One Moment In Time

Whitney Houston was at the top of her game in 1988. And to top all of that off she had a song on the 1988 Seoul, Korea Olympics soundtrack. It was a spectacular song. “One Moment In Time” spoke to all who aspired to be more than they could be. It was all about achieving that thing you had aspired to for so long. That song spoke to me, and still speaks to me. But not in that Olympic destiny way Whitney had set out to capture. No, it was a few months later, as the World Series began.

I was still awake after 11:00 pm central time for game one of the 1988 World Series. As both teams were from the West coast (The Los Angeles Dodgers were playing the Oakland Athletics) the game was running late by East coast standards. Game one had been close all the way trough the ninth inning. The A’s had a one run lead heading into the bottom of the ninth. A's closer, Dennis Eckersley retired two batters with little effort and a hobbled Kirk Gibson came to the plate as a pinch hitter after Eckersley walked Mike Davis.

Down one run with the tying run on first Gibson limped to the plate. Gibson’s knees had been a point of contention for the entire game. Could he deliver now that everything was on the line? I lay on the couch watching what happened next. I really hadn’t cared about baseball since I quit playing two years earlier. Although I had dreamed at one time to be in Kirk Gibson’s shoes I really didn’t care prior to this moment. But at the moment Gibson came to the plate I became a Dodgers fan. Not because I cared about the Dodgers but because my father sat down on the chair next to me and said, “This is every little boy’s dream. Too bad he’s almost as old as I am and his knees are shot.”

At that moment I looked at my father and saw a lifetime of unfulfilled achievements in his eyes. Little did I know at the time how close our family was to bankruptcy. As we both watched Gibson at the bat the air became very tense in the room. Gibson went down 0-2 in the count early and I expected the worst. I looked at my father. The look of despair on his face was more than I had ever seen. Gibson made it to a full count of 3-2. Eckersley looked to win the game. Then Davis stole second. It looked as though the A’s would walk Gibson, but they chose to take Gibson down for the count. On the seventh pitch of his at bat Kirk Gibson took a backdoor slider over the right-field fence for the game winning home run. Then he began his painful run around the bases.



In my 14 year-old world this was the greatest thing I had ever seen. I looked at my father. All he could say was, “look at him, he can barely make it around the bases.” I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. He nodded his head and walked out of the room. I watched Kirk Gibson cross home plate and tried to imagine what it must feel like. Gibson never went to bat again in that 1988 series but the Dodgers still won in five games. NBC was carrying the series that year and as the credits for the series played I remember seeing highlights of Gibson’s homerun and Tommy LaSorda storming the field at the end of game five as “One Moment In Time” played.

I will always associate that ’88 series with that song; as well as the fact that my Father and I did not watch another game together for many years. But we did watch the last at bat of game one together and for a moment in time a total stranger inspired us both to believe in miracles. For me it was a little boy’s dream come true and for him it was the inspiration to never give up, no matter how old you are.