One Of The Best, And One Of The Worst.....

The 1982 Big Game. Stanford vs Cal. John Elway's final game at Stanford. Cal won on The Play - the 5-lateral kickoff return on the final play with the Stanford Band on the field.

Oddly enough, my answer is somewhat paradoxical.

Best game I've attended live had probably the worst moment I've ever witnessed - 1993, Game 6 of the 1st round of the NHL playoffs, Washington Crapitals (P2) at the underdog New York Islanders (P3). The Isles led the series 3-2 in a brutal, bruising series. The Isles were up 4-1 in the 3rd period, the Coliseum was rocking, the Craps, having lost 3 straight OT games after winning the series opener, just looked like they had no fight left. Then, late in the 3rd period with the puck in the Craps zone, Pierre Turgeon intercepts a lazy cross-ice pass from Dale Hunter and easily scores, icing the game at 5-1 and sending the crowd into a frenzy. Mere moments later, Hunter absolutely levels a not-looking Turgeon (who is pumping his fist towards the crowd in celebration) into the boards, separating his shoulder and ending his season (he managed to come back later in the playoffs, although he was clearly not himself). I was right there, 7 rows in, right in front of the spot where it happened, a 13 year old ready to murder Dale Hunter.

I'm pretty sure Rich Pilon would have killed Hunter right then and there had the ref not stepped in. The cheapest of cheap shit I've ever seen. Fuck Dale Hunter.

If you're bored:



So as awful as that incident was, the outcome was terrific and it was the prologue to an absolutely amazing, 7-game series where the plucky, upstart Isles, perhaps emboldened by that dirty shit, managed to dethrone the 119 point Penguins led by a bevy of all-world players (Mario Lemiuex, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis, Rick Tocchet, Kevin Stevens, Larry Murphy, Martin Straka, just to name a few). Easily the best hockey series I ever saw, at least as far as Islander series go, few and far between as they may be.

Now the "worst" game I ever saw in person was the 2006 NLCS Game 7 at Shea Stadium where the heavily favored Mets, who cruised to the best record in the NL but whose entire starting pitching staff save for Oliver Perez was hurt in the series, were defeated by the St. Louis Cardinals who went on to win the WS against a listless Tigers team. In Game 7, Aaron Heilman served up a fucking meatball to Yadier Molina in the top of the 9th, breaking a tie and giving the Cards a 2 run lead that they would hold onto.

BUT, that game gave us this thing of beauty:



You just can't do it any better than that. The TV sound doesn't do it justice, I've NEVER heard a crowd go that apeshit before ever. They always talked about how the upper deck at Shea would literally sway if the crowd got too rowdy and that night, it definitely swayed. Like, frighteningly so. In that moment, we all knew they would go on to win the game. It was fate. Kismet. Call it what you will, but that sealed it.

Of course, they went on to lose.

I was also at the game where Roger Clemens deliberately plunked Mike Piazza in the head back in 2000. Before that, it was a picnic atmosphere, Mets and Yankees fans getting together, enjoying some beers and enjoying a game between two teams that had been playing well. Then Clemens does what he does, and the entire mood instantly changed.