Welcome To History

Although I am not, as some may suspect, the Forest Gump of AN.

I did attend Nolan Ryan’s no-no (and I too rooted for him to get it), saw Canseco’s 40th homerun in the first 40-40 season (not “historic” enough?), and was at another no-hitter in which four A’s pitchers participated. I am certain those too pale in comparison to other AN’ers. At least that is my hope.

One day I am going to do a family/sports timeline (for example my dad was born the very same day that Babe Ruth penned a new contract with the Yankees in 1932. It was said to be more than President Hoover’s salary. The Babe, naturally, took no issue with making more than the Prez: “Why not, I had a better year than he did.”)

I am watching this unfold right now and my eyes are tearing up.

I am not thinking much about any specific baseball moment. Just my grandpa teaching me how to play baseball in his backyard.

My grandpa was a flag waving, red blooded American. A world war 2 veteran. Very conservative. The kind of guy I could never agree with on much of anything int erms of politics and history.

He died this year.

I feel like I finally get his flag waving, red blooded American ways.

It’s amazing.

I wish I was playing whiffleball with him right now.

Truly a uniter!

was Bonds hitting #714 off Brad Halsey to tie Babe Ruth. Bleh.

I’d put the finals of the World Baseball Classic up there, though.

I did see Chavez’s cycle (and the amazing double play the A’s turned in the game).

I was at the last game that ended before the strike in 1994, not that I’d consider this a good thing.

That’s about it.

Political reference. 15 yard penalty. Automatic first down.

:-P

of the legend John Jaha playing the game.

when Hatteberg won our 20th straight game.

I know this isn’t historic, but one of my most memorable games was in 2003(?) in the ALDS against the red sox, it felt like it was the 15th inning but probably 11th or 12th and we scored with a squeeze play.

The most memorable/historic sporting event I’ve attended in person has to be The Comeback, but that was football, not baseball.

In baseball
Eckersley’s only loss of 1992, his Cy Young season (at Fenway).
Jeremy Giambi not sliding.
Games 18, 19, and 20 of The Streak, all walk-off wins, plus one or two game much earlier in the streak.
Hudson’s dominating a great Red Sox lineup (and Pedro Martinez), facing only 1 batter over the minimum (2 hits, one walk, 2 DPs).
Another Hudson gem, an 86 pitch complete game (at the time tying an Oakland record, I think) against the Mariners.
Chavez , Thomas, and Bradley hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs, with one of them landing in the seats one row in front of me.
Rich Harden starting the game by striking out the side on nine pitches in the first, and Mark Ellis ending it with a walkoff grand slam in the 12th.
And many other games with dramatic, if not necessarily historic, moments.

He went six scoreless innings for the Dodgers in Candlestick park, a day game during a stretch of unemployment I considered delightful in my pre-marriage/kids/mortgage days.

Nomo’s debut ended up with second billing to a crazy game…14 scoreless, the Dodgers scored three in the top of the 14th, only to be answered with four runs by the Giants for the walk-off win in the bottom of the 15th.

In 1970, I saw Vida Blue no-hit the Twins.

In 1973, I saw Jim Bibby no-hit the A’s. With the A’s down by a bunch, I rooted for Bibby to get the no-hitter in the last couple of innings.

In 1980, I saw Jerry Reuss no-hit the Giants. (I couldn’t care less about either team — I was there to see Rick Monday who was playing for the Dodgers at the time.)

I saw Pete Rose’s consective games played streak broken at 745 in 1983. Rose was replaced in the lineup that day by Juan Samuel who made his major league debut. (At the time, Samuel was regarded as one of the top prospects in baseball, with HOF potential.) Samuel led off the game with a triple between Chili Davis and Jeff Leonard. One of them booted it (Leonard, I think) for an error, allowing Samuel to circle the bases. It was another rare visit to Candlestink. A colleague of mine from Phildelphia thought it might be our last chance to see Steve Carlton pitch. Carlton lost that day to a lineup Frank Robinson stacked with right-handers, several out of position.

I didn’t get to see Catfish Hunter’s perfect game because my Dad had to work overtime that day and he didn’t get home in time for us to go. D’oh!

MyOakland baseball memories go back to the Pacific Coast League of the last 1940’s.

- an 17 year old Billy Martin playing with the Oakland Oaks, shortly after being kicked out of Berkeley High

- Case Stengal and “the nine old men” winning the PCL flag in 1948.

- followed by Chuck Dressen in ’49 and ’50.

- with spring training every year in Boyes Springs near Sonoma

- I remember Ray Noble, Lloyd Cristopher, George Metkovich, Morris Van Robles, and many others

Beane will spend more money!!!

Section 34, Row 19, Seat 32

A’s defeat the Giants for the World Championship of baseball. Sweetest. Day. Ever.

surprised and endeared me toward our new President was in his interview with ESPN (or maybe it was Bryant Gumbel on Real Sports?) where the interviewer asked him if he was a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan, he didn’t take the politician/weasel way out and claim affinity for both teams. He clearly and immediately said “White Sox.” Now while I’m not particularly fond of the South Siders, having a clear, decisive answer to that meant something to me.

There’s your political, non-political baseball LB story. Brought to you by the letter O. Nice day today.

But ultimately the reason for the no-politics rule is that one political comment serves to tempt others to respond, and an entire political discussion grows from there. The rule, remember, does not ban political comments per se, but rather any comment that “brings politics into AN”. On that basis, Nico, you fail.

Given that the discussion here was pretty tame and the circumstances are arguably extenuating, we can forgive this one offense. But don’t think you didn’t cross the line. You did.

Nothing in my life tops today. Sportswise, or A’s wise anyway, I was at the Yankee series when the A’s took 2 out of three on walk offs by Tejada. One was a home run and one a double. Zito put up the only loss. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at baseball. Truly unforgettable. I also remember watching the ‘89 series from my apartment in Brooklyn thinking what the heck? An earthquake? Also, being in Brooklyn with my great aunt and uncle and the rest of my family, rooting for the A’s to beat the Mets in the World Series (1973) and laughing all the way home. Man, I just love baseball! Thanks, AN!

My favorite baseball memory was seeing the Padres and the Rockies in the NL Wildcard playoff game. I’m not really invested in either team (though I did see a lot of the Rockies play in the minor leagues and I went to college with Tulo so I rooted for the Rockies haha) so it was really amazing for the game to play out the way it did. Back and forth, blown saves, a grand slam, a slide to win in extras (I don’t think he even touched the plate, but it was such an epic moment I don’t see how it would have been possible to call him out). The atmosphere was AMAZING and I hope to someday get a chance to go to a game like that featuring a team I love.

That entire game was just insane and I will always remember it.

throw a no-hitter…it was against the CWS and I remember it wasn’t very crowded . I moved down near the end of the game to see bettter. I was 25 but even then I knew it was a special moment. The other thing I remember about the game was that Rickey got caught stealing and Burroughs hit a homerun. You think these memories will always seem very clear but when you have watched a lot of games they do start to run together .

that you forgot, Nico:

1) Witnessing the A’s breaking the (then-) record for consecutive wins to start the season (and losing the 2nd game of the DH to end the streak);
2) Witnessing the A’s tie the game 4-4 in the 9th against the Rangers, battle them through 5 scoreless innings…and then give up 12 runs in the top of the 15th to lose 16-4.

Also, I (we?) saw a 40-year-old Don Sutton throw a 4-hit shutout for the A’s. That was pretty cool.

And for those of you who cared about Cal basketball back in the ‘81-82 season, we were there for Tom Lord’s last game. But that’s kind of a long story.

in St. Louis against Philadelphia. I remember going into that season that we were all hoping to see him hit one when we were at the game, and sure enough he did. That’s all I’ve got. Oh, and got to see Brad Ziegler’s MLB debut.

no-hit us with four pitchers. At least, I think it was the O’s. Might have been the Tribe. I tend to confuse those two…

Historic I tells you!

I’ve seen very few, if any, historically notable games – probably the most notable was the game where Rickey got thrown out stealing for the 39th time in the 1982 season.

The most historical sporting events I’ve seen, however, were a few high school basketball games back in 1978 and 1979. I went to a very small high school (only 180 students in 10th-12th grade), but as far as basketball went, the school size did not matter, but the size of our players did.

In 1978 (my freshman year), we pulled off a “Hoosiers”-type victory by beating the elite school in our state, the school that had all the money, fans, backing of the local gamblers, etc. The game went into overtime. With 11 seconds left, our back-up point guard was fouled while shooting. After he made the first free throw, the other school’s coach called a time-out to ice him. On the second free throw, he fired up what was possibly the worst foul shot in history (at least I thought so until one of last week’s Warriors’ games) – it was so bad, it came right back to him near the foul line. He put up a prayer of a follow-up shot which incredibly went down with 7 seconds to go. After in-bounding the ball, our opponents got off one last shot, but our superstar small forward (I say small – he was 6’4") blocked the shot out-of-bounds as the clock expired.

The next season (1979 – I was now a sophomore), we had at least two memorable games with the big school, which, by the way, was only about a mile away from ours. One of these games went to overtime, with another win for my little school. My uncle, who was from Michigan, and therefore reasonably impartial, said that it was the most crookedly-officiated basketball game he had ever seen. Remember the gamblers favored our opponents as well. For the state tournament, the big school was seeded #1, and we were seeded #2, setting up a potential state championship rematch. Alas, my school’s team of superstars forgot they had to play as a team, and got knocked off by a public school in the first round (in my state, the private school league schools typically owned the public schools), so we ended up winning the loser’s bracket.

Why is this overly long missive notable? The state was Hawaii. My school was University High School, and the big bad school just down the street from us was the Punahou school. There was a reserve on that 1979 Punahou team named Barack Obama. After that school year, both of us left Hawaii for good – Obama to go to college, and me because my family moved to Cupertino, where our basketball team sucked.

I remember very well the game in the 1971 WS when Jackie threw out the first pitch, and made his statement that he’d feel a lot better (about his integration of the sport) when he saw a black man managing in baseball. Jackie died two weeks later and never saw a black manager in MLB.

I think Jackie would be overwhelmed by this moment.