Reliving My Memory of the 2003 ALCS Game 7

Right now MLB Network is airing their 20 Greatest Games series with #6. The game? 2003 ALCS Game 7, the Aaron Boone walk-off game. I'm currently on a bus on my way back from--of all places--Boston so I will be watching it later on Tivo. But while any mention of that game brings a smile to my face, it's about time that I relived the memory of that game on NYaT.

Victory!

I'm not sure there was ever a game in my entire life that had the up-and-down emotion of this game. Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals as a Rangers fan was close (and the recent comeback against the Bruins by the Rangers brought those emotions back in a bid way). But regardless of how emotional this game was, it was so much more emotional for me. I was a sophomore at Brandeis University. Brandeis is in Waltham, Massachusetts, a close suburb of Boston. Many of my school-mates were Red Sox fans and I had just started doing a radio show with Ben W and Jay which was full of Red Sox callers wanting to tell us how the Sawks were going to kick the Yankees butts all over the place.

I decided to go watch Game 7 with a mixed group of people. Mixed as in some Yankees fans, some Red Sox fans and some agnostics. I stayed about 30 minutes as the Yankees early hole left the Red Sox fans arrogant and ready to celebrate. If the Yankees were going to do go down in 2003, I was going to be sitting in Jay and my room watching it sans "Red Sox Nation".

As soon as Jay and I got back to our room, the tide starting turning. I paced around the room as the Yankees slowly ate away at the Red Sox lead and when Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in, Jay and I were hopeful for the first time all night. There was a chance. We couldn't sit, we couldn't stand still...we could hardly even watch.

And then Jorge Posada's hit fell and we went nuts. Like nuts-nuts. Like the type of nuts that make your college neighbors really mad at you.

And then we realized the time. At midnight on Thursday nights we hosted Double Overtime, our sports talk radio show I had mentioned previously in this post. We were a 15-minute walk from the Campus Center where the station was and we had a choice: do we stay and miss our show (not really an option) or chance it and run to the Campus Center hoping we miss none of the game?

We sprinted. Like really, really fast. I know that stories like this take on a life of their own, but we went int between innings and I don't think we missed a pitch. That's how fast we sprinted. Jay's girlfriend at the time was trying to keep up with us but we left her behind. She was too slow and we had a goddamn game to watch!

Oh, and we got to watch that game because Brandeis had decided to broadcast the game in the Campus Center on a huge screen. There were hundreds of people there watching the game, about 90% Red Sox fans. Jay and I wanted to root without getting killed so we went to the second floor where we could get a great view and watch the game.

The problem was that our radio show was supposed to start as the game went into Extra Innings so we had Ben put on a record as we waited to broadcast until the game ended.

And then Aaron Boone came up to the plate. I looked at Jay and I think we both knew that this could be it. And then one pitch and the ball went up in the air and the next thing I remember was the ball falling into the stands and pandemonium ensuing. We fell into a heap on the floor as we celebrated the Boone blast into the October night.

As we came up we saw Red Sox fans leaving the Campus Center in disbelief and looked up towards the station where Ben just looked confused. He never saw the ball hit the stands and had no clue the Yankees had won (amazingly, even despite the reaction of the crowd).

We had my favorite radio show ever that night. We got calls from Yankees fans who were at the game and others who watched on television and just wanted to reminisce about the amazing game. We went over our allotted time that night as we took call after call and just shook our head about the amazing game that had just occurred.

It's amazing that it was 6 1/2 years ago that it occurred since it feels like it was just yesterday. It's fun to talk about now (especially considering what happened one year later) and I can't wait to see the MLB Network special. Thank you, Aaron Boone.