Sports

’85 title game something special

LOS ANGELES — Some people have a Super Bowl in their personal bank of memories, Giants fans mostly, maybe a few scattered, aging Jets fans who made the trip to Miami in January of ’69. Some folks were lucky enough to be at Yankee Stadium in 1977 or 1996 or 1999, or at Shea the night the ball went through Buckner’s legs, or the Garden the night Clyde dropped 36 and 19 on the Lakers.

No matter where it happened, those of us who believe, the truest of the true believers, have our BME — Best Memory Ever — when it comes to sports, when we were able to be at a game whose details you’ll remember forever.

It’s part luck, part happenstance, part good fortune, and I won’t lie: Part of the reason I wanted a gig like this one was to be inside the building on the night Johan Santana threw a no-hitter, the day Larry Johnson hit his four-point play, the back-to-back nights when first Tino Martinez then Scott Brosius took B.K. Kim deep.

But the sportswriter nights don’t count. They’re part of what makes the job fun, part of why I still shake my head sometimes at the reality that someone is nice enough to pay me to watch games. But it’s different when you’re working. It’s different when you’re a fan. So I never count the things I’ve written about when I think about my BME as a sports fan.

And, really, for almost 30 years, I haven’t ever altered my choice. It just seems like an appropriate time to remember it this morning, the morning after the last Big East Championship as we know it. Because my BME was March 9, 1985, and, honestly, I remember every detail of the night as if it took place on March 16, 2013. If only I could remember where I put my wallet …

I remember the train ride in on the LIRR, and I remember Beefsteak Charlie’s, that old staple inside Penn Station, whose old slogan leaps back to the tip of your tongue the moment you say the name: “All the beer, wine and sangria you can drink, all the peel-and-eat shrimp you can eat …”

I remember the fact none of us were planning to actually attend St. John’s, and yet we rooted for the Redmen as fervently as if they were the Knicks. I remember that a couple of us were bound for Georgetown, so they felt compelled to break in their newfound rooting interest even if, to the rest of us, it was like switching your allegiance to the Politburo.

Oh, yes, I remember this, too: None of us had tickets. And this was Georgetown-St. John’s III, the rubber match of an epic season in which the Johnnies and Hoyas had spent time at No. 1, when nobody could possibly have envisioned they actually would play again three weeks later in Lexington, Ky., at the Final Four. This, everyone believed, would be the last time Patrick Ewing would face Chris Mullin after four extraordinary years, and we were still young and naïve enough to believe we’d go on fearing Ewing forever as he piled up NBA titles somewhere, and cheering Mullin when he inevitably became a Knick.

We tried to scalp, but you weren’t getting a good deal, not that night. We moped a little, started to walk away and find a bar that would let us and our fake IDs inside … when we passed another old stanchion of night-time New York, Charley O’s. There, the doorman, overhearing us, stopped us.

“You looking for these?” he asked. Tickets. Legit tickets. Memory does play a trick here: I can’t remember if he gave them to us for free or for a song. Either way, it was reasonable enough that we were inside in time for tip-off, and we watched every second of Georgetown 92, St. John’s 80, and we killed Ewing all night, we stood and saluted Mullin when he walked off the Garden floor for the last time as a Redman, and we never, ever wanted to leave.

And in a small, wonderful way, I never did.

Vac’s Whacks

As A guy who went to an Atlantic 10 college, I have to laugh at all the empathy afforded the Catholic 7 schools who have railed for years about other conferences poaching Big East teams, but seem to believe doing the same thing to the A-10 is some kind of acceptable manifest destiny. I seem to remember a certain verse from a certain book about being unable to notice the plank in one’s own eye …

* Defending champ Kentucky may not hear its name called when the brackets are revealed tonight, but it stars in a beautifully-done documentary airing tonight at 8 p.m. on truTV, “Bluegrass Kingdom: The Gospel of Kentucky Basketball.” It had to be good: — It was the brainchild of Michael Tolajian, who also brought you “Once Brothers,” the Drazen Petrovic/Vlade Divac doc.

* Let’s just put it this way: After watching what happened to Mark Teixeira and David Wright, I don’t suspect New York City will be placing a bid for the WBC, even if they move it to the middle of July and promise free ice cream with every ticket.

* So the Broncos’ deal with Elvis Dumervil got fouled up over a faulty fax? What, was the Telex machine busy?

Whack Back at Vac

Greg Marshall: I am not a racist. Just because I hate hearing trumpets, drums, cowbells, clown horns and New Year’s Eve noisemakers while I attempt to watch a baseball game doesn’t change that fact. One who is annoyed by incessant unpleasant noise can be so without any political or ethnic agenda.

Vac: It’s the same way I feel about basketball games that insist on not allowing one single second to breathe without music or someone shouting into a microphone. I don’t think that makes me an old man, either.

John Siciliano: New York sports fans are so lucky to have two Mr. Novembers: Derek Jeter and Carmelo Anthony.

Vac: Even those of us on Melo’s side have to laugh at that one.

@noahseton: The Big East should have had a separate tournament with the original teams for old time’s sake this year.

@MikeVacc: I would’ve settled for an Old-Timer’s Day two-on-two pitting Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson against Patrick Ewing and Reggie Williams.

Tom Cooney: When I saw the WBC roster in The Post, I thought: Where the NBA Olympics features a veritable who’s-who of basketball, this one actually leaves one thinking “Who’s that?!?!”

Vac: Unless a New York player is involved, in which case the question is, “Who’s calling the ambulance?”