"Inside the Stacks: Exploring important documents in Chiefs history" is a series of columns based on never-before-seen documents and correspondence from the Lamar Hunt archives, including many from the founding and early days of the American Football League, the merger with the National Football League, and other historic moments up until the time of Hunt's death.

It figures that any competition between the AFL and NFL should have ended by the start of regular-season play in 1970, but Lamar Hunt kept the battle going for years after the merger as he closely followed the scores of AFL teams, now recognized as AFC teams, in their games against NFC teams.

Any attempt by media and NFC team owners to suggest that the NFC dominated those games over the AFC caught Hunt's immediate attention. He religiously followed the results yearly, compiling scores of those games featuring an AFC opponent against an NFC one, and he believed "it is important the public be reminded over and over of rivalry, rivalry, rivalry, so that the Super Bowl continues to be looked on as 'THE' game."

NFL public relations man Jim Heffernan admitted that "in spite of the passing years we still keep track of the interconference games around my house," and added in a 1995 letter that "since 1970, when interconference play started, the American Conference has a decided advantage in regular season games. "The AFC had won 338 games to the NFC's 293 with seven ties," Heffernan reported in his letter to Hunt.

Wellington Mara, the Giants owner who became a good friend of Hunt's, was quick to defend the NFC side by quoting the post-1969 win-loss records of the three NFL teams — the Colts, Browns and Steelers — who moved to the AFC after the merger.

He credited those teams as the decisive factor in the AFC reaching a superiority level in a letter to Sports Illustrated.

Hunt found his close friend Mara's argument not pertinent, in a response to Roy Terrell, Sports Illustrated's managing editor.

"The facts are that in 7 seasons that Wellington talks about since the merger was finalized, two of the teams — Baltimore (53-44-1) and Cleveland (49-47-2) — have been relatively average. Only Pittsburgh (64-33-1) has a strong winning record."

As to the idea that Pittsburgh's rise had anything to do with AFC dominance, Hunt cited that the Steelers team that began play in the AFC arrived "with the worst won-loss record in Pro Football (1-13) in 1969 — has a 14-8 record vs. the NFC, while Baltimore is 11-11 and Cleveland is 9-14."

Pittsburgh was admittedly an NFL power by the mid-1970s, but when it joined the AFC, it was certainly "not based on credentials they brought with them from the NFL."

The back-and-forth good-natured argument between old timers from both leagues and now conferences continued until Hunt's passing.

He knew that the AFC's superiority in inter-conference games "will not last forever — these things run in cycles; however, it is healthy for Pro Football that opinions are voiced about who is best."

Whether anyone around the league, the media, or the fanbase see any value in an AFC vs. NFC is debatable today. But Hunt saw it as an NFL selling point and "that we had better work like the devil to reincarnate every good selling point we have or have had."

SOURCES: "National Football League, AFC-NFC Rivalry," Cabinet 18, Drawer C; Lamar Hunt to Pete Rozelle, July 31, 1974; Lamar Hunt to Roy Terrell, Sports Illustrated, December 30, 1977; Lamar Hunt to Glenn Dickey, Pro Football Weekly, January 16, 19