Retro Year in Sports: 1990

Image via Complex Original

Major League Baseball was in the midst of a period where they were still very reasonable, charging between $6.21-8.84 to watch Amercia's pastime. The average salary for a player was slightly below $600,000.

In the NHL the average ticket was $20.

For the 1989-90 NBA season the average ticket price was $18.57, the most expensive being the Lakers ($27) and the least expensive being the expansion Minnesota Timberwolves at $10.92 for an average ticket. Minnesota still tied for the lowest sellout rate in the league (15 percent) with New Jersey.

In the NFL a 30 second Super Bowl commercial cost $700,000, roughly 16 percent of what it would cost today.

In 1990 both James Worthy of the Lakers and Dave Meggett of the New York Giants got busted for soliciting prostitutes, but we won't focus too much on those transgressions because, you know...who hasn't done that?

Instead the big legal story of the year, involving an athlete, was Pete Rose getting popped by the IRS for tax evasion. Turns out the all-time hits leader failed to disclose earnings from autograph shows, selling memorabilia and winnings from horse races (dude liked to gamble). Pete served five months and was released a week into 1991. We'd like to think 'Charlie Hustle' learned his lesson but the IRS was on his case again in 2004 looking for a million bucks in unpaid back taxes.

The Air Jordan 5s came out and had youth basketball players wrestling for the number 23 so the shoe would actually make some sense. You could also get them sans number and in different color combos for $125.

If Converse was more your brand you could go for the Bill Lambeer endorsed shoes.

If Reebok was your thing then you couldn't go wrong with the  Pump Twilight Zone, a few squeezes of that basketball at the top of the tongue was guaranteed to add eight inches to your vertical. Seriously. 

If your courts were made of clay instead of hardwood then you couldn't go wrong with the Reebok Court Victory Pumps. 

And hey, if you were like Bo and could do it all you had to have his Nike Air Trainers. If you had a time machine you know you'd pick these up. Although, if you had a time machine do him a f'ing solid and tell him to skip the divisional playoffs early in '91, as 1990 was the last time Bo had two functional hips.

The highest paid athlete of the year was Mike Tyson at $28.6M despite being the victim of the sporting world's biggest story, something we should probably mention at some point. 

The second and third highest paid athletes were also boxers. Buster Douglas was No. 2 at $26 million and at No. 3 was Sugar Ray Leonard, who netted half as much (still a lot) with $13 million. No doubt about it, 1990 was a good year to get your head bashed in on pay-per-view. 

Surprisingly only one player from a 'big four' sport was in the top 10 earners. Not surprisingly it was Michael Jordan in a tie for eighth with Evander Holyfield (see what we mean about the head bashing in) and Arnold Palmer at $8.1 million.

The highest paid woman was Steffi Graf, 13th overall, who made $6.1 million, also known as more than any dude who made fun of women's sports. 

The rest of the top four sports peak earners were: baseball player Jose Canseco and NHL stud Wayne Gretzky tied for 14th with $6 million; and Joe Montana at 25th overall with $4.5 million.

Take your pick of what was blaring in stadiums during the transitional phase from '80s hair rock to more stylized, head-bobbing '90s beats. Any time musical taste changes there's bound to be some awkward sounds, that's a lot of what you got in 1990. From "Pump up the Jam" (technically released in 1989, but made it to No. 2 in early '90) to "The Power" by Snap, your ears were bound to explode going to your favorite sports venue. 

Muhammad Ali got a shout-out in LL Cool J's boxing inspired "Mama Said Knock You Out," and Vanilla Ice was reppin' the U in "Ice Ice Baby" which was the first hip-hop single to reach No. 1 on Billboard, don't ask us how. 

"U Can't Touch This" concluded the documentary Pure Pistons celebrating the repeat NBA champs, and "100 Miles and Running" by NWA had the whole crew rockin' Raiders hats in a video we'd post but it's probably not safe for any workplace. 

Oh, this was also the year that Kris Kross and TLC were formed while Milli Vanilli got a Grammy revoked for lip-synching. 

We gave you the start of a pre-Jock Jams 1990 commemorative playlist, now you just gotta finish it. 

There were few video game releases of note for sports gamers in 1990. You had Bases Loaded II: Second Season, which was already a year and a half old when it finally came to the States. For pigskin you had your choice of NES Play Action Football, the first Madden on Sega Genesis, or Joe Montana Football made by the same company as Madden in a rare case of a corporation competing against itself—many chose to play outside instead. The greatest sports title of the year was Tecmo World Wrestling, although we're pretty sure we've seen that cover in an adult book store.

At the cinema, the biggest sports movie that year (relative to box office receipts) was Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise but also featuring some real drivers like Rusty Wallace. On set is where Tom met future wife and then future ex-wife Nicole Kidman, it's also sitting at 40 percent right now on Rotten Tomatoes, like we said in the intro it was a rough year.

Rotten Tomatoes hasn't been quite as kind to the other big sporting releases that year: Rocky V (27 percent). It featured real life boxer Tommy Morrison (as Tommy Gunn), a man with a dubious mention in our 1993 Retro entry, as Rocky's rival. The movie reaches it's apex with Balboa knocking out Gunn, although the original ending called for the final fight to kill Rocky. That might've been more appropriate. But then again Sly would've figured out a way to resurrect him in like a Jason movie or something.

The first day of the year is always the most exciting for college football. On New Years Day 1990, the new decade was greeted with surprise No. 1 Colorado losing the Orange Bowl 21-6 to Notre Dame in an era where the Fighting Irish actually won big bowl games. This opened the door for No. 2 Miami (FL) who beat No. 7 Alabama (in an era where the Crimson Tide actually lost big bowl games) 33-25 in the Sugar Bowl to become the National Champs. Miami then lost their first game of the 1990 regular season to BYU and eventual Heisman winner Ty Detmer.

In Super Bowl XXIV, Joe Montana's 49ers were 12-point favorites and went on to steamroll John Elway's Broncos, 55-10, setting records for point margin and points scored as well as lame jokes of people writing "Broncos 10" under speed limit signs on highways and rural roads. It was the second straight title for the team by the Bay and was a great opening season for George Seifert replacing the legendary Bill Walsh. Montana won both the regular season MVP and the Super Bowl MVP by throwing for 5 TDs on the world's biggest Sunday.

March Madness was sweeping insane asylums across the country and on April 2, UNLV creamed Duke by 30 points for the first championship in school history after making the tourney eight seasons in a row. A week and a half before the tournament, All-American Hank Gathers, the former scoring and rebounding champ out of Loyola Marymount died from a heart condition mid-game. 

On the ice, the Edmonton Oilers took the Stanley Cup after a five game series over the Boston Bruins. Edmonton's management was vindicated by winning the trophy less than two calendar years after trading the GOAT Wayne Gretzky. Goaltender Bill Ranford won the Conn Smythe Trophy.

1990 was the last year Michael Jordan would remain ringless, but let's not let that take away from the '90 Detroit Pistons, lest our readers in Michigan get pissed. The 'Bad Boys' (like the 49ers) won their second straight title, this one after a five game series where they bested the Portland Trail Blazers. The Pistons held off MJ's Bulls in a seven game, grind-it-out series to earn the chance to repeat. The Blazers had a seven-point lead with roughly two minutes left, looking destined to force a Game 6, but Detroit squeaked out a nine point run to finish the game, winning a nail-biter and securing the Finals MVP for future Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas. It was a closer series then the history books might imply as four of the five games were decided by six points or less.

In Rom,e the 1990 World Cup concluded with West Germany besting Argentina in a 1-0 barn-burner. Three months later West Germany no longer existed. 

In the world of baseball, the 1990 Fall Classic featured a rematch of the 1972 World Series, instead this time the Reds of Cincinnati got revenge and swept the Oakland A's who had won 103 games during the regular season—the A's also had American League MVP Rickey Henderson and American League Cy Young winner Bob Welch. Cincinnati's "Nasty Boys" were led by their ace, starting pitcher (and Series MVP) Jose Rijo, future Hall of Famer of their own in shortstop Barry Larkin, and demolisher of dugouts, Paul O'Neil.

Brit Nick Faldo won his second career Masters by winning a sudden death hole over American Raymond Floyd. A 19-year-old Pete Sampras was crafting his legacy by winning the 1990 U.S. Open, but on the courts of Wimbledon Stefan Edberg of Sweden was king. Martina Navratilova took home the Women's Singles championship over Zina Garrison. It was Martina's ninth Wimbledon Championship and was the exclamation point of her career—it was her only Grand Slam championship of the '90s. It also was an impressive resurrection after going without a Grand Slam victory for almost three years (that's a lot for her).

All that being said the real story took place in a boxing ring...

In a time when boxing was still unrelentingly popular, the story of the year took place in Tokyo, before Valentine's Day. On February 11, the undefeated (37-0) Heavyweight Champion of the World Mike Tyson took on a 42-1 underdog in Buster Douglas, and preceded to get absolutely pummeled over 10 rounds. 

After the fight, notorious sleazebag/Tyson promoter Don King disputed the result, due to a disagreement over a 10 count and Douglas's title was put on hold by two of boxing's three major governing bodies, the WBA and the WBC. Public outcry led those organizations to eventually recognize Buster as the winner. Douglas claimed the confusion from the fight put a damper on what should've been the greatest moment of his life.

Eight months later, Buster faced his first (and last) title defense, losing to Evander Holyfield in three rounds. He wouldn't fight in an organized match again for almost six years.