Your Earliest Sports Memory

Interesting discussion on the Journ board indirectly raised the question of writing about events before our time....lots of good memories there.

So: what's your first memory of sports?

I fell in love with the NFL watching Terry Bradshaw in SB XIII...it was the first time I really understood how people could lose their minds over a game (coming from a family that was completely void of sports interest). I watched with a girlfriend whose parents were out of town, we drank all her dad's beer and threw up for two days.

Not exactly an early childhood moment, I got a late start. No doubt you can do better.

 

Hitting a home run my second time up in organized youth baseball.

I don't think I got a hit the rest of the year.

My dad taking me to Cleveland Municipal Stadium for a Browns game. I sat behind a pole. I always sat behind a pole.

 

I have a vague memory of watching Kent Tekulve close out one of the Pirates' victories in the 1979 World Series. I was seven and didn't really understand what was going on. I think he's the only one I remember because he was the one finishing games and he was funny looking.

The following January was the only one I actually remember watching of the four Super Bowls that the Steelers won in the '70s, XIV against the Rams. I mostly remember everybody being in shock that the Steelers were behind and hadn't blown the Rams off the field from the opening gun.

 

Watching Patrick Ewing play for Georgetown at the Capital Centre in Landover, Md. Likewise, when the Colts packed up the moving vans and left Baltimore. Also, watching the Steelers at my grandmother's house in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.

 

Sid Bream scoring to beat the Pirates in the '92 NLCS.

 

Steve Young's crazy TD run against the Vikings.

At the time, I wondered why Joe Montana was wearing No. 8. :

 

Little league baseball. I played (poorly) for the Modern Drug & Pharmacy team. But I was a pitcher that could throw hard and straight (for an 8-year-old kid, anyway).

I remember we had a a game rained out after a few innings and the score was tied. We had play that same team -- I think if was The Ranch Hand Truck Stop -- a week later and we just finished the previous game before playing the next game.

I was asked to pitch in the makeup game and we got the win as I struck out all three batters I faced. I went back to the outfield where I was mostly harmless to my team to start the second game. But four innings later, I was asked to pitch again and hold our 13-10 lead. I came in, struck out three batters again and got a win and a save on the same day.

Like Uncle Rico, I was amazing back in the day.

I've sucked at baseball/softball ever since.

As a fan? I remember my parents splurging for Christmas one year and taking the whole gang to watch the Utah Jazz vs. the L.A. Lakers in the old Salt Palace in SLC. I can't remember anything about the game itself, but I remember it being a big sacrifice for my family to go to something like this since my dad was a school teacher in Idaho and his salary was hardly a big one. My dad's seat was directly behind a stupid column and he couldn't see much of the court. But he sat there so us kids could watch the game.

 

The year I fell in love with baseball: 1986.

Sorry Red Sox fans. It was a great year, though.

 

Realizing why the Dallas Cowboys played every week on TV but the Oklahoma Sooners only played on New Years' Day.

 

Super Bowl XVI -- Redskins vs. Dolphins. Riggins dragging the Dolphins down the field on that run. David Woodley sucking.

I suppose I should be happy as a fan with three Super Bowl titles when I was a kid. But damn, it seems like that team will ever get its act back together and be SB level again.

 

I vaguely recall going to a birthday party on the day of Super Bowl III when we were living in Columbia, Mo., and my father, who was leaving for his first tour in Vietnam in a couple of weeks, complaining about having to take me while the game was on.

I remember watching it with him and the other dads who were also stuck at the party with a bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds.

Also recall going to Mizzou football and basketball games about that same time. I distinctly remember seeing Jo Jo White play for Kansas and having my father tell me what a great running back OU's Steve Owens was.

 

Dave Righetti's no-hitter against the Red Sox on the Fourth of July in 1983. I was four and at a family reunion playing outside with my cousins. Our dads called us into the house around the eighth inning and made us watch the end of it. I don't remember much of the game, but I remember our dads' reactions and whatnot.

My earliest memory overall is seeing 'Return of the Jedi' in the theater with my parents when I was three. The scene with Vader and Luke battling in the dark was the coolest thing and that part still sticks out vividly in my mind. It's my favorite movie to this day.