The one and only MLB postseason game I’ve attended in my life was Game 6 of the 1986 National League Championship Series.
I watched the game in Houston with my uncle and grandfather, both lifelong Astros fans. The Astros were up 3-0 over the Mets going into the 9th, when the Mets tied it up. Houston was unable to score in the 9th, and the game went into extra innings. Four scoreless innings went by, until both teams scored in the 14th inning, tieing it up again. Nobody scored in the 15th; then the Mets scored 3 runs in the top of the 16th. The Astros were able to score two runs (down by one), then put a runner in scoring position, and another runner on first base, when…Bass struck out. We all felt like we’d been through a battle, and I swore off baseball forever.
More recently, I became a New England Patriots fan. I became a die-hard fan following their 2004 Super Bowl victory, never missing a game thereafter. (Before that point, I was a casual fan, being a transplant to New England.)
Anyway, I subsequently got to watch them just lose in the 2008 Super Bowl (following the 16-0 perfect season) with the the Tyree helmet catch. Still later, I watched them lose to the Giants again in 2012 with the incomplete pass to a wide-open Wes Welker, and the Giant’s barely completed pass to Manningham.
When Kearse made that circus catch at the end of Sunday’s game, my first thought was, “Not again.” I was sure I was cursed to never see the Patriots win the Super Bowl again.
Well, it was the ten years that I was following the team closely…
But I see your point. FWIW, I’ve lived in the Chicagoland area as well as New England, and have had to listen to the travails of both Cubs fans as as well as Red Sox fans (the latter until 2004, anyway).
For Cal fans (and there’s at least one other, on this board) it’s the ending of the Oregon State game, 2007. The chance to be #1, if for just one week…gone in a single bone-headed moment.
The Bears have been nowhere near that high a ranking, since.
Red Right 88 was the first time I ever heard a grown-up drop the f-bomb. Sitting in our living room in Ohio, watching the game, and … “Sipe, you FUCKER!”
My parents’ friend Cathy broadened my vocabulary that day…
You’re right on this as well. In fact I didn’t see the Russell Wilson pass to end the Super Bowl because when I tried to watch I’d think of this and get mad at Mike for his pussified play calling in the second half. Then Slocum’s failure to instill in his players the need to follow their assignment on special teams. Then I’d start gritting my teeth and my blood pressure would start to rise, so I’d have to turn it off.
I have actually done a happy dance in my living room three times over news from 1265 Lombardi Avenue in the past few weeks. First when I heard they showed Slocum the door, something I’ve been saying needed doing for three years now. Then again when Mike said he would hand over play calling to Clements, again, something that’s needed to be done for awhile. And then last night when Bostik got cut. Now if some other team will just think Hawk is the man they need…
Not to derail the thread, but it made me sad that Bostick got cut, and can’t atone for his 100% justifiable mistake. I wanted him to stay on the team and do something awesome in the future. He was always serviceable but he’s like a long-snapper…if you know their name, it’s probably bad.
(I also think Hawk is wildly underrated on our team and needs to stay, but that conversation would REALLY derail the thread)
Even though I’m not really a basketball fan anymore and even though the team I’m referencing exists but in a different city, now: 1994 NBA Western Conference first round, best-of-5 series. The team in question blew a 2 - 0 lead in the series and became the first #1 NBA seed to lose in the playoffs to a #8 seed. The image of Dikembe Mutombo clutching the basketball while he’s lying on the court after the final whistle sounds at the end of Game 5 will forever haunt me.
First, the ending to the 1990 Big Game; Cal stopped a Stanford 2-point conversion with about 30 seconds left, but a successful onside kick, a “close” roughing the passer call against Cal, and a last-second field goal later, Stanford ended up winning. The main reason I remember this is, on KGO, weekend sports anchor Marc Gibson had just said that “Cal has won the Big Game!” - and died of a heart attack before the next Big Game was played.
Second, the “phantom clip” in 2004 that might have cost Cal a trip to its first Rose Bowl in 45 years; in a game against Louisiana Tech that was postponed because of Hurricane Katrina, a Cal touchdown was called back because of a clip, although the replay showed that the hit was made in front of the defender, and Cal’s coach decided to run out the clock rather than “run up the score”; as a result, Cal won by “only” 26-16, and the final BCS standings had Texas ahead of Cal for the first time all season, even though Texas had finished its season one week earlier. (I say “might have” because I think the main reason Cal dropped below Texas was not so much the coaches moving Cal down as the hit Cal took in the computers because Louisiana Tech’s strength of schedule was now included.)
Ah yes…that 1990 Big Game is widely seen as Stanford’s revenge for The Play.
Your 2004 story: it was Southern Miss, but yeah.
In Cal mythology, that 2004 team was destined to go to the Rose Bowl, something Cal fans have longed for, aching, yearning, like Tantalus, for 55 years now. If the Bears had beaten Southern Miss more convincingly; if Mack Brown hadn’t gone begging for votes that weekend (Texas rose in the rankings past Cal, despite having a bye and the Bears winning)…Cal would have gone to the Rose Bowl and spanked Michigan, instead of the Holiday Bowl and face-planting against Texas Tech.
Several parts of that mythology probably aren’t true, but this is our story and we’re sticking to it.
It’s part of the Curse that we live under, that the best Cal teams of the past 50 years (1991, 2004) came during seasons where the MNC came from the Pac10 (Washington, USC).
You’re right about it derailing the thread, but, I spent three years defending Hawk. I can no longer find enough evidence to do so.
And Bostick is now Minnesota’s problem.
