Most shocking sports moment you've covered?

Nothing really shocking comes to mind in the games I've covered. The only thing that stands out as being really dramatic (including a few Maryland men's basketball games) is a high school hockey game I covered. Local team had to chase the game against their arch rivals who needed the win to make the playoffs. Their rivals would score first, they'd answer, rinse and repeat for the first six goals.

I even had a super stupid, cheesy ass lede worked up since the kid who scored two of the rival team's goals was named Manning. However, a freshman scored his first goal of the year with 1:07 left in the third period to give the local team a 4-3 victory.

Needless to say, out went my stupid lede and in went a straightforward lede in its place.

 

I'm a one-year vet, so it's not so much shocking as just the best baseball game I've ever seen.

Two local teams (both pretty good) meeting way too early in the district tournament. Home team is up five heading to the seventh with its starter still rolling. Away team's stud hits solo shot to lead off the inning...no big deal. Sure enough however, away team loads the bases with two outs and brings up the senior second baseman checking in around 140 pounds with one career home run to his name.

Second baseman absolutely strokes a grand slam to dead center to tie the game. They go nuts.

Relief pitcher comes in to get the final out, and they head to the bottom of the seventh tied. Home team picks up a few hits off the stud that hit the solo home run to set up the starting pitcher's walk-off single to clean up the mess he started in the top half.

 

Watched a kid blow a five-stroke lead with two holes to play in the state championship. He went bogey-bogey, the kid who forced the playoff went birdie-eagle. The other kid birdied the playoff hole to win.

 

That's hilarious to watch a pro choke like that, but it can be heartbreaking to see a kid choke like that. That's brutal.

 

Early season high school FB game between two state ranked teams in the Houston area. Home team is leading 26-20 with under 2:00 before the opposing squad goes 88 yards in over a minute to make it 27-26.

Home team has the ball at their 48 with :05 to go. QB throws a Hail Mary that is intercepted deep in the end zone, but the defensive back decides to the run the ball out. He's promptly blasted by a WR, forcing the ball loose in the end zone, where a wild scramble for the ball ensues.

It took about 50-60 seconds for the pile to be cleared, but the home team's #4 WR ends up with the football, giving them a 32-27 win. Twenty-four years later, it still remains the most WTF finish to any sporting event I've covered.

 

I've got two:

Softball playoffs, one game series. Home team takes a 4-0 lead to top of the seventh. Visiting team has two hits through six, both in the same inning. In the top of the seventh they proceed to go single, single, walk, K, walk, walk, K, HBP, single, K to score five runs and go on to win 5-4.

Baseball playoffs, one game series. Visiting team pitcher strikes out the first 10 he faces, takes a one hitter and a 3-0 lead to the bottom of the fifth. Kid absolutely loses it, walking four, hittting a batter and giving up a single to give up four runs. His team lost 7-3 despite allowing three hits.

 

2005 Arizona-Illinois. Top-ranked Illini looking bad and chasing 15 point with four mins left to go to the Final Four.

Crappy quality, but more highlights:

Better quality, but Linda Cohn alert:

 

Game 6, 1986 World Series.
Weirdest high school ending I ever saw was a state Super Bowl (we don't have real championships here) at BU's Nickerson Field with artificial turf. A snow squall set in in the fourth quarter and covered the field. The last play was a Hail Mary which the kid caught somewhere in the vicinity of the goal line no one could see. One ref held the tackler and kid in place with his hands screaming "Don't Move!" while the others brushed the snow away with their hands to see where the play ended. Which was about the six-inch line. Defense wins!!!

 

Three candidates (and most people have a vague clue of who I am, so I'm not worried about outing):

1. Last season, Carolina League championship series. Game 2 is tied in the bottom of the ninth and a kid that had never hit a professional home run -- and who I had not even seen hit a ball to the warning track all season -- cracks the walk-off game-winner. One of his teammates 10 minutes later was walking off the field saying, "I can't fucking believe that just happened."

2. 2006 Big South baseball tournament, where Liberty took a 10-0 lead in the championship game in Conway in the fourth inning against UNC Asheville ... and lost 16-11. Ouch. That was one of the more interesting post-games that I've had. Got drunk in the ocean afterward, so that was fun.

3. 2001 World Series, Game 7. Nobody beats Rivera like that. Man, that was a bad series for the closers, wasn't it?

 

I've got another one, which I think I wrote about before here, but I'll post it again:

Sectional high school softball championship game. Local team is leading by one in the final inning. Non-local team has runner on second, with two outs. Batter hits grounder to second baseman. She throws, a little low to first. Throw beats runner by two steps. First baseman backhands throw in dirt, you can see the ball appearing in the glove on the ground. Maybe it popped out a little, maybe it didn't. Who knows?

Ump is standing behind first base bag. He doesn't see the ball wobble, and calls runner out. Local team starts celebrating and runs off the field.

Meanwhile, runner on second rounds bag and keeps going home, scoring the run. Non-local team's coach comes out to home plate ump to protest. Umps confer, and rule that the first baseman bobbled the ball. Everyone's safe. Local team's jaws drop to the ground. They go back out, get the final out. But they end up losing in the first extra frame.

Local team was pretty devastated afterward. First baseman was adamant that she had caught the ball.

 

The coach took it WAY harder than the kid. Coach was nearly in tears while the kid, a sophomore, shrugged, smiled and said, "That's golf." Admitted he was figuring out how to celebrate when he teed off at 17, and sprayed it into the rough. He won the state championship as a junior, skipped his senior year to play USGA spring events, and now plays D-I golf.

 

1988 Indiana high school rodeo championship. I went as a lark (I don't know if there's been such a thing there or since) because I was covering Indiana-Kentucky hoops all-star game for my college paper. Still one my favorite stories, ever. The high schoolers were great, especially because they were so happy to talk with someone who took them seriously. A real outsider vibe.

However...

One of the bucking broncs, after throwing his rider, went out of control and slammed head first into the fence. You could hear his neck snap. They destroyed him on site.