Crafting a testament to the best sports moment of all-time is like picking your favorite ice cream topping, favorite Christopher Walken role, or favorite One Direction member. It just can’t be done without leaving an equally deserving gem out in the cold. Sports are, by definition, a celebration, so it’s fair to say that every moment is a highlight in its own way: unique, irreplaceable, and etched forever in history – good or bad. These snapshots are raw, eruptive displays of the human spirit. Sports are a tribute to what we are able to achieve as a culture – teamwork, perseverance, passion and grit – and they create the pedestal upon which we identify heroes and make connections to them. They give us a vicarious glimpse into the achievements of which we hope to aspire. They are the heart of inspiration to young people, and the very marrow in the backbone of memory for those that have been there and done that. Sports are free, unrehearsed theater, able to titillate, electrify, shock and awe. They are both glorious and heart-crushing, often cruel, but always inescapably human. They tap into that biological can’t-look-away emotion in everyone – in this way, sports are like karaoke, but not as sweaty. To say that anyone on this planet is capable of choosing a top moment in sports suggests that there is a top one, which is laughable at best. So let me clarify. I am including what I believe to be my favorite sports moment – what spoke to me at a very special time in my life and was the most memorable, emotion-lifting celebration of sport that I have witnessed.
“Gonzalez digs in at the plate. And the 0-1 delivery. And a little blooper… BASE HIT! DIAMONDBACKS WIN! THEY’RE THE WORLD CHAMPIONS! GONZALEZ DID IT! Folks, it doesn’t get any better than that. Honk your horns, stomp your feet, celebrate in Arizona! The Diamondbacks have won the World Series!” – Announcer Greg Schulte
I think those of us in Arizona hold onto this one just a little bit tighter, knowing that there hasn’t been another grand event like this since. And let’s face it. It may be another twenty years or more before we see another one. But like all those beautiful moments in the history of sports, this one just had to happen. Unscripted. Amazing. And perfect. And I was glad to see it.
The Setup
A 15-passenger van fishtailed playfully at high speed down a dirt road off the north slope of the Kaibab Plateau nearing the Arizona-Utah border. Skunky smoke billowed from the windows in purple-green spirals mingling into the dust cloud settling on the morning dew. I was at the wheel. The van belonged to the man, but the passengers belonged to the canyon. And in the best grass-roots sense, we belonged to each other as members of a ragtag team of unbeknownst heroes about to carve a decisive victory into the heart of ignorance, bigotry, and oppression by means of a company picnic and softball tournament.
This long-standing tradition consisted of the better parts of the seasonal staff from Bryce, North Rim Grand Canyon, and Zion National Parks. Our team from the North Rim consisted of a few Native people, some good-natured outlaws, seasonal slackers, degenerates, dropouts, and leftover hippies still shell-shocked by the death of Jerry Garcia. The Zion team had a few buff rock climbers and the rest were a sort of splotchy ginger-beige with pale vacant blue-grey eyes too far apart or close together that kept helping each other reapply sunscreen. The Bryce team were mostly meth-related felons or those aspiring to be. Naturally the Zion team was eliminated quickly and the championship would be David Allen Coe vs. Scarlet Begonias.
Backstory
In the months leading up to the tournament, being the most remote of the three parks represented, our North Rim team was so far from civilization that we didn’t have much else to do but practice every afternoon while we waited for the pub to open. Some years earlier someone had built a chain link backstop behind employee housing in a clearing near the edge of the canyon rim and every so often one of the friendly maintenance guys would drag the “infield” with an old railroad tie to keep the bigger pebbles buried until the next rainstorm. With the treeline about 300’ from home plate and bases made of sandstone slabs we affectionately called it “The Rock Field”.
Gameday:
North Rim Lineup:
- P- Black Lesbian
- C- Dine’
- 1B- Disgraced/Retired NYPD
- 2B- Dreadlocks
- 3B- Texas Democrat (Black Belt Taekwondo)
- SS- Dreadlocks
- LF- Gay Guy
- CF- Tie Dye
- RF- Shaved- Head Feminist
- Rover- Tie Dye
- DH- Dine’
- Backups- Tie Dye, Dine’, Tie Dye,
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