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 Do You Believe in Miracles?

                                                               Mike DiPatri              12/03/03

 It's time for a feel good story about sports.  In a sporting world that only seems negative it's nice to get a warm picture of it.  I heard a guy yesterday say that movies and sports are where miracles happen.  The guy wrote a book recently about the 25 top moments in the movies.  Naturally, Field of Dreams was in the book.  Is there any sports movie that makes one feel any better about being a sports fan than that?

I started thinking though about what he said about sports being one of the places where miracles happen.  It made me think about the miracles, the unbelievable moments in sports, I have witnessed.  Naturally, most of the moments I remember were Yankees events, but there have been others.

I saw Chris Chambliss hit the pennant-winning home run in 1976.  There was Reggie's three home run game in the 1977 World Series.  As a Yankees fan, those were really exciting moments.  To others they are still notable.  Though not a Braves fan, I can remember seeing Sid Bream sliding across the plate in the 1991 NLCS.  The expression on his face was enough to make any baseball fan get excited.  Remember hearing Jack Buck saying, "I don't believe what I just saw!" after Kirk Gibson hit that 1988 World Series home run?  How the veteran Joe Carter looked like a little leaguer with excitement after that 1993 World Series home run.  Has anyone ever been as excited as the young Edgar Renteria when he got the winning hit in game seven of the 1997 World Series?  There have been others, many before my time.  Did anybody see the shot heard "round the world coming?"  Bobby Thomson probably didn't until it went over.  Real sports fans will never forget the call, "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant!"  Dodger fans will never forget.  I watched Jimmy Leyritz hit the homer in the comeback game against the Braves in the 1996 World Series.  Then of course, there's THE home run by Bucky Dent that went over the monster.  That capped off the most exciting season in recent Yankees history.  The 2001 World Series showed us that anything in sports is possible by demonstrating that if a team is good enough to make it to the Series, it's good enough to win it.

Not all these special moments are confined to baseball.  Who ever thought the Jets would beat the Colts to win Super Bowl three?  One of my favorite players Ed Podolak ran wild one Christmas day in a double overtime game just to see the Dolphins end up the winner.  I remember watching a crippled Tom Dempsey kick a 63-yard field goal.  That was amazing.  Did you see Michael Jordan make that last shot to beat the Pacers for the championship?  He knew it was one of these moments.  It looked as if it were his first basket.

These events have all brought us to our feet with excitement.  Movies mirror that excitement.  Not just in sports movies, though.  There was the depiction of the miraculous rescue of the Apollo 13 crew.  In the movies anything can happen.  Anybody can become the hero.    Movies with sports themes do excite us and make us feel good about being fans.  Field of Dreams gives us a romantic picture of baseball as it reunites a man with his father after many years as well as giving the game back to players who were thrown out of it.  The baseball speech by James Earl Jones was like a sermon to those of us members of the church of sports.  It made us feel warm all over just thinking about it.  Everybody has seen Pride of the Yankees.  If you didn't well up a little, you are not a real fan; maybe not even a human being.

Of course, this discussion would not be complete without mention of the most miraculous event in sports history.  There's no need to even describe it.  It's enough to just say 1980 US Olympic Hockey team! 

Those of us who are members of that church of sports know that miracles are real.  Just as John Kinsella said when Ray asked if there is a heaven, "Oh yeah, it's the place where dreams come true." And really, what are miracles if not dreams realized?