Your Favorite Moment in Sports

There may have been a thread like this before but can't remember. Here are the parameters, you can reference other moments that you'll never forget, but you must provide "the moment of moments" as a sports fan.

Some of the things I'll always remember: Any of the Showtime Lakers title-clinching wins or memorable wins against the C's; the Miracle on Manchester; Sleepy Floyd's 29 points in the 3rd quarter against the Lakers; Jack Clark crushing my heart in Game 6 in '85; the '88 Dodgers: Hershiser's shutout record and Gibson's homer in Game 1; 6 hours and 20 minutes of McEnroe and Becker, Dicker's 2,105 season and 248 playoff game against the Cowboys, the Kings FINALLY winning the Cup, and probably a dozen other moments.

But the moment of moments as a sports fan happened 23 years ago:

What about you?

 

Favorite moment?
Derek Redmond's dad coming out of the stands to help his injured son across the finish line at the 1992 Olympics. It's just everything that's right in the world of sports, and fathers and sons. If you don't get choked up watching that, you're just not human.

But, since I didn't see that one live, I guess my "moment of moments" would be the Bluegrass Miracle between Kentucky and LSU in 2002.
I was home watching the game on Jefferson Pilot, fell asleep at some point in the second half, and woke up just in time to see Kentucky kick the go-ahead field goal. I'll never forget letting out a huge yell when Devery Henderson caught the pass and ran into the end zone, then a split-second later hearing three other people in my apartment complex do the same.
I've seen that play a hundred times, at least, in the decade since and it never fails to make me smile.

 

You just became my favorite poster.

 

"No outs to go"

 

I just keep watching that over and over.....Cooper is saying...."Yeah....I'm gonna swat this layup into the fourth deck....."....as Doc keeps going higher and higher, his final thought is "Shit......I'm gonna be on this poster forever."

 

This one is always magic to me for a number of reasons. I was watching the end of this game in a downtown San Francisco store's TV section with a friend shopping the day after Christmas. Neither of us cared one whit about either team, but the game was amazing. We stood with other guys, boyfriends and husbands transfixed watching this thing end, strangers became bonded for life knowing they would always remember where they were when this thing went down.

When I see the UPS ad these days it always takes me back...

 

Moments:
Miracle on Ice is like the Beatles of this question.
Of course it's the greatest moment, but it's too universal to be the MY or YOUR answer.
Here are the moments before my moment.

Positive
Francisco Cabrera knocking home Sid Bream at the NLCS
The Greatest Game Ever Played: Suns-Celtics in the 76 Finals
Game 6 of the 75 World Series (I was 7; reading of it since has deepened it for me)
Tiger Woods Open win at Pebble Beach (Dominance at its most dominant)
Flutie's Hail Mary against Miami
Secratariat's Belmont (did not see it live, but watching it is emotional … "But Secratariat is all alone." Vietnam is raging, the culture is not civil. People wanted to believe in something and you can hear them believing it as he comes down the backstretch. The power of sports!)

Negative
Lonnie Smith losing the ball in the MetroDome ceiling
(Stopped at third with no outs and never scored)

My THE MOMENT
Hank Aaron's 715th home run.
It is the two white kids running on to the field, which must have scared him to death, but all they wanted to do was congratulate him. I still watch it. And Vin Scully's call has only made it better.

 

WTF??
Signed: Compton High track team.

 

Game 6 of the 1985 World Series is probably the happiest I've ever been watching a sporting event.

 

Ricky Carrigan and the Tarbabe quartet is the No. 1 moment in my sportswriting career.

I emailed the Press-Telegram last year telling them it was the 20-year anniversary and how cool it would be to round up the guys for a story. Not sure if they ever did.

But yeah, that was ... something special.

After Carrigan won the 200 to clinch it, Dave Osterman of the Register came to shake my hand. Still not sure why. I was just the sportswriter dude covering Compton for the P-T.

 

Virginia-Florida State, 1995. 14-year-old Big Circus was going crazy.

http://youtu.be/ByCwrGBfJek?t=13m44s

Sadly, I couldn't find the UVa radio feed for this one. "They're gonna say no!" On the ESPN audio in the link, the "London" they mention - erroneously, as it was actually Anthony Poindexter (No. 3) and Adrian Burnim (No. 37) who made the play - is Paul London, Mike's brother.

 

For me personally, it's when Darin Erstad caught the last out as the Angels won their first World Series in 2002. I guess you could probably just combine Games 6 and 7 into that moment for me.

But the ultimate is still the Miracle on Ice. That was the biggest Cinderella story of my lifetime. And, as Al Michaels said in the HBO documentary, it's something that cannot happen again, with the way the Olympics has evolved.