From: nss3@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Noel Steere)
Subject: Re: Memories of baseball
Reply-To: nss3@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 05:53:06 GMT


My varied NY baseball team moments:

1) Reggie hitting 3 homers in Game 6 of the '77 series:  This one I
barely remember, since I was only 6.

2) Ron Davis giving me his autograph the night the '81 strike was
settled:  He was working as a waiter at a restaurant called Oren &
Oretzky's on 3rd Avenue between 85th and 84th streets in Manhattan.
Since I lived only 10 blocks away, I decided to wait for him to show
up.  I think I waited about a half-hour.  He drove up in a van, and
when he got out I asked him for his autograph; he gave it to me, and
that was that.

3) Running into Rusty Staub on the street in the winter of '85: As he
got into a cab, I remember saying to him "please win the division this
year!"

4) Don Mattingly hitting a 3-run homer to cap a 9-run comeback against
the Twins in '85: Now that I think of it, he hit it against Ron Davis!
This, to me, was the first sign that this Yankee team was good enough
to take the division, stirring hopes in me that I might be able to see
a subway series at long last.  Unfortunately, both the Yankees and
Mets broke my wittle heart that year, losing to the Blue Jays and
Cards respectively by the slightest of margins ($*%&*$ birds! Now I
understand why Winfield took one of 'em out! :-).  Maybe this is why
people usually don't root for both teams in the same city; they can't
stand twice the heartache :-(.

5) Attending Game 6 of the '86 World Series: This was incredible.  It
was one of the most bizzare nights of my life.  Firstly, my mom and I
got to the stadium an hour early, only to realize that what we thought
were tickets to game 6 were actually stubbs from Game 2!  The people
at Shea would not let us in (we had gotten the tickets because we had
a Sunday Plan), claiming that we could have sold the tickets.  So,
back we go on the number 7 subway home, an hour trip, to get the
tickets and come back, taking another hour to return.  By the time we
arrived, we had missed the parachutist and the Red Sox were ahead.
Then the Mets tied, the game went into extra innings, and all hell
broke loose.

We were sitting way up in the upper deck in row P (boy, the Mets know
how to treat their regular customers well! :-) along the first base
line.  After the Red Sox scored two runs in the top of the tenth, the
PA system blared "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)", and everyone in the
stadium sung to it, perhaps venting their frustration at coming so
close to winning a championship, and apparently falling short.  Then
the first two batters made outs (I can only remember Keith "Smokin' in
the Clubhouse" Hernandez as one of them), and it looked incredibly
grim.  Nevertheless, being a 15 year-old, I still held on to my hope
that the Mets would pull off a comeback; I simply refused to think
that the game was lost (perhaps I felt that if I did, it would
happen).  Then Kevin Mitchell (Winner of the Nolan Ryan
I'm-Going-To-Haunt-The-Team-That-Brought-Me-Up-To-The-Majors-But-Wouldn't-Give-Me-Time-To-Develop
Award) hit a single, Gary Carter hit a flare that I thought Marty
Barret was going to spear but let go instead (why? What did he have to
lose?  Not that I'm complaining... :-), and I think Ray Knight was
next.  He also hit a single to score Mitchell.  Then Mookie Wilson
came up to bat, fouling off pitches for what seemed like an eternity
until Stanley uncorked a pitch that I thought hit Wilson, but then
Carter (or his pinch-runner, I can't remember which) and Knight
started running and Rich Gedman, the Sox catcher, ran towards the
backstop.  It was a wild pitch, and Carter scored, tying the game!
Everyone in the stadium went nuts.  I was hugging people I didn't even
know (and you know how dangerous that can be in NY :-), we were
shouting and screaming out lungs out.  Then Mookie hit a bouncing ball
to Bill Buckner at first, and you could hear the cheering die out as
the ball made it's fateful way into history, only to redouble in
strength when it came out from behind Buckner's legs.

As you might imagine, this is the baseball moment I cherish the most.


Well, enough rambling...

Noel Steere                  |Lookie, lookie!  It's my old .sig file!        
GM/Manager, New York Knights,|Ah, freedom of expression at last!
Internet Baseball League     |(Even if it's only four lines worth of it!)
nss3@midway.uchicago.edu     |WARNING: PROSECUTERS WILL BE VIOLATED

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