By By Marty Stamper / The Meridian Star
April 22, 2002
In this business, you see a lot of sporting events – some good, some bad; some memorable, others forgettable.
What if you could see any game you wanted to?
Wouldn't that make a great Christmas present?
I don't mean just any game, race, or event being played this year.
For the sake of fun, let's say you could see any event ever played or yet to be played.
Would you care to see a Roman chariot race?
Sometimes the harness racing at the Neshoba County Fair resembles the scenes from Ben Hur, but they really don't whip each other at Philadelphia while they race.
How about baseball … the national pastime.
Would you like to see this year's World Series finale?
How about a step back in time to watch the 1927 New York Yankees. Any game for that entire season would do.
There hasn't been a team like that one before or since.
Yes, you could get a few autographs after the game!
Or maybe we could turn back the clock to 1985 and watch Will Clark and Raphael Palmeiro swat a few long balls at Dudy Noble Field one more time.
Basketball? I'll give you my option to see any pro game you'd like.
All I'd care to see would be Pistol' Pete Maravich and those floppy socks at LSU.
He was such a great passer, but with his shooting skills, would you want him to dish it off?
It wasn't the same, but I did see his son, Jaeson, a few years back when he played for Gulf Coast Community College.
How about golf? A Tiger Woods win at a major tournament or Jack Nicklaus-Arnold Palmer-Lee Trevino battle when they were in their prime?
Football? Would you pick the Ice Bowl from the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field or maybe a warm Rose Bowl?
Maybe you would like to relive Tom Dempsey's 63-yard field goal with the New Orleans Saints.
How about the Ole Miss game in Jackson when Archie Manning almost single-handedly kicked Tennessee's Big Orange hiney to the tune of 38-0?
Maybe you'd like to be in person when Jesse Owens shamed big bad Hitler in the Olympics with win after win. Just don't heckle.
Adolph won't take it too well.
If you're a pro wrestling fan, maybe you'd like to relive the time when The Nature Boy' Ric Flair (Wooooo!!) was in his prime taking on The American Dream' Dusty Rhodes.
Or maybe you played sports and at some point wish you could have done something different in a game.
Maybe you dropped the game-winning pass or a fly ball that caused your team to lose a championship.
Would you like to try to atone for that?
Maybe you missed a free throw with no time left that could have won a game. Care to attempt a second chance?
Maybe you hit the game-winning home run or scored the winning touchdown and it was the high point of your life.
Maybe you'd like to relive the day you killed that huge buck.
Would it be great if someone did actually invent a time machine? Probably not, because if we went back in time and changed the outcome of some big event, someone else would just come along later and redo it the way it happened.
But isn't it fun to wonder what if.?'