Magic Johnson
1996 - 33 Minutes(decent), but only 6 points, 3 rebounds. To be fair, 10 assists is a lot.
Still, kind of a middling end. At least the Lakers won.
Oops, just realize they made the playoffs and he played a little more. Real final game:
30 minutes, 8 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds.
Even more middling. And the lost, of course.
I think Minnie Minoso should be in the discussion. After retiring from a borderline-Hall-of-Fame career in the Negro Leagues and MLB, he briefly came out of retirement at the age of 54 in a publicity stunt and pinch hit in two games for the White Sox in the 1980 season. In his last game, he made a pinch-hit appearance and popped up to the catcher. It wasn’t really an awful at-bat, but a single publicity stunt pinch-hit appearance in which nobody involved actually expected him to be able to do anything but make an out and get an official plate appearance in his fifth different decade is a pretty bad last game.
That wasn’t me.
As I remember it, Ryan had announced his retirement and the Seattle game was known to be his last road game, but the Rangers still had a home stand to finish out the season. I remember wondering if they took Ryan out to preserve his arm and let him make another start in front of the home fans.
Maybe, but he sure wasn’t going to after that last pitch.
Previously posted on this topic
Previously posted, and mhendo has made the same point:
Graeme ‘Changa’ Langlands, rugby league fullback for St George. Australia captain, Australian coach, Rugby League Immortal and Team of the Century.
He played his last match in the 1975 grand final v Eastern Suburbs.
The St Gerge game plan was to use Langlands kicking ability to keep Easts pinned into their defensive half.
A pre game pain-killing injection for a groin injury went wrong and with deadened leg nerves he was a hobbling passenger for the whole game. To highlight his difficulties, in a sponsors deal Langlands wore white boots. The 38-0 scoreline was the most lopside GF result in the league’s history. Also didn’t do very much for Addidas’ marketing strategy.
Well, if you consider racehorses as athletes you have several more options to choose from, including these two,
7/6/1975, Ruffian’s last race, a match race against 1975 Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure at Belmont Park in Elmont NY — 1975 Match Race - Ruffian vs. Foolish Pleasure - YouTube
5/20/2006, Barbaro’s last race, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore MD — Barbaro Injury Preakness Stakes May 20 2006 - YouTube
… or any other horse that breaks down and has to be euthanized.
How bad was Greg Inglis in his last season, on the topic of legends going out with a whimper ? Pretty bad I read with a lot of injury problems. Just signed for Warrington Wolves and is talking about how he didn’t finish his NRL career on the right note.
Super league as the retirement home for past-it NRL heroes is a bit sad, but an accurate reflection on the state of the game here. Nonetheless, a player of GI’s stature generates a lot of interest which the game needs. Even a 50% Inglis would prob make an impact tbh.
Bill Masterton?
Sadly, I think this has to win the thread. For those not in the know, Bill Masterton “is the only player in NHL history to die as a direct result of injuries suffered during a game, the result of massive head injuries suffered following a hit during a January 13, 1968, contest against the Oakland Seals.” (Source for the above is Wikipedia.)
See post #2 above: Ray Chapman, who was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays and died 12 hours later. He is the only Major League Baseball player to die from an injury received during an MLB game.
Masterton and Chapman are at least equal.
Has to be Don Bradman.
He was, and still is, by far the best batsman in test cricket history. His average is in another orbit compared to other cricketers past or present and yet…
In Australian sport it was probably Paul Carige, a pretty good young player who, in the preliminary final in 1998, committed a seemingly endless series of blunders in the last few minutes of the game. His team went from having the game won, to losing in extra time. He was never seen in the NRL again. I remember watching and, despite my disregard for the team that he played for, I cringed on his behalf as the errors mounted.
Walter Payton, with asterisks?
I nominate him based on the worst last* game of his career, Super Bowl XX.
Says Wikipedia
So Walter didn’t get a TD**
:smack::eek:
*post season
**Where to assign blame?
—Coach Ditka for not giving him the ball? He later said he regretted it.
—Or do you say “Walter didn’t get it done all that postseason. Big show flop sweat?”
Hard to classify a game in which your team won easily as a worst game. Pretty sure Payton would take that over running 200 yards with the score reversed.
Not only was it not Payton’s final game, it wasn’t even his final playoff game – the Bears lost in the first round of the playoffs in both 1986 and 1987 (i.e., the two seasons after they won Super Bowl XX), and Payton was their starting halfback in both of those playoff games.
He didn’t have a great game in Super Bowl XX, and, yeah, it was silly that he didn’t get a chance at a touchdown. But he didn’t have a terrible game, either, and as he played for two more seasons after that Super Bowl, with two more playoff appearances, he really doesn’t fit the OP’s question in any way.
His one and only, first and last Super Bowl…pity he couldn’t get a TD, but not his fault. The Pats made sure Walter didn’t beat them, which only meant leaving the gaps open so the rest of the Bears would.
I wonder if they keep stats of how many rushing yards were called back on penalties. In all those years of suffering with the Bears he must have that record. He’d bust a spectacular run and then…flag on the play. Offensive holding.
Pittsburgh Pirate Steve Blass. He was an amazing pitcher until one day he sucked, creating the idea of “Steve Blass Disease”.
Just to chime in on this, he too immediately leapt to my mind. Some facts:
After WW2, and excluding his final match, Bradman averaged 111.94 per innings, well above his career average. His penultimate test match innings was 173 not out. So, to need only 4 for a flat 100 as a career average and getting out second ball for zero, was a pretty bad final performance.
Mind you, on the other side of the ledger, he was the skipper and was leading his team tactically. They won by an innings and 149 runs, so it’s not like he had a totally terrible match. Indeed, if he’d mismanaged his side, he might have not thumped England so badly and he’d have got another chance to bat and put his first innings score right.
In other words, as the totality of his performance isn’t captured by his total with the bat, and he probably had a pretty material impact on a game Australia won handsomely, it’s probably not the worst final game ever.
On the point around cricket averages, Bradman is on his own it’s true - no argument from me there. In this lockdown (and being unemployed), I have listened to a lot of cricket podcasts and found out something I’d never known: apparently, during Adam Voges 20th Test match innings (which would thus qualify him for the all time lists), for a period of about an hour, Voges had a batting average in excess of 100. You can keep up with Bradman for a short period, but doing it for an entire career…
Quibbling I know, but his worst game surely was the 5th Test in 1938. Lost the toss, fractured his ankle when England were 7/800 odd, failed to bat, and Australia lost by the Test record margin.
I see I have misinterpreted the question, thought it was the who’s worst game was their last.
That’s a great bit of trivia to share with the cricket nerds at work (if ever we return). We always mockingly refer to him as Bradvoges. Well, we did when we were discussing Steve Smith passing him.