College: Memphis vs. No. 13-ranked Houston in football in November 1968 in the Liberty Bowl. Cold. Houston won 27-7.

(I might have seen a Vanderbilt football or basketball game a year or two prior, but I can't recall.)

Pro: Atlanta Braves vs. Pittsburgh Pirates. 1969 or 1970. Hoyt Wilhelm pitched for the Braves.

(05-06-2021 08:33 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 05:56 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  Pro - Brooklyn Dodgers - NY Giants at Polo Grounds 1952

College - Penn State @Army - Michie Stadium 1956

Both of those are incredible.

Yep. Very cool for ken d.

Yes. I would be eager to read a ken d thread outlining his experiences at Polo Grounds, Michie Stadium in the 1950s, and other history he attended.

(05-07-2021 12:11 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 08:33 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 05:56 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  Pro - Brooklyn Dodgers - NY Giants at Polo Grounds 1952

College - Penn State @Army - Michie Stadium 1956

Both of those are incredible.

Yep. Very cool for ken d.

Yes. I would be eager to read a ken d thread outlining his experiences at Polo Grounds, Michie Stadium in the 1950s, and other history he attended.

The biggest reason I got to have those experiences is because I'm older than dirt compared to most posters here. And you all are probably looking at some of them through the prism of what has happened in college athletics since then.

For example, a Penn State-Army game looked very different then. In 1956, Penn State had been to two bowl games in its entire history - the Rose Bowl in 1922 and the Cotton Bowl in 1947. The latter was the only year that PSU had achieved a Top Ten ranking (#4 in AP). Growing up in the New York suburbs, going to a game at Penn State would have been unthinkable, because at the time you pretty much "couldn't get there from here". They weren't the reason my dad took me to that game.

Army, on the other hand, had thrived during WWII, as one would expect. They were still pretty good in 1956 and even better in 1957 and 58. The stain of the Vietnam War eventually made them much less attractive for recruits and they've never fully recovered from that.

But the attraction of that game was its location, and all the non-football pomp that went along with game day at West Point. It was a short drive from where I lived, and there really wasn't any attractive alternative in the area when it came to college football.

MLB on the other hand was great for a New Yorker. Three perennial contenders in a league that played in only 10 cities in the US, all in the eastern half of the country. Competition from pro basketball and hockey wasn't much, as both the Knicks and the Rangers sucked big time. The football Giants were decent, and they shared the Polo Grounds with the baseball team. But the NFL wasn't yet the behemoth it would become.

I grew up thinking that the World Series was always played in New York because it almost always was. And there was almost always a game on television after school for me, because each of the three teams basically had its own TV station - the Dodgers on channel 9, the Yankees on 11, and the Giants on 13. But starting in the third grade, my grandma wouldn't let me watch any of them until I had taken the box scores from the previous day in the newspaper and re-calculated the batting averages of all three teams.

So college sports for me back then was just an occasional outing, and something I followed largely through the media, which I did avidly as a kid. I couldn't wait for Sports Illustrated to arrive every week. That meant that the teams I was familiar with were national, not local, and I really had no rooting interest in any local school. I still don't.

(05-07-2021 07:50 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(05-07-2021 12:11 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 08:33 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 05:56 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  Pro - Brooklyn Dodgers - NY Giants at Polo Grounds 1952

College - Penn State @Army - Michie Stadium 1956

Both of those are incredible.

Yep. Very cool for ken d.

Yes. I would be eager to read a ken d thread outlining his experiences at Polo Grounds, Michie Stadium in the 1950s, and other history he attended.

The biggest reason I got to have those experiences is because I'm older than dirt compared to most posters here. And you all are probably looking at some of them through the prism of what has happened in college athletics since then.

For example, a Penn State-Army game looked very different then. In 1956, Penn State had been to two bowl games in its entire history - the Rose Bowl in 1922 and the Cotton Bowl in 1947. The latter was the only year that PSU had achieved a Top Ten ranking (#4 in AP). Growing up in the New York suburbs, going to a game at Penn State would have been unthinkable, because at the time you pretty much "couldn't get there from here". They weren't the reason my dad took me to that game.

Army, on the other hand, had thrived during WWII, as one would expect. They were still pretty good in 1956 and even better in 1957 and 58. The stain of the Vietnam War eventually made them much less attractive for recruits and they've never fully recovered from that.

But the attraction of that game was its location, and all the non-football pomp that went along with game day at West Point. It was a short drive from where I lived, and there really wasn't any attractive alternative in the area when it came to college football.

MLB on the other hand was great for a New Yorker. Three perennial contenders in a league that played in only 10 cities in the US, all in the eastern half of the country. Competition from pro basketball and hockey wasn't much, as both the Knicks and the Rangers sucked big time. The football Giants were decent, and they shared the Polo Grounds with the baseball team. But the NFL wasn't yet the behemoth it would become.

I grew up thinking that the World Series was always played in New York because it almost always was. And there was almost always a game on television after school for me, because each of the three teams basically had its own TV station - the Dodgers on channel 9, the Yankees on 11, and the Giants on 13. But starting in the third grade, my grandma wouldn't let me watch any of them until I had taken the box scores from the previous day in the newspaper and re-calculated the batting averages of all three teams.

So college sports for me back then was just an occasional outing, and something I followed largely through the media, which I did avidly as a kid. I couldn't wait for Sports Illustrated to arrive every week. That meant that the teams I was familiar with were national, not local, and I really had no rooting interest in any local school. I still don't.

You could be the "CSNbbs Elder Statesman," ken d. If so, wear the moniker with humility as you have earned my respect (I won't ask your age as that would be unseemly). JRsec is an older gentleman, too.

College - been going to Western games since I was little. The first opponent I remembered was Temple or Miami. P5 first was a road game at U Michigan sophomore year
MLB - Tigers/Rockies in high school. I don't remember who won or anything about the actual game, unfortunately
NHL - Coyotes/Avalanche in high school. It was a blowout, Avs win

Haven't been to NBA or NFL yet

(05-06-2021 07:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  Pro - Brooklyn Dodgers - NY Giants at Polo Grounds 1952

College - Penn State @Army - Michie Stadium 1956

Kind of hard to beat that. Very Impressive, just seeing a game in the Polo Grounds. That would have been less than one year after Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Those were great baseball teams.
Here is my effort for runner-up:

Pro - Indians at White Sox Comiskey Park 1965

College - Air Force at Stanford, Stanford Stadium 1966

October 25, 1969

Ohio State 41 Illinois 0

I was 9 years old and wore my Buckeye sweatshirt to sit with a friend of my dad's (one of his parishioners at the local Presbyterian church -- my dad was a Minister) high up in the stadium.


... I vaguely remember attending some local, probably D-II college game in Springfield Ohio when I was maybe 5 or 6, but all I did was play with a friend of mine and maybe my brother on the grass hill. I have no recollection of the actual game.

(05-07-2021 04:31 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  ... I vaguely remember attending some local, probably D-II college game in Springfield Ohio when I was maybe 5 or 6, but all I did was play with a friend of mine and maybe my brother on the grass hill. I have no recollection of the actual game.

Yes, a good lesson in this thread is if you have kids, wait till they’re at an age they’ll remember their first game. I went to a bazillion games growing up around Comiskey Park, but would have no idea which was the first.

(05-06-2021 04:25 AM)jaybird44 Wrote:  Pro-new york nets at virginia squires
College-new Hampshire vs Michigan st. Magic was playing.
Everyone remembers their first game. What was yours?

Pro - Oakland A's vs. the Cleveland Indians 1990ish
College - Hampton Sydney vs. Emory and Henry early 80s
Major College - Either VT vs. Cincy or VT vs. Louisville in 1991. I don't remember which one, probably Cincy. We had a long string of road games including WVU, Oklahoma and FSU and finally had a home game in late October.

(05-07-2021 04:28 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 07:06 AM)ken d Wrote:  Pro - Brooklyn Dodgers - NY Giants at Polo Grounds 1952

College - Penn State @Army - Michie Stadium 1956

Kind of hard to beat that. Very Impressive, just seeing a game in the Polo Grounds. That would have been less than one year after Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Those were great baseball teams.
Here is my effort for runner-up:

Pro - Indians at White Sox Comiskey Park 1965

College - Air Force at Stanford, Stanford Stadium 1966

To be honest, even by the early 50's the Polo Grounds was kind of a dump. It was dirty, had a lot of obstructed views due to its strange shape, and you would hold your beer rather than use one of the bathrooms. Ebbets Field in Brooklyn wasn't a lot better, and the city's refusal to help pay for a new stadium for the Dodgers led directly to the departure of both teams to California by 1958.

Teams like the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees were very good, aided by rules that made players essentially indentured servants and the fact that all the talent was spread over only 16 teams. There was no free agency, and you were stuck with the team that owned you until you had outlived your usefulness to them. Salaries were pitiful for all but the biggest stars, and it was not uncommon for players to take part time jobs in the off season to make ends meet. As a kid it was both exciting and a little jarring to see a major leaguer bagging groceries at the local A&P in the winter.

Many players lived in the town I grew up in, and a dozen like them in North Jersey. Most of them were pretty good guys, but some, like Mickey Mantle, were notorious drinkers and carousers whose kids were despised as brats by their classmates. Nostalgia makes those years seem like the "good old days" through the prism of time. In reality, they were anything but.

MLB: A Cardinals game early in the 2000s. I do know I went to a Cards vs. Pirates game at old Busch Stadium for my birthday one time, we lost. L

NHL: One of the Blues vs. Sharks playoff game in 2004, right before the lockout and when we collapsed in the standings. I don't remember if they won or not.

NFL: Rams vs. Chargers in 2002, a comeback win. Who knew that less than two decades later they'd be sharing a stadium.

College Football: One of the Illinois vs. Mizzou Braggin Rights games in St. Louis in the 2000s. First campus game was Illinois vs. Ball State in 2007 during their Rose Bowl season.

College Hoops: Another Illinois vs. Mizzou in the early 2000s, when Illini basketball was a firmly elite program in the Bill Self/early Bruce Weber years. First on campus was a random SLU Billikens matchup at the Chaifetz Arena not too long after it opened.

NBA: Never been to one.

First event was baseball:
Kentucky vs. LSU 1967 (Mother worked at UK near the baseball field and I went over to the game while she worked one Saturday)
pro: Cincinnati vs. San Francisco 1967 at old Crosley Field. It was the night after a 21 inning game which we had almost gone to. Giants had Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. Reds had a rookie Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Vada Pinson and my first favorite player, Tommy Harper.

First football game was a high school game in Kentucky in 1968, Bryan Station vs. Lafayette. First pro was Cowboys vs. Giants at Texas Stadium in 1974. First college was Texas-Texas A&M in 1976 in Austin.

First pro basketball was Harlem Globetrotters(!) vs. Washington Generals 1969 in Anderson, IN-Curly Neal and Meadowlark Lemon-we spent most of recess the rest of the year trying to do fancy passes. (first NBA was Houston Rockets circa 1983-got floor seats and remember how big Ralph Sampson was!). College I think was Texas at Rice in 1983 or 1984.

Only hockey games were Houston Aeros of WHA in 1974 when Gordie Howe played for them.

(05-06-2021 04:25 AM)jaybird44 Wrote:  Pro-new york nets at virginia squires
College-new Hampshire vs Michigan st. Magic was playing.
Everyone remembers their first game. What was yours?

Pro: Pirates Braves 1979 Braves won 13-4 but I’ve been a lifetime Pirates fan ever since.

College:1979 Auburn and Wake Forest. Wake won 42-38

College Fresno St. 34, La Tech 10, 1986
MLB Giants vs Pirates 1989
NFL Falcons vs Broncos 1994(preseason) took grass from mile high stadium

(09-04-2021 11:39 PM)Tintin Wrote:  

(05-06-2021 04:25 AM)jaybird44 Wrote:  Pro-new york nets at virginia squires
College-new Hampshire vs Michigan st. Magic was playing.
Everyone remembers their first game. What was yours?

Pro: Pirates Braves 1979 Braves won 13-4 but I’ve been a lifetime Pirates fan ever since.

College:1979 Auburn and Wake Forest. Wake won 42-38

I was a big fan of your books as a kid.

Pro: Kentucky Colonels vs. Memphis Tams on November 22, 1972
College: Miami Hurricanes vs. Louisville Cardinals on September 6, 1980

We’re talking about games in person, right?

Professional — random Atlanta Braves game, 1973.

College — Georgia at Georgia Tech, 1973.

CFL 1987: Eskimos at Argos.

Marcus Allen's brother at QB for Edmonton.

Pro? Major league baseball, we drove down in the 1970's to Riverfront Stadium watching the Big Red Machine dismantle some other team. I have no idea who the other team was. I am quite unclear as to exactly which year it was. Rose, Bench, Foster, Morgan, Concepcion. Might have been '74. My impression is that Knight was not playing for them yet, but it was before my first college football game, so I know it was before 1975. Don't remember the starting pitcher, but Pedro Borbon got the save.

College football was when my mom, who was a "non-traditional" student, was a Senior at OSU. She had gone to three year Nursing School out of High School, so when she wanted to get her MSW degree, she needed to get an undergraduate degree first, and went to OSU, Newark branch first, then main campus. As a married Senior, she was able to get family tickets to a couple of games. That must have been some mid-70s initiative for non-traditional students.

Lessee, it was 1977, because it was Dwight Hudson in his first year as drum major. It was a Big Ten game ... I'm guessing it was Purdue. I don't think it was Minnesota, since looking at the results, OSU blanked Minnesota, and I seem to vaguely recall the other team scoring.

It was also Robust-T three yards and a cloud of dust football except once in a while when the Buckeyes running back would spurt through the line and break out a run for five or ten or twenty before the linebackers and/or safeties hauled him down ... I'm thinking that would mostly have been Ron Springs. I imagine there must have been some passing plays, but I don't recall them.

High School? I played Bass Trombone in the marching band. I went to every single one, home and away, so that would be the Watkins Warriors first game in the 1975 season.

Pro: Milwaukee Brewers at New York Yankees, 7/15/71
College: Illinois State at Syracuse, 12/8/79