all the things we remember … and all the things we don’t

      ‍This is an excerpt from Joe Blogs, an online column from the terrific sportswriter Joe Posnanski. You can read the full version on his site here.

‍ ‍Name a year. Any year. What’s that you say? Did you say 1972? OK. I was 5 that year.

      Here’s what I remember about 1972 off the top of my head.

      In 1972, the Oakland Athletics won the first of three consecutive World Series. Johnny Bench won the National League MVP award, his second MVP, and, of course, Dick Allen won the American League MVP award. That was the year Dick Allen appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he juggled three baseballs. …

      Of course, everyone remembers that in 1972, the Miami Dolphins went undefeated. They would go on to beat Washington in the Super Bowl 14-7, but that was 1973. The Pittsburgh Steelers won their first playoff game in 1972, and that was the Immaculate Reception game. …

      The 1972 Olympics were in Munich, and are remembered, obviously and tragically, for the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches, killed in a terrorist attack by Black September. At that Olympics, Mark Spitz won seven gold medals, gymast Olga Korbut thrilled and delighted the world, and American Frank Shorter won the marathon.

      Richard Nixon beat George McGovern in a historic landslide in the 1972 Presidential election. Nixon won 49 states. The only state McGovern won was Massachusetts. He didn’t even win his home state of South Dakota. If memory serves, he didn’t even come close to winning his home state of South Dakota. …

      I know that The Godfather won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1972. And I also know that the winner at the Academy Awards HELD in 1972 was The French Connection.

      Marlon Brando won best actor, and Liza Minnelli won best actress for Cabaret. That meant that Liza won one more Academy Award than her mother, Judy Garland, though Judy Garland won something called the Juvenile Academy Award, which was given occasionally by the Academy for special performances by actors under 18. Shirley Temple won the first Juvenile Academy Award.

      The No. 1 television show in 1972, I’m pretty sure, was All in the Family. The No. 1 song might have been “American Pie” by Don McLean. It also might have been that Roberta Flack song, I might get the title wrong, but it’s the “First I Ever Saw Your Face,” song.

      So why do I tell you all this? Is it merely to show off my awesome memory? I hope not. And I don’t think my memory is that awesome anyway. I’ll bet, if you’re of a certain age, you remembered most of this stuff too, maybe even all of it.

      No. I tell you this because I was thinking this morning that my mind is filled with so much useless information. Maybe yours is too. We remember so many things—long ago summer lyrics, long discarded lineup cards, half-baked facts that might or might not be true, names of random celebrities like Foster Brooks and Fred Travalena and Nipsey Russell and Charo, telephone numbers that stopped ringing decades ago—that mean nothing to no one, not even ourselves.

      What do those memories crowd out?

      What have we forgotten that could help us? Save us? Soothe us?

      I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know the Cy Young winners in 1972.