Is Our Dusty Old Cowtown the worst major professional sports market in the country at this exact moment?
A lot of candidates, a litany of criteria and a legion of critics make the Most Awful Major League Sports City debate tempting.
What about Cleveland, which hasn’t won any championship in pro sports since 1964 (NFL, pre-Super Bowl)? Or Buffalo, which lost four consecutive Super Bowls, didn’t rattle its Sabres to win a Stanley Cup or reach the NBA Finals before the Braves moved to California? Our nation’s capital has been first in war, first in peace and last in sports often.
Cleveland’s drought could end in June.
When, oh when, will the fallen teams of Denver get back to the mountain top?
RELATED: A look at the state of Colorado professional sport teams
Despite a near-perfect performance by Chad Bettis in Philadelphia on Friday night, the Rockies remain in the division basement and among the futile four.
The Nuggets have failed to reach the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, don’t have a permanent coach and will draft a second-tier player.
After a promising start under Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy in 2013-14 (although the franchise suffered an early dismissal in the postseason), the Avalanche sunk to also-rans again this past season.
The Rapids have prevailed in only three games since last Fourth of July — and are 10th in the Western Conference now.
Ryan Clady is hurt for the year, and the Broncos aren’t feeling so good themselves. They haven’t reigned as Super Bowl champs since John Elway retired last century.
The Nuggets and the Rockies have never won a championship; the Broncos and the Avalanche possess two each, and the Rapids secured the most recent championship of the big five by prevailing in the MLS Cup in 2010.
Denver also is home to the Colorado Mammoth, which won an indoor lacrosse title in 2006, and the Denver Outlaws, who rode to an outdoor lacrosse championship last August. Under Elway, the defunct Colorado Crush won the Arena League crown in 2005.
Actually, this city seemingly has been a member of 20,000 leagues over the sea, including World Team Tennis, the United States Football League, the American Football League, the World Hockey Association, the American Basketball Association, the infamous International Volleyball Association, Pro Rodeo League, the Lingerie Football League and two dozen more minor-league soccer, baseball and hockey teams.
The city joined its first baseball league 130 years ago.
For the sake of this subjective study, though, comparisons (of regular-season results, playoff success and failure, statistics, attendance, attention and current situations) will be made to other metropolitan centers that have franchises in the five major sports leagues — baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. There are only eight: New York-New Jersey, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington D.C., and Denver. (Four others — Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami and Phoenix are homes to every sport except soccer.)
In past years newspapers, magazines and websites have offered first-to-worst rankings of sports cities — and Boston and New York, as expected, rate high, with Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego and the Twin Cities near the nadir. Denver generally is in the middle.
However, Denver has hit the pit — at least in four of the five sports. The Broncos still are going strong, but no longer can be projected as sure things this year. The opening in the window appears to be closing soon. What then? Depths of despair? Or will the Nugs, the Avs, the Raps and the Rox rise Lazarus-like from ashes?
The good news is Denver is not the worst because the Broncos are still among the best.
The biggest loser city on the final day of May, 2015, is:
Philadelphia.
Philly did not make the playoffs this year in the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. The Phillies are more miserable than the Rockies (as proven this weekend), and the Philadelphia Union has lost four more games than the Rapids.
Frank Olivo, a life-long Philadelphia sports fan, died this month of heart disease.
He always was remembered as the young man who played Santa Claus at a 1968 Philadelphia Eagles’ game — and was booed and pelted with snowballs.
The state of Colorado pro sports is sad, but Denver’s slogan this year should be: “Philadelphia is worse.”
Have fun, Tim Tebow.
Woody Paige: woody@woodypaige.com or twitter.com/woodypaige
