October 16, 2013

  • Baseball's Greatest Moment

    It's my best memory of the game, that's for sure.  Reliving Kirk Gibson's pinch-hit home run off of the A's Dennis Eckersley.  Recapture the feeling HERE.

    OCT. 18 EDIT:

    Sorry, I haven't had time to get back here and share my personal memories.

    I was a big Kirk Gibson fan, ever since his football wide receiver days at the Michigan State University.  For his professional career, he chose baseball over football.  Another two-sport star was Deion Sanders, aka Neon Deion, and you could look it up, but I'm guessing that Gibby and Neon may have been playing their sports in the same era because I distinctly remember comparing the two thusly:

    Gibby played baseball like a football player, and Neon played football like a baseball player.  By which I mean:  Gibby would take the field even when injured, like football players do, if they're physically able to do so.  And Neon, if he was nicked up a little, would take the day off, like baseball players do.

    With that as background, you can understand how it was when that 1988 World Series rolled around.  Gibby had knee and hamstring issues, and was scratched from the lineup for Game One because he could hardly walk.

    I was watching Game One on tv and in the bottom of the ninth inning, it looked hopeless for the Dodgers because the immortal Dennis Eckersley was on the mound and I don't know why it seemed hopeless but it did.

    Then for no apparent reason, I heard an immense roar from the stadium crowd and I had no idea of the reason for the roar.

    And then it became clear.  Gibby was coming out to pinch-hit, and at the sight of Gibby, the crowd went bananas.  So did I.

    And then came the pitches from Eckersley.  And the pathetic-looking swings of the bat from Gibby.  And then the dribbler down the first-base line that went foul.  And Gibby tried to run toward first and his gait looked even more pathetic than his swings of the bat had looked.

    And then he came back to the plate and damn if he didn't eventually hit the ball out of the park.  And the home-run trot and the outboard motor pull and the crowd going bananas squared and me too.

    And they replayed it on TV over and over, and I literally timed the time it took for Vin Scully to open his mouth and record for posterity his comment about "in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened."  Vinny let the crowd's bananas roar tell the story.  More than a minute went by before Vinny spoke.  It was beautiful.  Vin Scully, my favorite announcer of all time, announcing the greatest moment of all time, and letting the crowd's roar tell the story before he did.

Comments (6)

  • Great memories from 1988! Already!25 years ago! Were you a baseball player yourself, Bob ?
    In friendship
    Michel

  • I remember Kirk Gibson!
    HUGS!!! :-)

  • My greatest memory is being at the sixth games of the 1956 World Series and watching Don Larsen pitch the perfect game. I have a poetic memorial archived on Xanga. It's titled "The Perfect Game". I hope you can find it...

  • I can't buhleeve I read every word. It brought back my memories of following the Phils on my Sear's 'Good' (aka 'cheapest') transistor radio from the tractor seat.
    Good to know that these moments can be so lovingly documented.

  • Thank you for your comments, all. As for my baseball playing days, I tried out for the high school team, but didn't make the team. So just sandlot stuff. I did play on a Police Athletic League team when I was in grade school in Manhattan.

    Peter James Manos mentioned the P.A.L. in his poem. Go to his site and type "The Perfect Game" into the search box.

    Here's another interesting bit of commentary by ESPN's David Schoenfield:

    Today's the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. Arash Markazi has an excellent oral history of the events leading up to Gibson's pinch-hit theatrics that gave the Dodgers a 5-4 victory and spurred them to a five-game upset of the A's.

    I've always thought Bill Mazeroski's home run was the greatest in baseball history -- after all, it remains the only walk-off home run to win Game 7 of the World Series. How can you get bigger than that?

    Then I heard Rany Jazayerli and Joe Sheehan talking postseason walk-offs on their latest podcast and Rany made an interesting point: There have been 46 walk-off home runs in postseason history but only three came when trailing: Gibson, Joe Carter's home run to win the 1993 World Series and Lenny Dykstrak's home run for the Mets in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS.

    But Gibson's home run has another added layer over those two: His came with two outs, Carter and Dykstra hit theirs with one out. So Gibson's homer is the only two-out, come-from-behind walk-off home run in postseason history. (Bobby Thomson's home run for the Giants in 1951 was hit in a regular-season tiebreaker and also came with one out.)

    So, I think that ratchets up Gibson's home run a couple spots on my list. But does a Game 1 home run trump Game 7? What do you think? Or are you still partial to Thomson or Carter?

    I think I might be inclined to put Gibson No. 1, factoring in the score, the outs, his injury and the pitcher (Dennis Eckersley). My new top five:

    1. Gibson
    2. Mazeroski
    3. Carter
    4. Thomson
    5. Kirby Puckett/Carlton Fisk/David Ortiz/Chris Chambliss/Ozzie Smith/David Freese

    By the way, the only players with two postseason walk-off home runs are Ortiz and Bernie Williams.

  • It's hard to believe that was so many years ago.
    I was also amazed this week to learn that it was 10 years ago when Steve Bartman became the 21st century scapegoat for the Chicago Cubs.

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