Keeper Briana Scurry coming off her line in the 1999 world cup final against China. Officals missed that one.
Even though I’m a Michigan State fan, the phantom touchdown in the 1979 Rose Bowl was a stinker. Even though it was the hated Wolverines who got the shaft, the call sucked balls.
The Denkinger call at first base stands out as one of the worst baseball calls, as well as the blown perfect game call for Gallaraga.
Totally true. I was AT that game, and I just assumed that the announcers were ripping the ref for missing it… or at least mumbling some sort of embarrassing non-explanation for why it was missed. Turns out, 13 years later, every time that’s shown on TV it’s STILL not talked about. She’s five feet off the line and no one ever seems to think that’s worth mentioning.
Doesn’t fit the narrative, I suppose.
2002 NFC Wildcard game, Giants @ 49ers
On what amounts to the last play of the game, the refs failed to call a comically obvious pass interference call where the defender literally reached up and dragged the receiver to the ground by his collar well before the ball got to him.
They called illegal man downfield on that receiver despite the fact that he’d properly notified the official and his eligibility had been announced over the stadium loudspeakers. This isn’t a big deal, though, since there were other lineman who actually were illegally downfield.
The pass interference should have made it offsetting penalties, replay the down, Giants get another chance to line up and kick the game-winning field goal. But no pass interference was called, game over, thanks for playing.
A few days later the NFL issued the Giants an official apology for not calling that pass interference, but of course by then it was too late and of little comfort.
Seahawks v. Steelers - Superbowl XL , 2005
1st Quarter - Phantom offensive pass interference call on Darrel Jackson negating a TD.
4th Quarter – Phantom holding call on Sean Locklear negating a pass completed to the one.
Low block call on Hasselbeck on his tackle after the interception (I wouldn’t change this if I could only change one call, but boy was it bad).
Seahawks v. Jets, 1998
Vinnie Testaverde 4th down dive in the final minute of the game, cost the Seahawks a spot in the playoffs. Gave us all instant replay.
Gallaraga’s perfect game.
What bothers me the most about this one in particular is that Selig could have reversed this the next day and chose not to.
Why?
A perfect game is literally once in a lifetime if you are lucky. No one would have been upset about it, as it wasn’t even a close call. The only person who would have been impacted was the guy given the hit. And he would have been fine with it, judging from his comments after the game.
I hope baseball fixes this soon. If baseball has no problem with stat guys going back and digging out another RBI for Hack Wilson (now the record is 191 RBI, not 190), they should go back and fix this too.
Selig is truly an idiot. He wouldn’t know what the right thing to do would be if it was gift wrapped and set on his lap.
Wayne Gretzky’s high stick on Doug Gilmour, 1993 Stanley Cup conference final game 6.
Boy am I sick of this whining. The offensive PI call was ticky tack, but he did push off. Would it get called most of the time, perhaps not, but it certainly wasn’t phantom…he DID push off. The holding call I have NEVER understood why people are upset…he clearly pulled his shoulder back after the pass rusher was past him, and likely prevented a sack by doing so.
The Hasselbeck call was absolutely awful, though.
1999 - Jasper Sanks “fumble”. Any Georgia or North Avenue Trade School fans should remember this one.
It was a pretty fitting lowlight for Sanks’ career.
Many Cub fans hearken back to an earlier perfect game that wasn’t–Milt Pappas on September 2, 1972. With two outs in the ninth inning, umpire Bruce Froemming called a close three-and-two pitch outside to San Diego’s Larry Stahl, giving San Diego its only base-runner.
The pitch is shown often on Chicago TV, and Pappas still turns up from time to time to complain about it. The game unfortunately wasn’t broadcast using the center-field camera. From the behind-the-plate camera the pitch appears to be “painting the black”–by the rules of the game a ball, but very often called a strike.
Were the pitch to take place today, nobody would care about the location, because Stahl dragged his bat across the plate and would be called out on a checked swing. Standards were much looser, however, in 1972.
It’s hardly whining to bring it up in a thread specifically about which calls people would change. Is everybody else in this thread whining too, or just sitchensis?
And he didn’t even mention the late call on Roethlisberger’s touchdown.
That’s the thing that no one seems to mention about Galarraga being robbed of a perfect game. Baseball has a very long institutional memory. If the ump had got the call right, it would have been just another perfect game. (A tremendous sporting feat, no doubt, but hardly unique.) As it is, everyone knows, and will continue to know, that he pitched well enough to earn it. He’ll be remembered longer for being robbed of the perfect game than if he’d gotten it.
I don’t know whether Galarraga would find any consolation in that or not. I hope so.
The phantom pass interference called about 5 seconds after Miami won the National Championship game against Ohio State, robbing the U of another championship. Outright theft.
But-- that would make the Yankees look bad! Duh! 
recovering O’s fan here. that was the day I stopped watching baseball. we just can’t get a fair shake in this league!
This is what Bill Leavy thinks about it:
“It was a tough thing for me,” Leavy said Friday. “I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter, and I impacted the game, and as an official you never want to do that.”
“When we make mistakes, you got to step up and own them. It’s something that all officials have to deal with, but unfortunately when you have to deal with it in the Super Bowl, it’s difficult.”
As a Ga Tech alumnus, THIS
One of the referees of that game happens to live in my hometown and I met him a few years back at social function. Unfortunately this night was not one of my finer moments and after a couple of drinks too many I really embarrassed him (and me). :smack:
I wrote him an apology a few days later.
The first call that came to mind was the Jeter home run, but for a different reason. I’m tired of O’s fans whingeing like big gay babies, talking as if this were the game winning, bottom of the 9th, 2 out, game 7, series ending home run.
For those who fail to, or refuse to remember history, it was the 8th inning of game 1, it tied the game, the Yankees went on to win in 11. Then they won the series 4-1. The game they lost, game 2, they lost mostly because they didn’t have Rivera available since he’d pitched the 10th and 11th the night before.
The O’s would have still lost the series, but I would have been able to watch Yankee-Oriole games while in college without the local color showing the HR damn near every time Jeter batted and talking as if the umps single handedly denied the O’s a World Series title.
Again, this is a thread specifically asking for these sorts of examples. Doesn’t really seem fair to insult someone, even by implication, for answering a question that was asked.
I agreed with said example. To be more blunt, it was a terrible call. However, as opposed to most of the calls listed in this thread, this one didn’t directly lead to a championship or victory. More to the point reversing the call wouldn’t have indirectly led to a championship. The Yankees handed the O’s their ass in that series, but the way you hear O’s fans talk you’d think they’d have won the pennant, if not the World Series if not for that call. I’m sick of hearing about it. Everyone else got to say why they wanted the call reversed, why shouldn’t I?
Furthermore, if you’d bothered to read the rest of my post, my animus is directed mostly towards the local Baltimore commentators and former college classmates (in B-more if that needed to be explained). It was 8 years later and every single Jeter at bat just attempted to add Jeffery Maier to the Bill Buckner lore.
That’s ok. The fumblerooski is immoral, and the game shouldn’t have been as close sa it was! 
My picks (all from a selfish position):
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2003 Fiesta Bowl, Miami vs Ohio State: Terry Porter doesn’t throw a flag for pass interference, and Miami wins its 2nd title in a row, and its 35th game in a row. Highly doubtful, but a perfect 2003 season would have meant Miami would have won 3 MNCs in a row and 48 games in a row to beat OU’s record. C’est la vie.
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April 2010, Manchester United vs Chelsea (Premier League): Didier Drogba scored a goal where he was clearly offside to make the game 2-0 Chelsea in the 78th minute, but the goal stood. United got a goal a few minutes later, but lost 2-1. There was still a lot of football to be played, and United had a pathetic draw with Blackburn later, but if the right call was made and everything else was equal, it would have been 1-1, and United would have won the league by two points instead of losing by one. It would have meant United were the first club to win 4 English league titles in a row, along with becoming the most successful English club (did that the next year, though).
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April 2010, Manchester United vs Bayern Munich (Champions League): Rafael da Silva was given a 2nd yellow for a non-foul against Frank Ribery. United were up 3-1 at the time and ended up winning 3-2, but losing on away goals on the aggregate of 4-4. With 11 men, I think United would have continued to dominate the match, gone through to the semi-finals and beaten Olympique Lyon, and played Inter in the CL Final. Inter were great that year, but I’d have been confident in United winning it all.
Every time Charles Barkley kneed Paul Mokeski in the groin and a foul was called on Mo’s balls.