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L.A. Still Alive in Tri-Championship Chase

January 12th, 2021 · No Comments · Baseball, Basketball, Dodgers, Football, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Rams, NBA, NFL, Rams

The Lakers, kingpins of the National Basketball Association.

The Dodgers, top of the heap in Major League baseball.

The Rams, still in competition for the Super Bowl.

Thus, it is possible, if still improbable, that the champs of the three most popular American professional sports leagues could all be found in Los Angeles.

After some looking around, I don’t see a “three in one year” situation. Lots of two-in-one-year. For now, I think it has never happened — champions of the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Football League … all at the summit of their games, at the same time, and in the same city/media market.

Detroit once had three champions in the same year, 1935 — baseballs Tigers, NFL Lions, National Hockey League Red Wings, but we are not counting the Wings. Hockey is a distant fourth-most-followed major league and not included in this list.

Boston twice in this century won two major championships in the same year, the baseball Red Sox and the NFL’s Patriots — in 2004 and 2018, respectively.

Baseball’s Angels won the 2002 World Series, and the Lakers were NBA champs. The L.A. market had two other champions we are not taking into this search — Major League Soccer’s Galaxy and basketball’s WNBA. So if we expanded our search … but we are going to stick to the creme de la creme.

The Rams could make L.A. the first city with three major sports champions, from the same year, if they can join the Lakers and Dodgers, who each won in six games of a best-of-seven final.

When the Lakers finished off Miami, on October 14, LeBron James told the Dodgers he wanted them to join the Lakers as champions, and they did, on October 27, 13 days later.

So, now it comes down to the Rams to deliver championship No. 3.

They were surprise winners, 30-20, over the third-seeded Seattle Seahawks, last Saturday, and they face the National Conference top seed, the Green Bay Packers, at Lambeau Field this weekend.

The Packers opened the week as 6.5-point favorites and are led by the man most likely to win the 2020 NFL MVP award, quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

If the the Rams somehow win, they get the survivor of Tampa Bay at New Orleans, and if they stage yet another road upset, they would be in the Super Bowl.

Laying out the scenario for the Rams to win the Lombardi Trophy … well, it’s way easier than actually winning those three games, and the three-in-one-market, one-season record will stand.

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