For me, it’s gotta be Reggie Miller’s 8 points in 8 second wallop of the Knicks in '95. The absolute shock of it. And it was Reggie Freakin’ Miller for Chrissakes!
I’m sure Red Sox fans will insist that playoff game against the Mets in '87 was more painful but, really. It’s the Red Sox. Didja really think you could win?
This is the 3rd thread I’ve started today. That’s gotta be some kind of record. For me, at least.
Mark Hughes equalising in the last minute of extra time in the FA Cup semi-final against my team, Oldham Athletic, several years ago. Ripped my heart out.
To correct a small typo, the Mets vs. Red Sox played in the 1986 World Series, not a playoff.
I’ve got the Cleveland sports fan trifecta going: (1) John Elway’s last-minute drive against the Browns in the January 1987 AFC championship game; (2) Michael Jordan’s first famous last second playoff shot, which knocked out the Cavaliers in 1989; and (3) the 1997 Indians becoming the first team to ever take a lead into the bottom of the 9th of the 7th game of the World Series before losing to the Ft. Lauderdale Fish, er, Florida Marlins.
Three words: agony of defeat.
Two words: Don Denkinger.
As a Terps basketball fan, Duke’s comeback at Cole from 10 points down with a minute left against Maryland really sucked, I was at the game. Then they come back from 22 down in the Final Four. Ouch!
At least their football team sucks, while UM made the Orange Bowl (after being picked 7th in the ACC). But who wants/needs a rivalry with Duke in football?
Kordell Stewart throwing the Hail Mary to beat Michigan in 1994. Also, Michigan’s many narrow Bowl game losses in the 1970s. They never got blown out, just always came up a few points short.
The Packers losing several years in a row to the (expletive deleted) Dallas Cowboys in the mid 1990s. The Super Bowl loss to Denver kind of sucked, but at least they had won it the previous year.
Tigers losing to Minnesota in the 1987 playoffs.
This past season of Michigan Wolverine women’s basketball. They started off the season 10-1, but then were only able to manage a 6-10 mark in the Big Ten. Two games were particularly painful. At home vs. Ohio State, they had a three point lead with about 4 minutes to play and totally fell apart in those 4 minutes. Also at home against Purdue, they played well for about 3/4ths of the game, but once again could not finish the deal. Then, they lost in the first round of the Women’s NIT to Valparaiso
Ruffian.
Watching that poor horse hobbling around with her leg broken was the by fair the most painful and heartwrenching sight in sports. Everything else was just losses; this was death.
April 13, 1997. The last Whalers game ever. I was there with my father, Section 301, Row B, seats 11 and 12. Nobody was crying, but all 15,000 people were so depressed that the whole game was just one big downer. At least we won.
Darrell Evans getting picked off of third as the tying run in game 4 of the 1987 AL Playoffs with the Tigers down 2-1 in the series. His first time up in game 5, he got a standing ovation from the fans.
It would have been Isiah’s pass to Larry Bird in 1987 but with the Pistons success the following years it was easier to take.
Tigers haven’t been to the playoffs since 1987.
Dale Earnhardt’s death. As a racing fan, death comes with the territory. But Earnhardt was bigger than the sport. I have seen all or part of at least half the Winston Cup races that Earnhardt drove in and the one race he backs off to let someone else win he loses his life.
…The Drive…
enuff said
Ayrton Senna da Silva’s death on the Imola track. May 1, 1994.
I could say the Dutch team losing the 1974 world cup final, but since I was 1 year old at the time and only sw the images much later, it doesn’t count as a memory.
sox-mets, without a doubt. a litlle bit of me died that night.
and, people, it really was bob fuckin stanleys fault. poor billy b was just the icing on the cake.
sox lost the series the next night, october 27, 1986. my fuckin birthday. the humanity…
I always think of gymnast Shun Fujimoto of Japan who, in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, landed his dismount from the rings (?) with a broken kneecap.
The look on his face when he lands always makes my stomach want to exit my body via my mouth.
Ow.
Otherwise, I’m with JThunder about the “Agony of Defeat” guy. Who was that anyway?
Magic Ruler crosses the line in the last in Melbourne, Bert Bryant calls it the winner. Photo.
Before the result comes through Bogan Glen crosses the line in a photo finish. Des Mahony calls it the winner by a head.
I am earning $44 a week, but due to the extraordinary luck I’ve had at Randwick this day, I have $500 on each of these horses.
I’m sure you all know how this one ends.
Other than those things where someone/something actually dies, which is at a completely different level, it’s gotta be…
“Bird stole the ball!!!”
I was visiting a buddy in Boston last year, and we were watching the Celtics on tv, and before the game, they show highlights of Boston glories. And then that pass airs.
I thought I was going to vomit. Again.
blanx
NLCS
1984
Best 3 or 5.
Cubs win the first two.
Then proceed to lose the last 3 to blow their best shot at a World Series appearance in the last 50 years.
Oh my head.
I wasn’t, shall we say, best pleased when second division Wycombe Wanderers knocked my dear Leicester City out of the FA Cup in March last year. It was a bad enough result, but things seemed to get further and further and deeper and deeper into the shit after that.
The chickens of pain from the 2001 season came home to roost at the end of this season. My SO’s team win the double. My team play like total shite all season, finish sub 30 points and get relegated. We could and should have been nice solid boring mid table denizens. What bad luck didn’t take from us, we threw away. I can only hope the club buys and sells wisely over the summer.
Goodbye, Muzzy. We’ll miss you.
God, I’m getting a bit sniffly here.
1985 NLCS. Where Jack Clark effectively ended Tom Neidenfuhr’s career with his homer to lift the Cards over the Dodgers.