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Topic: RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Topic: RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

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MonroeClassmate
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 6:39:28 PM

SBH wrote:

1. Sitting at ringside when Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder, took Muhammad Ali into round 15 at Richfield Coliseum in 1975. Spit and blood everywhere.

That was spring break of my sophomore year at OU. My sister called me and said Muhammad Ali is working out at the Richfield Coliseum and it costs THREE DOLLARS to watch practice! There were only about 70 people so you could rest your elbows on the ring and watch him spar. One of his sparing partners was skipping rope and alone. I went over and asked if I could snap his picture and he smiled and said, "Sure" I asked his name and he said, "I am the future heavy weight champ, my name is Larry Holmes." Confidence Much? One of my favorite pictures.

As Muhammad Ali was leaving, I chased after the entourage to try and get a close up with my little Olympus 35mm SLR non-tele camera. He turned right to get on the elevator and I raced to the door to snap the picture. I had the camera to my eye and didn't notice the trash can between us and kicked it over knocking trash all around the Champ's feet. I didn't get the picture but got an everlasting memory. The Champ looked down at his feet and then looking at me and snarled his teeth the way he would when clowning around and rotated his right glove like he was ready to knock me out!

Last Edited: 6/21/2019 6:49:55 PM by MonroeClassmate

UpSan Bobcat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 7:59:52 PM

My memories are pretty lame compared to these. I haven't been to very many top level pro sporting events. Probably about 5 NBA games and maybe 10 or 15 MLB games. But I've been to thousands of high school events and have some kind of cool memories.

I covered Upper Sandusky basketball games during the Jon Diebler years. I got to see Upper go 27-0 and win the state championship in 2005 and finish as runner-up in 2007. That state championship game against Dayton Dunbar stands out more. It was completely a size vs. speed match-up. Upper got out-rebounded 63-23 but forced more turnovers 29-13. Upper led by six with five minutes to go but ended up losing 87-85. It was a sellout everywhere Diebler went his senior year. The ticket lines stretched outside the school for 100 feet. I saw him score 77 against Tiffin Columbian, the most anyone has scored in an Ohio game since 1969. I saw him have quadruple-doubles, and I saw him break the all-time scoring record.

All in all, some of the high school games I've seen have been better than any pro or college game I've ever watched. There have been amazing comebacks, amazing plays, amazing feats, just on a smaller stage.

As for non-high school stuff, I did get to be at the Ohio State-Michigan game in 2006 when they were ranked 1 and 2.

As far as pro games, I saw Anthony Davis score 59 points and grab 20 rebounds against the Pistons three years ago. He was the youngest player ever to score that many points.

Mike Johnson
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 9:43:30 PM

UpSan Bobcat wrote:

Pretty lame memories? I think not.

http://www.facebook.com/mikejohnson.author

Pataskala
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 10:09:35 PM

My two favorite HS stories come from my time broadcasting games in NW Indiana. There was a b-ball coach for Tri County HS in Wolcott, Indiana who had a smallish team so he wanted them to slow things down, work for the open shot. One night after calling a timeout to drive that point home, one of his players took a quick, low percentage shot. The coach went ballistic and jumped about five feet off the floor, with his arms flailing in disgust. This occurred just as the ref called a foul on one of his players on the rebound. The ref thought the coach was reacting to the foul call and T'd him up. Everybody in the place knew what was going on except the ref.

The second was in 2974 when I did color for a HS football game in Monticello. The town was creamed by an F4 or F5 tornado on April 3rd and the high school was ravaged. The press box at the football field was demolished so we were doing games in the open about 20 feet in the air on top of some scaffolding. I was doing the last game of the season at the end of October. It was snowing throughout the game with temps around 30 and a wind chill in the teens. After sitting more than two hours on the scaffolding my knees froze. I couldn't move. My broadcast partner and the AD had to literally carry me down off the scaffolding.

We will get by.
We will get by.
We will get by.
We will survive.

akroncat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 10:30:59 PM

Seeing the previous memory of Ali made me recall when I was a freshman in Bush Hall in the fall of 1967. I think he wasn't boxing because of refusing the draft. Somehow our dorm sponsored him to come to Athens and I can still remember talking to him and watching him shadow box standing on one of the large coffee tables in the first floor lounge. I think it was in 1967 or 68. Talk about somebody that was quick with his hands. I think that's as close as I every got to a real celebrity.

CA Bobcat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/21/2019 11:37:37 PM

In no particular order...

- Lebron and the Cavs winning the NBA title at Oracle in 2016
- Warriors winning the title at Oracle in 2017
- The Drive - Browns/Broncos in the '87 AFC Championship
- OU football over Penn State in Happy Valley in 2012
- OU basketball over Miami in the MAC Championship in 1994

bobcatsquared
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/23/2019 10:20:25 AM

* May, 1978, Riverfront Stadium: Pete Rose lines a hit to left field v. Montreal Expos' ace Steve Rogers for hit #3,000. The one time I didn't mind having beer poured on me (from the deck above me).
I still remember the anticipation leading up to #3,000. Not unlike what we're all feeling now with OCF 4 posts away from 10,000, that magical message board threshold.

* Unfortunately, I missed by one at bat Pete Rose breaking Ty Cobb's hit record in Sept., 1985. Drove down from Columbus to Cincy for a game v. Padres, hoping to witness history that didn't happen. Contemplated on ride back after the game of coming back down the next night but decided not to. Rose, in his first at bat, singles off Padres' Eric Show.

* Several h.s. football teammates and I would make the short walk from Grandview Heights to the horseshoe ticketless most Saturdays in the late 1970s. A ticket taker, a Grandview Heights' resident, would ask us about our game the night before and then let us in his gate right around kick-off. One game, while sitting on the front row of the bleachers in the south end zone toward the end of the first half, Bob Hope, who was scheduled to dot the "I" at halftime, came down and sat right next to me. He took off his hat as well as my Notre Dame hat, initiated a trade, and put my hat on his head. He asked me about ND's game that day and I did my best to sound half-way intelligent. Looking back, I only wish he had inadvertently kept my ND hat on while dotting the "I".

100%Cat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/24/2019 9:05:36 AM

One other just sort of odd encounter I'd add, when I was young (maybe 12-13) at the Memorial Golf Tournament at Muirfield Village, I was an autograph hawk. I'd have my program covered with signatures every year we went in the practice rounds. I had all the main guys of the time. Els, Norman, Faldo, Couples, Singh, etc... Of course, the one signature I always hoped to get was Jack Nicklaus, and finally one year I spot him coming from the clubhouse heading for the range. By the time I got there, it was a swarm of people around him and I couldn't get close. I was really disappointed. Literally 10 minutes later, I spot him again leaving the range and heading back towards the clubhouse. I paused because absolutely nobody was approaching him, so I was thinking "Is that really him?" I walked up and said hello, got his autograph, and walked with him all the way to the clubhouse and shook hands. Exceptionally nice guy. And I was the only one that hit him for an autograph when he left the range, which I thought was really weird.

Last Edited: 6/24/2019 9:07:40 AM by 100%Cat

OUVan
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/24/2019 9:07:34 AM

bobcatsquared wrote:

I was at that game as well. Sitting in center field. Very cool moment.

OUcats82
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/24/2019 9:14:39 AM

On a more obscure note.

I was at a conference in Indy with some fellow students during my Ohio tenure.

We were sharing a hotel with the Miami Heat who were in town to play the Pacers.

Don't ask me how but one of my friends figured out which room Pat Riley was staying in and talked us in to walking by. Pat's room service leftovers were sitting outside of his room and my buddy took his leftover mayonnaise cup. You would have thought he was given an autographed ball or something.

Later that day he saw Pat working out in the fitness center and had to go in and introduce himself and say hi. Pat was gracious about it but I certainly didn't have the cahones to do the same thing. But then again this friend is now a sports director for an NBC affiliate so he was used to talking to sports strangers.

Ohio-The State University

GoCats105
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/24/2019 11:12:45 AM

UpSan Bobcat wrote:

Not lame at all!

bshot44
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/24/2019 5:27:52 PM

Not exactly a "one-for-the-ages" game ... but a vivid memory from my childhood ...

Game 7, 1991 NLCS ... Braves at Pirates at Three Rivers.

Was with buddy and we both had just started taking Spanish in high school ... so we decided to put it to use and head down to the Braves bullpen pre-game and yell at the guys in the limited Spanish we knew.

Only one player even humored us by walking over ... he signed our program.

I flipped thru the program to see who it was .... Francisco Cabrera. Who the hell was Francisco Cabrera!?!?! A freakin' nobody.

Braves behind John Smoltz beat John Smiley and Bucs in that Game 7 and go on to the World Series.

Fast-foward a year later .... Buccos vs. Braves, Game 7 NLCS ... AGAIN ... this time in Atlanta.

And this happened ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PilAosY41eA

I sat stunned in my bedroom for about 30 mins after that game ... just staring at my TV after I had turned it off.

Francisco Freakin' Cabrera.

The same knucklehead that signed my Game 7 program one year prior.

I knew he was was now, ha!

Last Edited: 6/24/2019 5:28:13 PM by bshot44

Deciduous Forest Cat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 10:01:20 AM

bshot44 wrote:

That one stung... I wasn't there, I watched on TV. But I had World Series tickets for Pittsburgh. and I was one out away.

D.A.
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 10:50:41 AM

In 1986, I was in FL for a wedding, and while there attempted to qualify for the US Amateur at Inverrary CC. Regional qualifiers like this are a miserable experience, with 36 holes in a day and rounds taking upwards of six hours to complete, with crack of dawn tee times for the first round. I was in a threesome directly in front of a group comprising of Gary Nicklaus and Guy Boros, and Jack and Julius were following their sons.

I was playing half way descent (for me) until the par three 15th, where several groups were stacked up and we had a half hour wait, and I proceeded to take "a million" on the hole, and was choking like crazy on the tee with Boros and Nicklaus watching.

At the eighteen hole break, I head to the bathroom, and in stroll the senior Nicklaus and Boros, and take a urinal on each side of me, and Boros proceeds to make the statement: "tough day out there, son". All I could say was: "Yes sir".

Additionally, when I worked for Maxfli Golf in Colorado, and was working The International tour event in support of our staff players, one year I had the freak occurrence of seeing Jack Nicklaus walking around the locker room in a towel after getting a massage. Strange thing to see you childhood golf idol in such repose.

The Few, The Proud, The Bobcats!

And for the record, I hate tOSU, and Ricordati and Torgerson are DB's.

"This isn't just another walkover from the MAC." Kirk Herbstreit, another DB, on College Football Gameday

cbus cat fan
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 10:57:12 AM

I wasn't sure if I should put this in my previous post since it was by far the strangest sports story I have ever experienced, so I will just post it separately. I was in Cleveland for an educational conference during the Indians series with Boston in 1999. Game 5 was about to start but I was finishing dinner with two two female colleagues, one who was like me in her 30s and the other one in her 60s. We finished dinner and were having drinks in the hotel bar watching the pre-game show when a drunken woman decided she wanted to show off her plastic surgery enhancements. Before she could, the 60 something woman confronted her and with that most of the males in the bar let out a collective groan. I really didn't want to stick around and hear these women call each other names, so I went up to my room to watch the game with some of the other conference attendees. One woman laughed and said, I think it is safe to say that nothing will top that the rest of the conference.

As soon as she uttered those words a man came out of the elevator rattling off a string of profanity in English and Spanish, saying he wasn't going to sign any &%@! autographs. That's Pedro Martinez I said, another guy said, but the game just started, maybe he had a woman in his room, my colleague blurted out. At that Pedro Martinez turned around and said, listen I am not pitching tonight, I didn't have a woman in my room, but I can have them anytime I want. With that he headed out the door and into a cab.

Later as we were all watching the game, the Red Sox got into a bind and lo and behold Pedro Martinez was summoned to give a rare and and unprecedented relief performance leading the Red Sox to victory. This is by far the strangest sports story I have ever witnessed.

Last Edited: 6/25/2019 12:12:11 PM by cbus cat fan

Hawaiian Bobcat
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 12:39:14 PM

Thanks to all of the posts. Amazing stories! I figure I'd throw a couple to the thread.

* Game 1 of the 1990 World Series, as an eleven year old boy, the Davis home run was as close to ecstasy as one could get. The Red seats were shaking, still gives me chills anytime I see the highlight. The rest of the game I was convinced the big bad A's would come back, they never did.

*December of 1988, saw the Bengals clinch home field through out the playoffs by defeating defending Super Bowl Champion Washington. The Bengals won in overtime and I sat directly behind the Who-Dey banner. Awesome experience.

*1997 Rose Bowl, my uncle is a tenured professor at ASU and was able to get me tickets. Would have been the National Title game that season had State beat Michigan at home. Tremendous game, Jake Plummer had some Moxy.

*Getting to sit behind Bill Raftery at a Maui Invitational game. Before the game saw Bill and told him "onions" he gave me a high five. Awesome memory.

*Also at the Maui Inviational, had a beer with Scott Van Pelt. This is back when he had his radio show. I requested more MAC football coverage. He chuckled and asked what MAC school I attended. I told him Ohio, he told me that's where he almost attended and decided on Maryland because it was closer to home. Said awesome school and cool campus.

GoCats105
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 2:00:05 PM

cbus cat fan wrote:

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

OUVan
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/25/2019 4:43:35 PM

Hawaiian Bobcat wrote:

*December of 1988, saw the Bengals clinch home field through out the playoffs by defeating defending Super Bowl Champion Washington. The Bengals won in overtime and I sat directly behind the Who-Dey banner. Awesome experience.

I remember that game very well. The Skins needed the win to finish the season at .500 and led most of the game but the Bengals kept coming back and tied it up late. Jamie Morris, brother of Joe Morris, had the game of his life. He carried it something like 40 times and averaged less than 4.0 yards per carry. Icky Woods had less than half the carries and almost as many yards.

sjackson110
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/26/2019 10:14:08 AM

This past Spring I had a chance to go to the Columbus Blue Jackets first 2nd round home game (Game 3) against the Bruins. The crowd was awesome, and it was a great game. Now, about the rest of the series... I won't talk about that.

If I had to pick an Ohio moment, it would be the first Bowl win in Boise in 2011. I was a junior in the 110 at the time, and we were able to join the team on the field to celebrate. High fives and hugs were abundant that night!

OU_Country
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RE: OT: You Had to Be There!

Posted: 6/26/2019 10:51:15 AM

OUVan wrote:

Hawaiian Bobcat wrote:

I was also at that game. My folks had season tickets from sometime in the mid 70's until 2002. As was tradition, I went with Dad to the cold games as I got older, and that game was snowy and cold. The golden goal post as they called it, kept Chip Lohmiller's winner out, and the Bengals won, earning home field advantage on the way to the Super Bowl. God that was a fun, fun season. Riverfront was so LOUD in those years. I've said for years it was a better football venue that PBS ever has been in terms of atmosphere.

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