As Boston Aims to Hold 3 Major Sports Titles at Once, Recall Baltimore’s Year That Could Have Been

June 3, 2019 Michael Olesker

'Lake Eerie': Cleveland's Municipal Stadium was the calm-before-the-storm scene of the Colts' victory over the Browns prior to the disastrous Super Bowl with the Jets in 1969. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

In Boston these days, they’reholding their breath to see if their professional sports teams can accomplish amiracle trifecta. In Baltimore half a century ago, we almost got there. Bostonreminds us now how precious and irretrievable such a moment can be.

Am I the only one who remembers?

In Boston, the ice hockey Bruinsare hoping to knock off the St. Louis Blues in the next few days for a StanleyCup title. They’ve already got baseball’s reigning champion Red Sox andfootball’s reigning champion Patriots.

If the Bruins win, Boston wouldbecome only the second city ever to hold three major sports titles at once.Detroit, back in 1936, was the first.

Am I the only one who remembers half a century ago with the Orioles and the Colts and the Bullets?

Each won division titles, but each flewtoo close to the sun and suffered burning defeat.

Anyone remember?

Those 1969 Orioles won 109 gamesand pulverized all American League opponents. They had Brooks and Boog andFrank Robinson all at the top of their marvelous careers. Paul Blair hit 26homers and, inexplicably, even Mark Belanger hit .287 that year.

They had Mike Cuellar winning 23games and Dave McNally 20. Jim Palmer went 16 and 4 and Tom Phoebus was 14 and7.

And everybody knew they were goingto crush the New York Mets in the World Series.

Then there were the BaltimoreBullets. You can have your Toronto Raptors and your Golden State Warriors. Forsheer talent and raw theatrical excitement, was there ever a more entertainingteam than those Bullets?

That was Wes Unseld’s rookie year.He was voted the NBA’s Rookie of the Year and its Most Valuable Player, as well.He joined a Bullets team that finished last the previous year and then, astonishingly,went all the way to a division championship.

They had Earl “The Pearl” Monroe,who averaged 26 points a game. The deadpan Unseld later said the flamboyantMonroe, with his whirling dervish moves, was the only player Unseld wouldactually pay money to see play.

There was Gus “Honeycomb” Johnson.He didn’t exactly break the law of gravity, but he sure seemed to bend it. And therewere sharp-shooters Kevin Loughery and Jack Marin.

They were the Eastern Divisionchampion Bullets who headed for the playoffs in the spring of 1969 against theNew York Knicks.

How about that, sports fans? Abaseball pennant winner, a basketball division winner…

And then we had the BaltimoreColts. All they did was enter the Jan. 12, 1969, Super Bowl with aleague-leading 13-and-1 record. (In fact, the year before, they went 11-1-2.You know what that means? It means that, in two back-to-back years, those Coltslost a total of two games.)

No wonder, as they took that SuperBowl field, they were 17-point favorites to win their third world championship.

John Unitas had been injured allyear, but Earl Morrall had a fabulous year quarterbacking the club. (In fact,some were calling it Baltimore’s Year of the Earl: Morrall in football, Monroein basketball, and a first full-year manager named Earl Weaver in baseball.)

And there, but for fortune, there mighthave been a third world championship in a year for Baltimore.

But for the Mets pulling off themiracle win over the Orioles in the ’69 World Series. And the Bullets, minusthe injured Gus Johnson in the playoffs, losing to the Knicks. And the Colts,in Super Bowl III, losing preposterously to the New York Jets.

But let’s not talk too much about that. Those losses still hurt, since it’s only been half a century.

At least Baltimore found quick consolation: A year later, the Orioles defeated Cincinnati to win the 1970 World Series. Two years after Super Bowl III, the Colts defeated Dallas to win the NFL title. And, in 1971, the Bullets made it all the way to the NBA finals before losing.

As for Boston, they’re rooting for their Bruins. They should enjoy the moment, win or lose. Around here, it’s been such a long half-century, some of us still can’t believe we came so close.

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.