In the stands, we celebrated for what seemed like an hour.

Later in the week, someone at NBC would get the bright idea of splicing highlights of Gibson's final at-bat with film clips from the end of The Natural, when Robert Redford homered into the light standard to win the pennant.

In the movie, that made for quite a visual effect. There was a similar effect here: When Gibson hit the ball, the brake lights of every car exiting the Dodger Stadium parking lot went on.

The drivers of all those cars had been listening to Vin Scully announce the end of the game on the radio (this is a Dodger fan tradition). Sitting in their steel cages, in the sea of red lights that was the Dodger Stadium parking lot, they missed the greatest finish in the history of the World Series.

And, unlike me, most of them had paid for their tickets.

Joe Mathews is a Crimson staff writer.

John Ausiello

If you live in Boston and you're a sports fan, you hate the month of October.

You hate that the weather is turning cold. You hate all those leaves lying on your yellow-and-brown lawn. And you hate when those freaks come knocking on your door asking for candy.

If they want candy, then they can bring us a World Championship.

You see, being a Red Sox fan brings out the Satan in all of us. The next door neighbor, who frequently travels to Calcutta to assist Mother Teresa, can only speak in four-letter words in the month of October. And in the fall of 1986, everything reached a peak, at least for me.

That October, I was excited. It was going to be our year at last. We had the best pitcher on the planet, the best pure hitter of this generation, and Big Lou lunching on a dog in the box. How could we lose?

Apparantly I overlooked the fact that there would be a semi-cripple playing first base in the last inning of the most important baseball game for Boston in the last 20 years. Call me stupid, but it just never crossed my mind.

That game, that whole Series, I will never forget. But not for its great play. It was possibly the worst-managed World Series ever--on both benches. And at times, the play looked Little League, not major league.

There was Game One, in New York. In front of a completely sober and tame crowd of animals in Queens, the Sox stole the first one. Tim Teufel let a ball go through his legs and the Sox won, 1-0. Listening on a car radio, I think I expressed my love for the man.