Yesterday morning, Will from Queens phoned into Mike Francesa and couldn’t hold back his sobs over the swirl of emotion surrounding the Mets’ playoff hopes, Ruben Tejada’s health, and the biggest start of Matt Harvey’s career. It’s worked out well for Will so far—he’ll be at the game tonight—but it got me wondering: when’s the last time sports made you cry?
In 1995, the Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the ALDS, highlighted by Jim Leyritz’s 15th-inning home run in Game 2. (A game I was at, but my parents made us leave in the 13th because it was a school night.) But the Mariners took the next two in Seattle, and won Game 5 on Edgar Martinez’s famous double.
Ken Griffey Jr. scored from first and I sprinted to my room and cried and cried facedown into my pillow. It wasn’t fair! The Yankees had never made the playoffs in my lifetime, and I honestly didn’t believe the universe would allow them to make it only to eliminate them so suddenly and cruelly. I sniffled myself to sleep, holding onto a child’s hope that I would wake up to discover that MLB had overturned the game result—maybe they’d discover that Griffey had missed a base, or Martinez’s bat had corked? I woke up to find that, nope, sometimes sports hurt you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Your turn: what’s the last sporting event that made you cry? Tears of happiness are not accepted here.