My Personal Top 10 Sports Pain Moments

As we move into Day Five of hearing just how much Cleveland Fan hurts, I thought I'd take stock on my own personal horror reel. It's Fun! And by all means, add your own in the comments.

10) Giambi - Jeter

Up 2-0, at home, needing a run with Barry Zito on the mound in a scoreless tie... well, I'd say more about the game situation, but then I'd just have to start smashing my head into the desk again. On the plus side, it's the only moment that Jeremy Giambi will ever be remembered for, and sure to be mentioned in his obituary. So there's that.



9) Garry Maddox in Chavez Ravine

Thankfully, no video of this exists. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th in Game Four of the National League playoffs against the hated Dodgers, the best defensive center fielder of his generation dropped a line drive off the bat of Dusty Baker, putting runners on first and second. A second later, the Dodgers were walking off with a win, and my nine year old self, who trusted Maddox more than any child should, was absolutely inconsolable. It builds character, really.

8) Mike Michel can't do a damn thing

The 1978 Eagles team was the first of my lifetime that was actually worth watching. With new QB Ron Jaworski growing by leaps and bounds, and RB Wilbert Montgomery being the best man to play the position for the team in a generation, they qualified for the playoffs and a road game against the similarly upcoming Atlanta Falcons. Working with a back-up kicker, Michel, after an injury to the starter in the regular season, the team got out to a 13-0 lead... but those missed extra points always come back to haunt you, especially when the defense gives up two fourth quarter touchdowns, and your useless field goal kicker then missed from 34 yards out with 1:34 left. So soon after Maddox, it hurt less. But it still was establishing a pattern.

7) Harrison picks McNabb

In the only Super Bowl of Donovan McNabb's Eagles career, with time running out, the team continues to huddle, complete short passes over the middle, and generally cause every Eagles fan watching the game to question the sanity of everyone involved. Finally, McNabb went deep, right into the arms of unbelievable dirtbag S Rodney Harrison, and the Patriots' victory was complete.

The fact that the game was later put at the heart of the Spygate controversy, with the Patriots making perfect play call after perfect play call in the second half on offense? Doesn't really change the vision of Harrison catching the damn ball, really.

6) Mitch Williams and Joe Carter

The 1993 Phillies team was the last Phillies club that had my whole heart. They were unrelentingly ugly, with mullets everywhere, certified lunacy (do you remember Kim Batiste, the defensive replacement that could not play defense?) all over the roster, and an offense that grinded pitchers into dust from patience and foul balls. Oh, and lots and lots of steroids, back when we didn't know what that meant, or why Lenny Dykstra was suddenly a clutch power hitter. We just know it was a blue snow year, and we rode it for all it was worth. We also knew that the team wasn't as good as the champion Blue Jays, but it's baseball. Being better doesn't always matter that much. Except when it comes to your closer.



Honestly, this was almost a relief when it happened. Watching Mitch Williams pitch was like watching surgery on yourself; even when it was necessary and the right thing to do, it didn't seem necessary or the right thing to do. We all knew he was going to blow it; at least this was quick.

Oh, and also this. I watched the game with a half dozen people in a rowhome in Fishtown, and we never watched sports together again. Wise.

5) Kirk Gibson and Dennis Eckersley

I was all-in on the 1988 A's. They made me money in my first successful fantasy league. I owned a half dozen players from that club. My favorite player, and my first jersey purchase, was Jose Canseco. He hit a grand slam to put the A's up on the Dodgers, a team that, as we have previously established, killed my dreams at age 9. And my best friend at the time was a huge Dodgers fan, and my least favorite Dodger was Gibson, who I thought was one of the worst MVP choices ever.

So, of course, Gibson does his Roy Hobbs routine, and I get to watch it as some beloved baseball memory for the rest of my natural life, with everyone seemingly rooting for them. That'll leave a mark.



4) Magic at center

The 1979-80 Sixers were knee-deep into an era where regular season success always led to heartbreaking playoff failure. After giving up a 2-0 lead to the sainted Bill Walton Trail Blazers (who, it should be noted, only turned that series around after power forward Maurice Lucas went Thug Life), they told us that they owed us one... and didn't pay off, with a Finals loss to the Lakers. In '79-80, they were the #3 seed behind Boston, but stepped on the gas in the playoffs. A 2-game sweep of the Bullets, a 5-game win against the Hawks, and then another 5-game win against the Celtics... and well, we had hope. Especially after game two in Los Angeles, when they won and took home court... and promptly gave it back in game three. Game four had that famous baseline layup by Julius Erving for the win. In game five, Kareen Abdul Jabbar limped off, and hope re-entered the building. A dark, mean little hope where we all tried to talk ourselves into the idea that a title won through injury would be just fine, and that the team would have to overcome Abdul-Jabbar in Game Seven... only to see rookie Magic Johnson just decide to play center instead, and throw down a 42-15-7 line in a 16-point road win.

Oh, and one final point about this. The games were on tape-delay, and I was the only one in my family who cared about hoop. So I got to stay up very late to watch a game that everyone else knew was a loss. Just wonderful.

3) Luzinksi at the wall

In game three of the 1977 National League playoff against those damned Dodgers, the hometown Phillies fell behind 2-0 in the second, then moved ahead as Dodgers starter Burt Hooton melted down with the umpire as the fans made their presence known. The Dodgers tied it back up in the fourth, but after the Phillies got two runs in the eighth on shaky Dodger defense, a 2-1 lead in the best of five, with ace Steve Carlton on deck to pitch Game Four, seem assured. Especially when reliever Gene Garber got the first two men out in the ninth, and went 0-2 on the third hitter, Vic Davalillo... who then beat out a drag bunt to second. No, seriously, he bunted with an 0-2 count and 2 outs in the ninth. Next up, perennial pinch hitter heart breaker Manny Mota, who hit a ball to the wall in left field that slugger Greg Luzinski, a man who never should have finished a game where you held the lead in the field, dropped. A bad hop grounder by Davey Lopes to third baseman Mike Schmidt caromed to shortstop Larry Bowa, whose throw to first was ruled late, tying the game. Then Garber tried to pick off Lopes from first, throwing wide, and Lopes went to second. A single from Bill Russell gave the Dodgers the lead in a nightmare inning in which his hit might have been the only clean knock, and the Phillies went on to lose in four games.

I'm relatively sure that if this had happened in Boston against the Yankees, you might have heard about a bit more. Just a bit.

2) Damon, then A-Rod

I won't go into the history on this one. Just remember that it was Game Four, not Game Five, and that the Phillies still employ Brad Lidge. Because later on in life, you'll be convinced that Damon and A-Rod combined for the walk-off win that ended the Series, and that Philly Fan set Lidge on fire with Rambo-style arrows before he could get to the dugout. That would have been better.



1) Long and Lowe

I've been (un?) fortunate enough to be a season ticket holder for four teams in my life; college basketball and football when I went to Syracuse, the Doug Moe / Shawn Bradley era of atrocious Sixers basketball, and the early 2000 Moneyball A's. The 2003 team might have been my favorite. They won 20 games in a row, and I got to see the last four home games of that streak, with each succeeding game being more improbable than the last. Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada were the best left side of the infield that I had ever seen. The worst starting pitcher was Rich Harden. Keith Foulke and Chad Bradford were dominant in the pen. And we knew they were doing it with smoke and mirrors, especially with so many of the key parts of previous teams gone, and that the party was going to end at any moment. Never has a 96 win team seemed so fragile.

So we didn't expect to see a 2-0 lead taken on the mighty BoSox. We did expect to see half of the stands taken over by the rampaging hordes of Boston fans, given that Oakland had given up whatever home field they might have had with the previous years of heartbreak, and the failure to keep the team together in the face of free agency. Two inexplicable losses in Boston later -- and no, I won't get into the details of them, other than to say that for a franchise whose defining moment of the decade involved Jeremy Giambi not sliding, they might have worked on baserunning more -- and it was for all of the marbles in Oakland on a Game Five.

Barry Zito started on three days rest, and was dominant... until he ran out of gas in the sixth inning, yielding no doubt home runs to Manny Ramirez and Jason Varitek. The A's got a run back in the sixth and eighth, then loaded the bases in the ninth against shaky temporary closer Derek Lowe... who reared back and struck out Adam Melheuse and the eternally hated Terence Long to seal the deal. Half of the stadium, attired in their Red Sox finery, went nuts. It was like attending a funeral, then having people break out celebrating that your loved one was dead. It was so bad that I didn't even notice Lowe gesturing to Long with his arms into his crotch, telling him to suck it in one of the most classless moments in MLB history. I was too busy being profoundly depressed, angry, and hating myself for allowing sports to matter that much, especially when, as a full grown man, I should have known so much better. I've never felt as powerfully about a sporting event since.

Honestly, it was the worst experience of my life as a sports fan... and on that day, Boston Fan earned himself a lifelong enemy. When LeBron James and his Heat go against the Celtics in the playoffs, I'm rooting for the Heat. When the Yankees go for world championship number whatever against the Red Sox, I'm rooting for the Yankees. If the Cowboys play the Patriots in my nightmare of all nightmare Super Bowls, I'm rooting for the Cowboys. When a hurricane moves up the coastline, I'm rooting for landfall. And so on, and so on, and so on.

And yes, I know that if I had been in the building for a similar Yankees win, the hordes of invading New Yorkers would have been as teeth-rattlingly obnoxious as their Boston brethren. And I know that the Jeter/Giambi play is going to be the much more remembered highlight, and that my A's club would have been turned into hamburger by the Yankees in the next round, in all likelihood. There is a reason why the likes of Scott Hatteberg and Erubial Durazio don't find themselves on World Series champions when they are in the starting lineup.

But, well, still? The people cheering at my team's funeral were wearing Boston hats and jerseys. And may they pay for it in blood, and in heartbreak, and in misery for generations to come... despite the fact that ever since it happened, Boston has been the home to a half dozen or more major championships. No one ever said life was fair. Or that you should care about sports.