I haven’t done a list in ages. Since before Hong Kong. Maybe since before Beijing.

I was looking occasionally at the Pro Bowl today, and I remembered a stat about that …

So, in the vein of “it’s all about me” … 10 events I covered, as a sports writer — that happened an impossibly long time ago. In reverse order of what seems longest ago, to me. Which is borderline gibberish. Let’s make it clearer: No. 10 seems like a long time ago, to me. No. 1 seems like a really long time ago.

10.The NFL Pro Bowl game has been played in Honolulu forever,  right? Well, pretty much. Thirty consecutive years. I covered the last Pro Bowl that wasn’t played in Honolulu, Jan.  29, 1979. It was at the L.A. Coliseum, and the stadium wasn’t even half full, and I remember thinking how stunningly dull the whole thing was as the NFC won, 13-7. Ahmad Rashad was named the MVP. Roger Staubach had a touchdown pass to Tony Hill. I know that only from researching it. I remember nothing about the game except thinking I wouldn’t have to cover it when it moved to Hawaii. Mostly, I couldn’t wait for the game to be over.

9. I saw the last NFL game George Allen coached, the summer of 1978. Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom couldn’t stand Chuck Knox’s inability to get to the Super Bowl, so he got rid of Knox and replaced him with George “The Future is Now” Allen, who had returned the Rams to prominence back in the late 1960s. Allen was already 60 years old, and had a coaching style about a generation out of style,  and the Rams veterans rebelled and convinced management that Allen was a Queeg-like madman. He was forced out two games into the exhibition season. I still remember how sheepish Ray Malavasi looked when he fell into the coaching job.

8. Jerry West was the coach of the Lakers, the first time I covered the team, in 1977. Yes, the coach. Not a player. Not the GM. The coach. I sat above Chick Hearn in the press section in the upper tier of the Forum. Chick, remember, always referred to his perch as “high above the western sideline.” Chick was closer to the floor than I was by 10 rows, easy. The game may have been against the Philadelphia 76ers, because sometime early in my career I remember Sixers forward George McGinnis smoking a cigarette before the game, and my thinking it was a pretty good trick to smoke and still be an NBA star.

7. We just saw Super Bowl 43, right? The first Super Bowl I covered was No.  14, Steelers 31, Rams 19, at the Rose Bowl,  January of 1980.

6. I saw the infamous “Speed Limit Game” for a CIF football championship, December of 1979. Redlands was a surprise finalist in the top level Big Five Conference, and got to face Huntington Beach Edison, which was just loaded. Everything that could go wrong for Redlands did — and the Terriers lost 55-0. Back when the speed limit was 55 mph.  The kids who played in that game … are now 47 or 48.

5. I covered the Angels in 1977, the season that Singing Cowboy Gene Autry dove head first into the free-agent market, coming out with Don Baylor, Bobby Grich and Joe Rudi (who was paid an astonishing,  at the time, salary of $510,000) — added to a team that already had Bobby Bonds, Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana. The team underachieved terribly, finishing 74-88, in fifth place in the American League West. And became the first (but not last) franchise to whiff badly in the free-agent marketplace.

4. I was there when Georgia Rosenbloom (later to become Georgia Frontiere) really took control of the Rams, firing her stepson from his management job and getting rid of all his allies in the organization, in the summer of 1979. Her coming out press conference was a disaster, and it was a madhouse every day around that team. And the weird thing is, the Rams got to the Super Bowl that season, for the first time.

3. I covered the Lakers’ clinching victory in the 1980 NBA Finals, when rookie Magic Johnson scored 42 points, took 15 rebounds, handed out seven assists and played every position on the floor. May 19, 1980, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Still the greatest individual performance I have seen in person, particularly given the circumstances — the Lakers playing without the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I wrote something like, “This went beyond magic. This was sorcery.”

2. Walter Alston, a Hall of Famer, was still manager of the Dodgers the first time I ever covered the team, in late August of 1976. Actually, it turned out to be the semi-famous “overstuffed pig” game, and presaged Alston’s imminent departure. Alston, 64, was feeling the pressure from his ambitious third-base coach, Tommy Lasorda, who was being touted as the Dodgers’ next manager. It was a Sunday, and in a column that morning in the Herald-Examiner, the late Allan Malamud wrote that Lasorda ought to replace Alston. “The Quiet Man of Darrtown” (as Vin Scully was fond of calling Alston) blew a gasket. Alston confronted Malamud in the clubhouse before the afternoon game,  challenged him to a fight and called the chunky scribe “an overstuffed pig.” There was no fight. I spent the whole game wondering if I should write about the confrontation — or about the game, which had no bearing on the pennant race. The issue was settled for me when Gordon Verrell of the Long Beach Press-Telegram asked, loudly, in the press box, of no one in particular, “Is overstuffed hyphenated?”I wrote about Alston and Malamud, and my sports editor complimented me.

1. Joe Namath’s last game, Oct. 10, 1977, at Chicago. Yes, I am so old that I actually saw Joe Namath as a starting quarterback. Even to me, Joe Namath seems a relic from some lost, prehistoric era. His start against the Bears was the end of the Rams’ ill-conceived attempt to wring a little last bit of magic out of Broadway Joe. The game was on a Monday night, at Soldier Field in Chicago, and Joe Willie stunk it up. He threw four interceptions, and looked absolutely decrepit, and the Bears won in an upset, 26-24. A week later, Pat Haden took over as the starting quarterback. Note: It was already cold (mid-October, Lake Michigan, duh), and the Soldier Field press box was awful. I think I picked up, like,  a four-inch splinter from the decaying wooden media table.

So,  yeah. I’m old. And today’s Pro Bowl reminded me of it.