20 years later

Its been twenty years since Kirk Gibson hit his monster home run, and I still remember watching it, IN HORROR, as it happened. I have always been an Orioles fan, but also liked the Big Red Machine of the 70's Cincinnati Reds, so I automatically hated the Los Angeles Dodgers. I had moved to Mountain View CA (the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay, thus in that San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose traingle known as the Bay Area) in April of 1988, so I watched with excitement as the Oakland A's just plowed through the American League. I worked at a sporting goods store at the time, and recall putting a halloween decoration in the front corner window of the store, it was a ghost with a big green logo A on its front. It was the coolest thing to me being in a city while a championship caliber team was doing its thing. It would be commonplace for the two years I was there, between the A's (and the Giants in 89. Yes, we were there during the earthquake, but thats a different blog entry for another day) and the 49ers. I remember having just gotten home when game one came on. I watched with excitement as the game proceeded through 8 2/3rd innings, and thinking here comes Kirk Gibson, that fiery hot-headed jerk I remember watching just a few years before during the Detroit Tigers huge 85 season. But here he was, and his knees were shot, and he just couldn't run. It wsa Eck on the mound, which was as automatic as Mariano or Papelbon are today. Then he hit that home run, and while limping around the bases, all I could think was, this was going to be the Dodgers series, and Oakland would be lucky to win one game. Well they did, they won game 3, but that was it.
After having just watched this replayed on ESPN Classic this evening, I thought about it for quite some time, and I think this was the most amazing home-run in the clutch I ever personally watched. I remember watching some of the 1980 miracle on ice, and I watched the entire Miami-Boston College football game, hating Miami, and thinking this game is over, and then trying to decipher in my mind that Flutie actually completed that pass. I saw Les Hinson and Va Tech beat Florida State in basketball when I was in high school by hitting an 89.5 foot shot. But I am almost certain that this was the most clutch piece of hitting in baseball I ever saw as it happened. He hit it on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in a World Series game.
A current day afterthought. I have been rooting somewhat for the Dodgers this year, but only, and I truely mean only, to watch Manny beat the Red Sox, if the Sox make it, but fortunately it looks as if the Tampa Bay Rays will be ehading there to play the Phillies, unless LA or the Sox can overcome a 3-1 games deficit. GO RAYS