Bumgarner echoes a decades-old performance

Madison Bumgarner’s pitching performance in last night’s Game Five of the World Series deserves the word epic, an epithet used all too often by tweens and Tweeters in 2014, but completely apropos in its traditional meaning here.

Last night’s contest wasn’t exactly a rumble in the jungle (more like play by the bay), but the gutty performance did call to mind the work of a certain Mr. Ali, who 40 years ago this week defeated a certain Mr. Foreman in what some consider the greatest boxing match, nay, greatest sporting event of the 20th century.

On October 30, 1974 (at 4 a.m. local time to accommodate Western TV audiences), Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire: a nation that no longer exists on a continent known today only by the fact that some people there carry the Ebola virus. The match was a culmination of what turned out to be a month-long celebration of music, sports, and black culture that would be unrecognizable today. And entirely politically incorrect. Well, maybe.

For a nostalgic look at this event watch the Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings, now 18 years old but still relevant and still awesome today. You’ll thank me later.

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About moc

My name is Mike O'Connell. I am 41 years old and live in Northern Virginia. I am a teacher, a musician, and an enthusiast of all things American.

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