Most exciting sporting event you've attended

I got to see the Hank Gathers/Bo Kimble Loyola Marymount team the season before Gathers died. I went expecting to see a show and I was not disappointed. You can say that in one sense it wasn't basketball the way it was meant to be played because it was wild, but it one sense it surely was basketball the way it was meant to be played because the players and the fans were having a ball. There was no letup from start to finish.

 

March 8, 1971, Madison Square Garden: Ali-Frazier I

Nothing else even comes close.

And that was even before the opening bell.

 

I figured at that point you were well beyond blinding rage. I'm guessing it had settled into a silent seething. Stormy, however...

Hey, Mason beat VCU tonight, BTW. Larranaga opened the presser by asking you to fucking get over it already. ;D

 

- Dammit, forever_town . . I knew someone would bring that MLS Cup game up. I was a Galaxy fan at the time. Still have it on tape somewhere. LA then became a choker franchise.

- Also saw the Kimble-Gathers LMU team, their senior season. I forget now who they played; I think it was USF in Gersten Pavilion. Awesom experience, the place was jumping in a way it never will again, considering how LMU treats its athletic department.

- Attended as a fan: U.S 2, Colombia 1, 1994 World Cup, Rose Bowl. Still the biggest shock I've witnessed in person.
- Second would be the 1993 NFL season finale, when the Raiders came back from a 30-13 deficit against Denver to force overtime on the last play of the game (Hostetler to Alexander Wright), rookie kicker Jason Elam chose that overtime to miss the first kick he missed all year for the Broncos, and the raiders went down and won it 33-30 to secure a playoff berth. I didn't think that game would stay with me . . .but that was their last playoff berth of the 1990s, and obviously the last in LA.

- Covered: NCAA national semifinals, men's soccer: Indiana 3, UCLA 2, four overtimes at Ericsson stadium. IU blew a 2-0 lead, almost lost it a couple times, the dorks from the Daily Bruin were snickering . . . . and Ryan Mack scored to send IU to the title game. Hey, for a student journalist, it was quality stuff, a nice guarantee of an interesting clip for the file.
- Galaxy vs. Chivas USA, first matchup, 2006: Chivas leads 1-0 for the whole game, until Landon Donovan has two assists in injury time to win it 2-1 for LA.
- Was at a prep soccer game where a team blew a 3-0 lead to its bitter rival, then trailed 5-4 before a brawl broke out. Lot of fun letters and e-mails resulting from that one.

 

When Clemens threw the bat at Piazza, my laptop actually moved across the press-box table in Yankee Stadium.

This is strangely Canadian, but the second fight between Davey Hilton, Jr., and Stephane Ouellet at the Bell Center was fucking awesome. Just the walk in alone -- Hilton with a drum-and-bagpipe band, Ouellet to Vangelis -- with 20,000 fans screaming... Goosebumps just thinking about it.

 

Covered: 2003 NLCS Game 6. Just for a moment I thought I would be covering history - the Cubs making the Series. The thing that always stood out to me about that 8th inning was by the time the Marlins finished their comeback the ballpark had gotten so quiet that from the upper deck I could actually hear the Marlins shouting and celebrating in their dugout.

Bonus: It wasn't exactly a game. In '98, the Cubs and the Giants went down to the last day battling for the NL Wild Card spot. (I might be wrong on some of the specifics here.) The Cubs lost to I think the Astros, and it looked like they were going to miss the playoffs because the Giants were winning their game against the Rockies. Minutes after the Cubs lose, Neifi Perez I think of all people hits a home run to beat the Giants and force Game 163 at Wrigley. I was in Wrigleyville at the time and as soon as the Giants lost people started jumping out of first floor apartment windows and running down the street to the Wrigley Field box office to scoop up tickets for Game 163.

 

I already answered earlier on this thread (Game 7 of 2002 World Series -- Angels vs. Giants).

But, I'd like to add the most memorable (if not most exciting) event I attended was Magic Johnson's retirement ceremony at the old Great Western Forum in Inglewood. I was there that day as a fan and there was no athlete I loved more than Magic Johnson. Back then, HIV and AIDS was widely accepted as a death sentence, so it was quite an emotional day watching the Lakers greats, as well as Larry Bird, come and honor Magic Johnson. It felt almost like a eulogy, except Magic was still there. I'll admit freely that I openly wept at the highlight video they showed of Magic's career.

 

2000 Winston 500: Dale Sr. is running in 18th with five laps left before making an insane charge up the middle to capture the final victory of his life.

2007 Buffalo Bills vs. Cleveland Browns: The snow bowl. Maybe not the most exciting game but memorable because of the weather conditions. The Browns win 8-0 [first game to end with that score since 1929] which meant that I wasn't the only one who didn't score in Cleveland that weekend!

 

Bears-Niners, 2001: Bears come back from 16 down with two TDs and two 2-point conversions late in the fourth, then win the game as Mike Brown picks off a pass and runs directly toward me in the end zone at Soldier Field. The place went nuts, and I thought the Niners fan who had been sitting behind me and talking shit all day was gonna get killed.

 

Best I saw in the "not many people saw or heard about it division"

A high school state championship baseball game that went 13 innings (scheduled for seven mind you, not nine). The winning team, which had no business even getting to the championship game that year, threw out the potential winning run twice in extra innings, including one time on a 6-4-3-2 triple play to end a first and second, no outs threat (guy tried to score from second on a double play and Willie Mays Hays he was not).

Oh, and the winning pitcher went all 13 innings, while the other team's starter went 12.

 

Attended:
-Game 6 of the 1988 Wales Conference finals, Bruins at Devils. That was the "Have another donut, you fat pig" series. Devils win 6-3 to force Game 7.
-Edmonton at Devils in 1984. It was the first game after Gretzky's Mickey Mouse comments. Oilers won 5-4, but the noise and revelry continued, and lingered, in the parking lot.
-Game 5 of the 2006 Stanley Cup final, Edmonton at Carolina. Oilers win 4-3 in OT. Didn't go to Game 7 (my kid didn't want to go).
-Any Philly Flyers game in the Spectrum.
Covered:
-NIT game in 2000: Georgetown at Virginia. It went triple-overtime and the atmosphere at UHall was incredible. Hoyas won, 115-111.
-For high schools, a state football championship when my wife was 9 1/2 months pregnant. I missed the state semi for the local team because we were at the hospital with false labor. The following week, I'm three hours from home at the stadium, no baby yet, and local team players, coaches and fans are all asking how the wife and baby are. I even had a starter ask me during the about the baby during the first quarter. I said, "Don't you have a championship to win?" He goes, "Aw, we got that. Is it a boy or a girl?"