GAME THEY'LL NEVER FORGET.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

You watch the kids from Taft of Woodland Hills and Birmingham of Lake Balboa play this amazing football game in this classic setting Friday, and you wonder what it is about the night they'll remember years from now, when witnesses have scattered, when these pages are too brittle to turn, when the videotape is a relic of obsolete technology.

Because that's what everybody says about the City Section championship game at the Coliseum, isn't it? That the kids will never forget it.

Will it be Brian Baylor's over-the-shoulder catch they remember, the one that gives underdog Birmingham of Lake Balboa its shocking early lead? Will it be Baylor's slashing run, which makes it a two-touchdown lead and makes you think Taft of Woodland Hills really is going down in the final again? Will it be the fumble, and the other fumble, and the fluky tip-to-interception that ends the first three possessions for the team masquerading as the City's only unbeaten?

Will it be the moment Birmingham goes up 28-0 and you realize this is either be the biggest upset in championship history or the biggest comeback? Will it be the clever little shovel pass from Cary Dove to Litrele Jones that seems to wake up Taft? The 31-yard catch and big-time run by Steve Smith that gives Taft its first score and the slightest momentum going into halftime?

Will it be their pictures on the big video screen above the peristyle? The vastness of the stadium's shell, the immensity of its history? The way they could make out individual voices in the crowd of 6,000, reminding them this battle for the City is a squabble between neighbors, between schools five driving miles apart along Victory Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue?

The answer, you know, is yes. They'll remember all of those things. They'll remember the history they make better than they remember the history they read.

Birmingham's kids will remember it all fondly because they're the 35-7 winners in their first City final in 39 years and the first all-San Fernando Valley City final since 1970. Taft's kids will remember it bitterly because this makes two December disappointments in a row. But over the years, even that might change.

``I think they'll remember whether they win or lose, obviously,'' said Lou Ramirez, the Birmingham athletic director from 1954 to 1998, when the Braves-turned-Patriots won city titles in just about everything but won in football only in 1963. ``But they'll remember the things they did well. They'll remember plays where they did something very good. They'll remember the feeling if they lose. But after a while, that will sort of go away.

``The kids, from '54 on, they come back, and they all say, `Do you remember this play?' I don't, but I always say I do, because I want them to feel that (what they did was important).''

Down on the Coliseum field, the Birmingham and Taft players were warming up, and up in the stands Ramirez was talking about high school memories. Ramirez's own high school years were 1941-43. He played football at Hollywood High.

``I still remember this great block I threw on a 65-yard touchdown run against Uni High,'' Ramirez said. ``It wasn't a touchdown for me, but I remember because it was something good that I did. The guy I hit married a Hollywood girl. I see him at reunions. He says he doesn't remember the block. I tell him he must still be unconscious.''

Ramirez is 76, living in North Hollywood. He threw a block against University High of Los Angeles 60 years ago. I guess we can say he'll never forget it.

In the Coliseum, where Bruce Springsteen capped his 1985 shows with ``Glory Days,'' the future 76-year-olds of the Valley had one of theirs.

You hope they don't remember the week that led up to this game, full of back-and-forth accusations between the two camps, the first leading to a Birmingham player's suspension.

You hope what they remember is the night Los Angeles turned on the lights in its greatest sports setting just so they could decide who's the best in the Valley.

This is as resounding an upset as the Coliseum has ever seen. Taft was 13-0, Birmingham 11-2. Taft beat Birmingham four weeks ago 30-6. Taft was out to grab what eluded it last year, Birmingham was just happy to get this far.

It wasn't supposed to go the way it went Friday night.

They'll still be saying so 60 years from now.