The Yankees winning the 1996 World Series. I had missed the Yankees glory of the 70’s, and stayed a fan through the embarassment of the early 90s. We had planned a HUGE party for Halloween that night, and had about 50 people watching the game. You would have thought we were in the Stadium the way we all went crazy. I ended up getting thrown into a tray of jello shots.
Kerri Strug nailing that dismount in '96.
Willis Reed hitting those first two baskets in the 7th game of the 69-70 Championship. O.K., I was 6 years old at the time, but I remember it just like if I actually remember it.
Marco van Basten scoring the 2-1 winning goal in the 1988 semi-finals of the European Championships. 86th minute. The game was SO tense. Plenty of fouls were comitted that would have gotten red cards today. The build-up to the match was enormous. See, this was the chance to wipe the slate clean. We had been robbed of the world title in 1974, when West-Germany beat us in the finals - with the help of the ref, as lame as it may sound. Beckenbauer himself later stated that Holland should have been world champion that year.
Van Basten did it, and we went on to beat the USSR in the finals by 2-0. Van Basten scored again in the finals. YES, that ball will land in the goal from that position. I’d link a movie, but couldn’t find one. It’s AMAZING.
Van Basten was the best player Holland ever had - bar Cruijff. Sadly, Marco had to retire due to injuries way, WAY before his time. He was 27 when he played his last professional match for AC Milan.
Richard Petty’s final Daytona 500 win, 1988. He ran up the banking to meet President Reagan before he even drove to Victory Lane. That’s all I remember, though. I was five years old…
Watching my boy Elliott Sadler win his first NASCAR race this year. Well, actually, I was LISTENING to it on the radio as I drove home from work. It was a moment of pure joy. I was so surprised I almost drove off the road, and I screamed loud enough for the guy in front of me to hear, I swear to god. As soon as I got home I had to call my uncle at Elliott’s race shop…
Two moments that surrounded sporting events:
The earthquake during the beginning of the '89 World Series in San Francisco (Giants vs. A’s).
Mohammed Ali carrying the torch and lighting the flame at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
A’s beat the Giants 4-0 in the 1989 World Series. Giant fans constantly put down the A’s. It was World Championship number four for Oakland. The Giants are still trying to figure out how to win one.
George Foreman beats Michael Moorer to win the World Heavyweight title 20 years after her lost to Ali.
49ers win their fifth Super Bowl. Steve Young wins the big one.
Ali beats Foreman. Check out the movie “When We Were Kings”
“The Catch” Montana to Clark. 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship game and go on to win their first Super Bowl.
Seconded.
Michael Jordan retreating to the locker room in tears, just moments after the Bulls won the championship following his father’s death. The year before, his father had been celebrating at his side.
At the collegiate level:
UH mens’ volleyball team’s Yuval Katz hitting 45 kills against UCLA in May of 1996. UV turned pro a few months later.
UH mens’ basketball team upsetting No. 2 Kansas in the 1997 Outrigger Hotels and Resorts Rainbow Classic. The MVP of that tournament, Anthony Carter, now plays for the Miami Heat.
Two SD Sports moments
1984-- Game 3 of the Pennat Series against the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs won the first two games and were looking to sweep the 5 game series. Down by one… bottom of the ninth. Runner On… Steve Garvey at the plate. Steve Garvey OUTTA THE PARK!!! THE CROWD GOES WILD. San Diego goes on to win the next two games and go on to the World Series.
1994-- Kurt Gouveia blocks Neil O’Donnell’s Pass into the End zone as time expires to send the Chargers into their first Super Bowl.
(Of course-- the ending tail to both of these stories is that the SD team gets its tail kicked in both the WS and SB games. But that’s beside the point 
)
And one lesser known team, but the most excited I have EVER been from a Sports game…
The Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League from the CHL (Major-Junior Hockey) Wins the Memorial Cup four years ago. I’m watching them play Guelph and its an overtime game. Bobby Russell scores and I leap off the couch and scream. I go running into the kitchen and leap into the hair and hit the door frame with my hands. My right hand gets stuck on the edge… I end up going into the kitchen while my hand stays with the door frame. My skin finally gives… I tumble into the kitchen and slide across the kitchen floor into the dishwasher. I’m SO EXCITED… I’m screaming… “WE WON THE CUP WE WON THE CUP!” I don’t even realize… I’m bleeding profusely from my hand. I ended up needing stiches in my hand… (Not many stiches, but the cut was DEEEP) PLUS, at the same time I did this… I managed to break my middle finger on my left hand. None the less, this is my greatest sports moment!
Damn, he beat me to it.
Another one: Babe Ruth “calling his shot”. Maybe it really happened, maybe it didn’t. I like to believe it, though.
The greatest moment in sports occurred in Lakeview, Ohio, in a football game between the West Liberty Tigers and the Lakeview Something-or-others of the Logan County League in October, 1957. In that game, with the Tigers down 35 to 6 and less than two minutes to play, the Tiger QB called a QB option end run to the left. At the snap of the ball West Liberty’s third string right guard pushed off hard to the left and ran behind the line beyond the left end. At this point the Lakeview linebacker emerged from behind his own defensive end right into the path of the on coming guard. The West Liberty QB was tackled for a small loss, but the guard, by God, made his block. The LB never knew what hit him. This, and this alone, was the greatest moment in sports.
1995 UCLA Bruins championship run through the NCAAs.
Particularly Tyus Edney’s length of the floor drive to win the game against Missouri, and also the championship game (which I watched at a crowded UCLA campus eatery).
“Sea of Hands:” 1975 AFC divisional playoff game, Miami at Oakland. At the end of an epic game in which the lead changed hands at least five times, QB Ken Stabler–being tackled to the ground and with no timeouts left, flipped a desperation pass into the endzone, to RB Clarence Davis in triple-coverage. Oakland 28, Miami 26.
The Denver Broncos’ two Super Bowl victories. For years I’ve had it endlessly pounded into my skull that 1) The NFC rules the universe (Saints, Cardinals, and Falcons notwithstanding), 2) The Broncos were worthless chokers who’d never, ever win the big one, illustrated in a number of truly horrible Simpsons jokes, and 3) John Elway may be an incredible cluctch QB, but he’d never amount to anything UNTIL HE WON THE BIG ONE. Three stupid myths. Destroyed.
France’s win over Brazil in the '98 World Cup. I can imagine how frustrating it must be to constantly live under the shadow of a war that ended decades and decades ago.. (Never mind the fact that France was a part of the Allies, which, you know, won.) Of course, this isn’t exactly a sports powerhouse, either. And yet they found a way to not only beat, but crush one of the most powerful soccer teams in the world. As a free-thinking American, I had to celebrate.
Akebono winning the January '93 Grand Sumo tournament to ice his promotion to Yokozuna, the first ever foreign-born sumotori to do so.
The Universtiy of Hawaii football team, after 12 consecutive losses to much hated archrival BYU, absolutely thrashing them by about 30 points. For nearly every football fan in the state, this was like the New York Rangers winning the '94 Stanley Cup.
Oh yeah…the New York Rangers winning the '94 Stanley Cup. Goddam stupid curses can all GO TO HELL!!
Pete Sampras breaking the career record for Grand Slam victories with his 7th Wimbledon. One of the greatest and classiest athletes of our time deserved no less.
Whatsisface beating Lennox Lewis for the something-something championship. (Felix Trinidad? Ah, never mind…) The last notion of there being any “man to beat” in the heavyweight division gets stomped flat. No one’s the man! Parity rules! How can you not love it?
1989… Liverpool vs Arsenal … last game of the season. Arsenal needed to win by 2 goals to overtake Liverpool and win the league for the first time since 1971. Injury time at the end of the match. It’s 0 - 1 to the Arsenal…but wait…what’s this?..Michael Thomas is through…can he score!?!..will he!?!..DAMN STRAIGHT HE DOES!!
To go there and beat liverpool 2-0 in the fortress that was Anfield would have been an achievement in itself. To do it to win the championship…that’s something else.
and throw in there too…
Ireland 1 - 0 England…Euro 88
Ireland 1 - 0 Italy … WC 1994
God i miss those days…lets hope they come again.
England’s 4-1 World Cup win over the Netherlands in, what, 1994? 1998? Eh, memory ain’t what it was (and apologies Coldfire).
Oldham Athletic’s 4-3 win over Southampton on the last day of the season 1993ish (maybe 1994 - damn this memory).
mattk, wasn’t that in Euro 96?
I don’t know that I can single one particular moment out (especially this year, when there’ve been so many for me). I guess I’d probably have to say Celtic scoring our 3rd against Rangers at Ibrox last month. We’d already won the league two weeks earlier, so the result didn’t really “matter”, but giving them an absolute drubbing at their ground was just the sweetest icing imaginable on the cake.
Plus, it was a class goal.
Well, this is a little obscure, but I happen to think it makes the list. The year is 1982. The California Golden Bears are playing their archrivals Stanford in the “Big Game”. With 8 seconds left on the clock, John Elway (Stanford’s quarterback) calls a timeout, allowing Stanford to kick a field goal. The score is 20-19, Stanford. Cal fans are heartbroken, etcetera, etcetera. But nobody is prepared for what happens next. Stanford squibs the ball, Cal takes it at their own 45. Sensing victory, the Stanford band enters the field, congregating in Cal’s endzone. The Cal squad proceeds to lateral 5 times amidst a swarm of Stanford players, driving 57 yards on the kickoff return. Cal’s Kevin Moen takes it into the endzone, and knocks over one of the Stanford tuba players, capping one of the most improbable plays ever in college football. Cal won it, 25 (or 26) to 20. This whole scene was helped by Joe Starkey, the Cal football announcer, who went absolutely crazy. His call can be heard here: http://www.gummiwisdom.com/cal/the_play.html . As a lifelong Cal fan, it’s a cherished part of big game lore. Too bad I was too young to remember it.
M.
Biggirl beat me to it. Kerri Strug nailing that vault in '96. That was cool.
This year, Andreea Raducan winning the All-around during the summer games. I was really upset when she lost her medal. She was my favorite. 
Oh yeah, and Elise Ray winning the 2000 US Nationals . On uneven bars she busted out a toe-on-Tkatchev-Tkatchev combo and on vault unveiled a double-twisting Yurchenko.
Cool stuff.
ruadh’s right, it was Euro 96. And we only progressed because Kluivert scored that late 4-1, effectively tossing the Scots out of the tournament. Poor lads, they deserved to go ahead more than the Netherlands that tournament.
No apologies necessary: it was a well-deserved win. Of course, Holland went on to… lose on penalties to France in the quarter finals. Losing on penalties… now there’s a thing the Dutch and the English know everything about.
My favorite only tangentially involves a human:
Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes by more than 30 lengths and still pulling away from the field when he crosses the finish line. The camera operators couldn’t even keep Big Red and the other horses in the same camera shot. He so dominated the field that everyone else should have stayed in the paddock. Damn what a beautiful, magnificent horse. The jockey said “All I did was hold on.”