Top 150 Sports Moments

April 11, 1885. In the first intercollegiate football game played west of the Mississippi River, Colorado College defeated the University of Denver Ministers, 12-0.  Newspaper accounts early on never listed any stats or even most of the scoring plays, opting to mostly write about who played in the game and who was the most stout. Both institutions had been around for a while, DU since 1864 and CC since 1874, as the first intercollegiate football game taking place in 1869 (Rutgers 6, Princeton 4).  The game methodically spread west.

April 12, 1965.  Bob Martin hosted the first sports talk show in the state (and possibly the nation), when on this April Friday, he hosted “Sports Line” and interviewed Bronco head coach Mac Speedie and took calls from the public.  It aired for one hour (6-7 p.m.) on KTLN-Radio (1280 am).  Speedie was named interim head coach the previous October when Jack Faulkner was fired, with the interim tag removed with an announcement on December 12.

August 26, 1974. The first championship by any Denver professional team (other than minor league baseball) was claimed by the Denver Racquets as they won the inaugural World Team Tennis league title.  The Racquets defeated the top-seeded Philadelphia Freedoms, two games to zero in the best-of-three finals.  Denver had won the Pacific Section with a 30-14 record and defeated the San Francisco Golden Gators and the Minnesota Buckskins to get to the finals.  The teams were comprised of half men and half women; Philadelphia was led by Billie Jean King, the league MVP; Australian Tony Roche was Denver’s player-coach, and the team also had the playoffs MVP in Andrew Pattison.

September 13, 2000.  In high school boys’ tennis, Wheat Ridge defeated Cherry Creek, 5-2, ending the Bruins’ remarkable dual-match winning streak at 316, the longest in the nation.  In 1991, it was Wheat Ridge that ended Cherry Creek’s run of 19 straight national record state championships. The streak, which began in 1972 – Richard Nixon’s first term as president, was and remains the second-longest of any sport in the country, behind only the Brandon, Fla., wrestling team that won 459 consecutive dual meets from 1973 into 2008.

July 14, 1979.  It was only an exhibition, as former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali fought an eight-round match against Denver Bronco defensive lineman Lyle Alzado.  Around 20,000 fans attended the event at Mile High Stadium, which wasn’t officially scored but went all eight rounds; most if not all thought Ali won easily. About 600 miles to the East that same night, Jamie Easterly of the Denver Bears pitched a perfect game in the Bears’ 10-0 win over the Iowa Oaks in Des Moines. That was the last of seven no-hitters in Denver’s minor league history that spanned over 100 years.

June 2, 1987.  The Denver Zephyrs’ Joey Meyer hit what many have documented as the second-longest home run in all of baseball history – 582 feet – in the Zephyrs’ 14-7 win over the Buffalo Bisons.  Meyer’s shot landed in the upper deck in left field of Mile High Stadium’s massive east stands.  Meyer hit three homers that night, driving in seven runs; the longer blast came on a 2-2 pitch from Mike Murphy in the bottom of the seventh inning.  On September 10, 1960 in Detroit, Mickey Mantle hit a homer estimated at 643 feet that coined the phrase, “tape-measure home run” in the Yankee’s 5-1 win over the Tigers, universally considered the longest home run ever hit.

September 4, 2004.  At 12:30 p.m. MDT, the Altitude Sports & Entertainment Network went on the air, property of Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE).  Over $10 million was spent on building a studio, installing production equipment, hiring personnel and marketing the channel.  The first program?  A 30-minute special on the making of the network; there were 850,000 to one million subscribers at its launch.  The first game was supposed to be the Colorado Avalanche’s season opener at home (on Oct. 1), against San Jose, but the NHL lockout on Sept. 16 cancelled the season.

January 5, 1982.  Colorado State senior guard Kathy Lightfoot scored 45 points in a 118-54 win over Southern Colorado in Fort Collins, to date the most points in a single game by a Division I player in the state.  Lightfoot made 21 field goals and was 3-of-4 from the free throw line.  The state’s collegiate best for women encompassing all divisions is a 51-point effort by the late Carroll Lillie of Southern Colorado (now CSU Pueblo), in an 82-80 overtime loss to St. Mary’s of the Plains on December 3, 1979.

August 5, 1967.  The Denver Broncos become the first AFL team to defeat an NFL team, downing the Detroit Lions, 13-10, at DU Stadium in what some called, “The Little Super Bowl.”  The Lions’ Alex Karras stated prior to the game that there was no way Denver would win, and if it did, he’d walk back to Detroit.  Did he?  Of course not.  And two weeks later, the Broncos bested Minnesota, 14-3, also at DU Stadium.   It was the first year the two leagues started playing in the preseason ahead of the 1970 AFL-NFL merger; of the 15 preseason games that first year, the AFL won three – two by the Broncos.

July 3, 1982.  Denver entered the national record books again, as the Bears’ annual Fireworks Night drew a minor-league record 65,666 fans – as announced at the time.  The Denver fire marshal told team officials the crowd had to be capped at that number, but in actuality, the true attendance was 73,155 as confirmed years later by business manager Bobby Burris (not to mention by looking at an aerial photo of the Mile High Stadium from that night – in no way were there 10,000 empty seats).  Omaha spoiled things with a 7-4 win in a strange game, outhitting the Bears 17-5, with the contest scoreless through five and then each team scoring in their remaining four frames.  In fact, Omaha’s Bill Kelly had a no-hitter entering the sixth and had it broken up with a triple by Denver native and Abraham Lincoln High School grad Nick Capra.