What’s the Most Memorable Sporting Event You’ve Attended? (Part 2)

 

 

Let’s continue with the best live sporting events we’ve seen.

Yesterday, in Part I (READ HERE), I featured several games I attended from 1969 through 1979.  Today, I’ll look back on sporting events from 1980 to the present which I saw in person.

Feel free to add your favorite sporting event memory, either in the comments section or on Facebook.

 

Listed in chronological order:

Washington Redskins at Dallas Cowboys (NFL) — 1979

This was an astounding comeback victory led by Roger Staubach, which would turn out to be his final victory for the Cowboys.  Staubach, who won the Heisman Trophy with Navy and led Dallas to two Super Bowl wins, retired just a few weeks later.  I sat in the end zone where wide receiver Tony Hill caught the pass from Staubach with seconds left, capping a 17-point comeback in the final 5 minutes of the game, which was for the NFC title.  Played just a few days before Christmas which was the last game of the regular season, my and my high school friends yelled so much we lost our voices (I was a senior in high school at the time).  Staubach was a class act and remains one of my heroes in sports.

New York Giants at Washington Redskins (NFL) — 1986

The old RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was the most exciting stadium I’ve ever been inside to watch a football game.  I saw lots of games there when living twice in the Nation’s Capital (1986) and (1992-2001).  The stadium was a total dump.  It only held 53,000 seats but could have sold twice that for Redskins home games.  The season ticket waiting list was 25 years long.  The fans were so passionate the stadium actually used to move off its foundation when everyone was standing and cheering.  There was also something about the outdated sightlines and a strange design that was magical.  You could hear everything that was said on the field when the players were talking and yelling.  A truly amazing experience.  I attended my first Redskins home game when the two NFL East rivals were Washington (coached by Joe Gibbs) and NY Giants (coached by Bill Parcells).  Coming from Dallas, the other rival team in the division, this was truly memorable.  I sat on the 40-yard line downstairs and came to realize this was the way football was meant to be played — on real grass, in cluttered stadiums, with fans standing the entire game.  The team even had its own band.  This particular game wasn’t memorable, but the experience of seeing RFK Stadium for the first time in person certainly was.

Minnesota Twins at Baltimore Orioles (Baseball) — 1986

If major league baseball has a similar “RFK Stadium moment,” it was most certainly going to a game at the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.  Since the Orioles were just 40 miles up the road from Washington, which was the closest baseball game at the time (the Nationals came into existence 15 years later), I went to a Saturday afternoon game and saw the Orioles who had Cal Ripken near the start of his streak, managed by the great Earl Weaver.  Memorial Stadium was a dump.  But much like its old counterparts in Chicago and Boston, the stadium had character.  Lots of memories of Memorial Stadium, from Johnny Unitas playing most of his career there with the Colts to all those great Orioles teams from the 1960s and 1970s.  It’s been demolished now, so I savor this memory.

Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (NFL) — 1988

Just before I departed the U.S. to go live in Europe, I was back home on leave and just so happened to be offered free tickets to the meaningless final game of the NFL regular season played at Texas Stadium.  The Cowboys were well out of the playoffs by then and this was a cold-weather game versus the hated Eagles, coached by Buddy Ryan at the time.  The game did not seem important, but I decided to go.  I sat on the 40-yard line downstairs with a friend.  Dallas lost badly.  After the game was over, I remember thinking that this would be the final Cowboys home game I would see for a while.  Since I was leaving to live overseas, I did not know when I would return.  When the game ended, Tom Landry walked slowly off the field, which was his 29th year as the head coach.  No one knew it at the time, but that would be Tom Landry’s final game as head coach in Dallas.  He was fired a few months later when Jerry Jones bought the franchise.  I also didn’t realize it at the time, but that Dallas-Philadelphia game would be my final Cowboys’ football game.   I have not seen them play in person since.  After twenty years of cheering for the team, I lost interest in them as a fan and have not been to a game in 26 years.

Dynamo Bucharest at Steaua Bucharest (Soccer) — 1990

This was the most heart-pounding moment I’ve ever witnessed in sports.  While living in Bucharest right after the Romanian Revolution, the two main soccer rivals in the country faced off at the old stadium built during the communist era.  It was called “23 August Stadium.”  Barbed wire fences kept fans off the field.  Sections of fans were split apart and were not allowed to mix.  Nevertheless, a riot broke out.  Marieta attended the game with me (we were dating at the time).  Fans of one team started burning the jerseys of the other team in stands, and this caused pandemonium.  This game released a lot of pent-up frustration as Dinamo was known as the Securitate (secret police) team and they were playing Steaua (Star), which was the team of the national army.  They were not just rivals, they hated each other, as did the supporters of each team.  Since the revolution has been a battle between Securitate and the Army, this game was a continuation of those hostilities.  We cheered for Steaua and were run out of the stadium by a mob.  Marieta and I had to run to our car and race off after being chased by dozens of fans who were swinging sticks and clubs.  It was a madhouse.  We were lucky to get away without being attacked and seriously injured.

West Virginia at George Washington University (College Basketball) — 1993

George Washington University is a small campus located right between the White House and the State Department, which is called Foggy Bottom.  I attended some GWU home games during the early to mid-1990s when the GWU basketball team was a national contender.  They made the Sweet 16 one year and the Final 8 the next.  GWU home games were amazing because the arena was very small.  It held perhaps 2,000-3,000 people.  So all the seats were right night next to the court — almost like a high school arena.  Every seat was right next to the action.  I went to one key game where GWU won on a last-second buzzer-beater shot.  I have to say that college basketball is really fun to watch in person, especially if you have great seats.  Note:  This photo shows President Obama at a GWU home game a few years ago.

Cincinnati Reds at Los Angeles Dodgers (Baseball) — 2005

Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles is the most beautiful and best-designed stadium in all of American sports.  Really amazing, since the venue is more than 50 years old.  The stadium remains not just state of the art but is ultra-modern looking.  All the seats are decent.  It’s also aided by perfect weather, a great location, and a celebrity factor that comes being next to Hollywood.  I never cared for the Dodgers or Los Angeles sports teams.  But my one visit to Dodger Stadium about ten years ago left a lasting impression.  The place is gorgeous.  I got some tickets right behind home plate with a friend, and we went to the game.  Since we had to bet the game also, we decided to wager on the UNDER, which means we hoped for a low-scoring game.  This was common in Los Angeles, where runs are usually hard to come by.  By the top of the third inning, the score was Cincinnati leading 8-7.  Our bet lost by the time some fans had even arrived at the ballpark.  As my friend and I were angrily leaving the stadium in the middle of the third inning, we were driving out past cars that were still arriving in the parking lot.  There were two empty seats the rest of the game, right behind home plate.

Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees (Baseball) — 2005

No one can really be a fan without traveling to one of the most sacred shrines in American sports.  Right before it was demolished to make way for a new venue without mystique, I insisted on visiting the old Yankee Stadium, a.k.a. “the house that (Babe) Ruth Built.”  The old stadium was cramped and many of the seats were terrible.  The gradual slope in the bottom deck made it quite tough to see the field when fans were standing.  Yet the upper deck was such at a sharp angle, that I’m shocked more fans didn’t fall down the stairs, fall over the rails, and tumble to their deaths.  The stadium was a terrible place to watch a ballgame.  I can only imagine how much worse it must have been when the NY Giants played home games there, with the field so far away.  If you are looking to watch a baseball game in New York, Hellotickets is exactly where you want to be to get the best seats in the house.  The stadium looked great on television, but it was one of the worst stadiums where I’ve ever watched a game.  Yankee Stadium produced some great memories for fans of New York teams.  Nonetheless, I understand why it had to be torn down in favor of a newer arena.  I don’t remember about the game I attended, except that I went by myself and sat right behind the Yankee dugout.  I also got into an argument with an usher.  

River Platte at Boca Juniors:  Buenos Aires (Soccer) — 2008

I’m not sure any sporting event on earth is more exciting than a top South American soccer game.  Here, the game is a religion.  Argentina is a soccer-mad country where the two biggest teams are the Boca Juniors and River Plate.  They are bitter rivals.  Boca is the Italian section of B.A. where mostly the immigrants live (Argentina got its wave of millions of Italians much like the U.S. at the early part of the 19th century).  This is a much older, artistic area of the city which is marked by the buildings having vibrant colors.  The old B.A. is represented by the legendary Boca Juniors.  Their most famous player was Maradona, who is now considered a god in Argentina.  Across town is a much newer and flashier team and bigger stadium, which is River Plate.  This is the team favored by people in the newer part of the city.  As one can imagine, when these two teams play, the entire region of 10 million people shuts down.  Marieta and I found this out the hard way in September of 2008 when we were visiting Buenos Aires and happened to be in Boca when the Juniors were about to host River Plate.  We considered going to the game, but tickets were impossible to come by.  So, we went to a bar and ate beef all night, drank wine, and watched the teams play — along with the rest of Argentina.  Okay, so we were not at the game.  But we did get into Boca Stadium earlier that day and experienced the excitement of an Argentine soccer match.  So, it makes the list.

Any New Orleans Saints Home Game (NFL)

I’ve been to five Saints games, between 1980 and 2012.  The games were really fun when the Saints were the worst team in football.  They are even better now.  The most memorable game of all in my favorite American city was the time the national radio broadcaster Howard David invited Marieta and me to sit right in the press box with him when he called the game live.  Try this — 45-yard line seats in the press box, next to the man calling the action!  How’s that for an experience?  The Saints lost to Tampa Bay in an exciting game.  The Superdome was deafening.  Love watching the Saints play and then celebrating or drowning one’s sorrows in the bars and restaurants.  One of the best sporting experiences in America.  Forget tailgating — the entire city of New Orleans is a tailgate when the Saints play.

Cincinnati Reds at St. Louis Cardinals (Baseball) — 2011

This experience was meaningful for multiple reasons.  First, poker pro-Dennis Phillips and national radio personality and talk show host Paul Harris took me to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game, which was a real treat.  We had great seats and at least Dennis and I kept the beer guy busy.  I was really impressed with how much St. Louis is truly a “baseball town.”  This is not seen much anymore, since other sports are now much more popular.  But in St. Louis, baseball remains king.  Everyone in the city seems to follow the team and asks about the score (I was there for two weeks, and everyone keeps an eye on the Cardinals).  The games almost always sell out.  However, one thing that was terribly annoying was being constantly bombarded with signage, announcements, breaks in the action brought to us by some car dealership or insurance company, and anything else where a product or service could be sold or pimped.  The ballgame wasn’t a sport.  It was the QVC Channel.  This is one of the reasons why live sporting events have lost me.  It’s why my interest is now gone.  I want to watch the games and enjoy myself.  Not be pitched at with products and brands every 15 seconds.  As much as I appreciated the experience of attending my first and only Cardinals home game, I won’t be going back, not here, nor anywhere else, most likely.  At least with the remote in my hands, I can turn the channel and tune out the commercials.

Okay, so that was my list.  Once again — what’s yours?  Feel free to post in the comments section, or at FACEBOOK LINK HERE.

TAG:  List of most exciting sporting events