Flashback Friday: What’s New in 35 Years?

On Tuesday night, I was dining out with my wife. In addition to eating, she was busy catching them all, so she wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Twitter and Facebook were a little slow, so I flipped over to the NBA app to watch Dallas play Denver.

As I sat in a booth at Red Robin watching an NBA game on my cell phone, I remembered that the NBA had just commemorated the 35^th anniversary of John Stockton’s first NBA game. It made me wonder if that game was even televised at the time.

Back at home, my curiosity got the better of me. I pulled out a photo album into which I had put several Jazz pocket schedules many years ago. The oldest one I have is 1984-85, the first full season I followed the Jazz and exactly the season I was looking for. The answer to my burning question was that John Stockton’s first NBA game was not televised in Salt Lake City, but as I perused the schedule, I was surprised by how much the NBA and the world have changed.

• The front of the schedule (far right) proudly proclaims¹ that the Utah Jazz were the 1983-84 Midwest Division Champions. That season was the first successful Jazz campaign. Ever. First winning season, first division title, first playoffs and first playoff series win, all at once.
• The cover graphic displays the team’s top personalities (and my original Jazz coach and starters). Mark Eaton. Frank Layden. Darrell Griffith. Adrian Dantley. Rickey Green. Thurl Bailey. Trainer Don Sparks…wait, the team’s trainer was on the cover of the schedule? Everybody loved Sparky and his magic fingers, but that’s still a little strange.
• RIP TWA.
• With one exception, phone numbers throughout the schedule are listed without area codes, which was fine, because there was only one for the entire state. There were separate numbers for Salt Lake, Provo and Ogden to help avoid long distance charges.
• Just check out those ticket prices, ranging from $5 to $22.50. If I have to explain to you how big a change those prices are, you probably haven’t been to a game in a very long time.

• Three teams have moved since 1984. Kansas City to Sacramento, New Jersey to Brooklyn, and Seattle to Oklahoma City.
• The Clippers had just moved from San Diego to Los Angeles during the 1984 offseason. There may have been some doubt when this schedule went to press. Lakers games are listed as LOS ANGELES, while Clippers games just say CLIPPERS, without mentioning a city.
• The entire league was only 23 teams. Divisions and division titles meant a bit more ².
• Those purple games. This season was the end of the infamous Las Vegas experiment. The team played the four preseason games in Sin City, but only the first two regular season contests were actually played there. The remaining four games were later relocated to the Salt Palace.
• Ah, the Salt Palace, my basketball Mecca for seven and a half seasons.
• Twenty games were televised locally, and another pair of games on national cable on WTBS. That’s it, and that was probably an increase from the prior year thanks to the team’s success.
• 62 games were radio only, on KSL 1160. To make matters worse, the Jazz would be broadcast on tape delay if there was a conflict with BYU football or basketball.
• Promotion Nights were few and far between, and mostly involved posters and photos.
• February 18 was Trunks Night³!

• A third of the schedule was a detachable order form, where a ticket buyer could hand write their order, then mail⁴ the order form with payment, then wait for tickets to arrive via return mail. If that sounds old timey, it’s because it’s 2019, and it is.

So what was my takeaway from this tiny time capsule?

It was a nice trip down memory lane, and it made me thrilled that I can buy tickets from anywhere, no stamps required. Even more importantly, I’m really glad to have the ability to watch nearly any NBA game, whether I’m at home or at Red Robin.