Your Favorite Moment in Sports

New Year's Day, 1996 -- just watching Northwestern take the field at the Rose Bowl. When I was an undergrad, the "crowd" in Evanston would chant "Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl" if NU ran a play that gained three or four yards.

Winning at Notre Dame and Michigan earlier that season are right up there. I remember Brad Nessler saying something to the effect that "Northwestern is about to do something it hasn't done since Cadillacs had fins." And the end of the '95 Michigan-Ohio State game, when the Rose Bowl rep held a bouquet of roses, looked into the camera and asked Gary Barnett if he'd accept the invitation.

 

Wow. Just when you think you've seen everything ...

 

Secretariat's Belmont was definitely a moment of a generation/half-century/millennium.

Remember, the first two legs of the Triple Crown had been dogfights, with Secretariat falling behind early, Sham holding the lead near the end, then Secretariat coming on like a freight train down the stretch for record wins in both races.

The Belmont STARTED out like that, with the two horses battling for the lead for the first half-mile. The two pulled away from the pack in the second half-mile, with Sham taking a half-length lead at one point in the backstretch.

And then ... holy shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCMtaNiMDM

 

Awesome.

As I'm sure you know, that's never happened in MLB before or since.

 

likely the play that clinched the title

 

Starr squeezing behind Kramer for the title is always going to be special to me, because it was the first time I ever got totally immersed in a single event. (For some reason, I was rooting hard for the Cowboys, but I sure don't recall why.) I know that -13 will only mean one thing to me the rest of my life.

But my favorite moment in sport was probably a Thanksgiving morning football game in my hometown. Just 40 guys showing up at the high school field in 18 inches of snow and three hours of tackle football.

 

Bolt?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-urnlaJpOA

 

Thanks for dredging up that awful memory for this 18-year-old Jays fan watching in Toronto.

 

That was an awesome play. However, I do have to point out the score when it happened - 69-67 in the waning moments of the fourth quarter. Mid-90s 00s Pistons basketball - gotta love it!

From the same Olympics, how about Jason Lezak running down Alain Bernard to win the 4x1 free? One of the all-time great, "Holy shit, how did he pull that off?" moments.

 

Opening day, every year. For so many reasons, most of them clichéd but still true, some of them very personal. Just brings me a big smile and an unmatched feeling that all is OK again.

 

No Broncos or Browns fans?

 

Worst is easy. Sid Slid. People like to talk about the Immaculate Reception as the moment the Steelers' dynasty of the '70s began. The Pirates' loss in the 1992 NLCS was clearly when 20 years of ineptitude began. I remember watching it with most of the staff from my college newspaper crammed around the television in our production room. You could just feel it coming all through that ninth inning and we all barely spoke when it was over.

It wasn't just that it was a soul-crushing loss, watching the Pirates blow a two-run lead in the bottom of the 9th in a Game 7. This was a third consecutive loss in the NLCS, including two in a row against the Braves. It was watching one of the really solid role players the Pirates had let go in recent years for financial reasons score the winning run against them. It was knowing Barry Bonds and Doug Drabek, then one o the top pitchers in the NL, were leaving as free agents. Basically, we knew they weren't going to get another shot for a very long time. It was truly a perfect storm of suck that touched off an era of futility few franchises can match in recent decades.

My favorite? Roethlisberger to Holmes in Super Bowl XLIII. I had been too young to enjoy the Super Bowls in the '70s and Super Bowl XL was just so badly played and it really didn't have a signature moment, so that one is my favorite.

Just to make matters interesting, my car got stuck in snow on the way to a buddy's apartment to watch the game. I barely made the opening kickoff. Then I was sitting in an apartment full of people rooting for the Cardinals either because they liked underdogs or just hated the Steelers and watching the Pittsburgh defense that had been so dominant all season blow the lead in the fourth quarter just added to the pleasure of watching the Steelers come back to win on one of the more spectacular plays in Super Bowl history.

I think best we've seen in person is worth considering, too. For me, seeing a combined no-hitter in Three Rivers Stadium (Francisco Cordova and Ricardo Rincon) is up there, but the best had to be Jan. 5, 2003. Steelers beat the Browns, 36-33, after trailing by as many as 17 points and falling down by 12 in the fourth quarter. It is still the only playoff appearance by the expansion Browns. Pittsburgh could not have looked worse in the first half of that game. Went to the game with a friend of mine and we spent halftime talking about what the team had to do to get better for the 2003 season and we were far from the only ones.