Yeah, except they’d have to make sure all the stadium scoreboards were equipped to handle negative numbers… Sorry I don’t have a new bonehead call to add to the thread, but I would have to list the 1972-Munich USA vs USSR Olympic basketball fiasco as the greatest single example of unacceptable sports officiating - unless you can count Tara Lipinsky ending up with the gold medal that Michelle Kwan should have taken home from the 2000 Winter Olympics - oh, SORRY, that’s “judging”.
How about Paul Taglibue blatently delaying the awarding of the second expansion team in '93, so he would have another month to lobby for Jacksonville over Baltimore? But then again, The Sun King is the worst “official” in sports, anyway.
Hmm, I thought that was because the Baltimore bid (actually 2 different groups that didn’t get along) was screwed up, and Tagliabue was trying to give them enough time to get their act together before going into a larger market than Jacksonville. Finally he had to admit it wasn’t going to happen, and later Baltimore learned their lesson, ripped off the taxpayers for a new stadium, and poached the Browns.
But then, if having large markets were all that mattered, LA wouldn’t have lost both its teams and still have no stadium deal in the works.
Blast, I see someone else beat me to posting this one, so I’ll just chime in and say that as a photographer for Mizzou’s student paper, I had the good fortune to be standing on the endzone sideline when this little travesty occurred. Tho’, I managed to miss getting a shot of that part of the play… :o
The galling thing was that I saw an interview with the receiver in question a few days later. “Hell yeah, I deliberately kicked it,” he said. “I just wanted to do anything I could to make sure we won.” :rolleyes: Indeed.
Ditto here. Seahawks vs. Jets. But it actually had a happy ending considering after Erikson was fired we picked up BIG MIKE!
Ha…ha. Actually, exactly the opposite. Paulie had been telling the owners exactly that- Our bid was screwed up. When the time came to make the presentation, we had 2 groups that made a very strong case-the best deal on the table, truth be told, and the owners started wondering why we weren’t the #1 contender ( acording to the Tag-along-dude) behind Carolina, which was a foregone conclusion. Seeing his carefully laid plans to get into Florida for the 3rd time potentially ruined, the blowmissioner delayed franchise #2 for a month so he and Jack Bent Crook could muscle us out of the picture. Look at it now, and all 3 cities ( B-more, St.Louis and Tennessee {ok, Memphis then, but same state}) now have teams and the league is not in LA and had to give Cleveland a blow job to keep everyone happy. This is leadership???
Hey, Weirddave, don’t hold back like that; tell us what you think, dude! I enjoyed that one.
Oh, regarding Colorado beating Missouri on a fifth down play, it should be noted that:
- The same thing had happened, famously, decades earlier in an Ivy League game. The Dartmouth(?) coach, upon realizing incontrovertibly that it had happened, forfeited to the “rightful” winner. UC coach Bill McCartney not only refused to do so, demonstrating that a share of the mythical national championship was more important than the principles of sportsmanship or morality or honor, and the college president backed him up. That would be just another sadly typical example of how big-time college sports are professionalized (OK, “corrupt” if you prefer), except that McCartney went on to found Promise Keepers, as sanctimonious a group of moralizing preachers as have ever existed.
The officials simply screwed up and didn’t realize it until it was too late. McCartney and UC did something far, far worse. IMHO of course.
90 percent of the nfl games since they discontiuned the original instant replay …
ive seen numerous plays that would have been overturned using the normal instant replay system that was reinstated ,
and as for la not having football the problem is mainly that70- 90 percent of la is non native which means that when most people live there they have loyalty to other teams they grew up with which leaves little room for a home fan base if
in fact one of the la sports people on a call in show did a poll when we had footbal lteams found out the only reason a lot of people went to see raiders/rams games was to see the other team play which ironically counts for at least 2o persent or more of all la sports but still they had no loyalty for the la teams and also its easier to see raiders/rams games on tv than it was when they were here
I’ve always thought that the US team should have accepted their silver medals. If the USSR had won because they had bribed officials or somehow cheated, then it’s a different situation.
NBC in 1988 or 1992 relived the ending of the 1972 Olympic final from the USSR’s point of view. It was quite revealing. None of the Soviet players thought that there was anything shameful about their victory.
In international ball, the coach can call a timeout. There was confusion over the first timeout. So the officials had the ball replayed. If you read, the link from USA Basketball, on the second replay the clock was reset incorrectly. Granted the federation president who ordered the clock reset didn’t have the authority to do so, but at least he didn’t grant the Soviets more time on the clock than they should have gotten the very first time when their coach called a timeout.
The US shouldn’t even have been in a position to lose. The coach of the team, Hank Iba, played a 1950s style that severely slowed down the US offense. Iba was at the end of a distinguished college coaching career and got the 1972 job, because he did do a good job of winning the gold in 1968, when most of the good college players boycotted the Olympics (most notably Lew Alcindor).
You also think that Iba would have been able to set up a defense to prevent a length of the court pass to the Soviet’s best player.
However, I believe that the American players should have accepted the decision much more graciously. There have been worse decisions in Olympic boxing and the losers have still taken their silver or bronze medals.
And if the American team had lost to a nation like Canada, we would have been a lot more accepting of the verdict. But there was a Cold War going on and we viewed the game in terms of Good vs. Evil instead of American guys playing Soviet (mainly Lithuanian) guys.
I remember after the game, all McCartney did was whine about the “slippery field”.
As far as the '97 NU vs Mizzou game, let me clear a few things up. The famous kick only led to overtime. Both teams still had an EQUAL chance to win it.
Damn…most of you guys have already mentioned the ones i wanted to talk about…but i’ll give you one more.
Blues vs Avalance…Game 3…Western Conf Finals:
The 1st period of that game had one of the worst officiating jobs, ever! I think something like 60 min of penalties were called, and it’s not like there were anumber of brawls or fights in the period…they were all 2 and 4 minute calls. It was just ludicrous…Bourque gets tapped in the back by Tkachuck…he gets a 4 minute cross checking penalty…wtf?!
Come to think of it…that whole series had some really really horrid officiating. The 3rd period if game 5 comes to mind as well. It was getting pretty ugly near the end, but the linesmen and referees were letting the players go at it, and low and behold, with 2 mins left, the fuckers call a 4 min cross checking penalty on Khavanov, who was bickering with Hedjuk for the entire shift, yet the refs, for some ungodly reason, don’t give matchin minors. The avs go on to win, in OT, on that powerplay. I ask you…where is the fuckin justice?!