A game you’ll always remember but others may not.
Goldenage
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At Madison Square Garden against the Rangers, Mario Lemieux achieved a five-goal game by scoring in five ways – in December 1988, he scored an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot goal and an empty net goal.
Also at MSG in January 1979 I watched Tim Young of the Minnesota North Stars score 5 goals on 5 shots. He added an assist in a 7-1 rout of the Rangers.
I was also at the pine tar game, and what some may not know, or care, was that catcher Don Slaught was one hit away from the cycle in that game. Does anyone know if a catcher ever hit for the cycle ? Catchers aren’t known for hitting triples too often.
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Also in the pine tar game an unknown first basemen for the Yanks made an outstanding play at first base,
jumping and spearing a hard hit line drive. Don Mattingly. Don't remember if he got any hits.
I heard that Bobby Orr said Mario Lemieux was the most talented hockey player he has ever seen.
Too bad he had to deal with so many injuries.
1967? Blinding blizzard. War Memorial Stadium. Bills Bengals. Couldn’t see the field. Out of the blizzard comes Booker Edgerson CB running towards our end zone with the ball. He had stripped the QB and out of the blizzard runs for a TD. Score was something ridiculously low 9-6 for the win.
OJ Simpson rushes for 2000 yards in a 14 game schedule.
Namath gets intercepted 5 times the year after the Jets SB victory for the Bills only win that year and drafted Simpson.
Those are 3 I remembered.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
Greg Pryor, who was with KC at the time, talks about that game in his autobiography. It's a fun read and he's also got a great chapter on Disco Demolition Night (he was also in that game). Greg's also a nice guy who personalizes every copy of his book he sells.
I was at the game that Jose canseco pitched and blew out his UCL requiring tommy john. 1993 i believe. we always sat in the right field bleachers when i was a kid. not many were left because it was a blowout. my brother and i saw Jose start warming in the pen and we moved down and were able to watch by the railing as he warmed.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Thanks, I didn't know Pryor had written an autobiography.
Pryor comes into the LCS in Gladstone periodically as a customer. I don't know the extent of what all he collects, but I've seen him purchase some HOFer autographed baseballs. When he came out with his book, he actually arranged an in store book signing and autograph session. I did not attend, but heard he was a great autograph guest and well received by everyone. The owner of the LCS had a few extra cards signed, and gave me one. I believe there's a few extra books still at the store. I may have to pick one up the next time I'm in there.
Back to the original topic of the thread.
August of 1988, my family was in Chicago on vacation visiting friends of my parents. Wrigley Field was finally going to have lights. This was a big deal for anyone that grew up watching afternoon baseball on WGN. The first night game was going to be on 8/8/88. We were watching it on TV at the family's house. I believe people paid thousands of dollars to attend. It was started, but I believe rained out before it was an official game. They had also scheduled a second night game for 8/9/88 as a backup in case something like a rainout occurred. It was also a popular ticket that did not come cheaply. Anyway they got that game in, the first official night game at Wrigley.
As it worked out, after much begging, my dad agreed to take me and the son of his friend we were visiting to the afternoon game on 8/10/88 vs the Mets. It was a last minute decision, and we bought tickets at the window, only able to get 3 single tickets near each other, but not together, in the lower level. It started to rain right before the game started and the tarp came out. We sat through nearly 3 hours of rain delay, with most of the crowd leaving. My dad definitely wanted to leave, but we 2 kids pleaded to stay. They eventually started the game at roughly 4 pm, with dark clouds still hanging overhead. With hardly any crowd left, we were able to grab 3 seats together about 20 rows behind the first base dugout. At some point during the game, the umpires determined it was getting dark...and ordered that the lights be turned on! A huge cheer went up amongst the few fans that were left. For just the normal price of a ticket, we were at the VERY FIRST DAY GAME, AFTER THE FIRST NIGHT GAME, AT WRIGLEY, THAT THEY THEN TURNED THE LIGHTS ON! Haha! I know it's something that doesn't seem like a big deal now, but in 1988, it definitely was a big deal to say that you went to a game at Wrigley under the lights. It remains the only game that I've attended at Wrigley.
Some guy named Greg Maddux got the win.
Greg throws in autographed cards of himself with the book. He gave me 4 or 5 and included a nice note about Spokane (where I lived and he played).
Pops was a car salesman, the whole dealership used to buy season tix to braves/falcons/hawks to grease the sales and take the fams when the tix weren’t used to make a deal.
Back in the day the Braves tix were right behind home plate for years. Me and some of my friends had the tix for the night in fall 1990. David Justice was up with a man on late in the game. I was standing at the net behind him and gave him a shout - “time for one of those homers big guy”. Next swing 2 run homer that win the game. He hit home plate and gave me the fist pump. Good times.
Two actually...both Yankees at Fenway.
My dad seemed to always get seats just to the right of the 420' sign in deep center field, in that little pizza-like slice of seats.
Well, Jackie Jensen hit a deep fly ball to center and along comes Mickey Mantle hustling for the ball, which made it to the wall, and about 10 feet from me. I can still see that #7 and hear his cleats in the pea gravel. It was over in seconds, but I got to see Mantle up close. A big thrill for a young kid in the early 50s.
Second was a Friday night game. I was sitting with 2 cousins and a buddy of mine in right field, the foul pole about 15 rows in front of us...aka the Pesky pole for Johnny Pesky of Red Sox fame. In front of us were 4-5 guys, all appeared to know each other, the beer was flowing and all were having a good time. Behind me were two guys, one with a young kid.
So, up comes Hensley Muellens for the Yankees, although his stats show him as a righty, I recall him batting lefty. The ball is hit foul and comes right at us. If you've ever had that happen, it happens very fast, the ball gets bigger and you have no doubt if its coming your way...this one was. The ball somehow got away from the guys in front of me, then past me to the little kid behind me with his little glove. The ball bounced off the kid's glove and 2 teenage kids grabbed the ball. Well, the little kids world just ended and he was crying like his dog died. The dad was trying to console the kid and being cool about it. We all began harrassing the teenager who snagged the ball and told him to give the ball to the kid...even though he got it legitimately. The beer continued to flow and after another inning or two the harrassment got so bad that the teenagers finally decided it was best for them to leave. Friday night Yankee-Red Sox games can get nasty when the game is over!
Up comes Don Mattingly...yup, foul ball, almost identical to the Muellens ball. Guy in front of me catches the ball, reaches between my cousin and I and puts the ball in the kids glove...whoa, suddenly its Christmas in Fenway! Tears are gone, kid lights up, dad is beyond thankful to the guy in front of me, who now no longer has to pay for his beer. Nice moment, and a classy gesture.
Nice memories.
My daughter is older now and the first time we went to a game together, just her and I, was the Roy Halladay no hitter in the playoffs against the Reds. We had been to many games before as a family with my son and wife, but this was the first time just her and I....and to get to see the second playoff no hitter ever! What are the odds. A game i'll certainly never forget.
Mine goes over 2 games and it's remembered by one other guy:
In college at Western Michigan, we would always get hockey tickets in the second row right next to the opposing team penalty box. And we'd hassle the guys in there. Always a good time. One weekend, Lake Superior State came to town for two games. They had a great squad led by future longtime NHL player Jim Dowd. Dowd was unreal in college. Anyway, first night, he gets a penalty and we ride him when he's in the box. Good times. The next night, we get to the game early and settle into our seats. Warmups start and Dowd goes skating by. As he did, he wound up and BLASTED the glass with his stick. He made sure we saw he'd done it and knew it was directed at us. My roomie (the one other guy) and I loved it! Turned us both into Jim Dowd fans.
I coached against Jimmy Dowds brothers. They played out of Brick, NJ growing up as kids. I believe it was the Brick Ice Palace.
Nice stories. Wasn’t it Evans who had that great catch against the Reds against the right field wall in the World Series ? Not sure if it was the Reds, but that must have been a thrill for people in those seats.
I was at a Twins game with my Dad in the mid 1960's. I was about 8 years old and a HUGE Harmon Killebrew fan. Still am today.
"Killer" came up to bat and poked one to the right field corner. The right fielder was playing almost in Center field and ran furiously to get the ball, while Harmon chugged around the bases ending up at third base with a clean triple.
I still remember looking around at all the smiling faces, then my Dad said "he's going to need some oxygen after that". I saw Harm hit several home runs over the years, some prodigious clouts, but only one triple.
The first year I had season tickets for the Boston Bruins
November 16, 1989
The Boston Bruins score 3 goals in the final 2 minutes of the game to beat Montreal 3-2 at Boston Garden.
The Bruins entered the contest 1-1 against Montreal this season after going 0-7-1 last season.
As I remember, it was early in the season, but the Bruins always had difficulty with the Canadiens and this game was really pissing me off. We had outplayed them most of the game but could not get anything past Roy. I never left any games early, especially losing ones, but this one had me contemplating it. Glad I didn't.
Since I been on a gambling rant I will say this game right here back in 2006 with Virginia Tech vs Duke, it was the last year I seriously bet on Football. I bet $500 on VT -36 points. Tech missed 2 extra points in the game and their last drive in the first half they got penalized several times to take them out of FG range to get a quick 3 points to end the half. The game by all sense of normalcy should have ended 41-0 but instead pushed to cost me $500.
June 1981, last baseball game before the strike started, Phillies vs. the Astros (who were an NL team back then). Astros starter was Nolan Ryan. Pete Rose needed one more hit to tie Stan Musial's National League career hit record of 3,630, and two hits to break the record. Early in the game, Rose gets a single to tie the record. Then in the next three at-bats, Nolan Ryan struck out Pete Rose THREE times!! Pete had to wait until the strike ended to break the record on August 10. I was there and it was high drama.
That Houston-Phillies playoff series in the early 80s was a classic. Funny, but the thing I remember the most about that series was Manny Trillos arm.
The game that never was ...
I was supposed to meet up with a bunch of members from various sportscard forums and finally get to put faces with names. Think we had a block of 40 seats filled (including families).
the first MNF game.
Fair Hooker
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Ralph