1987, Cardinals-Mets at Busch Stadium, still early in the year but a sellout because at that time the Mets and Cards were fierce division rivals. It was also seat cushion night and that made the bleachers more bearable.
It was 6-6 after 9 innings of back and forth baseball, the Mets scored 2 in the top of the 11th, then the Cards came back to tie it and load the bases with two out. Tommy Herr, the Cards 2B, steps up and proceeds to hit the 3-2 pitch into the seats for a Game winning Grand Slam…and 10,000 seat cushions (mine included) come rocketing out of the stands onto the field as the crowd went completely bonkers.
AFAIK, the Cardinals have not had another seat cushion day since then.
Well, obviously there’s a difference between the best (i.e. most competitive) games I’ve ever attended and the most thrilling or memorable.
Among the games I’ve actually attended at Yankee Stadium, the most memorable are:
The 1973 Old-Timers game. Mickey Mantle had retired before I ever started watching baseball seriously (I’m 43), but I got to see Mickey Mantle hit a home run to left field off Whitey Ford in the 1973 Old Timers game. (Of course, the REAL Yankees, in those days, were horrible- and they got skunkjed in the real game that followed!).
In the last game of the 1978 season (which went down to the wire, and in which the Yankees ended up tied with the Red Sox), Eddie Figueroa was pitching for the Yankees, and he had a chance to be the first Puerto Rican pitcher to win 20 games in a season (he’d won 19 the year before). I went to the game alone, and the only seat available was in the right field bleachers. As it turned out, lily-white Irish Astorian was the only non-Puerto Rican in the whole section. And I had more fun that afternoon than at any ballgame before or since. All the fans around me were playing cowbells, singing, dancing, chanting… and Figueroa got his 20th win. The game itself WASN’T all that memorable, but the experience was a delight.
One night, in the summer of 1978, Ron Guidry struck out 18 California Angels. For much of the evening, he was threatening to break what was then the record for strikeouts in a game. That night, a Yankee tradition was born. Remember how, whenever Guidry got two strikes on a batter, the whole stadium would erupt in claps? It started that night. And I got to see it (barely) from the center field bleachers.
Last season, Guidry got to make a (very late) farewell address to Yankee fans, I was sort of touched when he told the fans that, whenever he had two strikes on a batter, he heard every clap we ever gave him.
I was in Boston for two years -1981 and 1982. 1981, the Celtics come back from 1-3 against the '76s to take the Eastern division and win the Championship against Houston. Game 7 against Philly was a doozy, too, but that isn’t the one. Year later, same story. Philly put the Celts in a 1-3 hole. Celts scrape out games 5 and 6. Game 7. Old Boston Garden, Sunday afternoon I believe. Don’t even ask me how we got the tickets
Philly blows us right out of the water…
But the part I remember, which makes it the most memorable sports events I’ve attended, is this - about 2, 2-1/2 minutes before the end of the game, when even the die-hards (that is, me, for instance, at 18 YO) realize it’s over, the whole crowd gets up on their feet, thank the Celts for two staight years of sheer drama, and go on to chant, in a roar that defies explanation, at the '76s - “Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!”
Fat lot of good it did them, though…
My other heartbreak story - the Dutch football (soccer) teams during the 70’s - made it to the World Cup finals twice in a row, both times against the hosting team (Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978), outplayed the hosts, and still managed to lose both games…
Sorry for the consecutive post thing but I have a good story about that game. I worked with a guy who played football for Cal and was a starter in that game. He was on the field when that happened. At that same time I was the manager of a project and my counterpart at the customer played for the Stanford band and was also on the field during that game. We were all in a meeting together and during the lunch break just having a casual conversation. It was a fun moment when they both realized that they were at that same place in history fifteen years earlier.
In September 1986, I saw Lou Holtz’ first game at Notre Dame, which Michigan won 24-23. Even though the Irish lost (on a disputed call when the ref wrongly waved off a Notre Dame TD reception, saying the receiver was out of the end zone, not that I’m still bitter or anything) it was an excellent game and we Irish fans were excited to know that after 5 years of the well-meaning but mediocre Gerry Faust, that the football team was now in Holtz’ capable hands.
The second best game I ever saw was between the Indians and the Red Sox in the summer of 1974. Gaylord Perry was pitching for Cleveland and was going after his 14th victory in a row (I think it was 14. It may have 13 or 12). It was a rainy Friday night, and a big flash crowd was on hand at old Cleveland Stadium, “big” meaning 30,000-40,000 were in the 80,000 seat ballpark. The Indians stunk in those days and didn’t draw very big crowds at all, and so they were not going to let a crowd that big get away. As a result they waited until almost 2 hours before the rain let up and the game got started. Cleveland won by a run in the bottom of the last innng when Indians outfielder Leron Lee barrelled over Carton Fisk at home plate. Fisk was knocked out for the next several weeks but Gaylord got his win. It was a lot of fun for me up in the grandstand, even more than when I finally got to go to a World Series game in 1997.
I was also there when Jordan hit his {deleted} shot over Cleveland Craig Ehlo in the 1989 playoffs, but I don’t consider that a very good game.
June 21, 1964, Shea Stadium, first game of the doubleheader, Phillies vs. Mets. That day had been originally set as my wedding date, but we decided to get hitched in March. Decided to celebrate anyway and since my wife had never been to a ball game before that is what we did. Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game, winning 6-0 (IIRC), maybe the tenth or twelfth in major league history. His wife jumped out of the stands like shot at the last out.
Incidentally, at least 100,000 people (not including me) claim to have seen Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game. The only problem with that is that it was played in Hershey, PA before a “crowd” of 4000. But that may have been the most extraordinary individual performance ever.
Yeah, it’s just too bad Olson will go down in history as one of the chief examples of a player whose career was ruined by incompetent handling by his team. He was on track for an all-time great career, IMHO, when the Orioles screwed up his arm.
I’d have to say the 65 person game of 18th century rugby I once played on a school camp. There was much improvisation, teamwork and of course brutality, there being no rules and all. The best bit was when the teacher came across us playing, told us to hand over the ball, and then attempted to run the length of the field to get a try. He damn near succeeded too, being about 3 times the weight of each of us.
Philly blows us right out of the water…