One thing that 's really cool is the overall excitement for professional sports in Houston. The Astros have won their 1st post season series & are on the verge of going to their 1st World Series, the Texans have won back-to-back games & beaten the tratorious Titans for the 1st time & the Rockets have added T-Mac to go with Yao. The LoveYaBlue days were Oilers only & the Rockets championships were basketball only. The 81 & 86 Astros had excitement, but the Rockets & Oilers weren't that upbeat then. This is a tremendos time for Houston Sports.
I would love to see the atmosphere if the Astros won it all. When the Rockets won their first championship i was in Europe watching it live at like 3 in the morning and all i could do was wake everyone up. So i missed the celebration. In 95 i was here and enjoyed driving down the street honking the horn and seeing everyone in the streets just jumping up and down and yelling. This year with the astros is getting to that point. I love having my bar by the stadium because i can really feel the excitment after each game. people are just going crazy and i am loving it. the streets of downtown will go crazy if they make it to the WS and then win it.....can't even imagine.
Not when you consider that they couldn't have realistically been 6-0 with the games they have played....not that far off.....okay maybe it is and i am dreaming too.
Luv ya blue was and still is king. It is yet to be seen if the astros will have that kind of impact. The oliers had charisma like no other. They were the underdog and earl and bum were a perfect match for the city. It was different with the rockets. Hakeem was great and had that quiet confidence and rudy and mario did there part to make it a wonderful experience. The kiss and the heart, but they are the stepchild to blue, always. The astros just don't have that charisma. They don't have a mike scott or jose cruz type player, though I am really starting to like brandon backe and lidge.
Yes, that was sweet. I remember the mention of "a little Sutton" in there. Back when the uniforms were cool.
Plus the uniforms used to be cool and unique- now they're just boring and look like everyone else. Pin stripes and cursive lettering? Pfft. Gimme the REAL Astros colors.
What about the Kiss of Death? I think a game-winning 3 pointer to propel your team to the WCF after a 3-1 deficit (rare) is bigger than a homerun to give you a 1 game lead in a series that is still ongoing.
But the homerun meant so much after being down 2-0 to come home and win 3 games like that....was just amazing.
But it wasn't a homerun to win the series. Mario's shot won the series, and coming back from 3-1 (on the road) is harder than coming back from 2-0 (at home).
Yeah that's right! The breathing orange fire line is the best. Our time now needs a song if it's to be taken seriously.
I remember when the Rockets won their first one, it seemed like the whole city taped those signs from the Chronicle up in their car windows. It'd be awesome to see something like that again.
Hipp, I have that sign taped up on my door at work to this day. I think you can not compare em, just enjoy them for what they are. Luv ya Blue always has a special place in my heart, but the Rocks and Stros are right there too. GO STROS !! DD
Yeah, and what about the NC State shot. That has to rank really high, too. Then, sampson's shot to beat the lakers. And how about the monday night machup against miami when earl and the city of houston served notice to the rest of the nation the ear of luv ya blue.
Mario's shot was also a great moment... it ranks right up there, in my book. (Charlie actually had Maxwell's 3 pointer in game 7 the year before as #2). BUT... when you factor in that Houston had already won a championship, and thus, they were hitting a shot to just get back to the WCF... AND, you realize that it was not a "buzzer-beater" (meaning, the game did not END on his shot... I know it sounds dumb, but only a buzzer-beater is the equivalent of a walk-off in baseball). Kent's HR got this team closer to the WS than they've ever been before. It also completed the highly unlikely 3-game sweep, which put the Astros up in the series. Sure, it didn't win a series... but it still put the Astros in un-charted territory. Elie's shot didn't really do that (aside from helping them win a game 7 on the road... which Indiana would do the very next day). Also, we're a round further in the playoffs when comparing Astros to Rockets... that means something as well. Likewise, if Kent's HR would have been in the bottom of the 8th, instead of the bottom of the 9th, it would have been nowhere near the "moment". Also, if he never hits that ball in the 9th, the Astros likely lose that game, with Lidge already been used, and the St. Louis lineup due to bust out sometime, thus making the timeliness of the moment even more important. In my mind... top sports "moments" in Houston (remember... these are individual moments in time... not events or achievements): 1. Kent's HR 2. Elie's KOD 3. Sampson's shot 4. Eddie Johnson's buzzer beater in 97 (didn't mean much, but everyone who watched it will always remember where they were, and what they were doing... that, my friends, is a "moment").
Sampson's shot is my personal favorite. Playing the Lakers as huge underdogs going in...the shot just seemed to stick up there for 5 minutes before falling. Once it dropped, the reaction of Micheal Cooper dropping to the floor indicates the dagger that the shot represented. Kent's HR was excellent but the Stro's had 4 batters (Beltran - Kent) any one of which could have hit that bomb to win the game. But Sampson's shot was a one chance gig. Plus that shot DID advance them to the finals. Kent's HR did not advance the Stros.
I'd venture to say Kent's HR was a bigger story just because more people were glued to the TV in prime-time, and the story broke on a huge scale in this ESPN age, Internet, BBS, mass media world. Sampson's shot "meant more"... and it probably was more "unlikely" to happen... but Kent's created a city-wide euphoria that this city has never seen after one single sports play ever. People weren't partying it up downtown, or at sports bars across the city, after Sampson's shot. There weren't live reports from 8 different locations, and it wasn't breaking news. I know all of this is more of a product of the time we live in... but it does make a difference.
True, Elie's shot was not a buzzer-beating shot, but it still was a game-winning, series clinching, back-breaking shot. But the HR still did not win the series. The shots by Elie and Sampson did. Maybe I am biased because I love basketball, but I think a game-winning shot to clinch a series on the road after trailing 3-1 is bigger than a game winning HR to give you a 3-2 edge with 2 more games to play. Agreed. That's because the game was on national TV (or at least that moment) where everyone could watch (no cable). Folks partied downtown because a stadium was there (not the case in 95). Because of those factors, folks might remember the HR more, but as far as significance, I still feel like the game winning shots were bigger.
Yea... I already explained how an event can contain more significance (Elie's shot, Sampson's shot)... but yet somehow be less memorable. If we just go by significance, technically, Kenny Smith's 3 pointer to tie Orlando (or Nick Anderson's two bricks) are greater moments, because without that game, Houston might not have won the title that year. But, "memorable" is just that snap-shot moment in time feeling of euphoria that you will ultimately never ever ever forget. I think more people had that feeling after Kent's HR, and its mostly due to the age we live in today. Frankly... I'm lookin forward to more playoff runs from the Rockets now... this city has really learned how to throw a party, as opposed to 10 years ago, and a championship today would blow the lid off those (but it will never be more "special"... just more hyped).
