Not nearly as good as being in Angel Stadium, I was in a bar/restaurant called Curley's in Auburn, NY watching with the rest of the patrons. It is one of those moments you never forget where you were and I remember thinking to myself that this what Columbus must have experienced when he stepped on land after his voyage. Great to watch history, and even better to have a sense and an appreciation for the magnitude of what you are observing.

Trivia time. Which light hitting pitcher in response to a reporter's question about his hitting remarked years earlier that that we'd have a man on the moon before he'd hit a home run? Then he hit his first career homer 40 years ago today.

I have vague memories of a Connie Mack baseball game at Blair Field in Long Beach, but vitrually nothing else, not the score of the game, the attendance or anything about the pitchers. However, memories of the moon landing always are coupled with memories of the Chappaquiddick incident which had hit the newspaper that day about Mary Jo Kopechne drowning in the car driven by Sen.Ted Kennedy.

The Eagle landed, as you mentioned, at 1:17 PM pacific time. I remember the day, and a brief conversation that occurred that day during the afternoon Connie Mack baseball game at Blair Field, in Long Beach. This was a game played after my Junior year at Lakewood High School. I played a few games that summer with the team named and sponsored by "Johnson Sawdust". The team was put together with Lakewood players , not yet elevated to the "status" of playing for the elite "Long Beach Cardinals" team. As I came in from the outfield between innings, I heard one of our baseball supporters, Tom Arnold (who coached youth baseball teams at the time), excitedly say from the stands to John Herbold, coaching in the dugout, "John - We've just landed on the moon!" Coach Herbold, in disgust, said something to the effect of "Tom, We've got a ballgame to win here", more concerned with the task at hand than with the worldly events of the day. Two great men, with extemely different viewpoints, but both exchanging a moment in time to remember.

The Gaylord Perry home run story :

http://www.snopes.com/sports/baseball/perry.asp

Ah...sweet memories of utter perversion.

I was invited by a loco Polish family to go to their mountain cabin up near the NJ/NY border...so natch, my equally deranged parents said "OK, take him!"

We did some crappy fishing, fried some skeeters, leafy turd wiping hijinx...all the fun things you can do trapped out in the freakin' woods!

At night we all huddled into the living room to watch the moon landing (I'm missing Cannonball Adderly and Bill Dana on Playboy After Dark for this?!)

Of course we were dragged outside by the wacko familia de Kraków to look up and see IF WE COULD SEE THEM WALKING ON THE MOON!

The night ended with one of elderly aunts (I'd guess she was in her late 30's at the time) rubbing my groin with her foot as we slept in adjoining beds.

And yes, the service module booster engine fired correctly.

I absolutely remember it like it was yesterday. I was staying at my cousin's house for a few days down the Jersey shore... Lavalette to be precise. Fond memories and a point of conversation every time I see my cousins.

The day was too big to wander far from the house. It was a hot Kansas afternoon, and the anticipation of the whole family, waiting first for the spacecraft to land safely and then later that evening for the astronauts to leave the LEM, was almost unbearable. We watched the walk in the dark in the family room, better to see the grainy pictures. My brother Pat, who was barely eight, talked to me yesterday about how vivid it was in his mind. An unforgettable day and night!

In an odd sort of way, I remember the T.V. we had as much as the broadcast of the first step. We had a color T.V. (maybe the one Rich's family sold)and I was sitting on our round floor rug watching the grainy picture listening to the static-filled voice of Armstrong. Oh, but that T.V. My first memory of that is watching a Braves game and seeing the bright greens of the field, and watching Henry Aaron circle the bases after hitting a home run. That memory is almost as vivid as the walk on the moon. Thanks Rich.

I was a long distance telephone operator in West LA and my memory of that day was seeing the normally very busy switchboard go totally blank for several minutes while the outside world was watching the landing. Our supervisors let us go one or two at a time to watch the scene on the tiny tv in the break room. After a few minutes of no calls at all, the switchboard lit up like crazy for the rest of the day, as everyone wanted to call someone to talk about it (direct dial was just beginning back then). I think I got home in time to watch the actual moon walk that evening.

I was in Dubuque, Iowa for summer vacation with the relatives. Had just gotten back from the gym (getting ready for the football season). There must have been 40 people at my Grandmothers house gathered around the TV (no AC 90/90heat/humity). When that foot hit the moon the cheer that went up, sounded like the Cubs had just won the World Series.

Well...it took over 24 hours to get the news. At age 26, I was finishing my second cruise to Vietnam. We were on Yankee Station still flying missions in support of the ground troops in South Vietnam. Only news we got was the Stars and Stripes delivered by C.O.D. about 24-48 hours after the fact and sometimes longer. This is period is a "Black Hole" in my news knowledge, after awhile I just concentrated on staying alive and getting home in one piece. When we returned to NAS Alameda about a month later, you can imagine that Vida Blue was all over the Oakland Tribune, just as Rich mentioned. It was sooooo nice to be back to the real world. Within 60 days my military career was over.
Looking back, I was amazed then that we accomplished such a feat and am still amazed at the amount of technology that has been advanced by our space efforts. Why not try for Mars? So many jobs and so much technology will be produced.

I was 13 at the time and had been following the space program for as long as I could remember and was glued to the TV. I had color glossy pictures of all the different rockets and space capsules courtesy of NASA. Back then, a letter to NASA requesting information about the space program would yield free of charge a thick manilla envelope from NASA with 8 x 10 color glossy pictures of whichever program (Mercury, Gemini or Apollo) you requested). I watched the TV and listened intently with the rest of the family as the lunar module landed on the moon and then later as they took the first steps on the moon and then of course going outside that hot night to look up at the moon via my telescope to try to figure out where exactly they landed.