Some moments, they're just burned into the brain
by ahtrap on Jan 24, 2010 9:59 PM EST
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PrintAs sports fans, we can all think of negative moments we can recall instantly, with perfect clarity, but this isn't one of those stories, this tale is about one of the good moments, one of those we remember with that same clarity, but one of those that elicits a smile rather than a scowl.
I wandered out to the gym this evening, and it's one that has a number of TV mounted up on the walls in front of the workout machines. I picked an elliptical that had a view of both the Vikings/Saints game as well as a TV showing Game 1 of the 1988 World Series (Gibby's bomb), but since I knew the ending there , I was mostly watching the football game. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something the brain *knew*, and intimately so. You know those situations where there's no real reason that you SHOULD recognize something, like a song based on two random notes, or a picture based on an incidental detail? This was one of those situations.
Like I said, ESPN classic was showing Dodgers/A's, 1988, but that corner of my eye spied a random shot of a pitcher winding up and delivering, and a batter swinging, and even as the rest of my head started turning in that direction, my brain was filling in the rest of the scene...my favorite player Larry Herndon running in, still running as he came to where the ball was flying, and squeezing the leather to record the final out of the 1984 World Series.
I wasn't watching that TV before that moment, I didn't register that it was Willie Hernandez delivering that pitch, nor that it was Tony Gwynn swinging the bat, but still, I KNEW exactly what the scene was, and the details filled themselves in, as fresh 25 years and change later, as they were when I was 9 years old.
And I'm riding that elliptical in a gym in Wisconsin, now 34 years old, with a silly grin on my face, and giving a fist pump to the thin air. It earned a quizzical glance from the guy on the next machine, but apparently, he had been watching that TV, because when I pointed to the Detroit Tigers T-shirt I was wearing and started to explain, he just smiled and said, "Yeah, I saw it."
Turns out it was just one of those interludes they play at commercial breaks, a memory of the 1984 season, probably shown because of the Kirk Gibson connection with the game they were broadcasting. But regardless, it made my evening. The rest of that workout just breezed by, because I was feelin' GOOD after seeing that play.
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Would love to hear similar stories, of those types of moments
Magglio’s bomb, I suspect, might live on vividly into many of our memory banks.
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for me...
I’ll always remember Rick throwing Youk to the ground. That made me so happy.
I haven’t been a baseball fan for long, but I also have alot of fond memories of watching Pudge play here. His intensity was unmatched.
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Gibby....
……was close though…..Maybe a little more intense but Pudge was intense.
by BennieBladesFan on Jan 25, 2010 9:44 AM EST up reply actions
before my time.
but I’ll always remember Pudge.
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I was 8 Years old in 84....
…..I remember Larry Herndon lumbering in looking like he was gona fall over before he got the ball and then jumping and high fiving my dad!!!!……By far my fav baseball moment.
by BennieBladesFan on Jan 24, 2010 10:39 PM EST reply actions
Polanco skipping around the bases in 09
And pretty much all of Bondo’s start to bury the Yankees in Game 4 of the ALDS. I missed the actual game for a debate tournament, but it was a blast to watch- one of my favorite games ever.
President, Vice President and Secretary of the Casey Crosby Fanclub.
so many great memories from that series...
and that year in general. Helped start me on the road to baseball fandom.
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And a random regular season memory
is this game. One of my fondest Tram memories, even if it was a June night against a horrible Yankees club. It was still cool. Down 3, bottom 9, bases loaded, full count…that’s how you draw it up in the back yard.
people forget how good the Tigers were in 1988
I think we were in first until a September swoon knocked us out of the race, and then we just ran out of time as the Red Sox tried to give away the division late. Regardless, a sweet memory, thanks for sharing.
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Was a great team......
….i remember in 86 when every member of the infield hit 20 hr…….Evans at 1st, whitaker at 2nd, Tram at ss, Darnell coles at 3rd and Lance behind the plate….Also Chet Lemon and GIbby hit 20 as well.
by BennieBladesFan on Jan 25, 2010 12:37 PM EST up reply actions
One game out
That’s where they finished. And you’re right; no one ever talks about that team.
by Ian Casselberry on Jan 25, 2010 7:33 PM EST up reply actions
Granderson at the wall ,It's gone------ NO IT'S NOT Granderson makes the catch saves the game.
One of my all time favorite memories,the first game I took my nephews to Detroit vs.Cleveland. Sizemore hits a bomb to center and Grandy makes the game saving catch to rob him of a homer
Cory Smith
One from ancient history
Sunday, October 1, 1967. The Tigers played two double headers back to back that weekend and had to win three of the four to clinch the AL. They split on Saturday. In the first game Fred “The Bear” Gladding took over for Joe Sparma after Sparma gave up a homerun that brought the Angels within two. Nobody out. Gladding allowed a single in the 8th and then shut ’em out in the ninth. I can still see the look on his face when Eddie Matthews made the final out at first. Pure bliss. We were still alive!!!
And then we lost the nightcap 8 – 5. Spent the winter complaining about what might have been…
And then it was 1968.
My dad was at the 1st game....
……of the doubleheader on the last day of the season in 67…..he said they were selling world series tickets after game one……crazy.
by BennieBladesFan on Jan 25, 2010 12:38 PM EST up reply actions
my first big baseball memory
was Gibby hitting that home run for the dodgers in the 88 WS.
more recent would be running around the living room jumping up and down when Magglio hit the ALCS home run with my mom, and JV’s no-hitter.
I couldn't speak for 2 days after the Maggs HR
as my voice was completely shot from screaming as soon as the ball left the bat. Good times. And not that I’m superstitious, but I didn’t move from my couch for the entire no-hitter. Same exact spot – no bathroom breaks, no getting up to get a drink…needless to say that I couldn’t wait for JV to finish it so I could pee :)
I had just gotten in the car after a meeting.
My nephew called and said “Are you anywhere where you can listen to or watch the Tigers?” I told him I was in my car and about to dial it in on XM. And then I said “Why?” and he said “By tradition, I can’t tell you.” It was the 7th inning and I drove to Greensboro and back just so I could stay in the car. I couldn’t wait for him to finish so I could go home.
I missed that moment
My family was visiting some friends up in Troy, staying overnight up there. My brother and I were watching that game with our friend Sai, who’s just a couple months younger than my brother, up in his room, on a black and white TV that had, shall we say, issues. Between a shaky picture, and the fact that I hated the A’s, and Eckersley was coming in, I figured the game was over, and I gave up on it, instead retreating to the room I’d be staying in that night, and reading a long forgotten book.
A while later, I heard my brother yell down the hall that Gibby was coming up to bat, but, I don’t know, maybe the book was really good or something, I just ignored it…and thereby missed out on an all time classic moment…woops!
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For me:
-The Magglio Ordonez homer in the ALCS is my No. 1 Tigers memory of all time.
-Craig Monroe. I think we forget how unreal he was in 2006. The home run he hit off Kyle Farnsworth to salvage 1 game of the 3 game set in August in Yankee Stadium that was a BOMB is forever etched in my mind. Only because I was on AIM with a friend who’s a die-hard Yankee fan and I called it.
Those are the first two that come to mind.
Living in SW Michigan, I don’t make it out to many Tigers games at all. In fact, I never got to go to Tigers Stadium and have only been able to get to like … 10-ish Tigers games at all.
But, one stood out to me. It was April 24th, 2004. It was my birthday as well as the day the Lions drafted Roy Williams and Kevin Jones. The Tigers were hosting the Cleveland Indians the day after trouncing them 17-3.
Game was tied 2-2 heading into the bottom of the 9th. Fernando Vina hit a chopper up the middle that was stabbed by Ronnie Belliard. Vina, though, beat out the throw at first and the Tigers were in business.
Batting 2nd that day was Carlos Guillen. Relatively unknown at that moment. Guillen attempted to bunt Vina over to 2nd but struck out in doing so. Not that surprising in retrospect as he’s more of a driver of the baseball than a bat-handler.
Third in the lineup this day was Pudge Rodriguez. As he was strolling to the plate, Eric Wedge popped out and went to the bullpen. He yanked Scott Stewart in favor of a Mr. Chadwick Durbin. Durbin took his warm-up tosses and Pudge stood in there. Suddenly, Durbin spins like he’s Justin Verlander and fires to first base and Vina’s meat. But, the throw flies over Ben Broussard’s head and Vina scampers to 3rd base.
Wedge holds up 4 fingers and Pudge trots down to 1st.
Runners on the corners and no outs for Rock. Rondell White strolls in 2-for-3 on the day with a single and a double (off of Cliff Lee) to deep center field.
CoPA’s 20,913 Saturday fans were rocking as Durbin kicked and delivered. Rock roped a low-liner right down the left-field line. My dad and I were sitting about 25 rows up from home plate on the 1st base side and looking right down the left-field line. I felt like that line drive carried for 15 seconds and it just sneaked inside the foul pole and about 2 rows deep into the stands for a 3-run, walk-off homer.
I’ll forever love Rondell White because of this.
My old blog is Tigers By The Numbers.
Now I write at Bless You Boys.
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Game wrap is here, but the videos don’t work for me, unfortunately. And MLB is way too against the Internet to work with something like YouTube to let fans watch these things.
My old blog is Tigers By The Numbers.
Now I write at Bless You Boys.
Like music? See what I'm listening to at my Last.fm account.
Another random Craig Monroe memory
This game. I had plans to go out to dinner with the g/f, so we left in about the 5th inning with the score 0-0. When we got back, they were still playing, it was still 0-0 and the very first pitch I saw was C-Mo’s granny. A moment in perfect timing on my part.
I went to one game in old Tigers Stadium...
I believe I was in fourth grade sitting in right field. I don’t remember much about the game (we were playing cleveland) but I’ll remember the feel of that stadium for ever. It just had this special aura about it.
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Oh, I forgot the homer Matt Stairs hit off the bench against the Royals on the last day of the 2006 season. I thought for sure he hit a Division-Winning homer and consistently say that the game ended after that homer.
My old blog is Tigers By The Numbers.
Now I write at Bless You Boys.
Like music? See what I'm listening to at my Last.fm account.
My mom became a fan.
I got my first radio when I was about 10 years old (in 1966). I remember that I could not stay up late to listen to night games. My mother had no interest in baseball, but would listen to the games on WJR for me on her radio and tell me in the morning who had won. She became a fan and kept on being a fan even during the years I was’t.
Gary M. Piekarek
Memory.
Living in Rochester NY it wasn’t always easy to see the Tigers growing up. My dad was friends with a player named Phil Mankowksi, and when I was 7 we went to Detroit to see him and watch him play….Tiger fan ever since.
Anyway, favorite in person memory. Seeing the Tigers in Toronto in September 87. Tigers were just about to get eliminated as Key had a 2 hitter through 8. I think Henke came in and Gibson hit a pinch hit homer in the 9th to tie it and we went onto win it. I remember jumping up and down more than a 15 year old should and Jay’s fans telling me we weren’t going to win the division anyway, and me saying the Jays suck and my Dad having to take us to different seat for extras…. I still love thinking about that.
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