What are those sports memories that are emblazoned in your brain for all time??
1. Carlton Fisk’s famous home-run. I was … 10? But I remember my entire class pretty much doing imitations of his famous arm gestures at recess the next day.
2. The Miracle on Ice. Again, I was a youngster – but it was one of those things you never forget. I wasn’t even a hockey fan, really … I had no idea what was going on … but I had the feeling that something REALLY IMPORTANT was happening.
3. October 27, 2004. I mean, come on.
4. The 3-peat. I was living in Chicago at the time, and it was all. Bulls. all. the. time. I was always a Celtics fan, because of where I grew up – but it didn’t matter. If you lived in Chicago at that time, you had to just get caught up in it. It was one of the most exciting things that I can remember. I especially remember John Paxson’s unbeLIEVable 3-pointer. I could watch that clip over and over and over. I loved, too, that even though Michael Jordan was obviously the star – it was John Paxson who had the true glory in that moment. They were such a TEAM.
5. Nolan Ryan’s seventh no hitter. I remember having a conversation with my brother and my dad a couple years ago at a horrible clam shack on the Cape (we all got sick) and somehow we started talking about records in sports that will probably (although you never know) be unbroken. Both my brother and my dad listed Nolan Ryan’s achievement as Unbreakable Record #1. It was a freak of nature. It is HIS, forever and always. Astonishing.
1. The maddening, wonderful Sox playoffs against NY in 2004. My mom’s comment after they won their first game to begin the turn-around (uttered at whatever late time the game ended-she is NOT a night person) “but Beth, if they come back and win, we have to do this again NEXT WEEK!” Actually, the Series was a little anti-climactic after the NY playoffs.
2. Pudge’s homer–add three years to Sheila’s age, that’s what I was.
3. Hank Aaron breaking the homer record.
4. Nadia’s perfect 10.
5. Venus Williams and her total glee at winning Wimbledon this year unexpectedly after a couple very week seasons. She clearly doesn’t take winning for granted–nice to see.
6. Yanks-Seattle playoffs in 1995, sitting in the very top row of Yankee Stadium with someone’s boyfriend that I’d never met before(I forget whose boyfriend–she wasn’t a baseball person and he had 2 tickets). It was a warm night, the game went into extra innings and the Yanks won on a Leyritz (I think) homer in a light rain that started late in the game. The subway ride home was marvelous too–NYers can’t be beat when they are happy.
7. Yanks-Atlanta in the World Series in the final year of the old Fulton County Stadium. I had just moved to Atlanta after 10 years in NYC, where I had used sitting in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium as therapy to manage the loneliness after a divorce. We had seats behind the scoreboard (not kidding–and you thought being behind a pole in Fenway was bad) and spent the game leaning forward to see out below the board. Yanks won that one on a homer too.
8. The Japanese men’s gymnastics team in 88ish. I lived in Japan for 6 months and was quite a fan of these guys. They weren’t known the world over, but they had spirit. One of the guys broke a leg and did rings anyhow. And they were pretty cute!
9. This one isn’t a good memory, but I can’t identify my biggest sports memories without naming the horror of the slaying of the Israeli athletes in ’72 at the Olympics. I was 6, and that was the first year I remember the Olympics. Hard introduction to international sports.
10. And to end on a positive note–the counterpoint: watching the Summer 88 Olympics in our Tokyo apartment with people in our Japanese classes who came from countries all over the world. It was a wonderful experience of the richness of international connection.
Beth … this might sound insane: but you were my babysitter, right???
If you weren’t, then forgive my insane question.
Beautiful memories. Nadia’s perfect 10!! I remember that.
I would have to add, then, Kerry Strug’s amazing vault with the busted ankle and then being CARRIED out by her damn coach. woah.
1) Miracle on Ice
2) Fisk Home Run in Game 6
3) Secretariat winning the Belmont
4) Warren Morris’s home run in the 1996 College World Series
5) “Hakim dropped the ball” – Saints only playoff victory
6) Tulane beating LSU in 1973 (First time in 25 years)
7) Randy Johnson’s perfect game – The only one I ever saw
8) The Heidi Bowl – Was a Raider fan then
9) Colts-Packers Sudden Death playoff game
10) Dolphins-Chargers Sudden Death playoff game
Rob – gorgeous. Thank you.
1. Seeing in person, quite by accident (we had bought tickets months before), Dave Dravecky’s comeback game for the San Francisco Giants in July 1989. Dravecky had been diagnosed with cancer the previous year, had surgery to have it removed from the bone in his arm, and returned in this game against Cincinnati and threw 6 no-hit innings. As an added bonus, Pete Rose (as manager of the Reds) was thrown out of the game, and banned from baseball for life just a few days later. In his next game, Dravecky’s arm broke while throwing a pitch, he never played again, and eventually his arm had to be amputated. But that day, he was magical and magnificent.
2) Summer Olympics 1976, on vacation at Lake Tahoe, watching the men’s boxing team unexpectedly win 4 (or was it 5?) gold medals, mostly defeating favored Cuban boxers. The team of Sugar Ray Leonard, and the Spinks brothers. And no matter what one thought about Howard Cosell, he was wonderful doing the blow-by-blow on a boxing match.
3) Also in person, Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals in 2002, watching the Kings lose a heartbreaker in overtime to the hated Lakers. Even though they lost, it was a great afternoon, an unbelievable atmosphere, from the pre-game drills to gut-wrenching ending.
4) January 1982: The 49ers make the Super Bowl for the first time, defeating Dallas on “the catch” – Joe Montana to Dwight Clark. Watched with a group of insane 49er fans, Cheney Hall, UC Berkeley.
5) November 1982 – Cal beats Stanford on “the play” – by now, everyone has seen it.
6) World Series 1972 – Oakland A’s vs. Cincinnati Reds. Game 3, Johnny Bench at the plate, 3-2 count, A’s manager Dick Williams points to first base, catcher Gene Tenace slips out of the box to catch the intentional walk, and at the last moment slips back in to catch Strike 3 from Rollie Fingers while Bench just stands there with a silly look on his face. Grab some pine, meat!
7) Bill Walton’s performance in the 1973 NCAA championship game. 21 for 22, UCLA wins their 7th straight title.
8) Carl Lewis anchors the 100×4 meter relay team to a world record, 1992 Barcelona Olympics. My all-time favorite Olympics.
9) 1986 Masters – Jack Nicklaus wins his final major.
10) My first World Series memory – Lou Brock sliding into home against the Detroit Tigers in 1968.
Sheil,
Yup, I was the babysitter. And will stick to EEP in my posts to keep me from being confused with the other Beth. I thought about putting in Kerry Strug, but somehow… the coach… I don’t know.
My poor sweet significant other has given up on me and gone to bed. I can’t stop reading. Just reliving RI life in the archives. By the way, have a couple Allie’s doughnuts for me when you are home. They are probably the one beloved RI food not now forbidden to me because I am keeping kosher. Beth on next trip home (still call it that–parents moved in 80, I moved in 86…): “lobster, no thanks, but pass the doughnuts; clam cakes, nah, can’t (but let me smell one for awhile)–hand me the cinnamon sugar one this time, yeah, thanks…” And my beloved foster family (Betsy’s) now lives even closer to Allie’s…. MMMMM Doughnuts…..
Loved your sister’s podcast, by the way…
Beth/EEP
TS Cindy – Part 2
I am not at all encouraged by the way Louisiana and particularly, New Orleans, weathered Tropical Storm Cindy yesterday. Heavy rain and high winds always do some damage. Thats expected. Lots of homes and businesses lost power. Thats also expected. It…
I wish I’d seen the Lake Placid game live, but for some reason probably having to do with being 10 I didn’t.
The thing about Ryan’s no hitter against the Jays was that he had six already, which was *itself* an unbreakable record (unless you had six already…). It was ridiculous to watch. It just didn’t make sense that so many great pitchers never so much as threw one no hitter and here was this 43? year old guy mowing down a very good team like he’d… done it six times before! And it wasn’t one of those fingernail biters with great plays by the infield defense, he struck out 15 or something. Man.
Matt – totally. Just an amazing feat.
EEP – ahhhh. clam cakes!! allie’s doughnuts! They are, bar none, the best doughnuts on the planet.
Betsy’s actually up at camp this week, for Music Camp, so sadly I won’t see her at the reunion on Friday – but I will definitely pass on your regards.
Sports Memories
I’m doing this sports meme completely from my spotty memory since it’s about memorable sports moments. Found at Sheila’s through Rob. That time that Arizona State beat Nebraska 19-0. Na Na Na… 19-0!!! Later that year when Texas beat Nebraska….
Long post here, but I like this topic and the events do require some detail. After all, that’s what makes them special. I like the ones Jeff brought up. There’s some intersection with mine.
1. Bernie Carbo’s 8th inning home run in game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Everyone cites Fisk’s homer — fair enough. But for me the feeling was different. I remember watching that game and feeling the hope slipping away: two outs in the eighth, two on base, Carbo already with one pinch hit homer in the series. It felt like the very last chance for the Sox, and he hit it over the center field fence to tie the game. The switchover from near-resignation to hope was electrifying.
Dwight Evans’s catch on Morgan’s shot to right in the 11th was another memorable moment. I think I can lump all 6.5 innings of baseball into my one most memorable sports moment. Just sustained nail-biting tension for two hours.
2. UCLA-Louisville, NCAA basketball semifinals, 1975. John Wooden’s final season. Louisville up by 1 with 10 seconds left and UCLA fouls a guy who had missed NO free throws the whole season. Remember, no three pointer then. He missed the front end of a 1 and 1 and Richard Washington hit a jumper for the UCLA win. My mother came downstairs to find out what all the shouting was about.
3. Kirk Gibson’s homer in 1988.
4. 1989 Super Bowl, final drive for the 49ers to beat Cincinnati. Jerry Rice was just awesome in this game.
5. 1991 World Series game 7, when Morris beat Smoltz. Just an unbelievably tense game. I was bartending during this game and half the customers in the restaurant came into the bar to watch the last few innings.
6. As Jeff mentioned, the 1992 Olympic 4×100 final. Probably the most exciting uncompetitive race I’ve ever seen.
7. 1996 Masters, again mentioned by Jeff.
8. Franz Klammer in the downhill at the 1976 Winter Olympics. I haven’t seen it since then, but I remember it as a complete balls-to-the-wall effort, with him barely staying on his skis on a couple of turns.
9. The Miracle On Ice. Perhaps this should be higher, but somehow the details don’t stick in my mind as much as most of the others.
10. I’ve seen a number of memorable middle to long distance races in the Olympics that were quite memorable. I think it’s hard to focus on just one because I don’t usually have an emotional stake in the runner. So I’ll choose the most recent, the 10000 meter run at the Sydney Olympics where Haile Gebreselassie just barely overtook Paul Tergat to win.
Speaking of the 10000, the race I *wish* I could have seen live but have only seen on tape is Bill Mills’ victory in the 1964 Olympics. I have a CD at home with the broadcast of the last lap of the race, and his comeback in the last half lap shocks the announcers. It’s enough to give you goosebumps if you get goosebumps from that sort of thing.
Honorable mention for soccer: the 1999 Champions League final when Manchester United scored two goals in injury time to beat Bayern Munich. Just shocking. This year’s final was pretty shocking too, but less dramatic.
Memories, famous and obscure, in no particular order (except for the last).
1987, Barberton High vs. Massillon Washington.
I covered this game, at Akron’s Rubber Bowl, for the Barberton Herald, where at the time I was a general assignment reporter and de facto sports editor (also BHS ’79). High school football is a big deal in Ohio, and nowhere bigger than Massillon, a steel town down Route 21 in Stark County (Paul Brown coached there before he went to Ohio State, the Great Lakes Naval Station, and oh, by the way, some outfit called the Cleveland Browns).
Their program dominated big-school football in Ohio for literally decades; only the biggest Catholic schools in the biggest cities (Cincinnati in the ’70s, Cleveland in the ’90s and today) could match them over the long run. They’re nowhere near that level today, and even in the late 1980s there were liver spots on the glory, but they were still tough.
Barberton was better known as a basketball school but, particularly in the 1970s, had a run of good football teams. They’d had a running rivalry with Massillon going back to the 1940s, although to be candid Barberton, while competitive, rarely won.
Back to the present. As usual, Barberton was giving up about 40 pounds a man along the line, and had offseason turmoil to boot (the coach, an affable fellow named Don Ault retired from Slippery Rock, basically took the job at the last minute as a favor to the athletic director, a guy named Paul Sharkey who was the coach while I was in high school). With about 4:30 left to play, Massillon led 34-7. Barberton finally got back on the board to make it 34-14.
The Magics got the ball back and now the option was clicking. They scored again to make it 34-21 with less than 2 minutes left, tried an onside kick and recovered. I remember the tailback making a leaping catch over the middle inside the Massillon 10 on the next drive. With about 15 seconds left, Barberton scored again to make it 34-28. Another onside kick along the left sideline–this time, a Massillon player (heads-up play, I thought) batted the ball out of bounds instead of trying to field it. Massillon ran out the clock and won 34-28, but it was a fantastic game.
Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Washington Bullets, 1975-76 NBA playoffs
This was the “Miracle of Richfield”, as we called it locally. The Cavs, an expansion team in ’70-71, had never had a winning season until then, when they went 49-33 and won the Central Division. The Cavs were a blue-collar team led by Jim Chones at center, backed up by Nate Thurmond, who was playing out the string but still an effective defender in limited minutes, along with point guards Jim Cleamons and Clarence “Foots” Walker, forward Bobby “Bingo” Smith, shooting guard Dick Snyder, and power forward Jim Brewer. The Bullets featured Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, and Earl “the Pearl” Monroe.
The series went seven games and it seemed like every fracking one of them went down to the absolute last shot. Smith won one with a 25-footer at the end, (the ABA had the 3-point line at the time but the NBA didn’t), Snyder won another at the buzzer. I remember hanging on the radio every night listening to Joe Tait’s call (Tait is the best basketball announcer ever, still does the Cavs, and it is my sincere hope the Cavs make it to the finals with LeBron James so Tait can get the national exposure he so richly deserves).
The Fumble
This was the Cleveland-Denver AFC championship game following the 1987 season. Denver led 21-3 at the half and 31-10 in the third quarter, but the Browns rallied to tie 31-31. John (ack spit cough blood and die) Elway threw 20 yards to Sammy Winder to give the Broncos a 38-31 lead. With 1:12 to play and the Browns driving for the tie, Earnest Byner took a handoff from Bernie Kosar and cut free inside the 10. Denver defensive back Jeremiah Castille stripped the ball at the 3 and Denver recovered at the 2. They took an intentional safety and held on to win 38-33.
Cleveland Indians, 1995 season
This was a long time coming for Indians’ fans. There hadn’t been a team you could reasonably call good in Cleveland since at least 1968, and probably longer. The Indians pounded everyone in sight their second season at Jacobs Field, going 100-44 in the regular season and beating Seattle and Boston in the AL playoffs before going down to Atlanta in 6 games in the World Series. Every home game was a sellout (a streak that would continue until 2001 or 2002), and as a fan, you could go into the eighth inning down two runs knowing with absolute certainty that it didn’t matter because Albert Belle would hit a three-run homer anyway. Two other standout memories for me were Tony Pena’s homer in extra innings in the playoffs against the Red Sox, and Kenny Lofton scoring from second on a passed ball in the ALCS against Seattle.
1912 Indianapolis 500
I’m not sure this is quite in the spirit of Sheila’s request, but it was in a book of Indy 500 stories I read as a boy and it stayed with me.
With less than five laps remaining, Ralph DePalma held a lead of a lap or two over the second-place car driven by Joe Dawson. DePalma’s Mercedes Grey Ghost, though, began to smoke and leak oil (nowadays he’d have been black-flagged, but the rules were different then). Finally, the engine threw a connecting rod and the car stopped on the track, less than a mile from the finish line. At this point, DePalma still had the lead, though Dawson was making up ground in a hurry.
DePalma and his riding mechanic Rupert Jeffkins got out and pushed. By the time they manhandled the car across the finish line Dawson had passed them (and they were subsequently disqualified anyway), but the point is that they did it. There are pictures at:
http://www.rumbledrome.com/depalma.html
I think this the greatest sports story I ever heard. This is what sport should be.
FWIW, Johnny Vander Meer’s Back-to-Back No-Hitters is unbreakable record Number 1. To break it, someone will have to throw three in a row. Not ever going to happen.
Wow, Rob said EXACTLY what I was about to say. That has to be the most unbreakable record in all of sports, not just baseball. Rather than three back-to-back no-hitters, I suppose the other way it could theoretically be “topped” if not exactly “broken” would be two back-to-back perfect games, which is equally or maybe even more impossible, since no pitcher in major league history has ever had two perfect games over the course of their entire career (though Cy Young and Sandy Koufax both came within one walk of doing so).
In no particular order, and some overlap with others:
1) Twins win over the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1987 World Series (each game won by the home team for the first time ever). I’d been a Twins fan since the days of Killebrew.
2) John Elway’s helicopter dive for a touchdown in the Super Bowl against Green Bay.
3) 1986 AFC championship game, Denver at Cleveland, “The Drive”.
4) Wyoming – San Diego State football game, 1982 (maybe 1983). The game was played in a blizzard and started about two hours late because the SDSU team busses couldn’t get up the road from Ft. Collins. Temperature in the low 20s or high teens, 20-30 mph wind. The crowd was tiny (the stadium holds more people than live in the town and the weather depressed attendance) and Wyoming lost (bummer), but the whole experience was exactly what college football should be.
5) 1981-1982 basketball season for the University of Wyoming. The last played in the old Field House (which was also the Rodeo arena), Wyoming had a great team that year, and the atmosphere in the Field House was incredible. It was always packed to the rafters with loyal fans, always raucous, and a very hard place for anyone else to win.
6) BYU – Hawaii basketball game at Hawaii (the Neil Blaisdell Center) in 1980. Notable for Hawaii holding the ball, uncontested, for most of the second half, Hawaii nearly beat the much better BYU team in the last seconds. Tactically fascinating.
7) Mark Spitz winning seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics. (Watched part of this on a restaurant bar TV in Austria shortly before moving back to the US.)
8) Miracle on Ice.
9) Kirk Gibson walk-off HR in the Series.
10) Lance Armstrong blowing past his serious competition to win the stage in the mountains two (?) years ago, with a quick glance back and then never looking back again. After that, there was no real doubt that he’d win the race.
These are all incredible to read, people. They give me chills. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond. It’s very cool to read through them.