Oct. 17 is a big day in the career of Al Michaels

If one were to call Al Michaels the sports version of Forrest Gump, it would be hard to argue. He’s shown a tremendous knack for being on the call for some of the most significant moments in sports history.

And as Michaels calls Week 7’s Thursday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and New Orleans Saints, he’ll be celebrating the anniversary of two such calls. One was a showdown between two of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. A game that lived up to the billing — and then some — in what is one of the greatest games in the more than five-decade history of Monday Night Football . The other was set to be a sporting event but turned into a tragic news story.

And that’s where we begin.

Oct. 17, 1989

When the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics began the 1989 World Series three days earlier, it was known as The Bay Bridge Series, the Battle of the Bay or even the BART World Series. But at 5:04 local time on Oct. 17, shortly before Game 3 was supposed to begin, the series earned another nickname — The Earthquake Series.

The Giants trailed 0-2 in the series and hoped that a return to Candlestick Park would help them turn around a series which, to that point, was completely non-competitive. The A’s meanwhile, were hoping to keep the momentum going after wins of 5-0 and 5-1 in the first two games. But neither team got its wish on this day.

As the two teams were getting ready for pregame introductions, the ABC broadcast, with Michaels as the lead play-by-play man and Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer as analysts, was showing a replay of an RBI double from Oakland’s Dave Parker in Game 2. The visual and audio feed both began to scramble before Michaels could be heard saying, “I’ll tell you what, we’re having an earth–.” Michaels was correct. He had just experienced the Loma Prieta Earthquake, a 6.9 magnitude quake that claimed the lives of 63 people.

Seconds later, viewers saw only a green screen with “World Series” written in big, white letters.

After several seconds of silence, audio returned. First was the noise of the crowd. Then Michaels could be heard saying, “Well, I don’t know if we are on the air. We are in commercial, I guess.” The trio was then heard speaking to people (likely) in the production truck before Michaels again addressed the audience.

“I don’t know if we’re on the air or not and I’m not sure I care at the moment, but we are. Well, folks. That’s the greatest open in the history of television, bar none.” After exchanging a brief comment with McCarver, Michaels continued. “We are still here. We are still as we can tell on the air and I guess you are hearing us even though we have no picture and no return audio. And we will be back, we hope, from San Francisco, in just a moment.”

One thing that wasn’t clear to people in the stadium was how bad the Earthquake was. Candlestick Park suffered only minor damages. I was a four-year-old child at the game with my dad. While my memories of that day are sparse, my dad recalls thinking that the earthquake was nothing more than rowdy fans sitting directly above us stomping their feet and jumping up and down. My mom was on a bus, minutes away from Candlestick. She remembers briefly thinking that the earthquake was a flat tire. It took a while for people in that part of San Francisco to realize what happened and how bad it was.

After airing other programming, ABC returned to Candlestick Park where Al Michaels was stationed in the network’s production truck. He spoke with Ted Koppel, who anchored the news from Washington D.C. The Goodyear Blimp, meanwhile, showed much of the destruction that the Bay Area was hit with.

Likely the most famous image of the earthquake is of the Bay Bridge, which connects the two cities, collapsed. A portion of the top deck of the bridge, which ran from Oakland to San Francisco, had collapsed onto the bottom deck, which runs from San Francisco to Oakland. The bridge itself produced only fatality when a driver, who was given bad information, turned around and drove east, back towards Oakland, from the top deck and sadly crashed into the collapsed portion of the bridge.

The blimp also captured images of the fire in San Francisco’s Marina District and the Cypress Structure on Interstate 880, which had collapsed. Of the 63 deaths from the earthquake, 42 came from the Cypress Structure, which had a large portion of its top deck collapse onto the bottom.

The series ended up being postponed for 10 days as the Bay Area began to rebuild. Ultimately, it resumed on Oct. 27. The A’s claimed both Games 3 and 4 to finish the series in a sweep.

Michaels, who had previously worked as an announcer for the Giants, was familiar with the area. That helped make his work as a de facto field reporter in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake even better. For his work, Michaels earned an Emmy nomination.

Five years later, Michaels called another iconic sports moment. But while what happened in 1989 was more about the earthquake, his 1994 moment was all about the game.

October 17, 1994

Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs headed west for a divisional game against John Elway and the Denver Broncos for Monday Night Football . Montana and Elway by this point were not only legendary quarterbacks but both had developed a reputation for leading their teams from behind. Those reputations would only be strengthened on this night.

With 4:08 remaining in the game, Kansas City kicker Lin Elliott made a short field to put the Chiefs up 24-21. Shannon Sharpe fumbled on the ensuing possession, which seemed to all but seal Kansas City’s win. But Denver got the ball back when it recovered another future Hall of Famer’s fumble, Marcus Allen.

The Broncos moved the ball down the field. After what looked to be a go-ahead touchdown was overturned, Elway and his teammates were furious. When they took the field for third-and-goal from the four-yard line, Denver had only ten men on the field. Sharpe, who was the lone eligible receiver to Elway’s right, alertly stepped up onto the line of scrimmage, giving the Broncos a legal formation. Elway then ran in from four yards out to give Denver a four-point lead.

Just before the Broncos kicked off, Michaels made a prescient call.

“1:29 and three time-outs and that’s an eternity for Montana,” Michaels said, though he later corrected himself to note that the Chiefs only had two time-outs.

But as the Chiefs took the field, Michaels noted how much both Montana and his coach, Marty Schottenheimer, had struggled at Mile High Stadium.

“Schottenheimer and Montana in Mile High, it’s been a house of horrors,” Michaels said. “Halloween is two weeks away but this has been the haunted house for Marty. With Cleveland and with Kansas City, 0-6 during the regular year, 0-1 in the playoffs. And Joe, as we mentioned before, 0-3 here. Twice with San Fran and once as a Chief.”

The Chiefs moved the ball down the field, with the Broncos applying virtually no pressure to Montana. With 13 seconds remaining, Montana found rookie tight end Tracy Greene, who was tackled at the five-yard line. During the ensuing time-out, Michaels quipped, “Well, I tell ya, when it takes your breath away at 5,280 feet, it really takes your breath away.”

On the next play, Montana threw an out route to Willie Davis. Davis caught the ball but briefly came out of the end zone. Fortunately for the Chiefs, he had enough room to sneak back into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.

“Lord you can take me now, I’ve seen it all,” Dan Dierdorf said.

Denver didn’t have much of a chance, getting the ball with only eight seconds left. On the final play of the game, a scrambling Elway was stripped of the ball by Darren Mickell, with Vaughn Booker recovering.

“And that is the end of one of the great games in the annals of Monday Night Football ,” Michaels said .

Indeed, it was.

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