"Big Four" Sports Championship Winners by Year on One Spreadsheet (NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB)

"Hey does anyone remember who won the NBA Championship in 2004?"

"Yeah, wasn't it the Spurs?"

"No wait the Spurs were 2003 and 2005 right?"

"Well who won the Stanley Cup in 2004? I know the Patriots won the '04 Super Bowl...."

"Can someone look it up on their phone?"

I can't count the number of times this has happened to me, and it often happens in trivia leagues when phones aren't allowed and the bastion of raw memory still reigns supreme. When championships occurred when I was an adolescent they were easy to remember because every year of your life then is so memorable as you are experiencing new things and climbing the grades through high school. Moments in time help you secure the knowledge of this championship alongside fragmented recollections of a family vacation, your first kiss, a college visit.

For example, I remember the Yankees beating the Mets in 2000 because I watched several of the games at 6th grade youth camp. I remember the Spurs beating the Pistons in 2005 because I was about to go on a teen biking trip with several friends from Detroit. I remember the Colts beating the Bears in Super Bowl XLI because I watched it in a fraternity house as a freshman at Valparaiso University, about halfway between the two fan bases.

As I've gotten older though, despite having felt as though I've lived a varied and dynamic life, the years go by and I increasingly forget who won what when. Was it 2011 or 2012 that the Mavs won? Did the Giants really win the World Series three times while I wasn't looking? And most recently, a simple Who won the Stanley Cup in 2014?

I couldn't remember.

Besides remembering the championships that occurred during one's lifetime there are of course all the past ones that need recalling, like the fact that the Cincinnati Reds beat the 1919 Black Sox, the Toronto Maple Leafs used to be good 1967 and before, and that the poor Buffalo Bills lost four straight Super Bowls from the specific years 1991-1994. And the even more obscure ones: in 1970 the champions were the Kansas City Chiefs, the Boston Bruins, the New York Knicks, and the Baltimore Orioles.

Then I began thinking: rather than remembering each rundown of championship winners individually (i.e. the list of Super Bowl winners, the list of World Series winners, etc.) why not try to mentally catalog by year who won which championship?

A few examples: I remember that the Angels won the World Series in 2002 which helped me remember that the Lakers won the championship that same year. The last year the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup, their cross-state rival city Pittsburgh had just won Super Bowl IX. The Knicks were runners-up for three straight seasons from 1951-1953 but most of their fans couldn't have been upset for long since the Yankees won the World Series in each of those years.

I scoured the Internet for a unifying graphic or spreadsheet sorted in such a way that the years lined up and you could just read across the page. Nothing existed. Not even on Wikipedia.

So now, I give to you, for the first time:

  The Big 4 Champions Spreadsheet

Screenshot. Click link above for the full PDF.

As of the time of writing, it begins with the Boston Americans winning the World Series in 1903 and stretches all the way to the Cleveland Cavaliers losing the NBA Finals in 2015 (last night). I will continue to update it as future championships warrant.

Have at it, my trivia savvy friends. Never again will you be the guy in the jersey jogging your memory going "umm......"