Scott Davis: Let's remember
GamecockCentral.com columnist Scott Davis, who has followed USC sports for more than 30 years, provides commentary from the perspective of a Gamecocks fan. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @scdonfire.
Almost 65 years ago, one of the most famous and memorable sports moments of all time happened at New York City’s old Polo Grounds, when Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants homered in the bottom of the ninth inning to send his team to the World Series and send home the Giants’ hated archrival, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
I was born more than two decades after that moment happened and long after both clubs had moved to California, but as a confirmed sports fan since I came out of the womb, I simply can’t ever remember a time when I DIDN’T know about it.
If you love sports and particularly love baseball, everything about it was perfect: The spectacular call from Giants announcer Russ Hodges (“THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!!!! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!!!!), the crowd falling into hysteria, the Giants coaching staff hugging each other in delirium, the despondent Dodgers walking off the field in what almost resembled a funeral possession.
Even today, watching it produces an outbreak of chill bumps, and if you don’t believe me, check this out:
Just about everyone who loves sports like I do remembers that magical scene, which ended up being dubbed “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
Here’s what many don’t remember: The Giants did not go on to win the World Series after that epic victory.
Wait, what? In our minds, we want to believe they did.
After all, who wins a game in that fashion and then fails to win it all?
But as South Carolina fans found out this past weekend, sports have a cruel tendency to let us down right at the very moment when we’re most excited – when we care the most.
The dictionary defines “anticlimax” as “a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events.”
Yep. That sums it up.
REALITY WINS
Like many Gamecock fans, I was so energized by USC’s dramatic four-game winning streak to clinch an NCAA Regional that I was already looking ahead to Omaha. Sure, I knew Oklahoma State was a strong team. I knew they’d finished second in a tough Big 12 and had dispatched Clemson from its own regional. I knew they pitched well and were stocked with some downright scary hitters.
I also knew the Gamecocks had been wildly inconsistent all year, with their bats at times going silent for days.
Look, if I’m being honest, I’d have to admit that I’ve always patted myself on the back for being one of the most realistic sports fans ever.
Still, I absolutely, positively didn’t see this coming.
I fell into that old trap of believing in the vague, mysterious and ultimately unknowable force known as “Momentum.” I also believed in Gamecock fans. I knew they’d be bloodthirsty after the near-death experience from the previous weekend, when USC lost its first regional game and then had to defy overwhelming odds to escape.
I’ll straight-up admit it: I just didn’t think the Gamecocks could lose this series – not on their home field in front of a deranged crowd, not after doing the impossible just days earlier, not after everything they’d been through in 2016.
But they did.
And what was probably the most disappointing to us fans was that they did so meekly, getting swept in two games and never really putting a scare into the Cowboys before riding into the sunset.
The last two weekends ended up being the perfect microcosm for the entire season: Spectacular highs followed by head-scratching lows.
In this world, reality remains undefeated.
WAITING FOR THE MAGIC
I still remember where I was way back in 2010, when Jackie Bradley Jr. rescued South Carolina’s season and sent us all on a rocket ride to the national championship.
I even remember where I was sitting, who I was with and what I’d eaten earlier that night.
I was perched on a green couch in my old apartment in Greenville, nervous to the point of nausea and expecting doom. The Gamecocks, facing elimination in the College World Series, were literally down to their last strike in the bottom of the 12th inning against Oklahoma.
With his team down by a run, Jackie Bradley Jr. slapped a single up the middle to tie the ballgame, which USC later won in walk-off fashion. In a blur, the Gamecocks then eliminated archrival Clemson, and ran UCLA off the field twice to win the title.
During that unforgettable run from 2010-2012, someone in a Gamecock uniform just always seemed to step up at the most critical time. It could be a pitcher (a then-unknown Michael Roth mowing down Clemson’s batters in yet another World Series elimination game) or a hitter (Whit Merrifield dropping a base hit to right field to win the 2010 World Series). It didn’t really matter who it was, we just all eventually started believing that somebody was going to push us over the top.
But often this season, the Gamecocks just couldn’t find a big hit when they had to have one. And that ultimately ended up being their undoing.
It seemed like the Gamecocks had runners in scoring position all weekend (especially in Game 2). Time and time again, with the offense desperately needing to show signs of life, someone would step into the batter’s box, drill the ball squarely on the nose…and drive it right into the glove of an Oklahoma State Cowboy.
After it happened for what seemed like the 12,000th time on Sunday, the announcers started saying things like “Man, this South Carolina team just isn’t getting any breaks today,” and I started shouting Not-Safe-For-Work words in the direction of my television. (It also didn’t help that the plate umpire in Game 2 had one of the most mystifying strike zones I’ve ever encountered – balls fired down the middle of the plate might or might not be strikes, while balls tossed casually into the dirt or high-and-outside usually were.)
For two days and 18 innings, it was one of those classic and deeply unsatisfying baseball scenarios, where you watch your team hit the ball hard over and over again without much of anything to show for it. It happens in this game all the time, but for a glorious stretch earlier this decade, it didn’t happen to us.
Am I disappointed? Of course.
And yet…
As fans, I hope we don’t let this weekend stop us from remembering the excitement we felt just a few days earlier. We need to remember. It’s our duty to remember.
Because that was a magical comeback – gritty, passionate and absolutely worthy of the program’s powerful legacy. It electrified the fans for the first time in years. It was real, and it was spectacular.
And nothing that happened in the Oklahoma State series changes that.
I hope in a few years that we’re looking back fondly at that regional win as the moment when this team officially belonged to Chad Holbrook, when we kick-started a return to excellence and regained our status as one of the nation’s elite baseball programs.
Millions of years ago, when I was a much younger man, I sat in now-demolished Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium and watched in stunned silence as Otis Nixon attempted a bunt single with the Atlanta Braves down to their last out in the 1992 World Series. The attempt failed, and the Braves lost the game and the series to the Toronto Blue Jays.
I remember my Mom, Dad, sister and I hustling out the stadium in mourning, unable to speak or even look each other in the eyes. It was an impossible outcome. They were supposed to win it all that year.
After all, they’d won the pennant just a few days earlier in what many now believe is the most dramatic ending to a postseason baseball game ever, even more than the Shot Heard ‘Round the World. That ending was Sid Bream’s slide. It defies logic even a quarter-of-a-century later. Seriously, watch it, and then prepare to feel tears welling in your eyes:
Nearly 25 years later, most of us have forgotten about that 1992 World Series.
But we still remember Sid’s slide.
We still remember.
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