Sports Moments

Roger listed his ten favorite sports moments, and ever willing to swipe an idea, here are mine. I'll count them down, even though I'm not really sure why, since they're not in any particular order, really:

10. Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins, September 26, 1992. I spent part of my 21st birthday taking this game in at the Metrodome. Twins won 9-2, Pedro Munoz doubled off the "Hefty Bag", Kirby Puckett made a running catch in center right in front of us. And I stayed sober, since I couldn't afford too many five-dollar beers.

9. Buffalo Bills 41, Houston Oilers 38 (OT), AFC Wildcard playoff, January 1993. Why do I not rank the greatest comeback in NFL history higher? Because I didn't see the whole thing. With the Bills down 28-3 at halftime, I went grocery shopping, and when I got back to the house we rented during college, the Bills were only down 35-31. Ouch.

8. Minnesota Twins 1, Atlanta Braves 0, 10 innings, Game Seven, 1991 World Series. God, what a series that was.

7. Joe Carter hits it out, Game Six, 1993 World Series. Carter became only the second player ever to end a World Series with a home run, a three-run shot that erased the Phillies' 6-5 lead and ended the game, 8-6.

6. The Houston Rockets' win of the 1994 NBA Championship. I've never forgotten how Hakeen Olajuwon just sat down on the sideline in the moments immediately following the game, quietly watching as his teammates celebrated their title.

5. Sarah Hughes, 2002 Winter Olympics. Yes, I love figure skating. Bite me. I've only seen one figure skating performance more electric than this one:

4. Brian Boitano, 1988 Winter Olympics. Yup, that's the one.

3. Dan Jansen, 1994 Winter Olympics. His long history of disaster befalling the constant heavy favorite ended here. Since the Games that year were in Norway, Jansen's skate happened early in the day, which meant that everyone already knew that he'd won the Gold by the time the actual event aired on CBS that evening. Didn't matter. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

2. The Buffalo Sabres' playoff run, 2006. My God, what an exciting period that was -- and believe me, folks, if the Sabres close out the 2006-2007 season by winning the Stanley Cup, this town is going to put on a championship celebration for the ages. It's going to make Boston's winning the World Series look like a bunch of kids going to Chuck E. Cheese.

1. Buffalo Bills 51, Los Angeles Raiders 3, AFC Championship Game, 1991. For one day the best football team on the planet played in Buffalo. Sigh....

Honorable Mentions: Tim Wakefield's two complete games in the 1992 NLCS, in which he made the Braves' lineup look like idiots. The game between the Bills and 49ers in 1992 (Bills 34, 49ers 31), which was the first game in NFL history in which neither team punted. (This feat happened again in a playoff game a couple of years ago between the Chiefs and Colts.) My high school football team's two trips to the championship game, played in Rich Stadium (they lost the first year, won the next). Syracuse winning the NCAA basketball title in 2003; we moved the next morning, so for about eight hours I lived in a town that had won it all. Going to see the "Field of Dreams" in Dyersville, Iowa with the Then-Girlfriend (now The Wife).