And now a diversion from the Toy Department - lets have some fun. I thought it would be a nice thing to celebrate todays 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibsons monumental gift to baseball - his walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game One of the 1988 World Series - with a couple of recollections, a wonderful new behind the scenes video and a comparison of three of the four broadcast calls of the event (all terrific). My own personal recollection is that my dad and mom - lifelong Dodgers fans - had relocated that year - due to a job transfer - to Modesto, a hotbed of Giants-fandom. While the Dodgers were in the midst of battling the Mets in that nail-biting NLCS, somewhere around Game 5 or so the Dodgers started having their announcers (Vin Scully, Don Drysdale and Ross Porter) sneak in live plugs that selected World Series tickets would be made available on a certain date through Ticketmaster. Around that time my dad called me and asked me if I knew any way of getting tickets to a World Series game. I instantly thought hey! I should call Ticketmaster when the seats are available and surprise my folks! Alas, I was 31, deep in debt and had no way to do it. But I did have one asset I could still donate to the cause - I was then (as I am now) an anal retentive maniac who became unhinged and insanely focused when I wanted something done. So I told my dad on that phone call that if he gave me his credit card information I would do whatever it took to get tickets for him and my mom when Ticketmaster opened its phone lines. Dont forget your brothers, he said. Right. My brothers. Matt (then 15) and John (then 13), the youngest of my six siblings, still lived at home (the rest of us had moved out and onward) and couldnt be left behind if the folks drove to L.A. So I agreed: Four tickets or bust. Pop gave me the credit card info. When the day arrived I awaited for the appointed time, dialed all but the last digit of the Ticketmaster phone number, and at the stroke of the hour pushed the final digit. Drat! A busy signal. I girded myself for a long morning of dialing and re-dialing. I dialed the number a second time and...and...holy crap! The recorded Ticketmaster Lady was talking to me! A few button pushes later and I was talking to a live person! Five minutes later four tickets to Game One of the 1988 World Series were on their way to my folks. My mom, dad, Matt and John drove straight down from Modesto to go to the game, and then were to head over to my little one bedroom apartment in Hollywood to spend the night with me. I, of course, waited until the day itself (it was a Saturday) to start cleaning the massive heap of dust, grease and unmentionable bathroom...unmentionables...that constituted my apartment. I started in the morning, scrubbing and vacuuming and discovering more goo and gunk and vacuuming and scrubbing some more, until the place was as spotless as a 31 year-old wannabe rock star with a drinking problem could make it (actually I think all the beer I drank that day helped keep me motivated, but I wont share that at any AA meeting). I was at the bottom of my second bottle of Pine Sol by the time the game reached the ninth inning. I had the game on the entire time, of course, hoping to see my folks and my brothers on TV (they were well ensconced in the right field Reserved section, then simply known as the blue seats by Dodger afficionados - and therefore buried in the crowd and not visible). The Oakland Athletics were just simply too good - every bit as powerful and awe-inspiring as advertised. Jose Canseco had hit a grand slam in the second inning, making a huge dent in the center-field television camera that symbolized the terrible might of the Bash Briothers (Canseco and Mark McGwire) and the wild success the As enjoyed that year (and the two years after that as well). By the ninth, Cansecos slam had held firm; the Dodgers had managed one additional run in the sixth, but as I kneeled on the floor of my apartment scrubbing the last of the baseboards near the breakfast nook, depression led to resignation even as Mike Davis drew a walk on four straight Eckersley pitches. Alejandro Pena was due up; Dave Anderson had been in the on-deck circle to pinch hit...none of it looked promising. And then... ...as Davis drew his walk and I turned to peer down at the last few scuffmarks on the floor, I heard Vin Scullys voice from my television, behind me and across the room: And look whos comin up! The rest, of course, is history. And as I watched it there, kneeling on the floor, suddenly lifted by the sheer astonishment of the moment, screaming and jumping (the neighbors, all hockey fans who did not care on whit about baseball - I kid you not - ran up to make sure I was okay), the first thing in my mind was this: My mom and dad got to see this. They were there and could say they were there the rest of their lives. I never told them this, but the happiest part of Gibsons heroic moment for me was not as a Dodger fan - it was knowing I had some small part in making it possible for the two people to whom I owed everything to have one of their lifetimes ecstatic, simple, fun, magic moments. And the offsetting guilt that I wasnt able to pay for it myself. I still feel all of those emotions today. The next morning when we all woke up I made breakfast for everyone. I went downstairs to fetch the Sunday Los Angeles Times, and while I cooked Ill never forget my mom reading the late, great Jim Murrays entire column out loud to all of us. Heres how it opened: Well, you can believe that if you want to. As for me, I know a Warner Bros. movie when I see one. Ive been around this town long enough to spot a hokey movie script. Kirk Gibsons two-run homer gave Los Angeles a 5-4 win over Oakland. I mean, this is Rambo IV, right? That was Sylvester Stallone that came out of the dugout in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. That wasnt a real player? Believe this one and youll think Superman is a documentary. The country is never going to buy it. This is the thing Hollywood does best. But it never happens in real life. In real life, the hero pops up in this situation. In an Italian movie, he dies. He doesnt hit a last-minute home run with 2 outs and 2 strikes and the best relief pitcher in baseball throwing. This is John Wayne saving the fort stuff. Errol Flynn taking the Burma Road. The magic of that night 25 years ago, and the breakfast in my Hollywood apartment the morning after, are memories that I will carry with me into eternity. It reminds me not just of the great love affair Ive always had with baseball - but of the gift that the game has given me by tying itself to me and my family. My brother Matt is now a sports agnostic, and John is (gawd I can barely say this) a rabid Giants fan who taunts me ruthlessly whenever the Giants are successful and/or the Dodgers arent. Id like to call them ingrates here - the little s**ts - for being given the gift of attending a moment so treasured by so many and not becoming lifelong Dodgers fans like me, mom and the old man - but what the hell. No one will ever convince me theyre not grateful that they were there. They know. It was a family thing. It made our parents happy. It was a good day. ***** ***** And now for the media portion of our celebration: First, heres a magnificent remembrance - produced by ESPN - of The Home Run, which pays particular tribute to the greatest unsung hero of the entire event: Mel Didier, the Dodger scout whose notes on Eckersleys tendency to throw backdoor sliders on 3-2 counts clicked in Gibsons head, causing him to pause, step out of the box, re-set himself and then look for that very pitch, which Eckersley threw as predicted and right into the history books. Following the ESPN video, in the comments boxes below, are three separate calls of the home run, which I will let the listener decide as to which is best. You may be surprised to find that its NOT easy to choose!
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:38:18 +0000
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