For years, traditional sports journalism sought to tell us what happened, whether it was through our daily newspaper or a television recap. The rise of the internet brought new mediums for these messages to be delivered, but also, the rise of blogs and the democratization of sports opinions. With every trade, 1,000 blog posts were published, praising or criticizing the moves; suddenly every sports fan had an outlet for their fandom. Around that same time, ESPN began to shift a bit of its coverage off of the fields, opting to dedicate more and more of their coverage to the various contract disputes, trades, and arrests.
In my opinion there’s a new wave of sports journalism that has begun to emerge. They’re not here to inform us of the outcome of a game, criticize the latest trade, or offer an estimate how long a player will be suspended for drug charges. Rather, they’re here to do something much more simpler; they want to remind us of the beauty of sports. Guys like Free Darko (RIP, you were ahead of your time), The Classical (from the ashes) Chitwood & Hobbs and MightyFlynn aren’t sitting around complaining about the lockout, they’re taking us back to Michael Jordan’s greatest moments. They’re not inserting themselves into Albert Pujol’s free agency tour, they’re telling us the story of Kick Gibson’s infamous homerun. In the process, they’re also letting us see a small glimpse of ourselves in these moments. We’re transported back to our favorite moments, not just in sports, but in our lives. In short, they’re not here to offer sports news, they’re here to offer sports nostalgia.
I Don’t Believe What I Just Saw
Perhaps the greatest underdog story in all of World Series history. In Game 1 of the 1988 Series the Dodgers trailed the A’s 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th. Dennis Eckersley came on to close out the game and made quick work of the first two batters. Nobody could hit Eck, he had 45 saves on the year. Meanwhile Kirk Gibson sat in the training room for the entire game. Nobody thought he could play after sustaining injuries to both legs in the NLCS. He wasn’t even part of the pre game introductions.
After the last out in the top of the inning Gibson realized that the pitcher was coming up fourth. So he told the bat boy to go get Tommy Lasorda and had Orel Hershiser set up a hitting tee for him in the clubhouse. With two outs and the tying run at the plate Lasorda had Gibson sit in the dugout because he didn’t want the A’s to know he could hit.
Eckersley walked Mike Davis and Kirk Gibson limped from the dugout to the plate with an injured knee and a bad hamstring. It was all or nothing. The guy could barely make it to the batters box, how can he possibly run the bases? Gibson fouled off several pitches nearly falling after each one, waiting for his pitch. Gibson took the count to 3-2 and stepped out of the batters box. He was certain he knew what was next, a backdoor slider. He was right. Kirk Gibson belted it over the right field wall and hobbled around the bases with that iconic fist pump.
“All year long, they looked to him to light the fire and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight—with two bad legs: The bad left hamstring, and the swollen right knee. And, with two out, you talk about a roll of the dice… this is it.”
— Vin Scully
Source: chitwoodandhobbs
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