Jim Breech, a mere 200 seconds away from being the first one, is still waiting for the Super Bowl MVP to be a kicker.

Seattle's Jason Myers damn near did it last Sunday in Breech's native Bay Area with a Super Bowl-record five field goals at the end of a week Breech went home to get another award.

Breech, the Bengals' all-time leading scorer, thinks it's going to take a different kind of game than the one that beat the Patriots, 29-13.

"It's probably going to have to be a game where he kicks five or six, and the final score is something like 18-17. Where every kick is extremely meaningful," Breech is saying this week.

What about a 16-13 game?

What about a 16-13 game with three field goals?

What about a 16-13 game where the third is the go-ahead field goal?

What about a 16-13 game where the go-ahead field goal comes with 3:20 left from 40 yards, making him the first kicker in Super Bowl history to hit two 40-yarders?

"Ahhhh," Breech bites off with the permanent disappointment.

He, of course, did all these things for the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII. He was later told that before Joe Montana and Jerry Rice turned sweatshirts into gold jackets on the ensuing 92-yard touchdown drive that gave the 49ers the game, Sport magazine had Breech as the MVP in a vote taken after the go-ahead dart.

Then, even later, he had been told it was going to be Co-MVPs. It would be Breech and Bengals running back Stanford Jennings, author of the 93-yard kick return touchdown. All the points would be accounted for in the gleam of the trophy.

"Which would have been awesome. I would have loved that," Breech says. "But it's not the outcome either of us wanted."

Breech, 69, got that last Thursday night when he was inducted into the Sacramento Sports Hall of Fame with major-leaguers Dustin Pedroia, Ricky Jordan and Stan Hack, and Olympic swimming gold medalist Mike Burton. That put the Hall at 50 members, making the 5-6, 161-pound Breech one of the 50 biggest athletes in the history of the Sacramento area.

And that includes Dusty Baker, kids.

If you know Breech, an almanac of a sports fan who can reel off stats and facts better than the folks who used to cover him, you know exactly what that means to him.

"Debbie Meyer," Breech is saying of the Sac Hall-of-Famer who presented Burton. "I was 12. She was 16 and a great swimmer. So I was following her. Three gold medals in the (1968) Olympics. Got the Sullivan Award for best athlete in the country. That was the big thrill. To be there with the people that I had grown up watching."

The next day Breech drove to San Francisco to take in the Super Bowl experience for a day and enjoyed chatting with current Bengals Orlando Brown Jr. and Ted Karras when he found them on Radio Row. Despite the Super Bowl trappings and the ever-present 49ers logo, Breech resisted the beckoning nostalgia.

That was reserved for running into fellow Hall-of-Famers back in Sacramento, like Elk Grove's Bill Cartwright, the NBA champion with the Bulls, and James Owens of Norte Del Rio High School, the Olympic hurdler who went on to play running back, wide receiver, and defensive back in the NFL.

"James Owens went to the same high school as Eric Thomas and ET was always talking about James Owens," says Breech of the Bengals Super Bowl cornerback.

Before the dinner, Owens waved over Sacramento High School's Breech.

"Do you remember that game we played and I was running back the kick?" Owens asked.

The Almanac didn't hesitate.

"He was coming down the sideline," Breech says. "And I think he cut back in. Tried to run me over. That's what they tell guys. Run the kicker over. I hung on for dear life. I ended up breaking my nose. I had to get my nose fixed because of it. We were laughing about that. 'I got you down, though. Made the tackle.' I hung on. I hung on."

The 7-1 Cartwright was there, too, and Breech recalled how he was the third guy in line to cover him the night Sac played Elk Grove.

"He put 62 on us in three quarters," Breech says. "I couldn't reach the top of his head standing there."

Even Dan Bunz, of all people, being in attendance couldn't bring back the Super Bowl memories. Bunz, a member of the Sacramento Hall, is best known as the 49ers linebacker who made the last two plays of their four-down goal-line stand that beat Breech's Bengals seven years earlier in Super Bowl XVI.

"I didn't get to talk to him," Brech says. "I've seen him out here at golf tournaments. He told me the year after, 'We had no idea what you guys were going to run.' It was the difference in the game."

At another Bay Area golf tournament for charity, Breech somehow got a helmet signed by the celebrity players. Bunz added, "The Play," or "The Tackle." Breech isn't sure because, "That helmet never comes out of the closet."

The one thing Breech wants to remember about that first Super Bowl, a 26-21 San Francisco victory, is that a kicker should have been the MVP.

"Ray Wersching," Breech says. "Montana won it with (157) yards and a touchdown. But what about the guy who kicks four field goals and has two kickoffs we mishandle and they get field goals off of them?"

"Yes, it'd be great if a kicker won one. I think it would be great just to be on the winning team."

Breech's pure clutch often made the Bengals winners in the '80s and early '90s. He missed only one field goal in the last two minutes when the game was three points or fewer either way. And his 9-for-9 in overtime is legendary. Recent Pro Football Hall of Famer Adam Vinatieri has the record with 10 OT kicks, but has one miss.

That Pro Football Hall of Fame announcement came the same Thursday night the Sac Hall took a bow a few miles down the road. It proved to be the only blemish of the evening when John Breech, his son who covers the NFL for CBS Sports, relayed the news to him that Bengals Super Bowl XVI quarterback Ken Anderson didn't make it as a senior player, and Bengals Ring of Honor member Willie Anderson didn't make it as a modern-era player.

"Disappointing," says Breech, who noted Vinatieri's election in his second year of eligibility. "I knew he was going in at some point. No question about that. The greatest clutch kicker of all time. But I didn't think he'd get in this soon."

Breech didn't start getting Super nostalgic until he got back in Cincinnati and was watching the game. Myers was the only scorer for most of a taut, defensive tractor pull like that one in '89 in Miami. He could see why Seattle running back Kenneth Walker III and his 135 yards carried the day for MVP, but it was a good day for kickers.

"(Myers) had a great season and a great Super Bowl. The first guy to get 200 points in a season. Good for him," Breech says. "Do your job, and he did it when they needed it most. Something like that is always going to stay with him. Every time he goes back to Seattle, he'll be recognized for that game. It's kind of cool to have that on your resume."

Which is how he's viewed around these parts. "I can't smile about it," he says. Still, Super Clutch. Even though the resume began near the Bay.

He knows a kicker is going to make the Super Bowl MVP list.

"One of these days," says The Almanac.