I still have the ticket stub in my wallet. Before the game it was selling for $300 to $400, and in some cases more.

After the game, some lady offered me $50 for it. No way. I had just seen history. I had just stood among 50,000 people to watch a line drive just barely clear the fence and put a new number in the historic baseball record book.

Years from now there may be hundreds of thousands of people who could claim to be at that game. But I want to make sure I have proof. Mark McGwire had just given me my first great St. Louis moment.

*** Dec. 23, 1998. The Billikens are taking on the Kansas Jayhawks. I made the drive up from Kansas City with four of my friends, all of whom attend KU.

I remember all the trash-talk being thrown my way that day on the ride up. I remember that night in the Kiel Center. I have never heard an arena so loud.

It was one of the only times Saint Louis University had a true college-basketball atmosphere. I remember the drive back, almost complete silence except for the snickers coming from me. I think my friends were too shocked to speak. I mean, who would have expected that a little Catholic school like SLU could put such a beating on the talent-laden Jayhawks.

*** Until the spring of my freshman year in 1999, SLU hadn’t beaten Cincinnati in something like 87 years. But this was the game that proved SLU belonged in Conference USA.

SLU played like a championship team. Every time the Bearcats tried to put the game away, the Billikens came roaring back. We charged the court when SLU came away with the win.

*** I watched with all of my friends in complete silence as Mike Jones wrapped his arms around the Titans receiver. An instant before the entire room exploded into mind-numbing celebration, you could hear the collective sigh of relief.

It was the sigh of victory. A prelude to complete joy.

And even though you couldn’t pay most people to cheer on the Rams 12 months before, we cheered as if we had lived and died Rams football all of our lives.

*** While my friends went skiing, I was on the couch in Colorado for spring break watching as Kenyon Martin broke his leg.

I continued to watch intently as Justin Love led the Billikens to one of the most improbable wins I have ever seen, over a Cincinnati team that had beaten SLU by 55 points only a few weeks before.

I followed on television through the Conference USA tournament as they stole their way into the only NCAA Tournament in my four years in college.

*** I remember the phone call I received after writing my second commentary. It was from a friend of mine on the men’s soccer team. It sounded something like this.

“Ryan, I had no idea it would get this kind of reaction, but you might want to keep an eye on who’s walking behind you because the guys are really upset. There’s talk of you getting a serious beat-down.”

Oops. The bad news is that I was now a targeted man by people who could probably beat the snot out of me.

The good news was that people were reading what I was writing. I figured it was a fair trade-off. Who knew anyone outside of Europe would be so emotional over soccer?

*** It’s hard to believe my time at SLU is done. It feels like only yesterday that I was sitting in Busch Stadium watching McGwire slapping the hands of the Chicago Cubs infielders as he rounded the bases. SLU has given me so many great memories and opportunities.

All I can do in return is offer my thanks. Thanks to The University News for giving some random guy with no real experience a chance to share his feelings on sports and SLU.

Thanks to my sports editor, Mark, who simply trusted that I’d write something worth reading and for never yelling at me when I missed the deadline (something that happened every week).

Thanks to the copy editors who corrected all of my mistakes, and, trust me, they definitely have their work cut out for them when they’re correcting my writing.

Most of all, thanks to everyone who read this column. There are more people than I can count who have gone out of their way to let me know they have enjoyed something I have written.

And even a few who let me know how much they didn’t like what I write. You are the reason I kept on writing.

Thank you for giving me a reason to share my opinions with the small community we like to call SLU.