I've made it clear that Joe Carter nailing a homer to clinch the '93 Series is arguably my favourite sporting moment of all time, but to begrudge Otis Nixon's bunt landing in Carter's glove for championship #1 would be acting like a spoilt child.
This is the unfortunate thing, you see: as a Canadian kid in 1992, I was four years old. People around me loved the Blue Jays, but I loved Super Nintendo (I still love Super Nintendo). Had I been paying attention at the time, it would have definitely made the victory much, much sweeter. Because for most of my other teams, there is no victory. Were the Titans or Raptors or Canucks to win back to back, I'd always remember the first - the one that finally ended the streak of mediocrity.
The 1992 World Series does not glow in hindsight (though apparently was the more entertaining series overall), but it is still glorious to all who saw it happen. Hopefully someday I'll travel back in time to see it live, and soak it in properly. Yes, I realise that that is a fairly mundane use for a time machine, but dammit, I owe it to the Blue Jays.
...And you owe it to them to watch more than a reenactment by Otis, who is apparently a good sport. Take it all in, bro.
Do you want to know what's really hilarious about all of these top moments in sport? There is only one that I actually watched live. Not Carter's dinger. Not VY tearing the Trojans apart. Not even the golden fucking goal, a transgression which could cost me my Canadian citizenship.
The one I saw as it happened, funnily enough, is the one that I'm most apathetic about: Terrence Ross winning the 2013 Slam Dunk Contest. Now let me get a few things straight, it's not a slight on Ross at all, or indeed, not even on his performance that night. The reason it sits so low on the totem pole is because the competition, overall, was terrible. The amount of failed dunks on the night was dreadful, and it seemed as though nobody really brought their A-game. Probably the most exhilarating part, in a bad way, was watching Ross botch his first dunk effort again and again, seeing time tick away and realising he was about to fail. Fortunately, he nailed it, with 13 seconds left, and it was a beauty.
For Ross to win was certainly a delight, but the peak of the contest comes at about the 30-second mark of the above clip, where Ross pays tribute to Toronto's very best. Like I said a year ago, Vince's win was the kind that people still talk about. And though Ross' may not stand the test of time, the moment he donned that purple #15, you knew you were in for something good. Off the backboard, double clutch, BOOM. It was perfect in every way, from the jersey to the dunk itself. Had the other competitors been as sharp as Ross had been there, this would have definitely been greater. But hey, it was nice to see a Raptor on top for once.
...Also, because of the nature of my live viewing, this appears to be the longest summary of them all. Fancy that, eh?
When your team has six titles to their name, picking a favourite comes down to intangibles. At the end of the day, they all lead to the same result: the BC Lions are Grey Cup champions, but what else happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? To whom did it happen?
In 1994, the Lions faced off against an invading force. The football league which by its very name proclaimed to be Canadian had an American team vying for the storied trophy. The Baltimore CFLers not only possessed quite possibly the worst team name in sporting history (nod to the Modesto Nuts), they also intended to take the Cup south.
BC wouldn't stand for it. Canada wouldn't stand for it. And most of all, Lui Passaglia wouldn't stand for it, nailing a 38-yard field goal in the dying seconds to keep the Grey Cup where it belonged, in her majesty's kingdom of CANADA.
...Then Calgary fucked everything up the next season and let Baltimore steal our goddamn trophy. At least by then they were called the Stallions, an acceptable name for a franchise.
