BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed

Subject: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 10:17 AM

I was listening to a discussion about baseball and steroids this morning on NPR. I'm not one for watching organized sports – and I started thinking about some of the games I've seen in person. I've never seen any of the big records broken in person. The only memorable event I witnessed was the day that – instead of catching the ball - Jose Canseco bounced it off the top of his head and into the stands. Not exactly one for the record books but an amusing event to say the least. I had a friend who took a dozen kids to a baseball game for a charity event and it turned out to be Nolan Ryan's last no hitter. When I asked her if she had saved her ticket stubs as a memento she got a blank look on her face. No – she hadn't even thought of it.I can't remember why I didn't go but I was supposed to be with her that day.

Have you seen any records broken or memorable events at any of the sporting events you've attended in person?

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:10 AM

I've seen two new world records set in Zurich on the same evening:

Sebastian Coe running the mile in 3;48,58 and
Renaldo Nehemia running the 110 m hurdles in 12,93

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: john f weldon
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 12:09 PM

I saw Cleveland Denny beaten to death by Gaeten Hart in a live boxing match.
Maybe memorable isn't quite the right word.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 12:23 PM

I saw Wichita State U. soundly thumped by the San Francisco Dons! They scheduled the game 2 years before they got Bill Russell at S.F.

I saw Don Larsen pitch in AA ball several years before he pitched a no-hitter in the World Series for the Yankees.

yeah, I admit it...that's not much.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 12:33 PM

I saw Albert Don't Call Me Joey Belle hit his fiftieth double in a season. He already had 50 homers so this made him the first player to have fifty of each in one season.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: PeadarOfPortsmouth
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 01:41 PM

For the 2004 season, I was at the AFC Divisional Playoff Game at Gilette Stadium when the New England Patriots hosted the Indianapolis Colts. That was the year Peyton Manning and the Colts offense was breaking a whole host of NFL records (including most touchdown passes in a single season). They were lauded as an unstoppable juggernaut and the clear favorites.

And then my beloved Patriots not only won the game, but held the Colts to a mere 3 points...and then went on to with the Super Bowl.

...So many great memories from that night.

Peter

ps - and, yes, I'm deathly afraid that this year's Patriots team is the mirror image of that Colts team.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 01:47 PM

I saw my cousin Pete Rademacher knock Floyd Patterson on his ass, in 1957. We ALL thought that was a big deal! Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 02:42 PM

Carol and I were at a Cubs game when she went into labor! We set a record getting home from Wrigley Field that afternoon---but Chris wouldn't be born for another 24 hours!! That was June 3, 1970 when the record was set...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 03:23 PM

It sounds like you knocked one out of the park Art! But I'm assuming that Chris wasn't conceived at a Cubs game......

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 03:46 PM

No record-setting performances, but a couple of memorable sightings:

In December of 1962, when we were both high-school sophomores, I got to see Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareen Abdul-Jabbar) play in the championship game of a basketball tournament at the National Guard Armory in Jersey City, NJ. Lew had not yet grown over seven feet, but even at 6'10" he was already attracting national attention. His Power Memorial Academy team, from Manhattan, was matched against St. Francis of Brooklyn, led by 6'7" senior center Sonny Dove, who would go on to a solid college career at St. John's. Young Lew was not being used as a scorer ~ no jump-hook in his repertoire yet, and his coach had a couple of nifty guards to put the ball in the hoop ~ but his rebounding, defense, and awe-inspiring presence were major factors in Power's victory. There was just something about his graceful movement, even as a gawky oversized 15-year-old, that seemed to assure his future as one of the greatest ever to pick up a basketball.

A few years earlier ~ sometime after 1957, when the NY (baseball) Giants followed the Dodgers out to the West Coast, but before 1962, when the Mets were established to replace the Jints and the Bums as National League representatives in New York ~ my father and I took the train from New Brunswick, NJ, to North Philadephia, where we disemnbarked and walked to Connie Mack Stadium, nee Shibe Park, where our beloved Gaints were scheduled to play the Phillies.

We followed the team religiously on the radio and, whenever possible, on TV, but had never spent the time or money to visit any National League city to see our team in person. What motivated us to finally make the trip at this particular time was the spectacular emergence of a young slugger just called up from the minor leagues to fill in at first base for the injured young star Orlando Cepeda.

Willie McCovey has been in the major leagues for no more than about a week when we saw him play in Philly. Big-league pitchers had not yet managed to find any weakness in his swing, and he was hitting well over .400 with TONS of power ~ I think he was hitting homers at about every nine at-bats, which is absolutely unheard of. (I believe the homers-per-AB record still belongs to Babe Ruth, and the number is eleven-point-something.)

We didn't see a home run, but we did witness the two hardest-hit baseballs either my Dad or I had ever seen. Willie Mack went 2-for-3 with a couple of walks ~ the two hits were both triples off the center field wall.

If you know anything about McCovey, you know that he was not noted for speed afoot, which is normally a basic requirement for a three-base hit. Twice he hit the ball so hard, on absolutely straight flat trajectories, that infielders jumped up in hopes of catching line drives (once the shortstop, on a hit just left of second base, the other time the second baseman a few feet over on the other side). Both times, the ball continued to fly straight to the center field wall, neither rising nor falling, and bounced back so hard that Richie Ashburn missed the rebound and misplayed the hit into a triple ~ twice! Keep in mind that Ashburn was not only a fabulous center fielder, perhaps the very best gloveman of his era, but he was playing at home, where he knew the walls and the angles and had played thousands of hits rebounding off the fences. He never encountered any baseballs hit quite this hard, though!

Also, I got to see Willie Mays in person for the first time. He was great as always, memorable enough in his own right, and I'm pretty sure that he scored a critical run in front of one of those McCovey triples (or mayube both). But neither he nor anyone else I ever saw ever hit a baseball as viciously as young McCovey did on two occassions that Saturday afternoon. I doubt that even Wille Mack himself ever did so for the rest of his career, after the pitchers more-or-less caught up to him and learned his few relative weaknesses. Of course, he became a Hall-of-Fame player, hitting about .280-.290 or so with outstanding power, but neither he nor anyone else could have sustained the level of performance he showed during those first few weeks of him major league career, when he was hitting .400-.500, with virtually all his hits for extra bases.

And, oh yeah, the Giants won. Jack Sanford was the starting pitcher and probably got the win.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 03:48 PM

You can never tell about Cub fans....

I saw Ragib Ishmael and Tim Brown run 90+ yards for opening kickoff returns when they played for Notre Dame -- and I saw them do this more than once each.

But what stands out in my mind was the soccer (football to those Elsewhere) game my college, the previous year's NAIA champs, was forced to play against a truly nothing college. Our goalie sat at the foot of the goalposts throughout all of the first half and half of the second. Then he walked off the field and bought some hot coffee, which he took back with him. At that point the ONLY time in the entire game the action moved to our half of the field. Our goalie carefully put down his coffee, blocked the only shot that came our way (getting it our possession), sat back down and continued drinking coffee and watching the game. (We won; I forget the score but it was something to 0).

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 04:25 PM

I never saw him play in the Majors but my brother-in-law Brian was signed as a catcher right out of high school to play with the Toronto BlueJays. My understanding was that he still holds a record as the youngest player in the Major Leagues.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 04:52 PM

Both my daughters play Centre and Wing Attack in their respective netball teams. Both they and their teams are very good and I get a kick out of coaching them.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:15 PM

Rapaire, you did well to score ND football tickets if you went to an NAIA college. Or were you a grad student at ND?

(If you're anywhere near as old as I am, you'd be well out of undergrad school by the time Rocket Ishmael and Tim Brown played college ball...)

In my undergrad days at Notre Dame, all students got a full season of football tickets as part of the tuition package deal, and pretty much everybody went. (It's not like there was ever much of anything else to do in South Bend...)

There was only one game when I sold my tickets and skipped the game, against Illinois my junior year (1967). Quarterback Terry Hanratty was very close to breaking a number of school records for passing in a career (yards, touchdowns, probabaly something else as well). It was a hot ticket because some of the records in question, maybe all of them, were pretty sure to be broken that day. I was broke, and much more jaded about Irish football than I had been as a freshmen (or even as a sophomore), so that was a sporting event where I might have witnessed a record-breaking performance, but I chose not to go. (Hanratty and his primary receiver Jim Seymour had huge days and all the records fell.)

Wesley:

The youngest player ever to appear in a major league baseball game was Joe Nuxhall (sp? maybe "Nuxhaul"...), who pitched for the Cincinnati Reds as a young teenager during World War II: he was only 15, I think. He went down to the minor leagues for a while, came back up to the Reds at a more reasonable age, had a decent career as a player, and then became a very beloved long-time broadcaster for the team. Joe passed away very recently; you could probably still find various obits and tributes online.

Maybe your brother-in-law holds the American League record for youngest player ~ the Reds and Blue Jays are in different leagues ~ or maybe Nuxhall's appearance rates an asterisk because of the wartime shortage of "real" major league players.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Wesley S
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:21 PM

That might be it. What I know about sports statistics you could cram into a thimble.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:21 PM

During his university days, basketballer Artis Gilmore drove around our neighborhood in a Volkswagen Beetle. Not an easy feat for someone of 7'2" height.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Hawker
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:34 PM

At 46 I still hold my high school record for throwing the discus! (the school closed down about 18 years ago! LOL)
Cheers, Lucy

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:57 PM

Artis was not only well over seven feet in height, he sported one of the biggest Afro hairdos of his era, a time when Afros were, well, big. Cramming all that much basketball player into a VW Beetle is pretty hard to imagine!

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:23 PM

Well, no, I never had a class at Notre Dame. But my wife DID score two season tickets ever year she worked there as Asst. General Counsel and she still goes to at least one game almost every year (not this year, though).

Her very good friend Mary is an ND law grad, Mary's father was a triple domer and her mother a smickchick, and her uncle (well into his 90s) still sells ND the bricks it needs to make its buildings match. The uncle has God alone knows how many tickets to each game at ND, a permanent parking place for his tailgaters, and looks a lot like Lou Holtz.

The only ND games I've ever attended (including the only time ND played Rice) were in the old original stadium -- not the flying saucer monstrosity that now surrounds it.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:47 PM

I haven't been in the new expanded stadium, either. I did see it for the first time two summers ago, during the offseason.

I'd offer my condolences to you for living on South Bend through any winter, but I'll refrain, because that kind of miserabnle weather apparently doesn't you, judging by your even-icier current abode...

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: ranger1
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:34 PM

I got to see four games of the 2003 Women's World Cup at Gillette Satdium, one of which was the US Team's defeat of archrival Norway, knocking them out of the Olympics. You could tell where Mia Hamm was at any given moment because of the wave of noise that followed her where ever she went.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 08:56 PM

Dan Morino's last game...

That's 'bout it...

No, it ain't...

Bobert hittin' over .500 for the season as the lead-off batter for 1961 Babe Ruth Championship team... Whew, that was a long time ago...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 02:30 AM

I saw a new world's record in the high jump, set by Pat Matzdorf, in 1971, at a "U.S. vs U.S.S.R." track and field meet, held at UC Berkeley. He jumped 7.6 feet, which is now pretty commonplace among competitive high jumpers, but back then was an incredible feat. Also witnesed Steve Prefontaine dominate a race at the same stadium, different meet.

Not a record, but a memorable event: I saw Jerry Quarry TKO Thad Spencer in a semi-final bout during the time Ali was stripped of his title, and a tournament was held to find a successor. The bout was held at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, 1968.

A near-record, when I saw Bonds hit homerun 754, which put him one behind tying Aaron.

Many memorable Willie Mays and Willie McCovey moments. Didn't witness any records by them, but many heroics.
Witnessed the most unlikely Giant to set a club homerun record. Ernest Riles, hardly a power hitter, just happened to hit the 10,000th homerun in Giants history. Witnessed Will Clark getting the winning hit against the cubs that got the Giants into the 1989 world series. Witnessed Mark Sweeney get the pinch hit that put him 2nd on the MLB alltime pinch hit list. He was rewarded by being traded a week later!

Last, but not least, I witnessed Catspaw win the world's crepitation competition in 1984, when he unseated Paul Boomer, of Australia. It was an amazing outburst of sheer power.

I hear two mudcatters will be involved in a pro wrestling match this winter. Malcolm Douglas and "Q" will be together as the tag team, "The Masked Ethnomuscularologists."

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 03:26 PM

A good friend of mine, a Franciscan monk, back in the 1950s was traveling from LA to Chicago by train. He was sitting in the dining car, preparing to order dinner, when an African-American asked if he could join him. My friend of course immediately assented and they had a wonderful conversation. After dinner they continued their talk and became quite good friends. In fact, the priest became a sort of spiritual advisor to Sugar Ray Robinson....

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 07:35 PM

This is from a "fan" who has not gone to a football game in about fifty-five years. You'll see why.

This deals with the phenomenon of lopsided games--egregiously lopsided games--where depressed spectators on the losing side give up and leave before the end, to trudge to their cars to get ahead of the traffic rush. But that's not all.

In the fall of '50, or maybe it was '51 (and perhaps still today) Iowa wanted in the WORST way to beat Minnesota--who wanted in the WORST way to be, not Iowa, but Michigan State. I'm going to tell you about Minnesota Homecoming that year, Iowa at Minnesota. I was there in the stands, on my student pass, and on my solemn oath here's what happened:

Iowa romped over Minnesota from the beginning of the game onwards, scoring with depressing regularity. I can't give you actual score numbers, but near the end of the game it was painfully, painfully obvious that Minnesota had not a proverbial snowball's chance in hell of winning.

What I'm about to relate happened in the LAST TWO MINUTES OF PLAY, in that lopsided condition. Minnesota fans were streaming down the aisles, heading slowly and dejectedly to their cars.

At two minutes to go, Iowa kicked the ball. Minnesota grabbed the ball, ran for a touchdown. Converted. Wonderful, but we're still in snowball country.

Then Iowa kicked the ball. Minnesota grabbed it. Touchdown! Converted! You don't know how much better the Gophers still in the stands all felt, but we knew we were still going to lose. And then, and then . . . .

Iowa kicked the ball AGAIN! And again, Minnesota grabbed the ball, and the ballcarrier snaked that long way through the Iowans down the field, and TOUCHDOWN! What's more, CONVERTED! The buzzer sounded, and the game was over, to whooping and hollering, jumping up and down, hand-waving, and what not. A lot of sore throats out of that.

We won by one point, as I recall. And all that happened in the last two minutes.

And if you don't think there were some SICK PEOPLE who had left early, you've got no empathy in you!

Now you see why I haven't been to a football game in about fifty-five years. After that two minutes, I've seen the very peak of sports excitement. There's no way another game could reach those heights.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Rowan
Date: 19 Dec 07 - 08:15 PM

Nice story, Dave.
And you reminded me of an event I had at high school. Unusually for a lad from Oz I had no interest in cricket; even more unusually, I played baseball. There was a Saturday afternoon competition in which the church I attended fielded a couple of teams; even more unusual, in Oz.

The high school I attended (Northcote) was one of the Melbourne Central Zone schools, most of which had sufficient space to be able to field a baseball diamond and sufficient kids to field a baseball team, so I was happy to play for the school. Over the years I played every position except catcher and pitcher; I couldn't fit the catcher's mask over my specs and the sports master disliked me so much that he never let me pitch.

Until one day, when all the people who'd ever pitched were absent and we were up against Essendon High; serious rivals. With no other option I was asked to pitch the whole game. Deswpite all sorts of attempted distractions from the girls of Essendon (Northcote was boys only) the score at the end of the game was 21:1 our way and Essendon had scored their 1 on an error. The sports master never let me pitch again. C'est la vie!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: GUEST,Texas Guest
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 12:29 AM

In the fall of 1977 I was living in Ypsilanti, Michigan and Texas was about to play Oklahoma (then #1, I believe) in the Cotton Bowl Stadium for their annual get-together. I remarked to a friend that Texas would beat Oklahoma, take over the #1 spot and then play again
in the Cotton Bowl, but this time against Notre Dame (who I predicted would go undefeated) for the national title - which, of course, the Irish would win.

Well, my beloved Irish did not go undefeated - they lost a game to Mississippi about mid-way through, but they did make it to the Cotton Bowl to play Texas (with Earl Campbell) and beat the Longhorns 38-10. As it turned out, Arkansas (under Lou Holtz) beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and, wah-la - Notre Dame wins the nationl championship with Joe Montana at the helm. Oh, yes, I had moved to Dallas in December of 1977 and along with my father and a dozen or so of his buddies - I was in the stands for that game.

One of my fondest memories of my father was when several of us were half-way out of the stadium someone asked, "Where's Pat?" He wasn't with us so I went searching for him. Seems the Notre Dame band had come back out on the field and was continuing to play the fight song back-to-back-to-back, etc. I found my dad standing about half-way down an aisle with his hat raised high to the band below singing the fight song for all he was worth - what could I do but join him.
GO IRISH.

Subject: RE: BS: Sporting events/records you've witnessed
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 02:02 AM

A couple of years ago, I got to see Rafael Palmeiro get his 3000th hit against the Mariners in Seattle. A double down the left field line.

They stopped the game, presented him with the ball, then continued.

Two days later he was named in the steroids scandal.

Seamus