Tell me if you’ve heard this one before…

Q: What looks like a cartoon butthole, but leaves an even fouler stench on every sports season it touches?

A: I guess I gave the punch line away in the headline.

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Forgive me. My tight five needs a lot of work. In the 423 combined seasons that the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB have declared champions, less than 35 of them have been shortened, interrupted, or delayed. The cause of those hiccups run a gamut from labor disputes, global wars, pandemics, and more. But does the shift in the way the seasons are played out truly destroy the meaning of the championship?

A few stories and opinions from those actually in the know:

“New York finished eighth that year, and the Spurs, while a great team later on, were built to play that more condensed season. I’ll always consider ’99 an asterisk season.”

* Phil Jackson, purveyor of mind games and sour grapes, remarking on the condensed 1998-99 NBA season, which comprised a packed 50 games after a delayed start

“I didn’t feel like it was tainted at all. Leave it to Phil to try to stir up the pot. But look, everybody was playing by the same rules.”

* Steve Kerr, Spurs champion and Bulls champion who had recently played for Jackson 

As a Dodgers fan as a kid in the late ’70s, I’d watched my team lose to the Yankees three times before they finally broke through in 1981 for a title. The season had been broken in two by a mid-season strike, and the powers that be had devised an unusual scheme of first- and second-half winners that left a few teams that shouldn’t have been on the outside looking in. For every Dodgers fan who was happy for a ring, there was a Cincinnati Reds fan who was frustrated they’d not even gotten into the playoffs… with baseball’s best record. But for Dodger star Ron Cey, winning in a unique format didn’t cheapen a thing.

“Everybody was in the same position. It doesn’t matter. We played by the rules. We won. That’s as simple as I can state it. It didn’t take away anything at all. Ever.”

The Denver Broncos lost a(nother) shot at their first title in a specific quarter of an “asterisk Super Bowl” against the Washington Redskins in 1987 when Doug Williams set a Super Bowl record with four touchdown passes in the second quarter. The season had been marred by three games of replacement players during a mid-season strike of their own. It was the second of Washington’s three Super Bowl rings, the first two of which came during **seasons**.

Hockey had it’s shortest season in over 50 years during a strike-shortened 1994-95 season. NHL teams played only 48 of 82 games, with the New Jersey Devils sweeping the Detroit Red Wings, and gaining their first Cup in team history. Critics debate if the hot-at-the-right moment Devils could have taken a full-season campaign, but the had the right horses to add a banner to their rafters that they saw no need to add an asterisk to. Many of you may have started following hockey the following season when the Colorado Avalanche came to town and gave the city it’s first championship.

In addition to an entirely-skipped season in 2004-05, the NHL has also seen an “asterisk championship” during the last global pandemic that hit 100 years ago. In the 1919 Stanley Cup, the Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Metropolitans faced off, with both teams winning two games and tying one. With a sixth game scheduled, several players from both teams were either bed-ridden or hospitalized with the Spanish Flu. One Canadiens player, Joe Hall, actually passed away from complications arising from the disease, and the sixth game was never played. It remains the only unfinished championship amongst the four major leagues to date.

So what say you, DNVR faithful? If your Rockies, Nuggets, Avalanche or Broncos brought home a ring during a COVID-stained 2020, would that taint your opinion of the outcome, or would that banner smell just as sweet to you, asterisk or no?