The Greatest Sports Moment of All-Time

DF-  To me what makes the greatest sports moment, is one that you can ask a kid who is 7 or an old man who is 80 about and they can sit in a room and talk about that same moment for hours. The moment has to be so special that even the sub-par sports fan would understand. With this criteria I had to pan through moments like Cal Ripken breaking the record for most consecutive games played, or 1982 Cal vs Stanford when "The band is on the field!", and even the vaguely titled yet so well known "The Catch" had to be eliminated. Thus the greatest moment had to be 1980 USSR vs USA hockey in the Olympics.

This was a moment that had everything. The underdogs of the USA somehow beat behemoths of the Soviet Union team. It was more than sports it was one nation against the other, this game meant so much more than just hockey, it was for national pride. This moment is the only time that a game which was slotted as the semi-finals, for all anyone cared was the finals. The USA could have lost 100-0 against Finland in the actual finals and no one would have cared. Something special happened during this game, there must have been some sort of solar alignment eclipse thing going on because not only was the game itself magical, but no sports call was better than Al Michael's "Do You Believe In Miracles...YES"

I challenge the readers of this to go to their local square, park, or just run to the dairy section of the super market, get up on the cheeses and yogurts with a USA hockey jersey and yell "Do You Believe In Miracles" and 9 out of 10 times at least one member of the crowd surrounding you will yell "YES". Try doing the same thing with any other moment in history. You couldn't jump up and say any other sports quote, because in the big long list of quotes this one took on a mind of its own. It means so much more, and that's why you can go into the supermarkets around the country and start a chant, because bringing back such a special memory can't get you in trouble, because chances are the people not yelling YES, are screaming it in their heads.

JD- They called Lou Gehrig the Iron Horse. Starting June 1st, 1925 Gehrig embarked on a streak that would take him all the way to April 30th, 1939, in which time he would never miss a game. On April 30th 1939 he stood on the field of Yankee Stadium and spoke the words, "Fans, for the past few weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." His bad break, Multiple Sclerosis, better known now as the Lou Gehrig disease. Despite the fact that MS was eating away at him with every minute that passed, he found himself feeling lucky. Lucky because he had played basebal consecutively longer than any other play in the history of the game, playing for almost fifteen full seasons without ever taking a day off. It was a record that took so much determination, so much strength, and most of all so much passion for the game. A record in which no one would ever possibly be able to break, because there would never be another Lou Gehrig, there would never again be a figure that we could simply call baseball. Then in 1982 a man named Cal Ripken Jr. entered the league, he would not only eventually take the title of "iron," but prove the world wrong while doing so. 

Just 46 games into the Baltimore Orioles 1982 season a young infielder Cal Ripken Jr. was just merely 66 games into his career. May 30th seemed like just another game for Ripken, going 0 for 2, with a strikeout, and the final result for the O's a six nothing loss. What Ripken didn't know was that that game, that seemed like just another game, was the first of 2632 steps toward greatness. That was the first game of the streak that would eventually break Lou Gehrig's streak of consecutive games played, know as one of baseball's unbreakable records. The game he broke the record, well that is a whole different story, that brings us all the way from May 30th 1982 to September 6th 1995. 

Ripken had gone yard in each of the first two games of a three game set with the California Angels at Camden Yards. He followed suite in the series grudge match and finale with another home run, but that was hardly the story of the day. Just the day before Ripken had tied Lou Gehrig's elusive consecutive game streak record, and on September 6th 1995, he was going for sole possession. Ripken did it, he shocked the world, because he broke the record that seemed unbreakable. But certainly not anymore. Heroism was alive at Camden Yards, because someone had matched the greatness of Lou Gehrig, possibly the most respected player in the history of the game. But what made the moment so special, so priceless, so spectacular, was the way that Ripken chose to celebrate. He shared the moment with the fans, the ones who had been there cheering him, chanting his name, and wearing his shirt for 2,131 games straight as well. Ripken took a lap around the stadium, high fiving and shaking hands with all the fans that were lucky enough to push down to the first few rows. Ripken took a moment that was great for himself and his career and made it a moment for every baseball fan out there, he made it a moment for man kind. So it was the greatest moment in the history of sports, because he broke a remarkable record and did it with class, grace, and most of all with the regard to share with everyone else. Ripken did something that I can now safely say, will never be done again, but can you be so sure anymore?

DF & JD