OK, time for a diversion. I was emailing with some folks the other day-- and one of them may or may not write at DKos under the moniker Scout Finch—and someone mentioned baseball Hall of Famer George Brett. George Brett is one of the best players of my lifetime, and I loved watching him play. But my favorite George Brett moment was when he came completely unhinged during the infamous pine tar incident. In fact, it's one of my favorite moments in all of sports. (I suppose I have an odd sense of "great moments in sports.")
I didn't see that game live, but it got me thinking about great or favorite moments I did see live. [I'm talking about watching the performances of others; I won't bore you with my exploits, like that game wining hit in the bottom of the 14th inning during little league...] Some were amazing performances. Jack Morris pitching a ten-inning complete game in the 7th game of the 1991 World Series. Kellen Winslow catching 16 passes, blocking a field goal, and losing 13 pounds during the game to lead the Chargers over the Dolphins in the 1982 AFC playoffs. Derek Jeter coming out of nowhere to the flip the ball home and save the game for the Yankees in the 2001 World Series ALCS. Michael Jordan winning the 1983 NCAA championship on the last shot. Dodgers GM Al Campanis ruining his career on Nightline by saying that African-Americans "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager."
There are some hometown moments that will always stick. Frank Tanana winning the last game of the 1987 baseball season with a 1-0 shutout against the Blue Jays to cap off a 4 game sweep which began with the Tigers 3 games behind the Jays and ended with the Tigers in the playoffs. Every game Charles Woodson played in 1997, when he was the best college football player I've ever watched. The 1979 Rose Bowl, from which I'm still working off the trauma of Michigan losing on a Charles White touchdown scored while the ball was on the two yard line. Adrian Dantley and Vinnie Johnson knocking each other out while diving for the ball in a desperate attempt to beat the Celtics in game 7 of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals. And someone I deeply love loves few things as much as he loves me, but I would never ask him to rank me against the Detroit Red Wings, so their 1997 Stanley Cup win is special.
There are the absurd moments. I was a kid, sitting in the upstairs (which was sorta an attic) watching the old black and white television when my grandparents told me to quit shouting so loud. I just couldn't convey to them what a wild thing it was to watch Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, during the Gator Bowl, slug a player on the Clemson team because he had intercepted an OSU pass. And there was Disco Demolition Night, between innings of a game between the Tigers and White Sox in Chicago, which Keith Olberman helps describe here:
Finally, here's one that it's quite possible none of you watched. I think it may not even have been on American TV, but something I watched on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Those Olympics were the first in which South Africa was permitted after the end of Apartheid. One of the favorites in the women's 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) was white South African Elena Meyer. The race itself wasn't particularly exciting, as the top two positions were pretty much known fairly early in the race, as Meyer pulled far away from the rest of the field (including American Lynn Jennings, probably the best American runner of the last 40 years or so) except one woman, Ethiopian Derartu Tulu. The two tiny women pulled further away from the rest of the field, but Meyer was unable to shake the former shepherdess. On the final straightaway, Tulu blasted past Meyer to become the first African woman to win an Olympic gold medal in distance running.
As they gasped for breath, these two African women were handed flags. Tulu was given the flag of her country, Ethiopia, which was just emerging from a communist dictatorship, frequent famines and war that led to the separation from Ethiopia of what became the country of Eritrea. Meyer, who had spoken against apartheid, competing in the first post-apartheid Olympics for sports-crazed South Africa, was handed an Olympic flag. They both lifted the flags, hugged, kissed, and the Black African and the White African held hands and ran a victory lap around the stadium. It remains the best moment I've ever watched in sport.
How 'bout you? What are your favorite moments that you've seen live.