The 10 best sporting events to see live
by Rick Reilly
Gas jockey, book-packer, flower boy, bank teller, lawn-mower, 7-Eleven clerk -- I've been all of these. So it's never lost on me that I won career lotto with sportswriter. Especially when I'm on a five-week stretch like this one: U.S. Open, Wimbledon, Tour de France and British Open.
But a new book, The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live, by Robert Tuchman, plus SportsCenter's current series Fan Feast, got me thinking. Being so old my ears still hurt from the Big Bang and having seen nearly every sporting event twice, what would be my list of must-see live events? Glad I asked.
10. Home Run Derby -- Better than the All-Star Game because it's never ended in a tie. Besides, it's everything real baseball is not. Guys swing at every pitch. Every third ball is a souvenir. And you don't have to wait 45 seconds while Nomar Garciaparra re-Velcros his entire uniform between pitches.
9. Iditarod -- Whenever somebody tells me the Iditarod is cruel to dogs, I answer, "I agree, the dogs left at home." You should hear them howl when they're not picked for the team. This is the hardest event to watch. I once had to bribe an ex-Vietnam pilot to fly me to a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, where we landed in a half-plowed field and were picked up by an Inuit on a snowmobile pulling a sled. Try to be in Nome at the end. One bar almost always has a ladies' arm wrestling contest. Trust me, you'd lose.
8. Ryder Cup -- Where else can you witness multimillionaires nearly hurling over three-foot gimmes with nothing more at stake than pride and some very ugly shirts? Unlike other golf tournaments, every shot matters every day, for better or worse.
7. Yankees vs. Red Sox at Fenway -- There's no better place in baseball than Fenway, which is like playing in your grandmother's attic. The Green Monster isn't an architect's precious quirk; it was the only way to shoehorn the place onto the available land. And Fenway is filled with people who don't need giant clapping hands on the scoreboard to know when to cheer.
6. America's Cup -- You need a good Chris-Craft to see it, but if you can't bum a seat on one, who cares? The pub scene alone is priceless. Endlessly thirsty crew members, billionaires in dorky captain's hats, diamond-dripping cougars, all elbowing each other out at the bar. Bring an extra liver.
5. Tour de France -- Like trying to get to 20 Super Bowls in 23 days, but worth it. Pick a climbing stage, bring friends and a bike, ride the course in the morning before the race (you're allowed), have lunch in a hamlet atop some exquisite Alp, watch the heart-skipping finish, have a bottle of Bordeaux, spend the night, bike down in the morning. Rinse and repeat.
4. North Carolina vs. Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium -- Fans pulling the hair of Tar Heels players as they inbound the ball; students camping out for months in K-Ville for tix; the hilarious chants from the Crazies, who once yelled at Grant Hill's parents, "One more kid!"; public school vs. private; an electricity that makes the Final Four and its corporate crowd seem like a three-day seminar on bunions.
3. Wimbledon -- There's nothing in America within a par-5 of it. It's a Windsor Castle garden party with grunting. It's queens and cobblers, cheek to cheek, over grounds so huge it would take you and your Toro a month to mow. It's a phantasmagoria of color -- greens and purples and yellows -- and that's just Bud Collins' pants.
2. Kentucky Derby -- My life's aspiration was to be Damon Runyon, and the Derby is as close as I'll get. With its wooden stands, elegant barns, men in seersucker suits and women in hats you could land an F-14 on, it's 1927 everywhere you look. Don't miss the fillies the day before in the Kentucky Oaks or the Barnstable Brown Gala or the awful race-day breakfast at Wagner's Pharmacy, across from Gate 3. If you hear a tip there, book it, because everyone around you is a trainer, an owner or a groom.
1. Masters -- Sneak into the clubhouse for the peach cobbler and steal into the Eisenhower Cabin, where some paintings are actually by Eisenhower. Do the par-3 tourney Wednesday and Arnie's first tee shot Thursday; see the droop-shouldered cut players driving out Magnolia Lane Friday, Amen Corner Saturday and golf history Sunday. Because Augusta already has most of the money printed in America, it has not sold out an inch. There are no ads, just flowers. No luxury boxes, just $1.50 egg salad sandwiches. Timeless.
g under p
Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
I like 5-7-4-3, sounds like some great numbers to choose in what's it called pick-4 lottery.
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
ALCS & NLCS game 7
NBA Finals
Superbowl
Summer Olympics
World Cup (football aka soccer)
Champions League (Arsenal 2002)
Rose Bowl
NCAA BB Regional Final
I've been to Sydney Olympics. It was good, but the crowds were just ridiculous. And I mean utterly ridiculous. An absolute sea of people like no other.
Also been to 2 NRL grand finals, countless Semi Finals, Davis Cup Tennis, State of Origin, Bledisloe cup (part of a world record crowd that has since been broken 110,000 people at the Olympic Stadium) And lots and Lots of Cricket that I love every time stepping into the historic Sydney Cricket Ground.
What I would like to go to
- The Ashes at Lords
- Wimbledon
- A couple of grand finals with my Teams in them. (Sydney Swans And Canterbury Bulldogs. The latter is a real possibility this year )
- Would like to go to an EPL game (may be going to see Arsenal vs Everton if my European adventure takes off)
- An NBA game
- Football World Cup.
I think that is about all for now.
Sydney 11/02/2003
Sydney 14/02/2003
Sydney 07/11/2006
Sydney 18/11/2006
Sydney 22/11/2009
EV Sydney 18/03/2011
EV Sydney 19/03/2011
EV Sydney 20/03/2011
Melbourne 24/01/2014
Sydney 26/01/2014
EV Sydney 13/02/2014
0
81
Needing a ride to Forest Hills and a ounce of weed. Please inquire within. Thanks. Or not. Posts: 58,276
Oh I forgot an upset late in the NCAA tourny is super fun. I was in the George Mason student section for the UConn-GMU elite 8 OT upset. Most of these lists are American sport centered, a big Euro soccer match for the Champions league, FA Cup, and so on is sick, or a cricket match between India and Pakistan, or rugby between New Zealand and England would be fun too.
ALCS & NLCS game 7
NBA Finals
Superbowl
Summer Olympics
World Cup (football aka soccer)
Champions League (Arsenal 2002)
Rose Bowl
NCAA BB Regional Final
I love college hoops and have attended an NCAA BB regional final and it sucked - no beer sold at the event.
I'd like to see:
1) Kentucky Derby - been to Belmont but a Derby would be awesome
2) Stanley Cup finals Game 7 - nothing like Hockey playoffs and a Stanley Cup Game 7 would be out of control
3) World Cup (non-usa game) - I flat out hate soccer except for the World Cup - would be pretty wild to see like Brazil-Argentina game or something like that.
4) Florida-Georgia college football game - world's biggest cocktail party - enough said
Comments
Walter Ray Williams Jr!!! ..... (I'm a bowler, or was ... so, know about his proficiency as a horseshow pitcher as well)
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
super bowl
world series
ncaa final 4
Game 7 Stanley Cup
Australian Open (tennis...I don't know why, but I've never been to OZ)
by Rick Reilly
Gas jockey, book-packer, flower boy, bank teller, lawn-mower, 7-Eleven clerk -- I've been all of these. So it's never lost on me that I won career lotto with sportswriter. Especially when I'm on a five-week stretch like this one: U.S. Open, Wimbledon, Tour de France and British Open.
But a new book, The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live, by Robert Tuchman, plus SportsCenter's current series Fan Feast, got me thinking. Being so old my ears still hurt from the Big Bang and having seen nearly every sporting event twice, what would be my list of must-see live events? Glad I asked.
10. Home Run Derby -- Better than the All-Star Game because it's never ended in a tie. Besides, it's everything real baseball is not. Guys swing at every pitch. Every third ball is a souvenir. And you don't have to wait 45 seconds while Nomar Garciaparra re-Velcros his entire uniform between pitches.
9. Iditarod -- Whenever somebody tells me the Iditarod is cruel to dogs, I answer, "I agree, the dogs left at home." You should hear them howl when they're not picked for the team. This is the hardest event to watch. I once had to bribe an ex-Vietnam pilot to fly me to a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, where we landed in a half-plowed field and were picked up by an Inuit on a snowmobile pulling a sled. Try to be in Nome at the end. One bar almost always has a ladies' arm wrestling contest. Trust me, you'd lose.
8. Ryder Cup -- Where else can you witness multimillionaires nearly hurling over three-foot gimmes with nothing more at stake than pride and some very ugly shirts? Unlike other golf tournaments, every shot matters every day, for better or worse.
7. Yankees vs. Red Sox at Fenway -- There's no better place in baseball than Fenway, which is like playing in your grandmother's attic. The Green Monster isn't an architect's precious quirk; it was the only way to shoehorn the place onto the available land. And Fenway is filled with people who don't need giant clapping hands on the scoreboard to know when to cheer.
6. America's Cup -- You need a good Chris-Craft to see it, but if you can't bum a seat on one, who cares? The pub scene alone is priceless. Endlessly thirsty crew members, billionaires in dorky captain's hats, diamond-dripping cougars, all elbowing each other out at the bar. Bring an extra liver.
5. Tour de France -- Like trying to get to 20 Super Bowls in 23 days, but worth it. Pick a climbing stage, bring friends and a bike, ride the course in the morning before the race (you're allowed), have lunch in a hamlet atop some exquisite Alp, watch the heart-skipping finish, have a bottle of Bordeaux, spend the night, bike down in the morning. Rinse and repeat.
4. North Carolina vs. Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium -- Fans pulling the hair of Tar Heels players as they inbound the ball; students camping out for months in K-Ville for tix; the hilarious chants from the Crazies, who once yelled at Grant Hill's parents, "One more kid!"; public school vs. private; an electricity that makes the Final Four and its corporate crowd seem like a three-day seminar on bunions.
3. Wimbledon -- There's nothing in America within a par-5 of it. It's a Windsor Castle garden party with grunting. It's queens and cobblers, cheek to cheek, over grounds so huge it would take you and your Toro a month to mow. It's a phantasmagoria of color -- greens and purples and yellows -- and that's just Bud Collins' pants.
2. Kentucky Derby -- My life's aspiration was to be Damon Runyon, and the Derby is as close as I'll get. With its wooden stands, elegant barns, men in seersucker suits and women in hats you could land an F-14 on, it's 1927 everywhere you look. Don't miss the fillies the day before in the Kentucky Oaks or the Barnstable Brown Gala or the awful race-day breakfast at Wagner's Pharmacy, across from Gate 3. If you hear a tip there, book it, because everyone around you is a trainer, an owner or a groom.
1. Masters -- Sneak into the clubhouse for the peach cobbler and steal into the Eisenhower Cabin, where some paintings are actually by Eisenhower. Do the par-3 tourney Wednesday and Arnie's first tee shot Thursday; see the droop-shouldered cut players driving out Magnolia Lane Friday, Amen Corner Saturday and golf history Sunday. Because Augusta already has most of the money printed in America, it has not sold out an inch. There are no ads, just flowers. No luxury boxes, just $1.50 egg salad sandwiches. Timeless.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/ ... id=4327329
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Been to:
ALCS & NLCS game 7
NBA Finals
Superbowl
Summer Olympics
World Cup (football aka soccer)
Champions League (Arsenal 2002)
Rose Bowl
NCAA BB Regional Final
My dad, as an early birthday gift, took me to see the Tigers first home playoff game in Comerica against the Yankees, where Kenny Rogers pwned.
That was electric, what an awesome time.
And then the cliche's, I would like to see the Brown's in a home AFC Championship game.
Also been to 2 NRL grand finals, countless Semi Finals, Davis Cup Tennis, State of Origin, Bledisloe cup (part of a world record crowd that has since been broken 110,000 people at the Olympic Stadium) And lots and Lots of Cricket that I love every time stepping into the historic Sydney Cricket Ground.
What I would like to go to
- The Ashes at Lords
- Wimbledon
- A couple of grand finals with my Teams in them. (Sydney Swans And Canterbury Bulldogs. The latter is a real possibility this year
- Would like to go to an EPL game (may be going to see Arsenal vs Everton if my European adventure takes off)
- An NBA game
- Football World Cup.
I think that is about all for now.
Sydney 14/02/2003
Sydney 07/11/2006
Sydney 18/11/2006
Sydney 22/11/2009
EV Sydney 18/03/2011
EV Sydney 19/03/2011
EV Sydney 20/03/2011
Melbourne 24/01/2014
Sydney 26/01/2014
EV Sydney 13/02/2014
Bowl game
Superbowl
Talladega
I love college hoops and have attended an NCAA BB regional final and it sucked - no beer sold at the event.
I'd like to see:
1) Kentucky Derby - been to Belmont but a Derby would be awesome
2) Stanley Cup finals Game 7 - nothing like Hockey playoffs and a Stanley Cup Game 7 would be out of control
3) World Cup (non-usa game) - I flat out hate soccer except for the World Cup - would be pretty wild to see like Brazil-Argentina game or something like that.
4) Florida-Georgia college football game - world's biggest cocktail party - enough said
- The end game of the soccer world cup 2010 in South Africa.
- Any huge surf or kite surf cup
The Ashes
Wimbledon
2010 - Belfast, London, Berlin, Arras, Werchter
2012 - Manchester 1+2, Berlin 1+2, Stockholm, Oslo
2014 - Berlin, Leeds, Milton Keynes