Has anyone attended a legendary sports event? [View all]

[Tomconroy]

I've been to one for sure. The one game playoff between the Yankees and the Red Sox in 1978. The two teams had finished the season in a dead heat tie. The division champion was to be determined in a one game playoff for the first time in 30 years.
The game happened on a perfect fall afternoon on a Monday at Fenway Park. Completely sold out, tickets were impossible. But my brother, a big Boston fan, had been prescient. He had tickets for the last games of the season and foresaw the possibility of a playoff. I think he decided to hang around the box office on Friday night just to see what happened
Sure enough, they put on sale tickets for what was then only a possibility. My brother bought a bunch for friends and family. My parents and I drove up from CT. Then as now parking in Boston was impossible to come by. We parked out in the fens somewhere. The instant we got out of the car somebody approached us to buy tickets for ten bucks a piece (above the face price). The closer we got to Fenway Park the higher the offers went. By the time we got to Fenway the offers were $125 a piece, a lot of money back then.
I remember the game pretty well. I can still see Bucky Dent's (forever affectionately known in New England as Bucky Fucking Dent) bloop hit barely make it into the net over the outfield fence
The game ended in the bottom of the ninth with the tying run on third. The Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski came up to bat. Everyone was on their feet screaming. Unfortunately Yaz hit a ball into foul territory by third base. The game was over. The curse of the Bambino would not be laid to rest for another difficult twenty years or so.
My most vivid memory though is what happened next. The fans got out of their seats and headed to the exits. There was absolutely no sound. No one spoke a word even when they got to the streets. You could literally hear pins drop. Just utter silence, such was the deep disappointment of the Boston fans.
My father told a story. He was born in 1920 and was a lifelong Red Sox fan. He told me that growing up he would run home from school to listen to games on the radio. If he ever knew that some day tv would be invented and you could see the games live he would have died of anticipation waiting for it to happen.
It was early spring 1939. Red Sox fans all over New England were hearing rumors that the team had signed a kid who could hit like no other. Of course the kid was Ted Williams.
The Sox made there way north from Spring training in Florida. They made a stop in new Haven CT. The Red Sox general manager was hall of famer Eddie Collins and his son was captain of the Yale baseball team. Smokey Joe Wood, another Red Sox legend, was the Yale team manager. It had been arranged for the Sox to play an exhibition game against Yale. My father got a ticket.
He remembered Yale had a promising sophomore pitcher that year who started the game. He remembered before the game Lefty Grove showing the young Yalie a few things about throwing a baseball. Well, the game got underway and wouldn't you know it, the kid from Yale struck out the soon to be immortal Ted Williams three times before being relieved! In the ninth inning Williams did send a mighty blast towards the fences, only to be robbed by a spectacular catch by a Yale outfielder. The Red Sox scraped by with a one run win.
Many years later my father ran into Smokey Joe Wood's son. They got to talking and figured out they had both been at this game. My father asked, "Whatever happened to that young pitcher who struck Ted Williams out three times?"
Mr. Wood knew the answer: "Oh, he got into a fight with one of the coaches the next year and quit the team!"
Now that's the stuff of legends!