Hey Buffalo Bills, Who Did You Kill?

Ralph Wilson, the last member of the Foolish Club who founded the American Football League at $25,000 a pop, has died at the age of 95. While his fellow fools opted to establish their sports empires in sunny climes like San Diego or great cities like Boston, Wilson opted to make a name for himself in the godforsaken tundra of Buffalo, embracing the 9 months of lake-effect snow a year in the hopes that taking up in a town no visiting team wanted to visit would give him an unbeatable homefield advantage. The strategy met with some success, with back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and 1965, and an NFL record 4 straight Super Bowl appearances, each of which ended as miserably as a February day in Buffalo. Despite being the 3rd most worthless franchise in the NFL, valued at a scant $870 million, Wilson kept the tiny market of Buffalo in the major league fraternity for more than 50 years. Other highlights included keeping O.J. Simpson off the streets for more than a decade, and ensuring that football fans everywhere would suffer through a half century of Al Davis by floating him a $400,000 loan in 1962 to keep the team afloat.