RIP "The Dobber" & Your Earliest Sports Memories

Born 1970.  Earliest memory, was the wood chairs at Olympia Arena.   Second memory, going to see OJ Simpson in the Silverdome.

Growing up on Philly, mine is Tug McGraw getting the last out in the 1980 World Series.  Remember watching it on a black and white tv in my parent's bedroom as a 6 year old.

Two sports memories stick out - always hard to know what was when...

I remember Westward One?... i wasn't allowed to stay up for MNF at 9 PM, so I'd have to turn on the radio, which back then (80s and 90s) was almost as good. I would put the radio on quietly and listen and wait to see if my parents were coming and then turn it off and pretend to sleep.

I think the Simpsons were on at 8 PM, and then i tried to beg through 915-30, but... usually no luck.

The other I remember, is listening to Mets games through a walkman (day games) in early HS through earbud headphones that i put through my shirt and then leaned on my ear iwth my hand. I did that in sex ed and well, its arguable whether i should have been listening or not that day.

The third thing that i remember is going to a Broncos / Jets preseason game in my kid size elway jersey and getting razzed by Jets fans... as a 10 year old... "are you FROM denver?".. no, im not. It was my first intro to jackass fans in person.

My Dad took me to a Pistons game in the late 60's pre Lanier but Bing was playing. A guy named Dancing Gus was in the top balcony of Cobo. He would get the crowd going by screaming and dancing from the rafters. Since I grew up under strict rules I thought this was the coolest thing and Gus became a role model.

My first Lions game was during the same era versus the Packers. The Lions drove the length of the field  to get to a game winning field goal. Errol Mann hit the cross bar from like 20 yards. Some drunk behind me yelled " I can piss farther than that!". I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants... unfortunately SOL to this day.

The first UM football game was band day versus Navy, a 70 - 14 route. Canham filled up the Big House by selling cheap seats to school bands and other  schools groups who would bus kids to A2 and back. Never any doubt which college I was going to attend after that day.

RIP Bob Lanier, a big part of my childhood Detroit sports fandom.

I was a big Lanier fan as a kid and Bing also.The Pistons were terrible.I remember Lanier winning the one on one tournement that was played at halftime of the Sunday NBA game of the week on CBS(Channel 2).I think the Piston games back then were on channel 50,btw channel 50 was a great channel for a kid(wrestling,roller derby,the Ghoul)

Born in 1958, so I remember the 1968 Tigers.  I bought a million packs of Tops baseball cards that summer because I wanted all of the Tigers cards.  My dad took me to a few games that season.  I was obsessed with that team.  I remember coming home from school and being able to catch the last inning or two of the World Series games...back when they were only day games.

My earliest memory is being at a Detroit Vipers game when i was like 5 or 6 and the crowd singing We Will Rock You (likely the first time I heard that song too). I don't really remember much except the logo and feeling tough when i sang "Blood on your face, you big disgrace" Good times.

Also, apparently my dad took me to a Michigan game where Biakabutuka was starting but don't remember that at all!

Tigers-1967 coming up just short and winning it all in 68.Dad took us to bat day every year,loved Kaline

Lions-listening to a snow game thanksgiving day,blacked out at home.67,68?

UM-69 The Game,me and my brother marked our plastic helmets like UM and OSU and went outside and played football

Wings-always stunk,seeing them on occasion on channnel 50 or 9.

Pistons-Lanier,Bing etc boy they were bad

i have two funny memories of bob lanier. first, the nba had a one on one tournament one year in the 1970s; single elimination. i remember lanier playing nate "tiny" archibald in one round. it didn't go well for tiny.

second, the nba added the 3 point line late in the 1970s. one game the pistons were losing late by multiple possessions. lanier shot a 3 from the baseline. but he shot a hook shot. he did so because he had a difficult time setting up his size 22 feet for a normal shot. they were too damn big to get between the 3 point line and the out of bounds line.

First Detroit Piston player that I can remember watching on a blurry TV screen.   

RIP, big man.

My first professional memory I recall is attending my first live Tigers game as a kid.   Ron Leflore, Roof Top Thompson, Steve Kemp,  Mark Fidrych, etc.   It's still a very vivid memory that I will forever cherish.

My earliest sports memory (in person) was my first ever trip to the Big House in 1985.  I was a kindergartner and didn’t yet know all the rules of football.  But i do remember being mesmerized looking out over 100,000 people. 

Harbaugh was the quarterback.  Michigan defeated Purdue 47-0.  

I'm your age.  In the fall of 1976, my father took me to Ann Arbor for the Wake Forest game.  This was my first football game of any kind, and I remember learning to follow the ball and count the downs.  This seems to have worn me out, and in the second half I fell asleep.  We were high up in the student section, near the goal line I think, so there was room for me to lay out on the seats by then.

Although they didn't become my sports heroes that day, I did learn the name Rick Leach and, I'm pretty sure, Harlan Huckleby.  

I moved to Michigan when I was 12. I decided straight away that I was going to go to the University of Michigan (and later did) and I began following and rooting for the football team straight away. That was 1994. A couple years later we won the national championship. Hoo-boy, I thought, this will be a fun thing every couple years!

one of the earliest.... watching woody hayes end his career in the '78 gator bowl.....

Not growing up in the U.S. my earliest sports memories are all soccer. 1986 World Cup probably most prominent. I recall Denmark making a big impression on me. Danish Dynamite. Scotland's shorts are another thing I'll always remember. They had a very unusual design with a massive blue stripe going horizontally across the shorts.

My earliest U.S. sports memory is probably catching Game Six of the 92 World Series on TV randomly. I didn't know much about baseball at all. At best I had a vague notion of its existence and basic concept from movies & TV shows but knew nothing of the teams, players, history etc.

It wasn't until many years later that I found out that the pitcher I saw closing out that game was the same guy - Mike Timlin - I saw coming out of the Red Sox bullpen during that crazy 0-3 comeback in the 2004 ALCS. In itself isn't such a weird thing as 12 years isn't an unusually long pro career and you can find many guys today in baseball who were around in 2010 and earlier, but it felt borderline bizarre because I was in such a different place in 1992 than in 2004. Not only from being a child in 1992 to an adult in 2004 but also going from a place where baseball is a truly exotic thing and Mike Timlin may as well have been a space alien to a place where I'm fully immersed in the sport and Mike Timlin is just an old guy in the Red Sox bullpen. One of those connections you don't naturally make so when you realize, your mind is blown.

Born in 1953 - first strong memory was attending a 1964 Detroit Red Wings v. Chicago Black Hawks Stanley Cup semi-final game at Olympia.  Red Wings won that series 4-3 but lost the Stanley Cup in 7 games v. the Maple Leafs.

The 1964 Stanley Cup Finals was contested between the defending champion Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings for the second straight year. The Maple Leafs won the best-of-seven series, four games to three, to win the Stanley Cup, their third-straight championship. As of 2019, this was the last time the Stanley Cup Finals had ended before the month of May. There would not be another game seven at Maple Leaf Gardens for almost three decades.

Toronto won their last of 13 Stanley Cups in 1967, 2nd most in NHL history, second to Montreal with 23.  Red Wings are 3rd with 11.

Sports memory - 1975 World Series (Red Sox v Reds). I was six but for some reason remember staying awake for long stretches of it. The broadcasts seemed dramatic and important. Joe Morgan later complained that everyone thought the Red Sox won the WS because of how much people talked about Fisk's walkoff in game 6. Coincidentally, Joe's whining was similar to the op-ed Grant Hill put in the WSJ after the Fab 5/ESPN thing a few years ago - something to the effect of "why do they get all the attention??DUKE won, not Michigan!"

Michigan memory - 1977 listening to Ufer describe the ass beating we put on Texas A&M while running errands with my Dad.

Everything Michigan Football with my parents.

1984 Tigers run was awesome as a 20 year old college kid with a fake ID.

Mark The Bird Fidrych inspired my Dad to to take us to Tiger Stadium.

Watching Isaiah Thomas lead the Pistons to greatness was incredible.

Stevie Y and Barry Sanders.  Wow. 

This guy! Watching on black & white TV from Yost.

Best episode ever of MGoRadio, Brian and Seth did a great interview with Cazzie!

MGoRadio is Live from the Bo Store wsg Cazzie Russell

My earliest memory is my dad taking me to a Tigers game. It was 1961, I was 8yrs old and Norm Cash was tearing up the league that year. First time we had a legitimate team to challenge the Yankees. We won over 100 games that year and still lost to NY by nine games. My hatred was born.

What I remember most was coming out of the tunnel in the upper deck and thinking the grass was so green it almost hurt your eyes. Rocky Colovito was my favorite player and my dad got us seats, first row, upper deck. I could lean out over the rail and there was Rocky almost close enough to touch. I miss my dad.

My very earliest sports memory has only a little to do with sports - I remember there being a summer where Baskin Robbins sold ice cream in little MLB team helmets and while I can't remember even liking baseball at that point, I was obsessed with them. Other than that, it's probably hearing 30 minutes of a Tigers game on the radio while waiting with my grandpa in the car while mom and grandma were shopping. 

putting aside 'first memories' of my own sports that most of us probably have- hockey/football/baseball, my earliest memories were watching oldest brother play football against our beloved U of M, ND, UNC, MSU and some other schools during his college years.  

A true gentleman and steward for the NBA. Lanier was one of my first sports heroes as a kid growing up listening to Piston games on a small transistor radio past my bedtime. I will miss him immensely. 

Don't remember what year it was... 1965-67ish.  My dad took me to a Tigers Saturday doubleheader against Oakland.  Rick Monday hit one to straightaway center.  It bounced past the flagpole and rolled all the way to the wall at the 440 marker.  Monday made it all the way home.  Dad told me to remember it because I'd probably never see an inside-the-park home run again and he was correct.    

1VaBlue1 called me old, so I suppose I must admit my first sports memory was when Cain threw high and inside to Abel.

Remember the college football highlight show hosted by Bill Fleming on Sunday mornings.I always hoped for Michigan highlights.We are talking the Seventies.Time flies

I was at the game that Mark Fidrych blew out his elbow.  The Bird threw a few pitches to start the game, and then a couple of balls, wildly, and the ump actually came half-way out to the mound to check on him - that's how bad they were.  On his next pitch, he jumped 3' straight up and then circled the mound at a half-run holding his arm.  His career was over.

There was so much excitement around Tiger Stadium that night because The Bird was pitching.  It was like a carnival atmosphere - noise and excitement everywhere, random cheers, bird calls, hell even the whinos on Trumball were having fun!  Inside the stadium, the sellout crowd was raucous - standing and screaming on every pitch.  Until that run around the hill.

When John Coleman, Tigers middle reliver, came out, the place felt more like a mausoleum.  An instant, and palpable, change in feel and energy level.  Cleveland finally had a chance to win.  Alas, the longer the game went, the stronger Coleman got, and the less chance Cleveland had.  Coleman finished the game, getting the final out and the win in front of a crowd that regained its energy and stayed to the end for Coleman.  Coleman took a curtain call that night, probably the only one he ever got...