Most Incredible Althetic Feat

[quasar]

What was the most incredible athletic feat you ever witnessed?

I was thinking about this when posting about my American Legion team. The best baseball team I ever saw play was the 1986 Boyertown, PA American Legion team. The average score of the games they played that year was something like 21-2. The team hit over .400 with an over .500 on base percentage. They collectively made something like 5 errors in a 65ish game season. They regularly picked off players. They manufactured runs. They made spectacular fielding plays as well as the mundane plays. They did this playing the best teams in the country as well as teams like the Japanese and Taiwanese national teams.

This team didn't win the world series. This team didn't even win their county championship.

Perhaps the second best team in the country that year was 9 miles away in Oley, PA. They were in our league. We beat them both times in league play but they were our closest games of the season. We went into the county championships something like 51-0. We played Oley best 2 out of 3 for the county championships in our stadium. We lost the first game 1-0 on a superb outing by their pitcher. We pummeled them the second game. The third game was a high scoring but close game. We were winning by 2 runs and it was the top of the ninth inning. Oley had two runners on base. An Oley player named Brian Hamm came up to bat. He was one of their sluggers, a switch hitter.

He came up righty, his weaker side. On the second pitch of the at bat he hit the hardest ball I have ever seen in my life. It proceeded to hit the light pole in left center field about 3/4 of the way up the pole to win the game for them.

It wasn't quite a scene out of the Natural but it sure felt like it. And it earned him the nickname The Natural. I have never before or since seen anything quite like it.

Oley won the county. They won the state sectionals and the state tournament. They came back to Boyertown for the National Regionals which we hosted and thus got an automatic entry for. The Mid-Atlantic Regional is traditionally the strongest regional in the country and is considered by far the hardest regional to win. That year two teams from neighboring towns faced off again in the regional finals. This time, Boyertown won. However, when Brian Hamm came up to bat he got a standing ovation. Every time.

That to me was also pretty incredible given the situation. But he had so impressed so many of us that he had that much respect in our town. He became a legend in a town that normally chews up the best of our opponent's players and spits them out a lot worse for wear.

Janice

[soxfan[$]]

I was watching a Cleveland Indians game on TV a few years ago (don't remember who they were playing). The other team was at bat, and the batter launched a sharp grounder. The first baseman lunged to his right, but the ball eluded his glove and took a high bounce ... only to be snagged by the shortstop, Omar Vizquel, who leaped into the air -- legs madly windmilling -- grabbed the ball bare-handed, and threw to first for the out. It was truly a thing of beauty.

Ailsa

One of the Chicago Bulls is at the free throw line. He's shooting two of two. He makes the first. He misses the second, but Michael Jordan's already taken off behind the foul line as he's shooting and meets it just after it taps the rim and he slams it home.

Sure he had to have had a running start, but it felt like Jordan came out of NOWHERE and he stayed airborne for what seemed an eternity. He stayed above the rim for God knows how long, and made that rebound and three-point-play like some ort of aviation miracle.

[kurt_messick]

They regularly picked off players.

Shows how illiterate I am in this arena -- I would think that this phrase meant that snipers were shooting from the stands...

[mrisch[$]]

A few I can think of, though I am not sure pure athleticism is involved, as opposed to skill (which I guess is part of it):

1. Bob Beamon's long jump record (I didn't see it live, of course) - this baby stood for 30 years! That is impressive.
2. Ahmad Rashad's famous catch into the endzone where he turns backward
3. Dr. J's behind the backboard shot
4. Antonio Freeman's MNF catch on his back, on the shoulder
5. Two Broncos related ones - one famous and the other not:
a. The Atwater - Okoye hit on MNF that knocked the Nigerian Nightmare backward
b. Steve Watson once made a catch running full speed, but the ball was behind him. He literally fell backward while running and caught it on his chest as his back was hitting the ground.