Baseball: I always loved Barry Larkin and Ken Griffey, Jr. That magical day in the 2000 offseason when Junior was traded to Cincinnati? Oh man. Ohhhhhh maaaaan. I floated above the ground all day.

Basketball: I, too, am a Celtics fan and love the Basketball Jesus. I also loved the Chief, though.

Football: Hey, I was a Bengals fan. Past Esiason and Munoz, it was pretty dim back in those days. I really love Anthony, though—great player, even better person.

Hockey: Ray Bourque. No one comes close.

I got to meet Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton in fall of 1989 at a baseball card show in Dayton. I brought rookie cards for them to sign [probably still have them somewhere], and as Norm was starting the next day, which we were attending, I told him that I was looking forward to seeing him pitch. That led to this exchange:

Norm: “Huh?”

Rob: “Kid’s right. It’s been up on the board all week that you were throwing tomorrow.”

Norm: “Get out of here.”

Rob: “You didn’t know? Seriously?”

Norm: “Well, kid, I don’t know if I’ll be any good.”

He lasted a couple of innings, got shelled, but the Reds won anyway.

[I should hit up Retrosheet and figure out when that was. I thought that maybe the game was in 1990, but my dad was with me at the show, and he'd moved down South by fall of 1990.]

Actually, it was in 1990 … but probably before Dad had moved, now that I think about it. I just looked up the game: 16 Sep 1990, Reds 9, Dodgers 5. Two years to the day after Tom Browning’s perfect game against the Dodgers, which I remember not even making it into the local papers’ first editions because the game was delayed more than two hours by rain.

i remember Tom Browning’s perfect game, if only for the Score baseball card released in the 1989 set with the caption “Tom Perfect Pitches”. (card #658 in that set apparently)

I remember the Browning game, and I remember thinking that one day I’d like to see a perfect game in person. I realized later how unlikely it was that I’d actually ever see one, but many years later Randy Johnson made it happen for me. I got to see his live, and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in sports. Ever. I’ve still got the ticket stub and the Atlanta paper from the next day. I should have them framed.

Oh, and you know how I feel about the Red Sox and (most of) their players, but I’ll back you up on this Rice issue. He’s a HOFer for sure. (and Geof, just so you know, if it was up to me, Pete Rose would be in also).

I really don’t want Pete in the Hall, at least not while he’s living.