Remember when...

Welcome to my little nostalgic trip down memory lane in professional sports -

Remember when covering the courts was synonymous with covering basketball, not football?

When you didn't need a degree in chemistry to follow home-run chases?

Or have a degree in law to follow the NFL and NBA?

When hockey was relevant?

When NASCAR wasn't?

When the MLB All-Star Game was a good game because players had pride in the way they played - whether the game mattered or not?

When the Eastern European Olympic squads were vilified for their steroid use while American athletes were supposedly winning cleanly?

When athlete's hat and shoe sizes didn't mysteriously increase due to using "flax-seed oil?"

When basketball was still primarily a team sport?

When Al Davis still knew football?

When Matt Millen still had an untarnished legacy in football?

When Bill Belichick was the head coach that would ever only be a great defensive coordinator?

When 49ers-Giants was the NFL's marquee match-up?

When Pete Rose was a sure-fire, first-ballot Hall of Famer?

When you heard James Earl Jones deliver this line, "America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come," and some naive part of you actually still believed it?

when you could actually turn on ESPN expecting sports, MTV expecting music, and CNN expecting real and relevant news?

When the big scandal in sports usually involved Yankees pitchers swapping families?

When the Orioles were a contender?

When the term doubleheader meant that you were going to get to see two games on one ticket?

When going to the ballpark on the major league level cost less than $15.00 for bleacher seats a dog and a beer?

When it was hard to get into a Redskins game in DC?

When pitchers regularly started 35 to 40 games per season and it wasn't unusual to have between two and three starters with anywhere from 15 to 25 wins each?

When sportscasters didn't feel the need to turn every player's name into a nickname while showing highlights?

When George Michael was the man and The Sports Machine was the show to watch for the week's wrap-up of sports news?