Yeah. I was trying to forget 1995 and 1998. Fuck you.
I’ve debated posting about 2006 in here, AKA The Game In Which Drain Bead Spends $5000 Only To Find Out That The University of Phoenix Stadium Has No Off Switch.
These NFL playoff games between the Falcons and Cowboys convinced young Shot Clock that there was no truth, there was no justice, there was no right, there was no God, there was no fairness. And the Good Guys never win.
I’m better now. Barely. I’ve repaired my relationship with the Almighty. I feel confident that good eventually triumphs over evil. True justice will prevail.
But to this day, nothing quite reaches the joy I feel deep in my heart each and every time the Dallas Fucking Cowboys lose a football game.
The 1974 World Cup final. Followed by the '78 final. Had to play the hosts. 
Not too bothered by the 2010 finals. The better team won this time around. And the Dutch played some ugly soccer. The '70s Holland teams were beautiful to watch.
October 8, 1983: The White Sox, in the ALCS for the first time ever, trail the Orioles two games to one, but Britt Burns is pitching a shutout and Cy Young winner Lamarr Hoyt is set to go in the fifth game. All the Sox have to do is score one run to win.
Bottom of the seventh, runners on first and second and nonody out and Jerry Dybzinski up–a mediocre utility infielder and crappy hitter, but a good bunter. He bunts into a force-out at third base. The next batter singles, the runner on second holds at third–but Dybzinski puts his head down and tries to advance two bases anyhow.
Eventually he gets hung up in a rundown and retreats to second while the lead runner is thrown out at home, meaning that he doesn’t score when the pitcher subsequently balks. The Sox lose in 10 innings and don’t win a post-season series for another 22 years.
That was a heartrending game, and every Pirate fan alive at the time still bears that wound, a wound that can only be healed by a World Series win. Profoundly painful.
The collapse of the home-plate umpire John McSherry caused Randy Marsh to take over and squeeze the plate(especially on Belinda in the 9th), sure-handed Jose Lind bobbled an easy out. . .I remember thinking the Bucs should have had five outs by the time Sid Slid. It’s like the universe didn’t want them to win.
Maybe the 1960 WS was more painful to Yankee fans, but they didn’t have to endure 18 losing seasons after the fact. They almost should have disbanded the Pirates after 1992. Soul-crushing.
Yep. ND controlled that FSU game so well, the championship was an afterthought.
To a lesser degree, the phanom clip in the 1991 Orange Bowl that wiped out Rocket’s punt return TD against Colorado really killed me. The game wasn’t for a championship or anything, but I was young enough that it hurt pretty bad.
March 4th, 2004. My WSU Cougars (12-14) hosted the #1 ranked Stanford Cardinal (26-0). This was pre-Bennett era Coug basketball and we were working on yet another losing season.
We had been SO BAD for SO LONG and played absolutely inspired ball all game. Then Josh Childress hits some completely bullshit blind turnaround 3 with 2 seconds left to win 63-61. Playing to a standstill even though they were so outmatched, then losing due to some lucky heave. It was sickening.
Oh yeah. And Superbowl XL. Nuff said.
Hey, I thought this was the “ripped your heart out” thread. If you keep watching afterwards, does it still count?
Yeah, Super Bowl XL was a bit of a disappointment.
If I were a Miami Hurricanes fan, I’d say the January 2, 1987 Fiesta Bowl would have been that game. One minute left, and the unstoppable Hurricanes offense has a 1st-and-goal on the 5 yard line…all they need to do is punch it in for the win and the national championship. What happened? No gain, sack, incomplete, interception thrown right at Pete Giftopoulos.
Fortunately, though, I am a Penn State fan, so that game doesn’t count for me. 
That’s the first game I remember watching, and I think I picked Miami because I was vaguely aware of Miami Vice, and I knew Sonny and Tubbs were cool, so the football team was cool. I was too young to be crushed by it, though. The loss to Bama on New Year’s Day '93 was a horribly bitter pill to swallow.
2010 Final Four, WVU vs. Duke. I actually missed watching most of that game because I was on a plane flying home from a funeral. I don’t think the game was ever really close, but it still hurts that WVU couldn’t advance to the National Championship after making its first Final Four appearance in 50 years. And the star player, Da’sean Butler, was injured in his last game as a Mountaineer. Heartbreaking.
In December 2007, the WVU football team was a Top-2 team and all set to play in the National Championship game. All we had to do was beat our hated rival, Pitt, who wasn’t even bowl-eligible. It was a night game at home in Morgantown, the crowd was pumped, and all the cards were in place for an epic celebration once WVU won the game handily. The freaking band even made a formation to spell out “B-C-S” in the halftime show.
We lost the game 13-9. And to add insult to injury, Rich Rodriguez left a week later to take the head coaching job at Michigan. Rat bastard. :mad:
The two times I’ve cried over baseball, right here.
Wha…? I’m pretty indifferent to West Virginia, but they’re always fun to watch. But had no one told that band director the meaning of the word “jinx”?!?
The Ashes - England v Australia 3rd Test Headingley, Leeds July 1981
England won by 18 runs
Known as Botham’s Test, though technically Botham saved it, Willis won it.
Going into the series, England had clearly the better squad and had home advantage. However they were outplayed in the 1st Test and were in disarray by the end of the 2nd.
At Headingly Australia won the toss, batted and scored just over 400. The Poms were rolled for 178. Forced to follow on and were “gone for all money” at 1-0 with Gooch out at the end of the third day. Ladbrooks offered odds of 500-1 on an England win. When England had slumped in their second innings to 7-135 there was just one out-of-form batsman and three tailend bunnies to dislodge.
Botham, with nothing to lose, batted like there was nothing to lose, hitting 149 not out with 27 boundaries and a six in partnership with Dilley gave England something to bowl at.
Was great, gladitorial theatre but the real result was Australia needed just 130 to win the Test; and from 2-0 up probably win both the series and The Ashes. We’d scratchily progressed to 56 for one when Willis was brought on to bowl downwind and then with demonic determination ripped the game away.
For only the second time in over 120 years of Test cricket, a team won after following on.
Pommie bastards still crow about it.
Oh, but that was a race for the ages–two great teams down to the wire, a great team eliminated by a slightly-greater one, in the regular season. It’s impossible under the current structure.
Oh yeah, i remember that. I was 12 years old, and devastated.
To be fair, i spent a considerable postion of my teen years lamenting the fortunes of the Australian cricket team. Too often it was Alan Border fighting a rearguard action after everyone else had fallen in a heap.
I think one of the most deflating defeats was the 4th Ashes Test between England and Australia at the MCG in 1982-83. England made 284 and 294; Australia made 287 in their first innings, and needed 292 in the second to win. England got Australia 9/218, and it looked like it was all over.
But then Border and Jeff Thomson began an improbable partnership, seeing out stumps on day 4 and playing well into the first session on day 5. They kept edging closer and closer, with Border doing everything he could to retain the strike and protect his partner. Thomson himself, despite being well known as a pretty useless batsman, did well, managing 21 runs and generally looking pretty solid.
The partnership had yielded 70 runs, and was only 4 short of victory, when Thomson waved at an Ian Botham delivery, sending it into the hands of Chris Tavare in the slip cordon. And straight out again. It popped out of Tavare’s hands like a wet fish and into the air over his head. The whole world stood still, and i watched that ball hang in the air for what seemed like a full minute, willing it to hit the deck. But then first slip Geoff Miller ran around behind and scooped the ball up before it touched the grass. Game over. England won by 3 runs.
My mother and i were stunned.
Here’s the match scorecard.
Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. The Indians last won the WS in 1948, the year before I was born. I’ve literally been waiting all my life for that to happen again – so close.
I just stumbled across an extended highlight package of the game looking for the Ingram highlight for the “greatest moments” thread. This 10-minute clip includes around 20 Bills offensive plays. I invite you to judge for yourself if the Bills offense played like crap.
Consider also that the Bills offense never had the ball thanks to the Giants ball control offense. They had multiple 8+ minute drives in the game. Superbowl.com has this to say:
New York, employing its ball-control offense, had possession for 40 minutes, 33 seconds, a Super Bowl record. The Bills, who scored 95 points in their previous two playoff games leading to Super Bowl XXV, had the ball for less than eight minutes in the second half and just 19:27 for the game.
Even with virtually no time, Thurman Thomas rushed 15 times for 135 yards with a TD. This was an intentional part of Belichick’s game plan, which he had to sell to the Giants defense. The idea was to rush 3 and drop 8, blanketing receivers and crushing them the moment they caught the ball. This would allow Thomas to run wild, but it was the only way to stop the Bills. Pressuring the QB would have played right into Kelly’s hands.
It’s an SDMB-specific slang term born in Survivor threads. I even stated as such in the text you quoted. Do try to keep up. For clarity, I used it exactly correctly.
This. This. This.
Nothing even comes close. The Pirates are my all-time favorite sports team. I was a kid in the 70’s, and the Pirates were always competitive, winning it all in 1971 and 1979.
The 1992 team WAS disbanded, just not officially. Every star left via free agency over the off season; 1992 was their last hurrah and everyone knew it. They won three straight division championships in 1990, 1991, and 1992. A great team that was going to lose Barry Bond that offseason, as well as some other stars like Andy Van Slyke. The team was going to suck after 1992, so we were all looking at that season as a last hurrah. I don’t think ANYONE thought it was going to be 18+ years of pain, but we knew it was going to be a rough ride.
2-0 lead, bottom of the 9th. Francisco Cabrerra (I have no idea if this is right) singles in the knee-less Sid Bream to win the game and break my Pirate heart forever. I’m glad someone remembered the umpiring in that game. The strike zone shrunk down to nothing and Belinda was getting screwed. If he wanted a strike call, he had to groove the pitch, or it was called a ball.
This loss haunts me like no other. I remember the moment like it was yesterday. My father, my brothers all watching that game together with excitement, going into the 9th with Drabek holding a 2-0 lead. And then the slow, painful ending of a baseball team, ending with Bream crossing the plate. My father and brothers didn’t say a word when it happened. We didn’t look at each other. It was silent, stunned disbelief. We each left the room by ourselves to wrestle with the demons of that loss that night. No one slept. We have rarely spoken about that game, and didn’t mention it at all for about a decade.
The death of a franchise. 18 years later and they are being molested by an owner who is actually making a ***profit ***each year with the Pirates. He takes luxury tax contributions from the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox and combines that with one of the lowest payrolls each year to field a team of no names. So bad are the Pirates that fans have reduced their expectations from contending for a pennant to finishing above .500. And we can’t even get that from Nutting and his management team. I wish MLB would force Nutting to sell the team to someone willing to field a competitive team.
Every year, I watch the Pirates with renewed optimism, which is usually dashed by June 1.
The Pirates will have to win a World Series to remove the scar of 1992. I don’t think they will heal that wound before I die. 