominy of being the slowest growing sport in the United States since roque.

--After minor success in the Big Ten, Penn State flees to the Missouri Valley Conference, thence to the Big Sky Conference, where the Nittany Lions are assigned Weber State as a chief rival.

--Along about 1993, all stories involving contract disputes, drugs, agents and the police blotter will be combined once a week and run in the smallest newspaper type available.

--Baltimore will return to the NFL. Well, sort of. Baltimore’s will be a regional franchise owned by Home Team Sports, and the team also will play games in Charlotte, N.C., Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C.

-- Ben Johnson, his ban up in September of 1990, returns to the ’96 Olympics as a fencer and is lobbed out for illegally electrifying the tip of his foil.

--Panicked that they might lose him as his $13.2 million, six-year contract winds down, the Atlanta Hawks extend Jon Koncak’s pact into the 21st century at $5 million per. He celebrates with a triple-triple: three points, three rebounds, three turnovers.

--Names and numbers will be ripped off all uniforms, to be replaced by ads for law firms specializing in whiplash, DWI and injuries on the job. Personal 900 numbers on the sleeve will be optional.

--George Allen will provide the story of the decade by, at age 82, signing on to coach a high school JV football team in Valdosta, Ga.