Biggest Sports Disappointment?

[Alpe d'Huez]

I thought this was an interesting topic I've discussed with friends, so I thought I would share it here. What were some of the biggest sports disappointments to you? I guess the question could be three ways.

• First, as a fan, the time your team or favorite athlete lost that left you the most empty.

• Second, as a fan as well, the biggest let down, even if you weren't a fan of that particular team/athlete.

• Third, a personal story, from your own sports experience.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Easy... I have two.

1. 2006 Tour Floyd Landis wins the overall GC then gets busted for testing +ive for whatevertheheck it was (testosterone if I recall right). I didn't mind he got busted as he deserved that. It was just a low point in cycling in general for me.

2. Different sport. 2005 Super Bawl where my team the Seahawks got beaten by the Steelers. My reason: Seattle does not get, or has not had, many kicks at that cat. So that was a blown opportunity for Seattle. Seattle became an NFL franchise around 1975 I think. I hope they don't have to wait another 30 years for another kick at the cat.

 

[ElChingon]

1. Dallas Cowboy losing to the Steelers in the 1979 SuperBowl, first team I actually followed.

2. Huston Oilers blowing a huge lead to lose to the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs back in 1993 , watched the disaster first hand.

3. Losing the county track 440 relay championship to go to regionals, 3rd and 4th relay dropped the baton and we were in the lead! That was after the 3rd guy in the relay took off too soon on my exchange and I luckily got it to him and I was so over extended in gait that I went into a major tumble after passing it to him. We were beating all the bigger schools and were headed for the win as our last man was our fastest. Ugh...

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

2005 Super Bawl where my team the Seahawks got beaten by the Steelers.

I think what made that worse is the officiating. Since that game the lead official had since admitted they made calls that affected the outcome of the game, and apologized for it. I don't know that Seattle would have won, but that was insult to injury.

Not to pile on Seattle, but the 2001 Mariners were a big disappointment. After winning 116 games in the regular season, they got to the playoffs, post 9/11 and got beat by an inspired Yankees team. But it wasn't just that. The Mariners were swinging at terrible pitches, and made several key bad decisions. After a seasonal team batting average of .288, scoring nearly 1000 runs in the regular season and only giving up just over 600 (including going 6-3 against the Yankees in the regular season) they just folded, hitting a measly .211; including just .069 in Game 4. It was just unreal to watch.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

I think what made that worse is the officiating. Since that game the lead official had since admitted they made calls that affected the outcome of the game, and apologized for it. I don't know that Seattle would have won, but that was insult to injury.

Not to pile on Seattle, but the 2001 Mariners were a big disappointment. After winning 116 games in the regular season, they got to the playoffs, post 9/11 and got beat by an inspired Yankees team. But it wasn't just that. The Mariners were swinging at terrible pitches, and made several key bad decisions. After a seasonal team batting average of .288, scoring nearly 1000 runs in the regular season and only giving up just over 600 (including going 6-3 against the Yankees in the regular season) they just folded, hitting a measly .211; including just .069 in Game 4. It was just unreal to watch.

I've long gotten over the Super Bowl officiating debacle. Champions have to deal with adversity sometimes, and that Seattle team just didn't do all it could have to win that game. They just seemed a half step behind the Steelers many times during the game.

Good memory you have of the 2001 Mariners. Since then they have been so terrible that was an easy one to forget. Actually, they have often been decent in the first half of the season, but the wheels come completely off in the second half of the season. I just don't get that part. But also, just look at their current losing streak of 15 (worst losing streak in team history I think). Do you know what the worst losing streak in all MLB is? Seattle might be approaching it. I thought it was somewhere around 20 (prolly the Pirates a few years ago).

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

The 1961 Phillies lost 23 in a row. I don't know about the old days though.

One thing that also hurts for Mariners fans is that after that great 2001 season, the owners said the team needed to remain profitable above all else, and slowly let quality players leave, mostly the pitching staff - Garcia, Rhodes, Sele, then Moyer - and a void was left behind, giving them no chance to come back. You see the results today. The team might be making a profit, but their chances of winning with this attitude from management are almost zero. Garcia and Moyer would go on to win WS rings, with Chicago and Philadelphia respectively, giving some Mariner fans at least a little something to cheer for.

 

[liftman]

Hmmm, I am a Cleveland Browns, Indians, and Cavaliers fan. Where to begin?

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Ugh.
.. . . .

 

[180mmCrank]

I thought this was an interesting topic I've discussed with friends, so I thought I would share it here. What were some of the biggest sports disappointments to you? I guess the question could be three ways.

• First, as a fan, the time your team or favorite athlete lost that left you the most empty.

• Second, as a fan as well, the biggest let down, even if you weren't a fan of that particular team/athlete.

• Third, a personal story, from your own sports experience.

What a great dinner party conversation! I wonder if we are up for sharing?

I will have a go...

1. I have a few football (soccer) experiences from my childhood involving the team that was dearest to my heart Leeds United. A few more related to watching England - and those that know will really know what torture that has and continues to be! But actually I somewhat taken by surprise at how gutted I was by the Canucks falling at the final hurdle against Boston. I don't begrudge Boston the win but it was a real shame for a team that has worked so hard and for fans that have followed for so long... oh well i guess there's next year

2. I am not a golf fan ... but I have seen some real doozies over the years. Probably the saddest has been seeing Colin Montgomery ... he's never won a major and he's come close ... I am no expert but there was one 2006 US Open where he blew a lead on the 18th (I think??). But I think the saddest for me is Paula Radcliffe never winning a medal at the Olympics ... one of the best marathon runner in the World but always seeming to fall short when it mattered!

3. For me there are a bunch... but one of the biggest was a year when I rode the Etape Du Tour ... it was 2006 (I think?) - anyway it finished up Alpe DHuez - except it was riduculously hot and I had to stop from heat exaustion. I was throwing up in a ditch / feinted and all but ended up in an ambulance. I was not happy. Anyway I flew back 10 days later and rode the whole damn thing on my own (the avitar I use is me on the Alpe closing out the last few km)

 

[Granville57]

1) As mentioned: that 2001 MLB 9/11 post-season. After some of the most dramatic late-inning comebacks, that I've ever seen, from the NY Yankees against the Arizona Diamond Backs; for New York to go back to Arizona and lose the series, in the 9th inning of game 7, was just heartbreaking.

Those games in New York were so uplifting, and a World Series title that year, of ALL years, would've been through the roof.

2) A rarely spoken of game, for some reason, between the Yankees and Red Sox on September 2, 2001 when David Cone was actually pitching for Boston and Mike Mussina was on the mound for New York.

At the time, David Cone was the last pitcher to have thrown a perfect game. The game was in Boston and both pitchers were on fire! Cone pitched 8 1⁄3 innings giving up only one unearned run.

The score was 1-0..bottom of the 9th inning...2 outs, 2 strikes..when Mussina gave up a single to Carl Everett. Mussina then retired the next batter for a 1-0 shutout. BUT HE CAME AS CLOSE AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO PITCHING A PERFECT GAME! That one still hurts.

3) Coming up just three minutes short of qualifying for the Boston Marathon a few years ago. (That actually hurt more)

 

[Martin318is]

Alpe,
would I be right in thinking you created a very well structured thread and then used someone's response as a basis for taking your own thread off topic?

1. Toss up between Cadel not passing Sastre in the 2008 Tour TT - or any of several Wimbledons for Pat Rafter.

2. (Don't hate me) - I think that Lance turning out to be.... Lance ranks right up there.

3. I think being seriously ill the morning of the Melbourne to Warrnambool and standing on the start line throwing up when the gun went off instead of being on my bike in the race....

 

[BullsFan22]

Probably would say the Boston Red Sox losing to the Yankees in game 7 in the 2003 ALCS.

Ullrich losing the 2003 Tour, he was close to that 2nd Tour victory, but the rainy, slippery roads did him in as he usually doesn't perform as well in bad weather.

Patriots losing to the Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl. Not sure why it happened, but it did...

 

[Rouetheday]

1. I worshipped Bill Rodgers as a teen-age distance runner, and was terribly upset by the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics, as I knew it was his last chance to medal. To make matters worse, that East German chemistry experiment Cierpinski won his second gold. 2. I was in New York on 15 May, 1996 to see Christopher Hitchens and Patricia Williams from the Nation magazine debate Dinesh D'Sousa and Kate O'Bierne on affirmative action at the Town Hall with ex-Mayor Ed Koch moderating. As a favor for a co-worker who was a Yankees fan, I went to the Bronx to take photos of the stadium and get him a souvenir early in the afternoon. The debate was fascinating (Hitch won, of course), but when I got out I heard the news that Doc Gooden had thrown a no-hitter! I still have unresolved feelings about that night. 3. My first organized sports experience was in a T-ball (baseball) league, age nine. My team had started the season 4-0, but we lost our fifth game badly. I remember one of the *****ier mothers trying to 'encourage' us in the last inning by yelling, "If you boys don't win they won't give you a free Coke at the concession stand!". I muttered to myself, "I've got Coke in my fridge at home, you old hag". After the game, I thought my world had collapsed. When I got home I took a shower instead of my usual bath just so nobody would hear me crying.

 

[L'arriviste]

• First, as a fan, the time your team or favorite athlete lost that left you the most empty.

Probably an amalgam of England in various World and European Cup football tournaments throughout the 1990s. This period is much less hazy for me than Mexico 1986 (which was with hindsight, of course, so much worse). Abiding images of Gascoigne crying and that idiot mullet Waddle skying the ball at penalties. I was young enough to ritually believe in the impossible and too young not to take it seriously when they failed.

• Second, as a fan as well, the biggest let down, even if you weren't a fan of that particular team/athlete.

Hard to pick out a single instance. It was tough - having come back to pro cycling in 2009 after fifteen years of beer and girls () - to do my doping research project as a grown-up, and through this to watch every single one of my childhood heroes one by one fall from the pedestal of immaculate conception on which I had unwittingly placed them.

• Third, a personal story, from your own sports experience.

Two things stand out. First, realising that the minutiae of football rules meant that my team got knocked out of the inter-village football tournament by an act of innocent frustration on my part. Second, spending a whole youth cycling season on one step or another of the podium, then riding my first (and only) international race and discovering the bar of quality was now set so high, I couldn't even see it. Some kids would have taken that as a signal to train even harder. I took it as a signal to study harder and go to university.

 

[The Hitch]

Spain winning the football world cup.

As much as everyoone else may have loved it, a country reserving its most devout religious worship for a bunch of footballers and choosing as its single great historic moment, victory in a sports event, contrasts quite strongly with what i believe.

Still love Spain, but it was so much a better country 1 and a half years ago.

Thats just me.

 

[Contre la montre]

Ullrich losing the 2003 Tour, he was close to that 2nd Tour victory, but the rainy, slippery roads did him in as he usually doesn't perform as well in bad weather.

Second that. Seeing Ullrich in the nineties got me in to cycling in the first place.

Worst personal experience would have to be losing an obscure badminton title in the youth categories when I should have been one year stronger then when I got the title. After I that I quit sports in general for about ten years but that had more to do with with travelling and trying to do the bohemian thing.

 

[The Hitch]

. 2. I was in New York on 15 May, 1996 to see Christopher Hitchens and Patricia Williams from the Nation magazine debate Dinesh D'Sousa and Kate O'Bierne on affirmative action at the Town Hall with ex-Mayor Ed Koch moderating. As a favor for a co-worker who was a Yankees fan, I went to the Bronx to take photos of the stadium and get him a souvenir early in the afternoon. The debate was fascinating (Hitch won, of course), but when I got out I heard the news that Doc Gooden had thrown a no-hitter! I still have unresolved feelings about that night.

lol i havent actually seen that one but sounds like it was good. Then again if Dinesh was there all anyone else has to do to win is shut up.

 

[no crostis no party]

Hmmm, I am a Cleveland Browns, Indians, and Cavaliers fan. Where to begin?

Have you forgotten the 1954 American League Pennant for the Tribe?
Who could forget the great starting rotation of Early Wynn, Bob Feller, Bob Lemon and Mike Garcia? Luke Easter, Al Rosen, Bobby Avila, Jim Higgins, et.al.?
Have you forgotten the 1964 NFL championship for the Browns, led by the great Frank Ryan?

 

[fatandfast]

The San Diego Padres in the last 2 years
Tim Tebow
Gesink
Rabo bank. the whole team
Non-electric gruppo prices
Electric gruppo prices
Cycling shoe prices
Gas prices
The last 6 Harrison Ford movies
the tech guy that kept disabling the link form Eurosport in the US.you sir are a disappointment
another huge letdown Eddie Vedder ukulele anything
Rapha prices
organic dog food, come on 2.75 a can?? wtf
Home Depot is a huge

 

[krebs303]

Todd Marinovich

 

[Parrulo]

as a portuguese losing the euro 2004 final against greece was the biggest disappointment ever

 

[fujisst]

always an easy way to get the traffic up in a forum...

 

[mr. tibbs]

2010 WC third place game, Germany vs. Uruguay, that very last penalty kick:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lssoEOmwtyo

The win yesterday got me thinking about that.

 

[Murphyscu]

Realizing I suck.

 

[Bala Verde]

as a portuguese losing the euro 2004 final against greece was the biggest disappointment ever

2010 the Netherlands - Spain 0-1 in overtime

2004 Portugal - the Netherlands 2-1 semis

2000 the Netherlands - Italy (0-0) 1-3 after penalties, with 2 (!!) penalties missed during the regular time in Amsterdam (Belgium/Netherlands co-organized the Eurocup) Semis

1998 the Netherlands - Brazil (1-1) 2-4 after penalties, semis