In my lifetime, I’ve been to countless sporting events. I’ve seen the mundane: your average, mostly irrelevant midseason game in a 162-game baseball season or an 84 game NBA season. I’ve attended games that were entirely about the future but ultimately held no inherent meaning, like Spring training in Arizona. I’ve seen a lowly college basketball team upset the nation’s number one program. I’ve seen professional motocross and Olympic volleyball and the LA Lazers of the Major Indoor Soccer League. I’ve even seen history: Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Dodgers vs. Oakland.
But I’ve never been to make-or-break, do-or-die game at the professional level*.