The sports landscape has changed quite a bit in the past near six decades.  Expansion, the innovation and demise of sports leagues, television coming to the forefront, massive contracts, free agency, instant replay, labor strife, strikes, lockouts, new stadiums, new teams, and a litany of other things have changed in sports over that time frame.  Let's take a small look at just a few that did change:

Baseball:

• Baseball had just sixteen teams, eight per league in 1950.  The pennant winners, in this case the Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies, compete in the World Series, with the Yankees winning in a sweep.  Now of course, there are multiple playoff rounds, as well as 30 teams, sixteen in the National League and 14 in the American.
  

• The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, the Giants were still in New York.  St. Louis still had two teams, the Browns and the Cardinals.  The Braves were still in Boston, the A's were still in Philadelphia, and the Washington Senators were still in existence. 
  

• Whitey Ford won his first World Series game in that World Series.  Ford would go on to set records for most wins (10), losses (8), starts (22), innings pitched (146), hits allowed (132), walks (34) and strikeouts (94).

Football:

• The NFL, courtesy of the expansion of the AAFC, expanded to 13 teams:  the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts joined the NFL intact.  The AAFC New York Yankees were allocated between the New York Giants and the New York Bulldogs, who changed their name to the Yanks, while part of the AAFC Buffalo Bills were allocated to the Browns.  The rest of the players in the old AAFC were done through a dispersal draft.  Now, the NFL has thirty two teams, though ironically, none in Los Angeles.
  

• The Los Angeles Rams were the first team in the NFL to televise all their games.  The Washington Redskins quickly followed suit.

• It was the first time the NFL attempted to play a game outside of the United States when the Giants traveled to Ottawa to face the Ottawa Rough Riders of the then Interprovincial Rugby Union.  The Giants would do it again in 1951, winning both games rather handily.  The Interprovincial Rugby Union would eventually become the present day Canadian Football League.

• The Browns, who had they not been assimilated into the NFL, would have folded along with the rest of the AAFC, would go on to win the 1950 NFL title, defeating the Rams by a score of 30-28.

Hockey: 

• At this point in time, the NHL was still rolling with its "Original Six" teams:  the Detroit Red Wings (who would win the Cup in 1949-50), the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Bruins, the New York Rangers and the Chicago Blackhawks.  Now, the league has thirty teams spanning the four corners of the United States and Canada. 
  

• The NHL made the decision to actually make the ice white.  To do so, they added white paint to the water before freezing it.  This made the puck a lot easier to follow, which was helpful both in game play and also for people getting their first taste of the game via television.

• Among the players making their NHL debuts that season:  Terry Sawchuk, who would go on to set the NHL record for wins, which was held until recently, and shutouts, along with Hall of Fame defenseman, and savvy businessman, Tim Horton.  Ted Lindsay led the league in scoring with 78 points, as part of the Production Line, with Sid Abel and Gordie Howe, who would go 2 and 3 in the scoring behind Lindsay.

Basketball:

• This was the fourth season of the NBA, and the first officially called the National Basketball Association.  Six teams from the National Basketball League were brought into the Basketball Association of America.  This led to the renaming of the league to the NBA.

• The NBA had three divisions at the time, with a total of seventeen teams.  The NBA now has six divisions and 30 teams, 29 in the United States and the Toronto Raptors in Canada. 
  

• The NBA back then had teams in Syracuse, Rochester, Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, Tri Cities (in the Mississippi River area), Sheboygan, Waterloo, Iowa and Anderson, Indiana.  Now we see teams in Memphis, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Seattle, New Orleans, Charlotte, Milwaukee, and all over the place.

College Football:

• Oklahoma was the number one team in the land, despite dropping the Sugar Bowl 13-7 to Paul "Bear" Bryant and the Kentucky Wildcats by a score of 13-7.  That loss ended a 31 game unbeaten run by the Sooners.

• Notre Dame had a 39 game unbeaten string (37-0-2), that ran over four calendar years from September 28, 1946 to October 7, 1950 end when Purdue stopped them by a count of 28-14.

• Army had a 28 game unbeaten run snapped in Philadelphia in December that season against arch rival Navy by a score of 14-2. 
  

Now, all these things have changed, but one thing in life at least for my family that has been a constant is my grandparents.  They were married July 1st, 1950 and have been together ever since.  Now, fifty eight years later, through all the ups and downs in professional and collegiate sports, through all the dark days and bright futures, through thick and thin, they've always been there for each other.  They've also always been there for me, even in the worst of times for me, when it seemed that there was no one else in my corner.

So happy anniversary Len and Mary...it's been a long road, but without the two of you, I wouldn't be here today to write about it.  We'll see you soon, and thanks for everything.