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Bill Buckner Lives Forever
I know the call by heart. I’ve known it for almost as long as I can remember.
Little roller up along first. Behind the bag, it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!
I know these words and I can hear them in my head in the honeyed, steady cadence of Vin Scully. Long before I ever came to know who Vin Scully was, the words have been there.
Little roller up along first. Behind the bag, it gets through Buckner! Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!
For some, the story is a tragic one, which means it is well-told. In the fall of 1986, the hard luck (and potentially cursed) Boston Red Sox were a strike away from their first World Series title in over seven decades, but ended up blowing a 5–3 lead to the New York Mets in the bottom of the 10th inning. The winning run in Game 6 came on a horrific error by Buckner, who failed to field an agonizingly playable ball at first base.
Buckner will live forever in the sports equivalent of the Zapruder film: a minute or so of grainy video that you can mine for every nuance, every grisly detail.
It’s not just the words, it’s the images. Buckner will live forever in the sports equivalent of the Zapruder film…
