Favorite Sports Moments

     So, last night I was watching the Mets/Nationals game and re-read my post about RGIII and the Washington Hot-Mess-Skins. The Nats blew a 6 run lead in the 7th inning and my article about Washington is completely accurate but man...they both bummed me out. Professor Farnsworth said it best:

     Sports are meant to be enjoyable and fun! We're not supposed to get so mad and frustrated at something that was invented to be enjoyable. We as fans inevitably get emotionally invested.  We see these teams as an extension of ourselves. At times, they give us hope, they give us something that can unify the community. 
     We identify with them for a myriad of reasons; they're representing our home town, the players are former home town heroes or are from the area, you identify with the players or the team's play style or identity (I always think of "The U" when I think of this type of fandom) and many other reasons, some as superficial as you like that team's uniforms.

No one is from Charlotte, yet everyone had either a Hornets Starter jacket, a hat or something teal and purple. Those jerseys were sick.

     All of those reasons, taken into consideration, have made me want to look back on some of my favorite sports moments from the Good Ol' Days! I need something good to remember because all I can think of right now is misery, blown leads, squandered opportunities and disappointing seasons. 

My Favorite Sports Moments

 

Washington at Dallas Sept 19, 2005

    Growing up a Washington fan, I learned early to despise Dallas. It's mostly an underdog thing. My dad is famous for saying that he loves rooting for the underdog because when he was growing up, Washington sucked so they were always expected to lose. The Cowboys play the role of favorites well. They have their pretty silver helmets and their clean white jerseys. They're "America's Team" after all (which they got named because JFK was assassinated in Dallas. The NFL came up with the name in a PR move for people not to associate that tragedy with the city and their football team. Thanks Steve for that tidbit!).
     Everyone seems to be a Cowboys fan, most of them not even from Texas. They are the kings of front-running, bandwagon hopping NFL fans, most of their fandom starting in the early 90's with those 3 Super Bowls in 4 years. 
     It is always gratifying when Washington waltzes into Dallas and shuts up the 'Boys and their fans.  When I was younger, I honestly thought that if you played for the Cowboys or rooted for them, there was something fundamentally wrong with you. As I've gotten older and wiser, I came to the scary realization that Washington and Dallas are essentially the same team and their fans are no different.

"What if I told you Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder were the same person?"
Yeah...I'm not surprised and it explains a lot actually.

That being said, I  still love the rivalry. Even if Washington is having an up year (which are few and far between), beating Dallas is an accomplishment. This particular game was something special. 
     Joe Gibbs was back as coach, something that was exciting at first but not so much as time went on, kind of like pancakes.  He seemed like the game had passed him by. He wasn't the offensive genius he was the first go round. In his second season as coach, the team seemed to be coming together well, but they were getting shut out 13-0 on Monday Night Football by the friggin' Cowboys! It was "Triplets Night," too; Aikman, Emitt Smith and Michael Irvin were inducted into the Cowboys ring of honor. Barf. This was going to be a long night. 
     In the 4th quarter, recycled QB Mark Brunell threw a desperation deep ball to Santana Moss. The Miami product caught the ball in stride and galloped into the endzone. OK, they're on the board! Alright!

That's one!

The Cowboys, led by equally recycled Drew Bledsoe, did squat and Washington got the ball back (as a Bledsoe fan, we don't talk about the Dallas years).  Washington only had a few minutes to make something happen. Everyone knew what was coming, but Dallas couldn't stop it. Brunell threw another beautiful deep ball and nailed Moss for another touchdown. 14-13 Washington!

Chief Z: Santa, I love you so much.
Moss: Nah Chief, my name is....you know what, Santa is fine.

The 'Boys got the ball one more time, but it was of little use. One of the passes they tried to complete was defended by Sean Taylor, who hit the receiver so hard, the ball went flying back 20 yards. Suck it Dallas, suck it Triplets, HTTR! 

RGIII's Rookie Year (2012) 

If someone had been in a coma since 2012 and was a Washington fan and they just woke up...they still wouldn't be shocked at what happened.

     I've already compared Griffin to Anakin Skywalker, and if you're nerdy like me, you know the parallels go further than severely damaged/missing legs. When Anakin was fighting in the Clone Wars, he was beloved by the populous. Citizens dubbed him "The Hero Without Fear." That was RGIII. He played with reckless abandon. Beating the high-powered Saints in New Orleans in your first pro game? Ain't no thing. Taking a shot to the dome for a few extra yards? BRING IT ON. Playing in Dallas' stupid-looking-monstrosity-of-a-stadium on Thanksgiving? Yawn. 19-27, 304 yards and 4 TDs. The Eagles? Come on, bro. Perfect passer rating. The Giants? 17-16 win for 3 in a row. Now, it wouldn't be much longer until this team unraveled and poor RGIII was left with one functional leg, but that season was something magical. 

Washington Capitals and the Winter Classic (2011 & 2015)
Occasional Playoff Heroics (2012 & 2015)

     The Washington Capitals, our greatest hope of bringing a title to the DC area for some time now, is known for not being able to win the big one. The Capitals have shown in their 40 year history that game 7 meltdowns are a common practice and that a 3-1 series lead is never a sure bet they'll win the series. 

They've lost 3 game 7s in a row to the Rangers. They were up 3-1 this past season. Ugh.

When they finally broke through to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998, they play one of the greatest teams of the last 50 years in the Detroit Red Wings, who destroyed them. 

     All that being said, this team has done one thing really well: when they play in the NHL's showcase event on New Year's Day, The Winter Classic, they step up their game and shine. In 2011, they faced their bitter rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. They didn't just win that game, they beat Pittsburgh down. In 2015, the Winter Classic was in D.C. at Nationals Park. The Caps won a hard fought game against the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.  It's too bad the playoffs aren't a one-and-done set up like the NCAA Tourney, the Caps might dominate that!

     When it comes to the playoffs, it's not all doom and gloom for the Caps. They have had their successes. In 2012 they squeaked into the playoffs as an 8th seed and took on the defending Stanley Cup Champs, the Boston Bruins. They were big underdogs. Both of their starting goalies from the season were injured and they had to rely on some young punk named Braden Holtby. Most rookie goalies would be scared out of their minds. Not Holtby. He was unflappable. He made amazing saves, he was confident, he made sound decisions and more importantly, he didn't take sh*t from anyone.

Peverley picked up his stick like he was going to hit Holtby with it...and Holtby stood there with his arms crossed. What a bad ass!

It was a back and forth series, and went to a decisive Game 7. The teams were evenly matched and the contest couldn't be decided in regular time. It was time for Game 7 Overtime dramatics. Any Capitals fan watching at this point was racked with nervous energy. The Caps don't win Game 7s, they don't win in overtime in the playoffs, and they definitely don't beat teams favored to beat them. No body told any of this to Joel Ward. 

Joel Ward, you beautiful man. You are so clutch.

The Capitals would lose in the next round but for a moment, our Caps shocked the hockey world with an inspired playoff performance. 

     2015's playoffs brought us another hard fought playoff series, this time against the New York Islanders. I wrote about this one at great length this past spring (click here). It goes to show you though, as much as things may not be perfect and there aren't championships (yet), there is still a lot to be excited about.  

Let's talk about baseball now...

Jayson Werth's Walk-Off Home Run Game 4 NLDS (2012)

     Baseball has very little middle ground; you either love it or you hate it. I love it. We didn't have a team in D.C. when I was a kid, the closest team we could go see were the Baltimore Orioles. I became an O's fan, my favorite baseball player was Cal Ripken, Jr. I loved the sport so much I followed other teams, too. My favorite cousins lived in the Philly area so I became a Phillies fan, too. After Ripken retired, I really didn't follow the the O's like I used to. I still rooted for them, but they had become hard to watch, their owner seemingly not interested in making the team better. Then 2005 rolled around. It turns out that Montreal couldn't support the Expos any longer and they were going to relocate to D.C.! I was excited mostly because we'd have a team a whole lot closer than Baltimore. I had my doubts as to who I would root for, but when I saw that tear in my Dad's eye and he said "when I was a kid, they stole the Senators from me," I knew we were going to be rocking curly W hats. 
     When a team relocates because their old city wouldn't/couldn't support them, there really aren't a lot of superstars. For those first 6 years, they were not a good team. Things started turning around in that 6th year and by year 7, number 1 overall pick Bryce Harper was tearing the league up on his way to Rookie of the Year. The Nats made the playoffs! They were going up against the fearsome St. Louis Cardinals and the Cards had a 2 games to 1 lead. One more loss and their 2012 season was over. One of the first big name free agents the Nats signed, Jayson Werth came to bat with Game 4 on the line. I can't even describe what happened next because the great Charlie Slowes' call still gives me goosebumps.

I went out to dinner after Werth won the game proudly wearing my Nats curly W hat. As I sat down at the table with my family, a kindly old man walked by. 
"Excuse me, sir. I noticed your hat..." he said
"Yeah, go Nats!" I said politely.
"Did they win?" He said, you could hear the hope in his voice.
"Yeah, they sure did. Werth hit a walk off home run," I replied with a giant smile on my face. That old man clutched his fist and said "YES!" and walked away with a smile on his face, too. If you ever needed a reason why I love baseball, it was that interaction. 

     The Nats ended up having one of the most epic collapses in baseball history and lost the series to the Cardinals. What's most disturbing about this loss is that it just repeated itself: Washington was up 7-1 against the Mets on September the 8th in a pivotal game with major playoff implications. They managed to lose this game just like they lost the St. Louis playoff game, just like they lost Game 2 to the Giants in the 2014 playoffs. They had a lead and couldn't put the other team away. Perhaps this is part of the process. Maybe teams need to implode so that when they finally win, it feels like it was worth it. The only problem with that logic is this: 

The Florida/Miami Marlins have 2 of these...and have only been a team since 1993. They won their first in 1997 with rental players...sometimes I hate baseball.

That picture proves one thing and one thing only: baseball is a jerk. The Marlins didn't build their teams the right way, they didn't have a fanatic fan base, they didn't even have a good owner! He blew the teams up after they won! They set a record the year after they won their first Championship; worst record by the defending champ. We'd like to think that as fans our love and adoration for a team can propel them to greatness. The Florida/Miami Marlins are proof that none of that is needed, you can just buy a World Series.  
     Maybe that's why I love it. A team that no one expects can come out of nowhere, get hot and win it all. When the Nats collapsed in 2012, it was a bitter pill to swallow. It took a long time to get over it, but that home run, that radio call, that awesome old man...I'll never forget those. And that's why I'm writing this. The good outweighs the bad. More baseball...

Pirates at Rockies, Summer of '94 

There was something about a white Bronco running from the cops that was big that summer...I just can't remember...something about the guy trying to deliver some OJ.

     My Uncle Steve and Aunt Susan lived in Billings, Montana and I got to spend that summer with them. It was the coolest trip I've ever taken. I'd never seen any thing other than the East Coast of the U.S. The west was so different! We went to Little Big Horn, to Yellowstone, we even drove to Denver and got to stay there for a few days. One of my uncle's Marshal buddies (Yeah, Uncle Steve was a U.S. Marshal. He's a bad ass) had tickets to a Rockies game. I don't remember the conversation, but I'm sure it went something like this:

Uncle Steve: Mikey, you want to go see a Rockies game?
Me: HELL YEAH!

Coors Field was gorgeous. It had an amazing view of the Rocky Mountains, it had it's own brewery, too! Granted, I was 13 at the time, so the brewery was useless to me but still, I could appreciate how cool that was!

Wow. What a view.

It was a back and forth game, but the Pirates took the lead late in the game. I was bummed, I liked the Rockies. They had some great players and were exciting to watch, hitting tons of homers in the Mile High City. My favorite Rockie, Larry Walker, was sitting this game out. The Rockies trailed by 1 run in the bottom of the 8th. They got a runner on first and started making some noise. A random rain shower came through and seemed like an ominous sign. The rain cleared and they announced a pinch hitter for the Rocks: Number 33, Larry Walker. OK, a pinch hit. At least I got to see him hit!

"You can bench me for a game, but you can't bench the mullet."

     Walker proceeded to hit a 2 run bomb to right field to win the game for the Rockies. I was ecstatic. This was the coolest thing I'd witnessed in person! Best. Vacation. Ever. Thanks Uncle Steve and Aunt Susan!

Cal Ripken's Final All-Star Game

America: Cal Ripken and Apple Pie

     Growing up in the Baltimore/DC metro area in the 80's and 90's and being a baseball fan meant I had the same hero every other baseball loving kid in the area had: Cal Ripken, Jr. I was a year old when they won the Series in '83 so I didn't really get to appreciate that. For most of the time, the O's sucked pretty hard, but they had Cal; the indestructible shortstop who never missed a game. He was in every All-Star Game, too. His '91 season almost made this list. He won the League MVP, he won the Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game and he was the All-Star Game MVP! My hero was not just the greatest in my eyes, he was the greatest in the league that year!

He played the game right. No one would ever think the man was on P.E.D.s. He would never hold out for more money, and when he broke Gehrig's record (another one that could have been on this list), it showed everyone that there was some good left in baseball after the labor strike.

And he hit a home run in that 2131 game...dude was amazing.

     
     They made the playoffs a few times when I was in middle school but they never could get to the next level and play for another World Series. As time went on, the Iron Man eventually sat out a game. The new unbeatable streak was over. Just like every thing in this world, he was getting older, and would eventually retire. He announced that 2001 would be his last season. He had 3000 hits, he was a 2x MVP, he had a World Series ring, what else could he do to top that? He hit a home run in his final All-Star Game and was named MVP of that one, too. How's that for a story book ending for one of the greatest baseball players of all time?  He was an incredible role model and a great hero and got to go out with a bang. 

And A-Rod did something likeable? Truly, a night of amazing accomplishments.

Boston Red Sox/New York Yankees 2004 ALCS 

No, no, they're not fighting! Kevin Millar lost a button and they're all looking for it.

It was dark times in the DC baseball world; we didn't have a team yet and the Orioles SUCKED. I mean...horrible. Their best pitcher was a fat, drunken, white dude. 

haha, no...not this fat drunken pitcher. I was talking about Sidney Ponson, not David Wells.

My mom's cousins lived outside of Boston and I had been to Fenway a few times as a kid. I was so obsessed with baseball when I was a kid, I had 4 or 5 teams I liked (the O's, the aforementioned Philles, the Red Sox, the Astros, and the Mariners...because Griffey). I liked the passion that was Red Sox fandom. Their team seemed destined to lose in the last game of the season on a walk-off homer. They just couldn't put it together. It's that underdog thing my dad instilled in me; I loved rooting for them. More importantly, I loved rooting AGAINST the Yankees.  They ripped my heart out in the late 90's when they beat the O's in the ALCS (to this day, if I see Jeffrey Mayer in the street, I will punch him in the throat, nothing personal though). 

This frickin' kid...Even the face he's making in this picture makes me want to smack him

Since the O's couldn't beat them, maybe the Red Sox could! Well...it didn't go well for them either. Every year they seemed to get close and then clowns like Aaron Boone would hit game-winning homers. 2004 seemed to be the same ol' story. The Yanks jumped out to a 3-0 series lead and killed the Sox 19-8 in Game 3. It was going to be another year where The Yankees made the World Series, everyone would be rocking their fitted navy Yankees hats and talk endless crap for the entire off-season.
     Maybe something clicked in the Boston clubhouse after that devastating loss because this team woke up in a huge way. They won 3 in a row to force a decisive Game 7 in Yankee Stadium, 2 of those wins coming from extra inning heroics. By the time Game 7 rolled around, it was a Yankee bloodbath. They left no doubt in anyone's mind who the better team was winning 10-3. The Red Sox were going to the World Series! They won the Series against the Cardinals, but that was almost an afterthought. It was a team of destiny, a team that had overcome the ghosts of the past and beat their biggest rival on the biggest stage possible. The only people who couldn't appreciate that were the same ones who start singing "New York, New York" after the 8th inning in Game 4 (Mariano Rivera blew the save in that game...God I love saying that). 

     What makes this such a memorable event in my eyes is not so much the event itself, but what it meant to the city of Boston and all of Red Sox Nation. People had come and gone in the time since the last Red Sox World Series win. 86 years is a long time. The Red Sox are not some passing fancy for the area, they are part of the fabric of what it is to be a New Englander. I wore a Red Sox hat after they won the Series and anyone I ran into that was from New England would immediately smile and we would start talking about their win. It didn't matter that we never met. If you were in New England that fall/winter, you would see cemeteries covered in Red Sox World Champs banners, flags,and front pages of the Boston Globe. It may be an urban legend but it's said that many people that were in nursing homes in the Boston area passed away peacefully after seeing the Sox finally get it done.
     This is the kind of fandom I want in D.C.. I want my son to see that kind of passion and loyalty and know that no matter what happens, no matter how many leads the Nats blow, no matter how many times the Capitals lose a game 7, no matter how many times the football team leads the league in sensational stories, you stick with your team. You root for them because they're yours and sometimes...not always, that hope and faith in your team pays off. 

If you're reading this, I know you have favorite sports memories, too. Tell me about 'em! I'll put them up here on GGR! We're all about sharing the love, whether it's sports, comics, movies, video games or anything else. I'm Mike Lunsford, thank you for reading.