How Long It’s Been: The Hawks Won the NBA Championship

The NBA regular season ended last night. Soon, the Playoffs will start.

The Atlanta Hawks will not appear in them. Indeed, they had the worst record in the NBA Eastern Conference, 24-58.

This ends a string of 10 straight seasons in which the Hawks made the Playoffs. This included winning 6 Playoff series, and making the 2015 Conference Finals.

But that was their 1st trip to the NBA's "final four" since 1970, their 2nd season in Atlanta after moving from St. Louis. It was also their 4th Division title since 1970.

In St. Louis, they reached 4 NBA Finals in 5 years, facing the Boston Celtics each time, winning in 1958, but losing in 1957, 1960 and 1961.

St. Louis hasn't had an NBA team since 1968, although the Spirits of St. Louis played in the ABA in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons. But the St. Louis metropolitan area simply isn't big enough to hold 4 major league sports teams -- or, as the Rams recently proved, even 3.

So the 1958 World Championship remains the only one for a franchise now in its 4th metro area in 72 seasons. It was won on April 12, 1958, in Game 6, beating the Celtics 110-109 at the Kiel Auditorium. That was 60 years ago today. How long has that been?

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The Hawks were coached by Alex Hannum. He would later coach the Philadelphia 76ers to the 1967 NBA Championship, and the Oakland Oaks to the 1969 ABA Championship. He and Bill Sharman were the only coaches to win titles in the NBA and the ABA.

Their players were: Number 9, forward Bob Pettit; Number 11, forward Jack Coleman; Number 12, forward Walt Davis; Number 13, center Chuck Share; Number 15, guard Alva Winfred "Win" Wilfong; Number 16, forward Cliff Hagan; Number 17, Medford "Med" Park; 20, center Ed Macauley; Number 19, guard Jack McMahon; and Number 22, guard Slater "Dugie" Martin.

Hagan was the only one to have won a National Championship, with the University of Kentucky in 1951. But some had won previous NBA titles: Martin with the 1950, '52, '53 and '54 Minneapolis Lakers; Coleman with the 1951 Rochester Royals, and Davis with the 1956 Philadelphia Warriors. Davis had also been a member of the 1956 NBA Champion Philadelphia Warriors, and had also won a Gold Medal at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki -- not in basketball, but in the high jump, and he held the world record in that event from 1953 to 1956.

Hannum, Pettit, Hagan, Macauley and Martin are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and Pettit was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players. The Hawks retired Pettit's Number 9, while the Boston Celtics retired Macauley's Number 22.

Wilfong died in 1985, McMahon in 1989, Park and Coleman in 1998, Hannum in 2002, Macauley in 2011, Share and Martin in 2012. Pettit, Hagan and Davis are still alive.

There were only 8 teams in the NBA. The former Fort Wayne Pistons had just finished their 1st season in Detroit. They, the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics are the only teams that played the 2017-18 season in the same city in which they played the 1957-58 season.

The former Rochester Royals had just finished their 1st season in Cincinnati. They are now the Sacramento Kings. The Philadelphia Warriors are now the Golden State Warriors. The Syracuse Nationals are now the Philadelphia 76ers. And the Minneapolis Lakers are now in Los Angeles.

No NBA arena from that season is still used by any major league sports team. Only 2 are still standing, and 1 is closed and expected to be demolished soon: The Cincinnati Gardens. Only the Onondaga County War Memorial Arena in Syracuse, now known as the OnCenter, is still in use.

Atlanta had never had a major league team in any sport. In 1966, the Braves would move there from Milwaukee, and the Falcons would be established as an NFL expansion team. In 1968, the Hawks would move there from St. Louis, and the Atlanta Chiefs would win the 1st North American Soccer League title. But that team wouldn't last long. Atlanta United have since debuted in Major League Soccer.

The NHL has since failed twice in Atlanta, with the Flames (1972-80, named for the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War, which explains the odd name of the team that moved to Calgary) and the Thrashers (1999-2011, now the new Winnipeg Jets.

The NBA had yet to go coast-to-coast. The NHL still hadn't gone west of Chicago, except for a single season in St. Louis, 1934-35. The NFL had, with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. Just 3 days after the Hawks won the title, the 1st Major League Baseball game to be played west of Kansas City took place at Seals Stadium in San Francisco, as the Giants beat their also-transplanted New York rivals, now the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-0. Three days after that, the Dodgers would return the favor, winning their 1st home game by beating the Giants 8-5 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Five days after that, the Montreal Canadiens succeeded themselves as Stanley Cup Champions, beating the Boston Bruins in 6 games. The Hawks had reversed the result of the 1957 Final, dethroning and succeeding the Celtics. The Milwaukee Braves were the defending World Champions in baseball, and the Detroit Lions in football. The Lions have never won another title, nor have the Hawks, and the Braves only 1 more. In contrast, the Canadiens have won another 14 Cups.

The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Floyd Patterson. Wolverhampton Wanderers had just dethroned Manchester United, stricken by the recent Munich Air Disaster, as Champions of England's Football League, while Bolton Wanderers were about to win the FA Cup, succeeding Aston Villa. Real Madrid was about to retain the European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League.

In addition to Pettit, the top players in the NBA at the time were Bill Russell and Bob Cousy of the Celtics, Dolph Schayes of the Nationals, George Yardley of the Pistons, Jack Twyman of the Royals, and Tom Gola of the Warriors. Russell and Cousy are still alive.

Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek were in college. Willis Reed, Bill Bradley and Rick Barry were in high school. Walt Frazier was 13 years old, Elvin Hayes was 12, Lew Alcindor (the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was about to turn 11, Pete Maravich was 10, Dave Cowens was 9, Julius Erving as 8, Bill Walton was 5, Moses Malone was 3, Bernard King and Larry Bird were a year and a half, and Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and Karl Malone weren't born yet.

Mike Budenholzer, the current Hawks coach, wasn't born yet. Nor were any of the current managers or head coaches of the New York Tri-State Area teams.

The World Cup was about to be held in Sweden, and has since been held in Chile, England, Mexico twice, Germany twice, Argentina, Spain, Italy, America, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, and Brazil, and is about to be held again in Russia.

The Olympics have since been held in America 5 times; Canada and Japan 3 times; twice each in Italy, Austria, France, Russia and Korea; and once each in Mexico, Germany, Bosnia, Spain, Norway, Australia, Greece, China, Britain and Brazil.

There were 48 States in the Union, with Alaska gaining Statehood 9 months later, and Hawaii 7 months after that. There were 22 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There had been a Civil Rights Act in 1957, but it was essentially toothless. Segregation in public schools had been struck down, and enforced at Central High School in Little Rock, but would be seriously tested at the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama.

There was no Medicare, Medicaid, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA, Title IX, or legalized Abortion. There was no "gay rights" of any kind. Quite the opposite: What we would now call getting "outed" was a public and commercial death sentence. The idea of 2 people of the same gender marrying each other was ridiculous -- but then, so was the idea that corporations were "people," and entitled to the rights thereof.

The President of the United States was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Richard Nixon was Ike's Vice President. Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Eleanor Roosevelt were still alive. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were in the U.S. Senate, and Gerald Ford was in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jimmy Carter was running a peanut farm, George H.W. Bush an oil company, and the one and only film that co-starred Ronald Reagan and his wife, then still billed as Nancy Davis, had been released the year before: Hellcats of the Navy. Neither Carter, nor Reagan, nor Bush had ever yet run for office. Bush's son George W. was 11. So was Bill Clinton. So was Donald Trump, and he hasn't matured since. Barack Obama wasn't born yet.

The Governor of the State in question, Missouri, was James T. Blair Jr. The Mayor of St. Louis was Raymond Tucker. The current Mayor, Lyda Krewson, was 4 years old. The current Governor, now heading for impeachment for various crimes, Eric Greitens, wasn't born yet.

The Governor of the State of New York was Averell Harriman. The Governor of New Jersey, newly re-elected, was Robert Meyner. The Mayor of the City of New York was Robert F. Wagner Jr., who somehow got re-elected a few months earlier, despite having just lost 2 Major League Baseball teams.

Lester Pearson, Secretary of State of Canada, was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for his efforts to end the previous year's Suez Canal crisis. In 1963, he would become his country's Prime Minister. The current Prime Minister was John Diefenbaker; of Britain, Harold Macmillan. Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch of both nations. That hasn't changed, but she was just short of her 32nd birthday at the time.

The Pope was Pius XII. The current Pope, Francis, was then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and had just begun his seminary studies. There have since been 12 Presidents of the United States, 11 Prime Ministers of Britain and 7 Popes.

There was some dispute as to whether, 93 years after the surrender at Appomattox Court House, there were still any surviving veterans of the American Civil War. Albert Woolson, the last Union veteran, had died in 1956. But so many Confederate records were lost, no one was sure how many of their veterans were left. John B. Salling and Walter W. Williams claimed to be surviving veterans, and when Williams died on December 19, 1959, 9 months after Salling, he was hailed as the last Civil War veteran. Who the last Confederate veteran was may never be known for sure.

There were surviving veterans of America's Indian Wars, the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, the Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80, and the Mahdist War of 1882-99. Laura Bullion, a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, was still alive. So was John Henry Turpin, the last survivor of the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898. So was Raymond Kaighn, who had played in the 1st basketball game in 1891.

Major novels of 1958 included Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, Red Alert by Peter George (later adapted into the film Dr. Strangelove), The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver, Exodus by Leon Uris, and The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

Also written that year were H.E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May, adapted in the 1990s for a TV series that introduced the world to Catherine Zeta-Jones; Brendan Behan's memoir Borstal Boy; the 1st volume of Shelby Foote's The Civil War; John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society; and Ian Fleming's Dr. No, which, due to seeming to be the cheapest to produce, was the 1st James Bond novel to be turned into a feature film.

C.S. Lewis published Reflections on the Psalms. His old Oxford University pal, J.R.R. Tolkein, published The Old English Apollonius of Tyre. Each book was a scholarly work, rather than one of the fantasy novels for which each had already become renowned. Stephen King was 10 years old, George R.R. Martin 9, and J.K. Rowling had not yet been born.

No one had yet heard of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, John Yossarian, Jean Brodie, Modesty Blaise, Alexander Portnoy, Spenser: For Hire, Lestate de Lioncourt, T.S. Garp, Arthur Dent, Jason Bourne, Hannibal Lecter, Kinsey Millhone, Celie Harris, Forrest Gump, Jack Ryan, Alex Cross, Bridget Jones, Robert Langdon, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan or Katniss Everdeen.

Major films of the Spring of 1958 included Marjorie Morningstar, Gigi, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Thunder Road (which would inspire the Bruce Springsteen song of the same title), the 1st Dracula movie made by Hammer Films, and The Left Handed Gun, starring Paul Newman as Old West outlaw William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. The title is based on a misconception: The only known photo of the Kid shows his pistol on his left side, but the image was later revealed to have been reversed.

Mike Todd, the 3rd husband of Elizabeth Taylor, was killed in a plane crash. Cheryl Crane, just 14 years old, defended her mother, actress Lana Turner, by stabbing her boyfriend, Johnny Stampanato, who turned out to be a gangster, killing him.

No one had yet heard of Inspector Clouseau, Billy Jack, Michael Corleone, HAL 9000, Harry Callahan, Cheech & Chong, John Shaft, Paul Kersey, Leatherface, Rocky Balboa, Howard Beale, Michael Myers, Max Rockatansky, Jason Voorhees, Ash Williams, John Rambo, the Terminator, the Ghostbusters, Freddy Kreuger, Marty McFly, Robocop, John McClane, Jay & Silen Bob, or Austin Powers.

Sea Hunt had recently debuted on TV. No one knew it yet, but the season of The Adventures of Superman that would conclude later in 1958 would be the series' last, as star George Reeves was shot and killed the next year. Robert Lowery, in 1949, was still the most recent live-action Batman. The Marvel Comics revolution had yet to happen, so there was, as yet, no Spider-Man, no Hulk, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Daredevil, no Fantastic Four, no Avengers, and no X-Men.

Gene Roddenberry was writing for the TV Western Have Gun -- Will Travel. George Lucas was about to turn 14 years old, and Steven Spielberg was 11. Robert Kardashian Sr. was 14, Bruce Jenner was 8, and Kris Jenner was 2.

No one had yet heard of the Chipmunks, Yogi Bear, Ben Cartwright, Fred Flintstone, Andy Taylor, Rob Petrie, George Jetson, Jed Clampett, Richard Kimble, The Doctor, Napoleon Solo, Underdog, Gomez Addams, Herman Munster, Willy Gilligan, Maxwell Smart or Space Ghost. All would debut over the next 10 years. If you count their initial appearances, rather than the TV shows that would later feature them, so would Felix Unger & Oscar Madison, and Hawkeye Pierce.

The Number 1 song in America was the instrumental "Tequila" by The Champs. Elvis Presley accepted being drafted into the U.S. Army, after going into RCA's studios and recording enough songs to still have singles for his entire 2-year hitch. Paul McCartney had just talked John Lennon into letting George Harrison into his band, then named The Quarrymen.

Paul Robeson sang at Carnegie Hall, his 1st performance in America after being blacklisted at the start of the decade. Frank Sinatra had just released his album Come Fly With Me. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon were in high school. Diana Ross was 14 years old, Elton John was 11, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were 8; and Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson would all be born over the next few weeks.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $8.64 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 3 cents, and a New York Subway ride 15 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 28 cents, a cup of coffee 33 cents, a McDonald's meal (cheeseburger, fries, shake) 49 cents, a movie ticket 65 cents, a new car $2,155, and a new house $11,975. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the previous day (a Friday) at 441.24.

Computers? Get outta here! They could take up the entire side of a building. And nobody expected them to get any smaller anytime soon. Steve Jobs had just turned 3 years old, while Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee were 2. The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. Diners Club had introduced the credit card, but American Express had not yet popularized it. There were no automatic teller machines.

The idea of a telephone that you could take with you was ridiculous. Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I’m not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."

There were artificial kidneys, but no artificial hearts. Transplanting a kidney was possible, but not a heart, lung or liver. There was no birth-control pill, and no Viagra. Satellites, including some with live animals, had been put into in orbit; but, as yet, no people.

In the Spring of 1958, Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union. American pianist Van Cliburn stunned the Soviets by winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Fidel Castro's army began its attacks on the Cuban capital of Havana. Vice President Richard Nixon toured South America, and his car was attacked in Caracas, Venezuela. French Algerian protesters seized government offices in Algiers, leading to a military coup. The Shah of Iran got divorced, when it was found that his Empress was unable to have children. A World's Fair opened in Brussels, Belgium.

In America, the U.S. and Canada formed the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. A recession bottomed out, which voters would remember in the November elections, giving the Democrats big gains, and some Senators and Congressmen who would serve for decades to come. The Monarch Underwear Company in New York had a fire that killed 24 people.

W.C. Handy, and Welsh soccer pioneer Billy Meredith, and baseball Hall-of-Famer Chuck Klein died. Andie MacDowell, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and Alec Baldwin were born.

April 12, 1958. The St. Louis Hawks won the NBA Championship. It was the franchise's 1st.

Now in Atlanta, the franchise is still looking for its 2nd title. It won't happen this season.