Just a Bit Outside: The BIG one is coming!
Froylan Ramirez walked through the tunnel into the bright sunlight and the emotions of the moment were overwhelming.
“We stopped, looked out at the field, players could be seen warming up,” Ramirez wrote about the experience years later. “I grabbed the railing to assure myself that I was actually at my first World Series game!”
Ramirez had been one of the lucky ones. He actually scored tickets to game three of the 1989 World Series featuring his beloved San Francisco Giants and their cross-bay rivals, the Oakland A’s.
Before the first pitch, the nickname of that World Series went from being the ‘Bay Bridge Series’ to the ‘Earthquake Series.’
“I heard a roar, thought it was a jet plane flying over or near the stadium,” Ramirez wrote. “I looked up and saw nothing. As I scanned the stadium, I saw the light standards swaying. Then, to my horror, saw the entire stadium moving as a mold of Jello moves if one shakes the plate it sits on.
“It shook for what felt like minutes, the only thought was if the stadium falls, please Lord let me fall on something soft so I don’t die!”
The Loma Prieta earthquake lasted 15 seconds.
During those 15 seconds, the ground shook, roadways collapsed, buildings fell and 63 lives were lost.
The magnitude 6.9 earthquake came on in an instant but looking back on it, seismologists said that the quake was not a surprise. It turned out, the earth had been sending signals that pressure was building with a series of precursors called foreshocks – smaller earthquakes that presage a bigger quake.
College football is not life and death. Thank God. But if you think the changes that we’ve seen in college football over the last few years are dramatic, I’m here to tell you that they are just the foreshocks to the big one … the one that is coming possibly as early as this week.
“It’s the biggest change yet to how college athletics has operated for such a long time,” said Mit Winter, an attorney specializing in NCAA issues.
House vs. NCAA is the landmark lawsuit that will likely shake the ground under the college football landscape.