Top Five Halloween Sports Moments

Halloween is a spooky night itself, but don’t get it confused—sports don’t take a night off on the 31st. In honor of Halloween, we’re counting down the top five coolest Halloween sports moments.

Honorable Mention: This one was not on Halloween, but the spookiness factor makes up for it. The Cubs and the Mets were in a race for the 1969 postseason, and the Cubs were up by 2 ½ games. The two teams were playing each other on September 9. The game seemed ordinary until a black cat wandered onto the field. The cat went straight to the Cubs dugout, walked back and forth a few times, and then disappeared, but it was enough to curse the team. The Cubs lost the 2 ½ game lead they had over the Mets and their spot in the playoffs, while the Mets went on to secure their first ever World Series win.

5. In Game 3 of the World Series on Halloween 2009, Alex Rodrigez (A-Rod) hit a ball deep down the right field line which hit high off the wall for a double, putting the Yankees in good position to score with second and third and one out. The only thing was that A-Rod was standing on second signaling homerun. After both he and the Yankees’ coaches protested, the umpires convened and went inside to check the replay. A minute later, they emerged and overturned the call stating that it actually hit a camera in the stands, giving the MLB its first postseason replay review homerun and A-Rod his first ever world series hit.

4. The Wizards beat the Celtics 114-69 on Halloween 2002. Not only was this the greatest margin of a win on Halloween, but it also was the Celtics’ worst ever loss by point differential. Even including the thrashing they delivered to the Celtics, the Wizards/Bullets still own the worst record on Halloween with a .263 winning percentage on the date.

3. Leading up to Halloween 2010, NBC officials were doing everything they could to get people to go to the Saints at Steelers game, including a pre-football costume contest. This was an ordinary promotional pitch until someone pointed out that they must be breaking some sort of record. This led to a Guinness World Records representative being in attendance for the game and a 20-10 Saints victory. The previous record of 508 costumed participants, like the Steelers, was easily defeated that Halloween as the New Orleans contest hosted 17,777 costumed people.

2. The Arizona Diamondbacks were leading Game 4 of the 2001 World Series with one out in the 9th inning and were looking to take a 3-1 lead in the series. The Yankees’ first baseman Tino Martinez had other ideas as he stepped to the plate and hit a game-tying home run to send the ballgame into extra innings and for the first time ever, past midnight and into November. Just a few minutes later, Derek Jeter hit a walk off homerun to win the game and tied the series at 2-2, earning the nickname “Mr. November.”

1. The spookiest Halloween moment of all took place in 2009 during the Spurs vs. Kings game. Out of nowhere, a bat flew onto the court near the end of the first quarter. The officials halted the game to try to catch the bat, but the fox mascot in a Batman costume struggled to do so. Instead, Spurs guard Manu Ginobili lined up his shot and swatted the bat out of the air with his bare hands. The Batman theme song played, and the game continued with a Spurs victory. The bat, unlike the cat in the 1969 Cubs and Mets game, did not seem to do much in the way of luck though, as the Kings did not make the playoffs, and the Spurs were knocked out in round one.