The '90s: what a time it was. Especially May 1992, when the entire sports world seemed to coalesce around San Diego. I was finishing up school then, at the old University of California.
That was before the genetic accident up on Torrey Pines Mesa, before they had to nuke La Jolla to get rid of the three-headed hedgehog people.
It was a renaissance of San Diego sport, led by the America's Cup. Believe it or not, the America's Cup wasn't the huge success it is today; back then, San Diego merchants complained repeatedly that the cup didn't bring enough money into the local economy.
Now, of course, the America's Cup brings millions of credits into a community. But back then, nobody really cared if the American boat beat the boat from Italy. Yes, this was long before the Italians started to dominate the world's sporting community.
It was even before bocce replaced basketball as planet Earth's sporting obsession.
Basketball was becoming the international sport back then, led by the great Michael Jordan -- yes, the same one we now talk about in the same breath as the other "best players of all time:" hockey's Wayne Gretzky, who was winding up his career in '92, and baseball's Billy Swift, who in '92 began pitching like the man we all knew he was: the greatest baseball player of all time.
Jordan, teamed with the second-greatest-hoopster-of-all-time, namely Will Perdue, stomped out what was the international sport: soccer -- the other sport San Diego dominated in 1992.
That was the time of the San Diego Sockers, a team whose dominance of their chosen sport was so great that it can only be paled by the late 1920s New York Yankees or the mid-to-late 1990s San Jose Giants.
Ah, the memories. I will always remember the '90s, and the great sports that were to be found in San Diego back then.
Who am I kidding?
San Diego, a hub of international sport activity? Right. San Diego is the second-rate bargain-basement sports capital of the world. The Clippers? Sorry, don't remember 'em. But, hey: how about them Gulls?
This is now a town for sports memories -- San Diego's sports history is one that cries out for a convenient amnesia-causing knock on the head. Please, don't make me remember Don Sterling, Don Coryell, that old Charger kicker... (What was his name? Sajak something?) I don't need to be reminded about that great AFC championship game back in the late '70s.
These days, with potential thinktank members like Dan Henning and Greg Riddoch, San Diego's busy making up a new set of memories for future San Diego sports fans to forget.
The other day on Dick Schaap's ESPN talk show, Schaap and Bob Costas were discussing sporting events that they'll always remember. Costas was in the Boston Red Sox dugout during game six of the 1986 World Series. He was in the L.A. Dodger dugout when Kirk Gibson hit his home run against Oakland in the 1988 World Series.
And me? Hell, I've got 'em all beat. I was in San Diego when Il Moro won the America's Cup.
Oh, pinch me.