It was a long road, stretching over nearly 61 years, from Sept. 20, 1942, to Sept. 12, 2003, between Pacific Coast League pennants for Sacramento teams. And then The Sacramento Bee had to get the facts wrong.

In 1937 the Solons had finished first in the PCL standings, but that year the championship was decided by a four-team playoff. It was close but no cigar for the Solons. After that it was decided that the first-place team would get the pennant while the playoff would be for a “President’s Cup” and an extra payday for the players.

So in 1938 and 1939 the locals finished third and fourth, respectively, missing out on a championship although they did win the cup — and the cash — both years.

Still no panatelas or coronas for the Solons, although Bee writers — assuming that playoff winners always were the champs — decided Sacramento must have won the pennants those two years. That’s what the academics call revisionist history.

It took about a week before The Bee ran up the white flag and conceded that those playoff victories in 1938 and 1939 did not bring Pacific Coast League championships to the Sacramento Solons but only a “President’s Cup” for the club and an extra payday for the players.

Conversely came the Bee’s concession that finishing first in the league standings in 1942 did, indeed, bring a pennant — Sacramento’s first ever — that was unaffected by the team’s blowing the playoffs.

Those guys at The Bee didn’t give up their fixation on the importance of the playoffs of 60 years ago easily. They consulted the PCL office in Colorado, the Pacific Coast League Historical Society and author John Spalding’s history of baseball in Sacramento.

Fast forward now to 1942, when the Solons began a seven-game, season-ending series against Los Angeles, trailing the Angels by two games. After losing the first two contests, the home town heroes faced the formidable task of winning five straight if they were to overtake the Angels and claim the pennant.

So they win a couple and then, on Saturday, they trail by a run in the 11th — I believe it was — when Gene Lillard lofted one out of the park with a man on to keep alive those flickering hopes.

On Sunday, 11,662 other paying customers and I jammed what then was known as Cardinal Field with high hopes which were quickly dampened when the Angels went ahead 5-0.

But the Solons came back in the fourth with a pair, including a pinch hit homer by lightly regarded Mel Serafini, added another in the seventh and delivered the coup de grace with four in the eighth.

A home run by Buster Adams with one on tied the score, and when Ray Mueller followed with another to put the Solons ahead for good, Angel manager Arnold “Jigger” Statz, playing left field, visibly shrank as the ball flew over his head — and over the fence.

While the Angels’ victory champagne cooled in the clubhouse — iced down, as it had been all week, by visitors’ bat boy Ronnie King, the players wandered silently beneath the stands between games, already, it appeared, tasting the bitter gall of defeat.

Solon manager Pepper Martin, meanwhile, puzzled over who from his weary mound staff would pitch the crucial nightcap. There was a volunteer in Tony Freitas, who had already put out a fire in relief in the first game. He was, he said, all warmed up and he’d give it a shot.

And what a shot it was, a nifty four-hitter for a 5-1 victory to give Sacramento its first and only — until this year — pennant. No one relaxed, however, until, with two men on base, stout Steve Mesner grabbed a line drive at third for the final out and unleashed pandemonium.

It’s strange what a person will remember from a momentous event, but particularly vivid to me is the recollection of an Air Force chaplain, in uniform, walking out carrying the shoes he had removed for comfort. His feet had swollen in the afternoon heat to the point he couldn’t get his shoes back on.

Of all the players on that 1942 Solons team, just two survive, Ronnie King tells me. Clarence Beers, a 16-game winner who got credit for the first-game victory in relief that Sunday, is nearly 85, while second baseman Gene Handley, who had a hit and scored a run in both games of that doubleheader, will soon be 89.

I wonder how many others who were at that climactic twin bill were part of the 14,015 who watched the River Cats take that final 8-1 victory over Nashville. And I wonder how they’d compare the two events as far as being memorable. I’m not sure a true comparison is possible.

In the “old” PCL, fans were more familiar with the players, most of them career minor leaguers who played for the love of the game without hope of reaching the majors, or who had been in the majors and were winding down their professional careers. Also, with eight teams rather than 16, fans were familiar with the personnel of other clubs besides their own.

In 1942, for instance, six of the eight teams were privately owned, with only two — Sacramento and Los Angeles — being “farms” for a major league team. Today every PCL team is an affiliate of a major league team, with players constantly on the move.

Put most simply, I guess I’d have to say today we’re more concerned with the plays, good and bad, than we are with the individual players, who are here one day and gone the next.

It’s a different game from the one I grew up with, but I’ve learned to enjoy it just as much.

Of course, fans today are different, too. When I was young, people went to the ball park for the ball game and only for the ball game. They might play “Three Blind Mice” when the umpires appeared on the field (although the umps eventually put a stop to that) and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the seventh inning and that was it. Now there’s virtually nonstop music, entertainment between innings, organized “waves” and so on.

While I don’t need any of that, I’ve learned to put up with it. And I’ve found I can largely ignore it. I do find present-day fans somewhat less knowledgeable, screaming for any long fly ball even when it seems obvious it’ll stay in the park and be caught.

But it’s still baseball, it’s still the best sport of all in my book, and probably any problem I have is that I’m just old.