The Knicks Bring New York a Championship

Congratulations to the New York Knickerbockers, World Champions of basketball.

The Knicks won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, beating the San Antonio Spurs, 94-90 at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. Yes, New York City messed with Texas.

The only game in the Finals that they lost was Game 3, when Donald Trump showed up at Madison Square Garden. As they say in New York, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

The Knicks have, historically, been a snakebit franchise. Along with the Boston Celtics, they are 1 of only 2 original NBA franchises from 1946 still in their original city. They reached the NBA Finals in 1951, 1952 and 1953, but lost them all. They moved from the old Garden, at 49th-50th Streets and 8th-9th Avenues, to the new Garden, at 31st-33rd Streets and 7th-8th Avenues, in 1968. There, they built a new Champion, winning the title in 1970, losing the Finals in 1972, and winning them again in 1973.

But then the dynasty of coach Red Holzman, captain Willis Reed and Walt Frazier got old. The Knicks had a good run in 1984 with Bernard King, but fell short. They had a (sometimes literally) hard-fighting team team in the 1990s, reaching the Finals in 1994 and 1999, but losing. And for most of the 21st Century, they've been mediocre at best.

But team president Leon Rose and general manager Gerrson Rosas have built a new Champion, coached by Mike Brown. Their 53-year drought was almost as long as the 54 years that the supposedly cursed New York Rangers, with whom they share the Garden, had from 1940 to 1994. But they went 53-29 in the regular season, and beat the Atlanta Hawks, then the Philadelphia 76ers in 4 straight, and then the Cleveland Cavaliers in 4 straight to reach the NBA Finals.

In all 5 games of the Finals, they came from behind to take the lead, including Game 3 that they ended up losing, anyway. They won Game 1 in San Antonio, 105-95. They won Game 2, 105-104. They lost Game 3 at home, 115-111. But in Game 4, the trailed by 29 points, and then launched the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, before OG Anunoby's tip-in gave them a 107-106 victory. Tonight, Jalen Brunson, the captain, scored 45 points, a team Finals record, and they won, 94-90. Brunson was named the Finals MVP.

Hail the Champions:

* Number 00, Jordan Clarkson, 34 years old, a 6-foot-5 guard from Tampa, and the University of Missouri.

* Number 2, Miles McBride, 25, a 6-2 guard from Cincinnati and West Virginia University.

* Number 3, Josh Hart, 31, a 6-5 forward from the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, and Villanova University.

* Number 4, Pacôme Dadiet, 30, a 6-9 forward born to Ivorian parents in Aubagne, southern France. He did not attend college, either in France or in America.

* Number 5, Jose Alvarado, 28, a 6-feet-even guard from Queens and Georgia Tech.

* Number 8, Ogugua "OG" Anunoby, 28, a 6-foot-7 forward, born to Nigerian parents in London, grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, and went to Indiana University.

* Number 11, Jalen Brunson, 29, a 6-2 guard from the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and then the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and went to Villanova University.

* Number 13, Tyler Kolek, 25, a 6-2 guard from Cumberland, Rhode Island, and Marquette University.

* Number 20, Jeremy Sochan, 23, a 6-8 forward, born in Guymon, Oklahoma to an African-American father and a Polish mother, grew up in Milton Keynes, England, and played at Baylor University.

* Number 23, Mitchell Robinson, 28, a 7-foot-even center from Chalmette, Louisiana. He did not play in college.

* Number 25, Mikal Bridges, 29, a 6-6 guard from the Philadelphia suburb of Malvern, Pennsylvania and Villanova.

* Number 32, Karl-Anthony Towns, 30, a 7-foot-even center from Piscataway, New Jersey, playing at St. Joseph's High School of nearby Metuchen, and the University of Kentucky.

* Number 44, Landry Shamet, 29, a 6-5 guard from Kansas City, and Wichita State University.

* Number 51, Mohamed Diawara, 21, a 6-9 forward, born to Malian parents in Paris, and grew up there. Like his countryman Dadiet, he did not attend college.

* Number 55, Ariel Hukporti, 24, a 7-feet-even center, born to Togolese parents in Stralsund, in northeastern Germany. He also did not attend college.

The starting 5 are guards Brunson and Bridges, forwards Hart and Anunoby, and center Towns.

I've often said that a Knicks title would mean more to New York than a title for any other team. Not just because New York loves its basketball so much, but because the Knicks have a greater share of the local fandom over the Nets than the Yankees over the Mets, the Giants over the Jets, and the Rangers over the Islanders and the Devils.

And Knick fans have lived through a lot of disappointment, and even some utter crap, the specifics of which don't matter now. Although owner James Dolan did get on the microphone at the presentation of the Larry O'Brien Trophy and apologize to Knick fans for having taken so long.

The Knicks are the World Champions. Fully earned, fully deserved, and worthy of the great story that they have told.

June 13, 1956: The 1st European Cup Final

Francisco Gento with the 1956, 1957, 1958,

1959, 1960 and 1966 European Cups

June 13, 1956, 70 years ago: The Final of the 1st European Champion Clubs' Cup is held at the Parc des Princes in Paris, France.

On April 27, 1895, for the 1st time, the Champions of 2 different European soccer leagues met. It was an All-British affair, played at Tynecastle Park in Edinburgh, Scotland. The hosts, Scottish Champions Heart of Midlothian, a.k.a. "Hearts," took on the English Champions, Sunderland, from the North-East. Actually, it was an All-Scottish contest: Known as "The Team of All Talents," every one of Sunderland's players was Scottish. (The Wearside city is less than 60 miles from the England-Scotland "border.") Sunderland won, 5-3.

In 1897, the Challenge Cup was founded, competed for by teams from across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which included not just the entirety of present-day Austria and Hungary, but all of present-day Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, and parts of present-day Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Italy. Vienna Cricket and Football Club won the 1st one. The tournament ran until 1911.

The Mitropa Cup was founded in 1927. As the name suggests -- "Mitropa" is an abbreviation of "Mitteleuropa," or "Middle Europe" -- it was played for by teams in Central Europe only. Sparta Prague won the 1st one. This tournament continued despite the rise of the European Cup and other tournaments, until 1992, when the European Cup became the Champions League.

In 1930, the Coupe des Nations was founded, held in Geneva, Switzerland, and was won by Újpest of Budapest, Hungary. But the Great Depression doomed this early effort at a continent-wide soccer championship tournament.

In 1949, with the Depression and World War II behind them, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy came together and founded the Latin Cup. Barcelona won the 1st one. This tournament did not long survive the establishment of the European Cup, being dissolved in 1957.

But the real key came in 1948, with the South American Championship of Champions, won by Vasco da Gama of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Gabriel Hanot, editor of the French sports-themed newspaper L'Equipe, wanted such a tournament for Europe.

Once again, Hungary had a major role. After beating England badly, both home and away, and reaching the Final of the 1954 World Cup, Hungary's national team was established as a power. On December 13, 1954, a small measure of revenge was taken when England's titleholders, Wolverhampton Wanderers, beat Hungary's, Honvéd of Budapest, 3-2 in Wolverhampton, outside Birmingham. "Wolves" manager Stan Cullis called his team "Champions of the World."

Since the rest of Europe was sick of hearing England brag about their teams, both club and national, especially after their pathetic performances in the 1950 and '54 World Cups, the "football associations" of the various European countries finally listened to Hanot's request for a real European championship, to be played in the 1955-56 season, by each European country's 1954-55 Champions.

Wolves did not compete in the tournament -- because they didn't win England's Football League Division One in 1954-55. Chelsea, of West London, did. But they also chose not to compete. Of the 4 British "Home Nations," only Scotland sent their Champions. With some irony, it was Hibernian, a.k.a. Hibs, Edinburg rival of Hearts, who set everything in motion 60 years earlier.

Only 16 teams competed. So there were only 4 rounds, with home-and-away legs, of this single-elimination tournament. In the Round of 16, Partisan of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, beat Sporting Clv.ube de Portugal, of Lisbon; Vörös Lobogó of Budapest, now named MTK, beat Anderlecht of Belgium; Real Madrid of Spain beat Servette of Switzerland, hosts of the 1930 Coupe des Nations; Hibernian beat Rot-Weiss Essen of West Germany; Djurgården of Stockholm, Sweden beat Gwardia Warszawa of Warsaw, Poland; Stade de Reims of France beat Aarhus of Denmark; Rapid Wien of Vienna, Austria beat PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands; and AC Milan of Italy beat Saarbrücken, of the Saar Protectorate, a section of Germany then governed by France, but soon returned to West Germany.

In the Quarterfinals, Hibs beat Djurgården; Reims beat Vörös Lobogó; Real Madrid beat Partizan; and Milan beat Rapid. In the Semifinals, Reims beat Hibs, and Real Madrid beat Milan.

The Final was set for June 13, at the Parc des Princes in Paris. The original stadium on the site opened in 1897. This was the 2nd, opening in 1932. A 3rd was built on the site, and opened in 1972. Today, it is the home of the leading "football club" in France, Paris Saint-Germain.

The 1932-1972 version of the Parc des Princes

Reims, wearing red shirts with white sleeves like North London team Arsenal, were managed by Albert Batteux, captained by Robert Jonquet, and featured the best player in France, a son of Polish immigrants, Raymond Kopa.

Raymond Kopa, in uniform for France

at the 1958 World Cup

Real Madrid, dressed in all white, and thus known as Los Blancos and Los Merengues, were even more loaded. Manager José Villalonga could call on Captain Miguel Muñoz, and the man who may have then been the best player in the world, the Argentine forward known as El Saeta Rubia (The Blond Arrow): Alfred Di Stéfano.

Alfred Di Stéfano, in the all-whites of Real Madrid

Arthur Ellis of England, the referee at the Final of the 1950 World Cup, was chosen to officiate at this match as well. With 38,239 paying customers looking on, he blew his whistle at 8:30 PM local time -- also 8:30 PM in Madrid, 7:30 PM in London, and 2:30 PM in New York -- and the match was on.

Reims, with a lineup of all Frenchmen, didn't waste any time showing Real Madrid that they belonged on the same pitch. Michel Leblond scored just 6 minutes into the match. Jean Templin made it 2-0 in the 10th minute. But the Spanish side, all Spaniards except for Di Stéfano, were unfazed: The Arrow himself tallied in the 14th minute. Héctor Rial equalized at the half-hour, and it remained 2-2 at halftime.

Michel Hidalgo, a Normandy native with a Spanish father, gave Reims the lead shortly after the hour. But Marcos Alonzo Imaz, a centreback known as Marquitos, made it 3-3 in the 67th minute. It began to look like a replay might be necessary, until the 79th minute, when Di Stéfano made it 4-3 in Real's favor.

And so it remained when Ellis blew the final whistle. Real Madrid were the 1st true Champions of Europe, and could make a case for being the best side in the world. It would take until 1960 for an Intercontinental Cup to be founded, to be contested by the winners of the European Cup and the South American continental championship, now named the Copa Libertadores.

In 1992, the Union of European Football Associations renamed their signature tournament the UEFA Champions League, although the trophy retains the name "European Cup" (and the nickname "Ol' Big Ears," because of its large handles). In 1998, UEFA began admitting teams that had finished high in their leagues, but had not won them.

Real Madrid won the 1st 5 European Cups, and have won it more than any other team, 15 times, most recently in 2024.

Francisco "Paco" Gento played on each of those 1st 5 winners, and also on their next in 1966. He was the 1st man to play on 6 European Cup winners. He was also the last survivor of both the 1956 and 1957 European Cup winners, living until January 18, 2022.

When Real Madrid won the 2024 Champions League title, it added 4 players to Gento's formerly unique status of playing on 6 European Cup winners: Team Captain Nacho Fernández, Luka Modrić, Dani Cavajal and Toni Kroos. Kroos had won 1 with Bayern Munich, 5 with Real Madrid. The others each won all of theirs with Real Madrid.

Yankees Sweep Guardians, On to Jays

"Why aren't you writing about the Knicks?" I will -- when it's over. As Yogi Berra taught us, It ain't over 'til it's over.

The Yankees went to Cleveland and played the Guardians, formerly the Indians, and the Naps, and the Bronchos, and the Blues, at Progressive Field, formerly Jacobs Field.

Will Warren started on Monday night. Having gotten off to a really good start to the season, this was the 2nd straight time he'd pitched as poorly as I feared he would while "filling a hole in the starting rotation." He didn't make it out of the 5th inning, allowing 3 runs, 2 of them earned. Before the 6th inning had ended, Brent Headrick and Paul Blackburn had each added another.

Paul Goldschmidt hit a home run in the 1st inning, the 380th of his career, surpassing Orlando Cepeda and Tony Pérez, and tying the still-active Manny Machado. A month ago, I thought he was done. He wasn't. He'd previously surpassed the still-active Bryce Harper, who has 378; and the still-active Freddie Freeman, with 377. At this rate, he may pass the injured Aaron Judge, with 385.

But the Guardians took a 5-4 lead into the top of the 8th. Trent Grisham led off with a single, and he went to 3rd on a single by Ben Rice. Goldschmidt grounded into a force play that allowed Grisham to score the tying run.

The game went to extra innings, with Ali Sánchez as the Yankees' "ghost runner." A 29-year-old Venezuelan, he's a typical backup catcher, having bounced around the majors for 7 seasons, starting with the 2020 Mets, peaking at 96 plate appearances with the 2024 Miami Marlins, and batting .175 for his career. But with Austin Wells on the injured list, ol' Number 39 was necessary.

Grisham began the inning by flying out. But, Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. In order to set up the inning-ending double play, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt ordered Rice intentionally walked, bringing the light-hitting (but defensively strong and versatile) Max Schuemann to the plate. Big mistake: He drew an unintentional walk to load the bases, and Cody Bellinger singled Grisham and Rice home. David Bednar pitched the 9th and the 10th for the win: Yankees 7, Guardians 5.

But, sometimes, the great pitchers don't pitch well, either. And we have to remember that Gerrit Cole is still coming off a long layoff. On Tuesday night, he only went 4 innings, throwing 83 pitches. He allowed 2 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, striking out 4. Regardless of the game's result, the starting pitcher is disqualified from being named the winning pitcher unless he goes 5 full innings (presuming the game goes the full 9).

But Spencer Jones hit his 1st major league home run. Jazz Chisholm hit one, too -- using a bat loaned to him by Judge. Both went over 440 feet. I guess they didn't need a "little league ballpark." Chisholm's homer gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead in the 8th, and that would be the final. Since Camilo Doval was the current Yankee pitcher when Chisholm homered, it was Doval who was named the winning pitcher. Despite his 5.47 ERA, he is 2-0.

Carlos Rodón was okay in the Wednesday afternoon "getaway day" game, going 6 innings, allowing 3 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks, striking out 7. The Yankees took the lead in the top of the 6th, on José Caballero's sacrifice fly. Every Yankee starting hitter got at least 1 hit. Yankees 8, Guardians 4, for the sweep.

The Yankees are 41-26, on a pace to go 99-63. They are tied for 1st place in the American League Eastern Division with the Tampa Bay Rays, who have 2 games in hand, and are thus 1 game ahead in, Cliché Alert, the All-Important Loss Column.

Tonight, the Yankees continue their roadtrip, playing those pesky Toronto Blue Jays.

June 12, 2016: The Pulse Nightclub Shooting

June 12, 2016, 10 years ago: Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, is hosting a Latin Night when 102 people are shot by a single gunman. Of those, 49 died.

The shooter was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Long Island native, a son of Afghan immigrants, who was working for the Florida Department of Corrections. His family was described as moderate Muslims, but going back to his childhood, he had a preoccupation with violence. He had sworn allegiance to the terrorist group ISIL, and said that the killing of ISIL official Abu Waheeb in Iraq the month before set him off. After a 3-hour standoff inside the club, Orlando police shot and killed him.

The massacre was officially classified a terrorist attack, and still ranks as the deadliest one in America since 9/11. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, but that record only lasted until October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas -- one that has not been officially classified as a terrorist attack.

The massacre deeply shook the people of Central Florida, and gay Americans everywhere. At the time, what was then named Orlando City Stadium was being constructed in Orlando, to be the home of Major League Soccer's Orlando City SC (Soccer Club), and the National Women's Soccer League's Orlando Pride, a name obliquely referencing women's soccer's ties to the gay community.

When the stadium opened on February 24, 2017, 49 seats in Section 12 were painted in a rainbow pattern, as a memorial to the Pulse victims. The venue was renamed Exploria Stadium in 2019, and Inter&Co Stadium in 2024.

Pulse had opened in 2004. It never reopened after the shooting, not even in a different location. The site of the building is planned for a memorial and museum, but has run into delays for various reasons.

June 11, 1986: East Brunswick High School Wins Its 1st County Baseball Title

Photo shown in the next day's Home News.

Yes, at the time, we wore a green variation on the

Houston Astros' "Rainbow Brite" uniforms.

June 11, 1986, 40 years ago: I was at the baseball field of the Memorial Stadium complex in New Brunswick, New Jersey, watching the final of the 1st Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament, the successor to the Middlesex County Tournament. Dear Old Alma Mater was playing.

East Brunswick High School played Madison Central -- the Old Bridge-based school now known as Old Bridge High School. Here's the starting lineup for Da Bears, coached by Lou Kosa, better known as the school's girls' soccer coach, builder of the best such program in the State:

* Batting 1st, the right fielder, a lefthanded sophomore, Number 1, Craig Semchyshyn. Normally, underclassmen did not make the starting lineup, but "Semy" stepped in due to an injury to a senior. He turned out to be an ideal leadoff man, his speed allowing him to beat out some infield hits (including some good bunts), steal bases, and get to some tough plays in the outfield.

He starred for the team for the next 2 years, although when the Class of '86 and then the Class of '87 players graduated, the team around him was not what it had been in 1984 (County final), '85 (nearly won Conference title) and '86.

* Batting 2nd, the 3rd baseman, a righthanded senior, Number 30, Keith Motusesky. Also the leader of the E.B. basketball team that won the GMC Red Division and Central Jersey Group IV (largest enrollment classification) title the preceding winter. "Mot" could also play catcher.

* Batting 3rd, the shortstop, a righthanded senior, Number 6, Ken Wainczak. Probably our best all-around player, "Check" (a shortening of his name, not his ethnicity, as I think he was Polish like me rather than Czech) was in the mold already formed by Robin Yount, Alan Trammell and the young Cal Ripken Jr., of shortstops no longer being spindly, good-field-no-hit types, rather becoming big guys with power, presaging the era of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra.

* Batting 4th, the 1st baseman, a lefthanded senior, Number 11, Mike Cioffi. He had a very good glove, he was our 2nd starting pitcher, and I don't think E.B. has ever had a player who could hit the ball farther.

Earlier in the season, in an otherwise unpleasant loss to Woodbridge, he hit one that I paced off at 492 feet. In retrospect, having read books about long-distance home runs, I probably measured wrong -- or, perhaps, the measurements on the outfield fences at the former EBHS baseball field (since totally redone with FieldTurf, and with dugouts that wouldn't be condemned by the health inspector) were wrong.

But in another game that season, at Perth Amboy, then forced to play their home games at their football stadium, resulting in a mirror image of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum when the Dodgers played there (right field was much too close, rather than left field), he hit a ball over the houses on Myrtle Street across from the stadium. That had to be at least 450 feet. (Too bad we lost that game, too, but better times were coming and he would be a big part of it.)

* Batting 5th, the 2nd baseman, a righthanded junior, Number 5, Don Marchiselli. "March" also played a bit of 3rd base, and when he got a hold of a pitch, the opposing 3rd baseman learned why the position is called the hot corner.

* Batting 6th, the left fielder, a righthanded junior, Number 7, Andy Wang. Although E.B. already had a large South Asian population at that time (much more interested in cricket than baseball, although they did perform on our soccer, field hockey and track teams), we didn't have a lot of East Asians then. A few of them were on the track team, but Andy was good with both the bat and the glove.

* Batting 7th, the center fielder, a lefthanded senior, Number 10, John Breen. Normally the right fielder, "Breener" moved over due to another player's injury. Three brothers, three good baseball players, three different schools: His older brother Bill had pitched no-hitters for the East Brunswick campus of Middlesex County Vo-Tech H.S. (now named the Middlesex County Magnet School), and younger brother Sean starred for St. Joseph's of Metuchen. John went on to become an East Brunswick policeman.

* Batting 8th, the catcher, a righthanded senior, Number 20, Rich Helmold. The son and namesake of the head coach of the town's team in the Middlesex County league of American Legion baseball, Rich was a Crash Davis type, a catcher you did not cross up, who would remind you, "Don't think, Meat, just throw." And "Cheese" (I have no idea how he got that nickname) could hit, too. There was no weak spot in this lineup.

* Batting 9th, the designated hitter, a lefthanded senior, Number 3, Rich Loninger. This was the injury I mentioned earlier: "Los" was a good fit as a center fielder and as a leadoff man, but he got hurt shortly before the tournament began. The final was his 1st appearance in the tournament.

* Pitching, a righthanded starter, Number 41, Steve Hochman. A serious Met fan, Hoch (pronounced like "Hock") wore 41 in honor of Tom Seaver, and even copied Tom Terrific's pitching motion, overhand with his right knee brushing the ground with a permanent dirt-stain.

One time, in American Legion Ball, an opposing pitcher took the mound wearing 41, and was awful. Steve said, "He's making Seaver look like an asshole." His coach wisely benched the scrub, and brought in a pitcher wearing Number 36, and he wasn't much better. This was before David Cone reached the majors with the Mets, let alone came to the Yankees and wore 36, so I said, "He's making Robin Roberts look bad." Hochman gave me this dirty look. I hope it meant he was suggesting that Roberts wasn't as good as Seaver. Or maybe it was because he'd already gotten into the University of Michigan, and Roberts was a Michigan State graduate.

Steve's brother Brad, a year behind him, was also on the baseball team, and a star on the soccer team. Another brother, Brandon, was a key cog on the next E.B. team to win a County baseball title, in 1991.

Head Coach Lou Kosa

*

If Connie Mack was right, and "Pitching is 75 percent of baseball," then Steve's Spring 1986 performance can be Exhibit A for the prosecution. He was the reason we went from entering the tournament 11-12 – having been eliminated from the State Tournament in the 1st round the day before the County Tournament began – and the 12th seed to reaching the final.

Hochman struck out 14 batters against heavily favored Carteret in the 1st round. On the bench, we were wondering what the school record was. Being the school's resident trivia freak, they figured I would know, but I didn't. Wayne Beck, a sophomore on the '86 team, told us he thought it was 17, set by his father, also named Wayne Beck, back in 1966, when the school won its 1st Central Jersey Group IV title in the sport. As far as I know, he was correct, but I don't know if that record has since been broken. We won the game, 6-4.

Three days later, in the quarterfinal, against GMC Gold Division (small-school) Champion Harold G. Hoffman High School (which has since reverted to its original name of South Amboy H.S.), Hoch fanned 11 batters in just 5 innings, with Jim Craig (a junior righthander, no relation to the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey goalie of the same name) finishing the game. (New Jersey high school baseball games are 7 innings, barring a tie.) We won, 15-1.

Don't be fooled by the score, or by the fact that Hoffman was a small school (barely 300 students): They did win their Division, and were then perennial contenders for the Central Jersey Group I title.

Next up was the semifinal against South Plainfield, Champions of the GMC White Division, soon to win the Central Jersey Group II title, and ranked Number 1 in the entire State by the Star-Ledger, the Newark-based largest newspaper in the State. Were we intimidated?

If we were, it wasn't for long: We kicked the stuffing out of them, 16-4, crushing the horsehide in support of Cioffi, who threw some serious smoke. (Well, serious by the standards of New Jersey high school ball.)

South Plainfield was led by Phil Aiello, like Cioffi a lefthanded 1st baseman and pitcher, and we clobbered him. One of the spectators that day, waiting for his own semifinal against Old Bridge, was yet another lefty 1st baseman-pitcher, Chuck Frobosilo of Sayreville, a school which had just clinched its 3rd straight Conference title (the Middlesex County Athletic Conference in 1984 & '85, and the GMC Red Division in '86). This game was such a laugher, literally so, that we were joking with him that this game pretty much clinched the Home News' Middlesex County Player of the Year award for him (and he did get it, over Aiello).

Part of the reason we scored 31 runs in 2 games, and ended up scoring 51 in the 4 games of the tournament, was the field dimensions. From the 1990s onward, GMC Tournament games have been played at the home field of the higher-seeded school until the Final. In the 1990s, the Final was played at the immaculate, professional-quality field of East Brunswick Vo-Tech. Since the turn of the 21st Century, it's been played at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, home of the independent Atlantic League's Somerset Patriots, even though it's in an adjoining County. But in the 1980s, the entire tournament was played at the Memorial Stadium complex in New Brunswick.

New Brunswick High School was established in 1875, as the 1st public high school in Middlesex County. It had played its football games at the complex since 1940, with the press box of the (thankfully now-renovated) football stadium being strangely a few yards off midfield.

When they moved off their old campus at Livingston Avenue (State Route 26) & Comstock Street and opened their new school in 1967, they built it on Livingston between 9th and 12th Streets, with Joyce Kilmer Avenue (the "Trees" poet, killed in combat in World War I, was born on that street when it was Codwise Avenue) behind it and the stadium on that street.

Behind the stadium was the old Pennsylvania Railroad tracks, by this point (as they still are) used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, and whenever an event is held there, it's fun to watch the trains go by. The baseball field, on the 9th Street side of Joyce Kilmer Avenue, is limited by the tracks, and has a chain-link fence that is 300 feet all the way around, but is 20 feet high to discourage cheap home runs. It does not, however, discourage cheap doubles, and the Bears were smacking the ball all over the yard.

A new NBHS was built on the other side of the tracks, on Somerset Street (State Route 27), in 2010, and the previous high school was repurposed as a middle school. But the stadium complex remains their home for outdoor sports.

*

We dusted off South Plainfield to advance to the final, and Madison Central did the same by upsetting Sayreville. In 1986, Madison was the closest divisional opponent to EBHS in terms of distance. A few others, such as E.B. Tech, Spotswood and South River -- once much larger, and the school to which East Brunswick 9th-to-12th graders were sent up until 1958, and thus our original rivals -- were closer, but had smaller enrollments, so we could only play them in County Tournaments. Because of distance, Madison was considered a rival, but not really our biggest rival.

St. Joseph's of Metuchen, a school which took so many E.B. athletes in the 1970s and '80s that they were nicknamed "East Brunswick Catholic," would have been our biggest rival, except they had no football team. (They finally debuted a varsity football team in 2011.) They said they never recruited, absolutely insisting on this. As New Jersey native Jim Bouton would say, "Yeah, surrrre!"

And, in this era, we had some legendary football games against J.P. Stevens H.S. of Edison, including games that decided the Conference and Central Jersey Group IV Championships. It would be a little longer, with some nasty defeats, including two terrible State Playoff football losses, before Madison, and its successor Old Bridge, became the unquestioned school that we hated the most.

Still, we already didn't like them, and the feeling was very mutual. Even more than the Township of East Brunswick, the Township of Old Bridge had a reputation for ginkers. If you're not a Middlesex County native and are not familiar with this term, you probably have your own term for this type: Ginkers were the 1970s & '80s successors to the greasers of the '50s, liking "hair metal" as opposed to greasers' love of Elvis and the 1950s rock and roll pioneers.

These were guys who needed to take 3 or 4 steps up in class and articulation before they could be celebrated in a Bruce Springsteen song. They were more like the kid in John Mellencamp's song "Pink Houses," with the greasy hair and the greasy smile, who knows that nothing better than what he's got now will ever be his destination, unless he wises up. Think Judd Nelson as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, Scott Valentine as Nick Moore on Family Ties, or Ashton Kutcher as Michael Kelso on That '70s Show.

There were a few ginker types on EBHS' athletic teams, but not many. Cigarettes reduce lung power, and nicotine is not exactly a performance-enhancing drug. But the guys at the 2 high schools Old Bridge had at the time, Madison Central and Cedar Ridge, they took the cake. And probably robbed the bakery in the process. Nah, they didn't rob anything. They were too lazy.

*

But it wouldn't have mattered if the Madison hitters were all in tip-top condition: We crushed them. In the top of the 1st inning, Semchyshyn and Motusesky both reached base, and Wainczak stepped up. He cranked one down the left-field line. It cleared the high fence, and this was no cheap shot: It was an absolute no-doubt-abouter.

I've often said this was "the longest home run ever hit," because it went onto the tracks and landed on a passing Amtrak train that carried it all the way to Florida. Now, I don't have any proof that this happened -- Amtrak and NJT trains went past all night, but the homer didn't hit any of them -- but I looked for this ball, and it was nowhere to be found. The only thing I can think of is that it did leave the complex and land on the tracks. And I wasn't about to go onto the tracks and find out. Wherever it went, everybody associated with E.B. was over the moon.

Hochman was dealing. We built up a 7-0 lead, and it looked like we would win easily. Well, it wasn't that easy: In the 4th inning, Madison rallied, made it 7-3, and loaded the bases with 2 out. A shot went to dead center, and it looked like it would clatter off the high fence for a double, scoring at least 2 and making this a game again. But Breen (playing out of his usual position, mind you) made a leaping grab, and the rally was stymied.

That was it: They couldn't touch Hoch, as if Seaver (who, by this point, was wrapping up his brilliant career) himself were on the mound, and we tacked on a few more runs, for the 14-3 final score.

This was E.B.'s 25th season of varsity baseball. We had never won the County Title under the old format, and only reached 1 final, losing to Edison 2 years earlier. This would be our 1st title, if we could finish it off. At 10:02 PM on June 11, 1986, Steve Hochman did just that: His arm must've felt like Swiss cheese at this point, but he fired an aspirin past Rob Jessup, who started the game as the opposing pitcher, but had long since been moved off the mound. He swung and missed. Strike 3.

The mighty mighty Bears were County Champions. Well, Greater Middlesex Conference Champions, but since the only County school not in the GMC was Piscataway (which joined 2 years later), and they didn't reach the sectional final or win their league, it's safe to say E.B. was County Champions.

As one of the student managers on that team, it was, at the time, the happiest moment in my life. For the 1st time ever, my 3 great loves all came together: East Brunswick, baseball, and winning.

*

In 1991, at East Brunswick Vo-Tech, East Brunswick won the Tournament again, beating South Plainfield in the Final. They did it again in 1997, also at E.B. Tech, beating Woodbridge's John F. Kennedy H.S., just 1 day after beating Edison at Hamilton's Mercer County Park for the Central Jersey Group IV title. In 2005, they won the Tournament Final, beating St. Joe's at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater. I was in attendance for each of these. I was not there in 2016, 30 years after winning the 1st one, when they won the 5th one, defeating J.P. Stevens at Bridgewater. 

Preview for the World Cup We Deserved -- But Not the One We Wanted

In 1966, during the World Cup in England, FIFA, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the governing body for world soccer, having already chosen Mexico as the host for the 1970 World Cup, chose the host nations for the World Cups of 1974, 1978 and 1982. For 1974, they chose West Germany. For 1978, they chose Argentina. For 1982, they chose Spain.

This was not especially unusual: They seemed to alternate between Europe and South America, occasionally mixing it up, and would continue to do so until Asia and Africa began to be more represented:

The Americas: 1930 in Uruguay, 1950 in Brazil, 1962 in Chile, 1970 in Mexico, 1978 in Argentina, 1986 in Mexico, 1994 in the United States, 2014 in Brazil; and now, 2026 in a joint effort between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Europe: 1934 in Italy (then run by the Fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini), 1938 in France, 1954 in Switzerland, 1958 in Sweden (two straight in Europe), 1966 in England, 1974 in West Germany, 1982 in Spain, 1990 in Italy, 1998 in France, 2006 in a united Germany, 2018 in Russia.

Asia: 2002 was a joint effort between Japan and South Korea; and 2022 in Qatar.

Africa: 2010 in South Africa.

The 1942 edition was canceled due to World War II, and the 1946 edition was canceled due to The War's aftermath, in each case before a host nation could be chosen.

In 1966, out of West Germany, Argentina and Spain, Spain seemed to be the most controversial choice, since it was then run by a Fascist government. By 1982, it would be a thriving democracy.

But in 1976, Argentina fell to a Fascist military dictatorship, and the 1978 World Cup was a morass of corruption. The host nation could have won honestly. It won, but did not do so honestly. Fans, and even players, feared for their safety. Everything that was feared for Italy 1934 and Spain '82, but which those tournaments avoided, came too close to happening at Argentina '78.

In 1974, the South American nation of Colombia was selected for 1986. But, between financial concerns and the country's ongoing drug conflicts, its government bowed out in 1982, the only time a country has withdrawn from hosting a World Cup. Since it was the Americas' turn, and Mexico had the infrastructure in place, it was held there again.

In 1994, America hosted. With so many big cities with big stadiums, it was the highest-attended World Cup ever, with several legends putting on great performances. It was a great tournament -- until the Final, when Brazil and Italy, 2 teams that should have put on a great show, put on a 0-0 snoozefest that Brazil won on penalties. But that put the U.S. in the running to host again.

Gaps between a first and second hosting: Mexico, 16 years; the U.S., 32 years; Germany, 32 years; Italy, 56 years; France, 60 years; Brazil, 64 years.

During the 2018 World Cup, with Asian and Europe having hosted the last 2, FIFA was going to choose an Americas bid or an African bid. The joint U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid was chosen. The only other country to bid was Morocco, and they regrouped, setting up their own joint bid, accepted for 2030: Morocco, Spain and Portugal. It will be the 1st World Cup spread over 2 different continents, giving Africa a 2nd tournament, 20 years after its 1st, but also keeping with the usual Europe/Americas alternation.

But 2026 was thought to be the right year for America to host, in conjunction with celebrations for the 250th Anniversary of American independence. It was going to be a great Summer.

Then Donald Trump got back into the White House. And he had hijacked the America 250 celebrations. Don't even get me started on a UFC stage on the White House grounds that's taller than the White House itself.

Iran qualified for the World Cup. Then Trump started a war with them. He brought back his travel bans, which have affected Iran and some other qualifying countries, mostly-black ones: Haiti, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The proclamation includes an exemption for any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, the Olympics, or other major sporting events -- but not for the traveling fans of said national teams.

Then there's the transit issues. I thought the rail spur that New Jersey Transit built from Secaucus Junction to the Meadowlands Sports Complex would ease arrivals and departures at MetLife Stadium, and (ha, ha) reduce car traffic. But NJT jacked up the price of a ticket from Penn Station to the Meadowlands from $13 to $150!

After work by Governors Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Kathy Hochul of New York, it's down to $98. I'm reminded of something Malcolm X said, over issues far more important: "If you stick a knife nine inches into my back, and pull it out six inches, that's not progress." (Not that I'm blaming the Governors.)

And too many of the stadiums are suburban islands in a sea of parking, with inadequate or nonexistent public transit access: MetLife, Gillette Stadium outside Boston, Hard Rock Stadium outside Miami, Arrowhead Stadium on the outskirts of Kansas City, AT&T Stadium outside Dallas, SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles, Levi's Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. (And we're expected to give FIFA credit for temporarily replacing the corporate names on these venues with their cities' names? Uh-uh!)

The whole thing is a mess, before a single ball is kicked. It wasn't like this in 1994. But then, in 1994, our President was Bill Clinton. In 2026, it's Donald Trump.

To paraphrase The Dark Knight, maybe this is the World Cup that November 2024 America deserved, but it sure as hell isn't the one that American soccer fans wanted.

*

Anyway, here's predictions:

* Group A: Mexico 1st, South Korea 2nd, Czechia one of the 3rd-place advancers, South Africa out.

* Group B: Switzerland 1st, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2nd, Canada one of the 3rd-place advancers, Qatar out.

* Group C: Brazil 1st, Morocco 2nd, Scotland and Haiti out.

* Group D: Turkey 1st, USA 2nd, Paraguay one of the 3rd-place advancers, Australia out.

* Group E: Germany 1st, Côte d'Ivoire 2nd, Ecuador one of the 3rd-place advancers, Curaçao out.

* Group F: Netherlands 1st, Sweden 2nd, Japan one of the 3rd-place advancers, Tunisia out.

* Group G: Belgium 1st, Egypt 2nd, Iran and New Zealand out.

* Group H: Spain 1st, Uruguay 2nd, Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia out.

* Group I: France 1st, Senegal 2nd, Norway one of the 3rd-place advancers, Iraq out.

* Group J: Argentina 1st, Austria 2nd, Algeria one of the 3rd-place advancers, Jordan out.

* Group K: Colombia 1st, Portugal 2nd, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uzbekistan out.

* Group L: Croatia 1st, Ghana 2nd, England one of the 3rd-place advancers, Panama out. This may be the closest thing this World Cup has to a "Group of Death."

* Round of 32: South Korea over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil over Sweden, Germany over Paraguay, Morocco in an upset over the Netherlands (although, given Morocco's run to the Semifinal last time, it's not that big of an upset), Côte d'Ivoire over Senegal, France over Japan, Mexico over Norway, Croatia over Ecuador, Belgium over Czechia, Turkey over Canada, Spain over Austria, Ghana over Portugal to end Cristiano Ronaldo's World Cup play, Switzerland over Algeria, USA over Egypt, Argentina over Uruguay in the best rivalry of the Round, Colombia over England.

* Round of 16: Morocco over South Korea, France over Germany, Brazil over Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia over Mexico, Spain over Ghana, Belgium over Turkey, Argentina over USA (who's kidding who), Colombia over Switzerland.

* Quarterfinals: France over Morocco, Spain over Belgium, Brazil over Croatia, Argentina over Colombia.

* Semifinals: Spain over France, Argentina over  Brazil in a big rivalry.

* Final: Spain over Argentina.

Who do I really want to win? I'm not sure I want a country that voted for Trump twice, and came close a 3rd time, to win. So, France.

It all gets underway today, at 3:00 PM, U.S. Eastern Time, at Estadio Banorte in Mexico City, as Mexico takes on South Africa.

*

It's a good day to do a countdown:

* Days until the next World Cup: 0. Today.

* Days until the next U.S. soccer team game: 1, tomorrow night at 9:00 PM, Eastern Time, vs. the South American nation of Paraguay, at SoFi Stadium, outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series: 26, on Thursday, June 25, at 7:10 PM, at Fenway Park. Just 2 weeks.

* Days until the World Cup Final: 38, on Sunday, July 19, at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands.

* Days until the next New York Red Bulls game: 41, on Wednesday, July 22, at 7:30 PM, away to the Philadelphia Union, at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. It's that far off because of the World Cup. Under 6 weeks.

* Days until the next Red Bulls "derby" game: See the previous answer.

* Days until the next Arsenal match: 55, on Wednesday, August 5, at 2:30 PM U.S. Eastern Time, against Spanish team Real Betis, in a preseason friendly, at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Under 8 weeks.

* Days until the New Jersey Devils open their 2026-27 regular season: Unknown, as the schedule has not been released yet. The season usually begins on the 1st Thursday in October, which, this year, is October 1. If so, that's 112 days. Under 4 months.

* Days until the next New Jersey Devils rivalry game: See the previous answer.

* Days until the new Premier League season opens: 73, on August 23. Arsenal's opponent is as yet unknown. And, of course, given the British TV networks, the game could be moved up a day or two.

* Days until the next North London Derby: Unknown. The teams never open the season against each other, so it will probably be longer than that. They have played each other in August, but it's usually once in October or November in N5, then once in February or March in N17, and the occasional cup tie.

* Days until the next East Brunswick High School football game: 78, on Friday night, August 22, at 6:00 PM, home to John F. Kennedy Memorial High School, of the Iselin section of Woodbridge. A little over 11 weeks.

* Days until the next Rutgers football game: 84, on Thursday, September 3, at 6:00 PM, home to the University of Massachusetts. Just 12 weeks.

* Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge football game: 127, on Friday, October 16, at Vince Lombardi Field in Old Bridge. A little over 4 months.

* Days until the next election for the U.S. Congress and for the Governor of New York: 145, on Tuesday, November 3. Under 5 months. In New Jersey, polls are open from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. In New York, they're open from 6:00 AM to 9:00 PM. If Trump is to be held accountable for anything, the voters must give the Democratic Party control of each house of Congress.

* Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State game: 163, on Saturday, November 21, at a time TBA, at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. Under 6 months.

* Days until the next Summer Olympics: 764, on July 14, 2028, in Los Angeles. A little over 2 years. If Trump is still hanging on by that point, perhaps there will be another boycott.

* Days until the next election for the President of the United States: 880, on Tuesday, November 7, 2028. Under 2 1/2 years, or a little under 29 months. Time to end the Trump Era for once and for all, and to make America good again.

* Days until the next Inauguration for the President of the United States: 954, on Saturday, January 20, 2029, at 12:00 Noon. Under 3 years, or a little over 31 months. And stay out, you fat Fascist son of a bitch.

* Days until the next elections for the Governor of New Jersey and the Mayor of New York City: 1,244, on Tuesday, November 6, 2029. I am fully confident that Governor Mikie Sherrill can govern the State well enough to convince voters to re-elect her. I am not at all confident that Kid Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who has already screwed up two blizzards, can keep himself popular enough to avoid a primary challenge. He might even open the door for a competent, though probably evil, Republican to win.

* Days until the next Winter Olympics: 1,331, on February 1, 2030. The next ones will be held at various locations in the French Alps, a region that has included the sites of the Winter Olympics in 1924, the 1st one, in Chamonix; 1968, Grenoble; and 1992, Albertville.

In fact, a lot of the Winter Olympics have been held in the Alps: 1928 and 1948 in St. Moritz, Switzerland; 1936 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; 1956 and 2026 in Milan and Cortina, Italy; 1964 and 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria; and 2006 in Turin, Italy. Indeed, from Grenoble in the west to Milan in the east, it's only 230 miles, or roughly the distance between Midtown Manhattan and downtown Washington, D.C.

* Days until the next World Cup after this one: 1,458, on June 8, 2030, in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

June 11, 1986: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Premieres

June 11, 1986, 40 years ago: The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off premieres.

John Hughes directed Matthew Broderick as high school senior Ferris, Jennifer Grey as his sister Jeanie, Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett as his parents, Alan Ruck as Ferris' best friend Cameron Frye, Mia Sara as his luscious girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Ferris? Cameron? Sloane? Who gives kids last names as first names?), Jeffrey Jones as vice principal Edward R. Rooney, Edie McClurg as Rooney's secretary Grace, Ben Stein as an economics professor (presaging his similar role in the TV series The Wonder Years), and Charlie Sheen as a ginker who Jeanie meets at the police station.

The action takes place in Chicago and in the fictional town of Shermer, Illinois, 15 miles northwest of the city, based on Hughes' real-life hometown of Northbrook. (Until he was 12, he lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Hence, Cameron wears a Red Wings jersey with Gordie Howe's name and Number 9.)

Northbrook's original name was Shermerville, and his alma mater, Glenbrook North High School, is on Shermer Road. We know it's 15 miles because of the differences in the mileage on the odometer on the Ferrari between North Lake Shore Drive and Cameron's house.

Hughes set a lot of his films in this fictional town, including Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. The "home" scenes of National Lampoon's Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Home Alone were also set there. Not all were filmed in Northbrook: Some of these were filmed in nearby Winnetka, Illinois. The Bueller house and the streets around it were in Long Beach, California; the rest of the movie was shot in Chicago and the suburbs, including the Frank Lloyd Wright-ish Frye house, in Highland Park, Illinois.

In the film, Ferris decides this spring weekday (I usually think it's April, but this is not specified in the script) in his senior year at Shermer High School is too nice a day to spend in school. So he fakes out his parents, pretends to be sick, convinces Cameron (who appears to actually be sick) that neither one of them is sick, and gets his girlfriend Sloane out of school on a phony death in the family. Then they head for the big city, have some fun, run a couple of cons, and head home, and have to face the consequences of their actions... sort of.

All the while, Mr. Rooney is trying to catch Ferris cutting school. That Sloane is also cutting appears to be incidental to him. That Cameron is also cutting appears not to be something he's even aware of. He heads for the mall, thinking Ferris might be there, and gets embarrassed. He goes to the Bueller home, and gets nearly shredded by their Rottweiler and attacked by Jeanie (who's also trying to catch Ferris in the act, and fails, hence the police station).

How many times have I seen this movie? Nine times? More than that: Maybe 15. After 40 years, it remains the only movie I have ever gone to the theater to see, and literally laughed all the way home from. And it helped make Jennifer Grey a star, which is a good thing. Although Mia Sara didn't become a big star: Other than this, her biggest movie has been Timecop, and that was 8 years later.

Yeah, Ferris was a legend. A great guy. Right? As ESPN's Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast, my friend!":

* He lied to his parents.

* He got away with that, and he rubbed the fact in his sister's face.

* He cut school. A lot. How many times, in that semester, alone? Say it with me: "Nine times!" "If I go for 10," he admitted in one of his periodic breaks of the fourth wall, as he set up his synthesizer to produce fake sounds of snoring, sneezing and coughing, "I'm probably gonna have to barf up a lung, so I'd better make this one count." Gee, not real big on remorse, are ya, F.B.?

I mean, think about it: Since he knew Spring was coming, and that he would probably want to take a day off to enjoy it, shouldn't he have saved up his sick days, instead of using so many? It's like in basketball: You get a limited number of fouls per game, before you get tossed. It's 6 in the NBA, 5 in college, usually 5 in high school. Use them wisely.

* He took advantage of his sick best friend. Cameron was sick. Probably with the flu. Does Ferris consider this? Does Ferris consider that spending the day with a clearly sick Cameron might make him sick? Does Ferris consider that it might make Sloane, the girl he allegedly loves, sick? Does he consider that it might make anyone else Cameron interacts with sick? Not by a long shot. And then, Ferris steals a car, a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California, belonging to Cameron's father.

* He took advantage of his girlfriend. No, I don't mean in a sexual way – at least, not onscreen. First, Ferris has Sloane thinking that her grandmother has died. Remember her reaction? This was not the face of a girl who knew that her boyfriend was behind this. It wasn't until she saw Ferris – standing in front of the Ferrari, wearing the trenchcoat, the shades and the hat, impersonating her father – that she realized, "My Grandma's alive! And my boyfriend is awesome!" No, he's not: He had you thinking your Grandma was dead! All so he could cut school.

* He scammed the entire Chicago metropolitan area. "SAVE FERRIS" signs went up everywhere, from the Shermer water tower to the electronic portion of the familiar Wrigley Field marquee!

I can see getting an entire school to think you're sick as a dog. But conning the Cubs? Well, maybe. We're not talking about an organization that's been known for smart decisions. Besides, pay a sports team enough money, and they'll put anything (short of profanity or defamation) on one of their signs or boards.

But the water tower? This was not some kid spray-painting it on: This was a professionally-painted "SAVE FERRIS," which would not have been approved by the municipal government unless they were convinced that the kid in question needed contributions to pay for his health care.

And, since we've seen the Bueller house, and we know that Mrs. Bueller is a real estate agent and Mr. Bueller works in a high-rise office downtown, apparently as some kind of executive rather than a cubicle drone, we know they're not exactly hurting for cash, if not stinking rich like the Fryes. They can afford health insurance for their kids.

So why would the town allow this message on their water tower? Maybe it was a bribe. Nah, can't be. After all, it's not like the Chicago area is known for political corruption...

* Don't get me started on the fact that the attempt to get into Chez Quis, the fancy French restaurant on the Near North Side, was a rotten thing to do, and should have failed, for a dozen reasons, and almost did.

* He hijacked a parade. Bueller is a German name, and German-Americans – by 1986, they no longer had to worry about discrimination or suspicion like they did in the era of the World Wars – celebrate their heritage on Steuben Day, on or around September 17, the anniversary of the birth of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who left the Prussian army under dubious circumstances, and then helped George Washington whip the Continental Army into shape during the War of the American Revolution.

Parades in his memory are held in New York, Philadelphia and, as seen in the movie, Chicago. Hughes filmed during Chicago's real Steuben Day parade on September 28, 1985, so while the film has it in the Spring, for some reason, at least it really was Steuben Day when they filmed.

So how did a high school student playing hooky get to jump on a float in a municipal parade (i.e. sponsored by the City government) and sing Wayne Newton's semi-German song "Danke Schoen" and the Beatles' cover version of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout"? In real life, someone who tried that would have been pulled off the float by the cops before finishing the 1st verse! (Well, maybe Ferris could have bribed the cops to look the other way. Another bribe? Nah... )

* And he got away with it all, thus inspiring others to try things they shouldn't do. Remember what Rooney told Grace, his secretary, near the beginning of the film? "What bothers me about Ferris Bueller is that he gives good kids bad ideas."

A 2011 article by Cezary Jan Strusiewicz that Cracked magazine put in its online edition included FBDO on a list of movies whose bad guys weren't so bad after all:

Mr. Rooney was the mean old Dean of Students who spent the entire movie trying to prove that Ferris was skipping school while pretending to be sick. What a mistrustful tight-ass. Why the hell does he care so much if one student takes a day off?

Let's get the obvious out of the way: this is his goddamned job... People are always all up the public schools system's digestive tract for not taking a more active interest in their students and that's exactly what Mr. Rooney was doing. It doesn't matter if, on a personal level, he's a dick or not -- he is literally paid with your tax money to make sure kids aren't doing exactly what Ferris did. The kid can go to a museum and drive a sports car on the weekend. During the week, he and the other kids are Rooney's responsibility so they can, you know, get an education.

And you know what? He was right all along. Ferris was skipping school. Worse yet, he lied to his parents and friends about being sick and pretty much got the whole town involved in the farce. He lied, he stole, and he caused millions in property damage by destroying Cameron's dad's beautiful car. That's not adorable, that's just being an egocentric cock. It wouldn't have been a satisfying movie ending to see Rooney expose Bueller for his douchebaggery, but it would have been by far the more just outcome. What happens instead is that Rooney loses his wallet and almost has his nipples ripped off by a Rottweiler.

In the end, Ferris gets saved by Jeanie, his sister – posing as his mother! This is one thing I've always hated about movies & TV shows set in high schools: The kids are, all too often, played by grownups. At the time of filming, September through November 1985, Broderick was 23 and had a serious 5:00 shadow. Grey was 25, and didn't make Jones' Rooney think, "Wait a minute, Mrs. Bueller looks damn good for 45." She pretended to be Ferris' mother, and Rooney bought it. And Ruck was a whopping 29. Only Sara, 18, was actually of high school age. Considering the things Jeanie was saying and thinking about Ferris all through the movie, this is really out of character.

True, her police-station conversation with Charlie Sheen (oh, yeah, there's something you want to go through in real life) made her think differently, but, come on: This guy (in addition to being Charlie Sheen, but you didn't yet know what he was going to become) was a damn ginker! (Metalhead, for those of you who didn't grow up where I did.) He admitted that he was arrested for drugs. (I'm presuming possession, if not also intent to sell.) Anything he says, I'm taking with an entire mine of salt.

And Strusiewicz and I aren't the only ones upset that Ferris keeps putting one over on the film's adults. Social scientist Martin Morse Wooster said the film "portrayed teachers as humorless buffoons whose only function was to prevent teenagers from having a good time."

Looking back, it's easy to see that Ferris wasn't such a great guy. And the movie has its flaws. In her book Screening Generation X: The Politics and Popular Memory of Youth in Contemporary Cinema, author Christina Lee said it was a "splendidly ridiculous exercise in unadulterated indulgence," and the film "encapsulated the Reagan era's near solipsist worldview and insatiable appetite for immediate gratification -- of living in and for the moment."

Indeed, with its Reagan Era selfishness, showing teenage neuroses and at the same time ignoring them, its synthesizer-driven soundtrack, and its protagonists getting to avoid serious consequences, this might be the most Eighties movie there is.

On the other hand, Ben Stein, who played the economics teacher – and who had previously been a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, who probably would have called Ferris one of "these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses" – and was very much a Reagan guy, and remains a political conservative, gave the film his seal of approval, and not just because it launched his career as an actor and a game-show host:

It will never die, because it responds to and calls forth such human emotions. It isn't dirty. There's nothing mean-spirited about it. There's nothing sneering or sniggering about it. It's just wholesome. We want to be free. We want to have a good time. We know we're not going to be able to all our lives. We know we're going to have to buckle down and work. We know we're going to have to eventually become family men and women, and have responsibilities and pay our bills. But just give us a couple of good days that we can look back on.

And you know what? This is a good thing. For 1 hour and 43 minutes, Ferris Bueller's Day Off lets you relax and laugh. Should we think about all this stuff while we're watching it? No. Save that for afterward. While the movie is rolling, enjoy the escapist fare.

I sure did. Many times. And I will again. After all, like the man said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

But then, it's a movie. If you miss it, you can play it again.

Then there's the "Ferris Club" theory: That the whole thing is happening in Cameron's head, and Ferris isn't real. That's a story for another time.

The Chicago Cubs game shown on the TV? It's from June 5, 1985, against the Atlanta Braves, and while the score was indeed tied in the 8th inning, it was 2-2, not "nothin'-nothin'." The Braves went on to win, 4-2 in 11 innings. But the game at which Broderick, Sara and Ruck were filmed was on September 24, 1985, and the Cubs lost to the Montreal Expos by a football score, 17-15.

Director John Hughes died in 2009, of a heart attack, only 59 years old. Del Close, who played the unnamed English teacher ("In... what... way... "), died in 1999. Virginia Capers, the school nurse who tells Sloane about her grandmother's death, not knowing that it isn't true, died in 2004.

Larry "Flash" Jenkins, along with Richard Edson one of the parking garage attendants who takes the Ferrari for a joyride, died in 2019. Comedian Louie Anderson, in an early role as a deliveryman for a florist, died early in 2022. Joey D. Vieira, the pizza guy who gives Rooney the "nothin''-nothin'" score, and then, when asked, "Who's winning?" tells him, "The Bears," died in 2025. As of June 11, 2026, every other notable actor from the film is still alive.