I was in the front row behing the Padre dugout watching the elation of the Dogders through the dejection of the Padre players. I have been lucky enough to see a lot of great games in person including two game 7s but that was the greatest game I ever saw.

I really want to stick it to San Diego this year. Last year's performance against them was borderline unacceptable. I guess alot of those 13 losses were piled up early in the season when we had no bullpen to speak of, but I would like to win a season series against SD this time around.

I was at my local dive,

Right before the 9th I told the bartender that it was okay, the Dodgers only needed back to back to back to back to tie, we laughed and I got my drink sipping it as I walked humorously back to my seat. 4 home runs later and I was buying the whole place rounds (not too bad considering there were only 5 people there including the bartender.)

awesome.

same thing happened before Finley hit that Grand Slam only it was my friend that called it in the 7th.

Miraculously -- on a night of miracles -- I was this close:

http://www.doubledogmusic.com/baseball/2006-09-18_Padres@Dodgers/47.html
http://www.doubledogmusic.com/baseball/2006-09-18_Padres@Dodgers/50.html
http://www.doubledogmusic.com/baseball/2006-09-18_Padres@Dodgers/51.html

I was at home, sleeping, and then woke up the next morning to an amazing sight on Dodger Thoughts.

I was in my seat at the game with my wife, or rather, we were jumping up and down like crazy people and hugging strangers. I believe my wife became a true Dodger fan that night (Nomar is her favorite player). I still don't understand why the Dodgers' don't have a commercial showing the home runs and simply stating, 'Were you there?'

I was at home, trying to complete some stuff I had brought home from the office and feeling like we had just blown a great opportunity, considering how close the standings were. 10 minutes later, I was screaming, waking my wife up, calling anyone I could to try to get someone to share in the joy with me. Then we gave up another run in the 10th, and I felt like an idiot for making all those calls. Luckily for me, Nomar and his bottom of the 10th blast redeemed me.

I turned the game off in the 4th inning.

I was here, in my office freaking out. It was very late here in Ohio...after 1 some time. I spent the next three days reading DT posts to my wife to try to explain how important it was.

I was watching on MLB.tv up here in my apartment. I turned it off multiple times through out the night. I happened to turn it on and saw J.D. Drew's home run, but promptly turned it off when they went to Hoffman in the bullpen. Then I turned it back on in time to see Russell Martin's dad high-fiving someone. I turned it back off when Sele gave up the lead again. Thankfully I tuned in to see Seanez walk Lofton and Nomar hit the walk off.

I don't know if this has been posted anywhere, but I found this tidbit to be interesting.

"No player on any team wearing a No. 42 will have a name on the jersey above the number. The jerseys will be authenticated by Major League Baseball after Sunday's games and most will be auctioned off for charity."

Good luck figuring out who is who on Sunday.

http://tinyurl.com/2obaen

6 I was there and I left early. =(

I keep telling everyone it was the second game I left early all season. The game before was the one where Billingsley returned from his oblique injury and got positively rocked and we had to sit through an evening of Mark Hendrickson and a 7 run deficit. I was slightly demoralized when we were down during the miracle game and assented when people talked about leaving early.

Unfortunately before we decided to leave I was saying "Well, we can leave or we can stick around and watched the greatest comeback of all time." And I was right.

I was driving home when the game began, and before I walked in the door, the Dodgers were down 4-0.

I complained to my patient and loving wife and said, "It's Peavy on the mound. This one's lost. I don't even need to watch."

And of course, ten minutes later, I turned on the game.

When the Dodgers initially tied it up (4-4?), I called my friend (who signs on here occasionally as JimBilly4) to make sure he was watching. It was kind of amazing that the Dodgers had gotten to Peavy.

After the four homers, and again after the Nomar homer, I called just about everyone I could think of. I'd just watched the greatest game I'd ever seen.

I was there up in the Infield Reserve. I have written about enough on other threads but I will say again, that night, getting out of Dodger Stadium was not an issue.

I have watched or listened to that inning more than 2 dozen times since then and remains the only game I have bought from MLB.com.

It would be really cool if tonight instead of showing highlights from the last game on Wednesday, they showed the highlights from the 4+1 game, they probably wouldn't being a different season and all but it would be cool for the fans.

For those who want to relive the experience from both sides, go here:

http://tinyurl.com/yje3n8

A great compilation and again reminds of what sites like DT have come to mean to baseball and Dodger fans like you and me. My only regret is that I was there (at the game) instead of sharing it with all of you on DT. (Okay a pretty small regret but I was thinking of everyone.)

I was the second best place to being there in person - here on DodgerThoughts through the whole unforgettable affair. That was a night to remember.

I'll be happy with some games this series where we don't enter the ninth down by 4, though.

As with most nights, listening to the game on the mlb.com radio thingy, while stationed out here in Oklahoma. I was all pissed off cuz the Padres were yet again beating us, and was about to turn it off, but heard the first home run and decided to stick around.

I was a screaming lunatic by night's (or early morning's) end. Called my dad yelling an everything....good times.

I turned it off and missed the whole thing. Very disappointing.

The best game I even attended was game 2 of the 1978 WS, when Bob Welch struck out to end the game the go ahead runs on board. I was 10 years old, in the 4th row behind the Dodger dugout, with my dad and uncle.

2nd place goes to the Finley grand slam game. I was way up in the right field upper deck.

Went to bed around the 6th inning. The only good game I've ever been to in person was an Angels game against the Tigers in 1986 when Dick Schofield hit a walk-off grand slam with two strikes marking an insane 9th inning comeback.

I was at home--probably leaving posts on a thread that was long expired, like I just did.

Really, I was at home and woke my daughter up, made her get out of bed and come watch the replays. My wife who is a margianl baseball fan asked if this was unusal? You think!

I went to bed after the last Dodger at bat one inning too soon and I am still waiting for a replay. There is an empty spot in my heart that just won't go away.

18 I remember that game. It was the first time I started to care about the Angels.

I was sitting in the top deck, section one. I have never felt that much joy and elation in my life. Goose bumps, running up and down the aisles, jumping up and down like a mad man, high-fiving and hugging strangers, and of course, holding back tears. Then I went home and woke up my wife who had no idea why I was so excited and could not relate.

I was here on campus at Pepperdine, mindlessly working on a paper while tracking the game on Gameday. After Martin's HR I began thinking about my brother, a life-long Padres fan, and how all of our sibling rivalries from growing up were currently being played out in the game we both love.

13 How do you buy the game from MLB.com? I can't find any way to get to it.

I turned it off in the 5th inning or so... I found out about it at work the next day, and a lot of fellow teachers and students lost respect for me as a Dodger fan when I told them I didn't see the comeback...

I of course was walking through the parking lot headed for a car with no radio and so I was oblivious to the greatest baseball comeback in Dodger history until I got home and clicked on the internet and started to cry.
Not that having a radio would have helped any since I couldn't have gotten KFWB anyway.

Let us hope that Rudy doesn't do for them what he did for us on that night.

I've watched the replay about 25 times until I foolishly removed it from my hard drive before I checked to make sure the DVD was playable that I had recorded it to. It wasn't. I think that was Karma just telling me that I didn't deserve to see the replay anymore since I had left early.

Inner Reserve, Section 20, Row U, Seats 1-4.

http://www.celsius1414.com/node/1142

I was on my computer (probably reading Dodger Thoughts) with my back to my TV when I heard the first home run. I turned around to watch the replay but thought to myself "Too little, too late..."

Then I heard the second home run and I got a little bit more into it...enough that I didn't take my eyes off of the television for the remainder of the night. I looked for game highlights on ESPN and all the news channels until nearly 1 AM in the morning...I couldn't get enough of it!

Sorry to interrupt - feel free to continue sharing memories - but there is a new post up top.

I spent many nights last season staying up until the early morning hours and going in to work bleary-eyed the next morning so I could watch the Dodgers play on the west coast. 9/18, however, was not one of those nights. I went to sleep around midnight or so, when we were still down 9-5.

I woke up the next morning to see my cell phone buzzing with three text messages from my hardcore Dodger friends back in LA. Without even looking at the messages, I turned on the computer, went to the MLB.tv archive (where they wisely keep the scores hidden), and cued up the game.

So I got to see 4+1 "virtually" live. I was whooping it up at 8 in the morning while getting dressed and ready for work, causing my roommate to question my sanity.

At home, watching the game through the wonder that is MLB Extra Innings that allows a Dodger fan in Kansas City to watch his favorite team.
Stuck with the game until the top of the 8th. Went to bed due to early work commitment the next day. My wonderful wife called me on the way to work asking if I had seen the end of the Dodgers game as they had shown the highlights on Good Morning America.

That was quite a special night for me.
My dad was visiting, staying with my family for the week. We've rarely watched sports together; quite literally the last memory I have of watching baseball on TV with my dad was gm 1 of '88 WS. That's not to say he wasn't an involved father, just watching sports wasn't his thing.
So we sat in the living room, chatting and watching the game. It was good one, even up to the ninth, so we were already pretty invested in the action. When the homeruns started, we experienced all the same emotions that were so eloquently enumerated on blogs at the time; interest, surprise, hope, elation...pure exhilarating joy.
What I recall most vividly though, was the excitement and emotion on my dads face as we jumped and shouted. I imagined a far away time, when he and my mother were Fernandomaniacs, and had probably experienced similar uninhibited joy. I was too young then to have a lasting memory of it. But that night, I saw him remember how good baseball can be.

The best game I ever attended is still Drysdale's 5th shutout against the Giants in 1968, followed by Finley's grand slam and Koufax clinching the 1965 pennant against the Braves.

34 Was that the Dick Dietz game? And if it was perhaps you could recall your thoughts about what happened that night, thanks.

I was at home, trying to figure out why the traffic on Baseball Toaster suddenly spiked like mad.

Off topic, but Gagne alert:
http://tinyurl.com/28lzw3

It was the Dick Dietz game. My parents had one "rich" couple as friends and they had season tickets behind the visitor's dugout. For some reason, we got those tickets for that game. I was a rabid Dodger fan back then, being 12 years old, and I remember being excited about the game because I knew Drysdale had a chance at something special. Plus, it was a chance to see the great Mays.

In the ninth, when Dietz was not allowed to go to first, everyone around us was very confused. Herman Franks went ballistic right in front of us. It was great.

38 Both Juan Marichal and Ron Hunt said that Dietz was planning to attempt to get hit by a pitch, according to Marichal, "Anything but a fastball" he would take to get hit and end the streak.

In over 30 years of watching or listening to games, I cannot recall something similar being called on a batter.

I was in a closet smearing peanut butter all over myself.

I was on my couch watching it, but having unsuccessfully fought against falling asleep, as it was after 2 a.m. I was awakened by the change in the tenor of Vin's voice as he called Martin's home run. Suddenly no longer tired, I rewound the tivo a couple minutes back and enjoyed the last two innings in all their glory.

I had been watching the game in my room, but I was supposed to go have some drinks with a lady friend, so when she got to my place during the 9th inning I told her "let me just see the end of the game", so we did. After the 1st homer I told her "I'm not getting excited until they're within 2 runs." Of course, the rest of the game played out and even though she wasn't a Dodger fan, she was jumping up and down and high-fiving with me.

I then called my dad who had turned the game off and taken a shower and was just now putting together what had happened. The difference between me and him is that I'll never turn off a game that's within reason, but he'll jump ship when he gets the slightest bit irritated.

And while we're on the subject of best game attended, I'd have to go with a game from 2004 late in the season against the Braves where Beltre hit a solo shot in the 9th to tie it and then the game-winner in the 11th to win it. I, along with everyone else in the stadium, were yelling at the top of our lungs "M-V-P! M-V-P!"

I was umpiring that night. I flipped on the TV when I got home and I think it was in the top of the 9th (or in the 8th). I'm pretty sure that I saw San Diego score in the 9th.

Having a busy week ahead of me, I decided to make a quick run to the store to pick up stuff for lunches for the rest of the week since they were losing and all.

I got home just in time to see Sele give up the run in the 10th, so I made my lunch for the next day and hopped in the shower. I missed Nomar's homerun.

That was the second game my wife and I went to last year. The first was the Ramon Martinez HR in the 16th game against the Reds.

What did you all do with your Dodger blankets? I gave mine to my Grandpa.

I just read through the threads for the 4+1 game and my favorite comment outside of Underdog wanting a community group hug was Greg Brock saying he liked the happy JoeyP.

33 - That gave me goosebumps.

I was at Game 1 of the '88 Series with my Mom, Dad and brother and that was really special. As Gibson was fouling off pitches my brother turned to me and said, "Wouldn't it be great if he hit a walk off homerun right now". Next pitch was a hanging slider. I was 13.

As for the 4+1 game, I was at home and I told myself that if the Dodgers didn't win this game I was through watching them on TV for the rest of the season.

I watched a few more games after that.

46 It really was like a virtual group hug, as treacly as that sounds. (Not to sound like that cat in Get Fuzzy that's always hugging everyone... ) Very memorable, indeed.

I was at home here in Honolulu watching the game on FSN/Prime Ticket. There was no one to hug [the gal was visiting her parents and siblings overseas]. I was not otherwise worried about the 1 run off Sele since, well, the God of baseball isn't so cruel that it would be that we'd hit 4 consecutive homers only to lose. As usual, the God of baseball had a greater thing in store.

Off topic, and sorry, since this probably makes some crazy, but does anyone have reliable word on whether Furcal will be playing tonight? For the irritating part, not only do I want to see Furcal in the lineup, I otherwise need to set my fantasy roster for the day [and I have Furcal on 5 of my 7 teams]. I'll need to know by 4:00 p.m. your time. Thanks for whatever help you gals and guys can provide in this regard.

Furcal isn't in the lineup that Josh posted at Inside the Dodgers.

Strike that, of course he is since I posted otherwise.

5051 Thanks!!!!

I was there til the end with my husband and daughter and our fleece blankets. It was more incredible than the game I was at with Atlanta in a previous season that had back to back grand slams.

lol... back-to-back grand slams.

I was in a rental car driving to the Bay Area for a work meeting the next morning. I had spent what seemed like hours scanning the AM dials trying to find Vin on the radio instead of the astoudingly bad Padre announcers that came in crystal clear. I finally found the right station and listened to the game in utter amazement, screaming in joyous disbelief all alone in the car. Good thing it was dark, because some other car on the freeway would have probably called the CHP on me if they could have seen my antics. As soon as the game ended I lost reception, but was then able to go back to the SD station and listen to the post-game show with scores of dejected Padre fans calling in. I got to experience both the joy of being a Dodger fan and the guilty pleasure of listening to the Padre fans and announcers wallow in their sorrow. What a night!

By the way, 6 is a simple yet perfect suggestion. How much better is that than listening to Luis Gonzales' pre-season press conference? I mean, c'mon, even if I was a big Gonzo fan that's not exactly an inspirational promo.

Raffy's back! He will most certainly jump start this offense.

I'm sad to see Betemit and Ethier sit this one out, but tonight's as good a night as any with lefty Wells on the mound for SD.

So comments about Baghdad Bob getting a part time job explaining why the New and Improved Chavez Ravine parking plan is GREAT! would be what....a snark?

I was home channel switching. My mom called earlier in the evening to invite me to the game. I didn't answer the phone.

Yeah, I'm that dim.