Your best sports memory

My very favorite, which mattered only to the parents involved. I was an asst. coach for my son's tee ball team. We were in a league in Hoover, a suburb south of Birmingham proper. The Birmingham Barons, the White Sox AA affiliate, also played in Hoover, and somebody with the league made a deal with them. The top four teams in the tee ball league were invited to play on the field at the Hoover Met, the Baron's home field, before the Barons game. This, of course, sold four teams worth of family tickets. Smart of their group sales guys. They set up the bases at tee ball distance and the deal was that there would be two one inning "games". Everyone was going to bat regardless of outs.

So first off, we're rolling into the Met, and my son looks at me saucer-eyed and says "We're going to play HERE???". "Yup, right on the big field". We still have a picture of the scoreboard with "Randall Gray, 3B" in lights, which he thought was the coolest thing ever. And to make it dead solid perfect, both games ended in a tie, so no one lost there. A treasured memory.

 

I know Jay Privman from his days at the L.A. Daily News. He also lived in the same apartment building as a good friend of mine in West L.A.

 

Another high school sports memory, inspired by Neutral's mentioning a tie score. It's the state field hockey finals. Played at Holy Cross college, which sits atop a hill in Worcester and is the coldest goddamn place in Massachusetts. It's a cold November night and it's windy as hell. High school field hockey largely consists of the ball going out of bounds, which on artificial turf means it runs off the field into shrubbery. So game takes a long time to play. Tie. Overtime. Still tied. Double OT. Still tied. Amazingly enough, the state high school rulebook had no provision for penalty shots. The hapless administrators, noting it was getting on towards like 11, and the Western Mass team had at least an hour drive home, hit on what they thought was a Solomonic solution. Tie stands. State co-champions. When the announcement was made to the teams and they tried to get the captains up for a photo-op, both teams unanimously broke into major teenage girl tears, and not tears of happiness, either. So it's boo-hoo-hoo everywhere you turn except their parents, who are universally losing their shit. I'm trying to get quotes for a story without bursting into hysterical laughter. I got them and beat feet to the parking lot. Girls were all still there as I looked back, still crying, too.
Penalty shots were installed the next year.

 

Near the end of my time with the U-T in San Diego, I was sent in December 1994 to cover the NCAA Division III women's soccer championship game between host UC San Diego and Trenton State (now known as the College of New Jersey). Yeah, women's soccer, Div. III, but, hey, I appreciated the chance to go cover something instead of taking phone calls and doing briefs and agate. Anyway, it was a pretty classic matchup: UCSD was ranked No. 1 and Trenton was No. 2 and were the two-time defending champs.
So, I get there right as the game starts and Trenton scores twice in the first five minutes, and I'm thinking this is going to be a blowout. But UCSD recovers and begins coming back, scoring twice to tie it and then in the second half, a midfielder scores on a free kick to put the home team on top 3-2. The SID tells me the player who scored the goal had gotten injured and missed time in the first part of the season, had to decide whether to redshirt and get another year of eligibility, but chose not to because she though the team had a chance to win the national title. So, I'm thinking "Great, if this holds up, I have my story lead pretty much dropped in my lap."
Alas, Trenton scored in the very last minute of regulation to tie it up. The two periods of extra time are scoreless, and going into the third overtime now makes it sudden death. A few minutes later, Trenton knocks in a rebound off the post to win the title.
Talked to both teams and their coaches after the game; obviously, the players were very emotional on both sides, but they could not have been better talking to me and giving me very thoughtful answers instead of the one-word or two-word replies you get sometimes. And, I've been to many pro and major college games in various sports, but for pure athletic competition and excitement, that game was probably the best I've ever seen.

 

The '92 NorCal juco regionals in Sacto. Emotional 3 days. Team I covered and traveled with lost to conference rival Fresno 26-7 in the opener, total fucking abortion of a game, but rallied thru Saturday's consolation side games and made it back to Sunday's title game against ... Fresno. Much better and tighter game that Fresno ended up winning. The bus ride back was somewhat somber but mostly upbeat. The team had a great season. Several played in the minors and one of them had a few cups of coffee with the Mariners. The memory was the entirety of those 3 days ... the traveling ... the hotel ... the games ... the time betwixt ... the whole emotion and intensity of it. I also met Kurt Rambis in the hotel lobby.

 

Yesterday I went to Poly to watch the JV baseball game against Wilson. A longtime friend is Wilson's head coach. He took over about 3 weeks ago when the original head coach was suspended for abusive behavior, which led to emails to the varsity head coach and action was taken; he won't be asked back in 2022. My friend (in the third base box here) will likely keep his position and deservedly so. In his 9 games as head coach, Wilson went 7-2 and ended on a 5-game win streak, including a 6-1 win against Millikan last week. Millikan went into that game with a 20-1 record and was unbeaten in league. I hadn't stepped onto this field since probably 1990 or 1991.







As for Poly, Jackrabbit baseballers have accounted for more than 12,000 hits in MLB.

Code:

                                                                                                                        
Rk             Name Yrs From   To ASG     G    PA    AB    R    HV   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SB   BB   SO   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS Drafted
1    Tony Gwynn HOF  20 1982 2001  15  2440 10232  9288 1383  3141  543  85 135 1138 319  790  434 .338 .388 .459 .847
2       Chase Utley  16 2003 2018   6  1937  7863  6857 1103  1885  411  58 259 1025 154  724 1193 .275 .358 .465 .823  1997-2
3     Vern Stephens  15 1941 1955   8  1720  7243  6497 1001  1859  307  42 247 1174  25  692  685 .286 .355 .460 .815
4    Milton Bradley  12 2000 2011   1  1042  4181  3605  541   976  202  17 125  481  88  496  817 .271 .364 .440 .804  1996-2
5       Ollie Brown  13 1965 1977   0  1221  4012  3642  404   964  144  11 102  454  30  314  616 .265 .324 .394 .718
6     Jack Rothrock  11 1925 1937   0  1014  3725  3350  498   924  162  35  28  327  76  299  312 .276 .336 .370 .706
7         Zeb Terry   7 1916 1922   0   640  2667  2327  254   605   90  24   2  216  32  179  133 .260 .318 .322 .640
8     Rocky Bridges  11 1951 1961   1   919  2538  2272  245   562   80  11  16  187  10  205  229 .247 .310 .313 .623
9    Bobby Sturgeon   6 1940 1948   0   420  1279  1220  106   313   48  12   1   80   7   34   79 .257 .277 .318 .595
10      Chris Gwynn  10 1987 1996   0   599  1100  1007  119   263   36  11  17  118   2   71  171 .261 .308 .369 .678  1982-5
11   Willie Norwood   4 1977 1980   0   294   932   854  109   207   40   6  18   93  41   57  145 .242 .290 .367 .656
12    Chuck Stevens   3 1941 1948   0   211   845   732   89   184   29   8   4   55   6   88   89 .251 .333 .329 .663
13      Oscar Brown   5 1969 1973   0   160   337   316   34    77   14   2   4   28   0   17   55 .244 .284 .339 .622  1965-18
14      Tommie Sisk   9 1962 1970   0   317   266   235   13    22    1   0   0    8   0   14  118 .094 .148 .098 .246
15   James McDonald   6 2008 2013   0   134   171   145   15    16    2   0   0    4   0   13   75 .110 .184 .124 .308  2002-11
16    Randy Moffitt  12 1972 1983   0   490    96    86    6    12    0   2   0    4   0    2   25 .140 .159 .186 .345
17        Rex Cecil   2 1944 1945   0    18    42    38    0    11    1   0   0    4   0    2    6 .289 .325 .316 .641
18     Brian McCall   2 1962 1963   0     7    16    15    3     3    0   0   2    3   0    1    4 .200 .250 .600 .850
19     Nikco Riesgo   1 1991 1991   0     4    10     7    1     1    0   0   0    0   0    3    1 .143 .400 .143 .543 1985-25
      School Totals 165 1916 2018  31 13587 47555 42493 5924 12025 2110 324 960 5399 790 4001 5187 .283 .348 .416 .763

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/28/2021.

 

Wow. Love the unis. My high school was also crimson and gold, but we went 1-20 as a first-year program.

And can you imagine a high school outfield comprised of Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and Curt Flood? Oakland McClymonds had those three, PLUS Bill Russell.

The Bay Area and Southern California have produced so many major leaguers. It must be the Left Coast.

 

Watching Vince Coleman and Willie McGee run the bases, any game I saw them play in (which was many). Preferably from a distant vantage point.

 

McGee, another Bay Area kid (Richmond and Diablo Valley College), who looked completely lost in the Florida State League with the Fort Lauderdale Yankees. Then gets traded to St. Louis and suddenly harnesses that potential.