So all my teams have been winning championships lately, and after every one of them, I tell myself that now I can settle down and just be a normal sports fan, and not freak out all the time over losses.....and then Boston's bullpen gets shelled against the Rays and they blow a three-run lead and I stomp around my apartment for the rest of the night like a psycho, leading me to believe that I will never be a normal sports fan, no matter how many championships my teams win. That's probably just the way it is for me.
So after that loss (and another nationally televised loss to the Yanks on Sunday night when, surprise, the bullpen blew a late-inning lead) I got to thinking which losses of my life have wrecked me the most. Kind of an exercise in self-punishment, to ground me a little bit in the wake of all these championships my teams are spoiling me with right now. Without further ado....
#5. 1993 Wild Card Game, Houston Oilers vs. Buffalo Bills
For some reason, this game haunts me more than the Super Bowl when the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers, to the layperson/idiot) came up a yard short from sending the game into overtime. Can't explain why. Possibly because I watched this game with Dunph, a diehard Bills fan. Houston goes up 35-3 early in the third quarter, and I'm talking a steady stream of shit, guns blazing. That stream quickly turned into a trickle, and then dried up altogether as Buffalo went up 38-35 in what seemed like seconds. Even after Houston kicked a last-second field goal to send it to OT, I was spent. Cooked. Done-skis. Warren Moon's interception and Buffalo's game-winning field goal were as inevitable as Britney Spears eventually becoming a whorebag, getting knocked up, shaving her head and going crazy. I endured some (well-deserved) gloating from Dunph and walked home in the freezing cold North Dakota winter, my first real crushing loss as a diehard sports fan under my belt, kind of like a freshman girl doing the walk of shame back to her dorm the morning after getting her cherry popped by a toga-wearing frat guy during orientation weekend.
Whatever. I bet you guys don't win the Super Bowl.
#4. 1994 NBA Finals, Game 7, New York Knicks vs. Houston Rockets
The last three games of this series were particularly aggravating. Game 5 was the infamous O.J. Chase, when NBC went to split-screen for two hours and I yelled at Bob Costas to get back to the goddam game. My parents tried to get me to appreciate the history that was being made, but as an 11-year-old, all I saw was a white Bronco driving 30 mph on the freeway, and all I cared about were the Knicks holding on and going back to Houston up 3 games to 2, which they did. Then in Game 6, my boy John Starks' potential game-winning three was blocked by Olajuwon (foreshadowing to 2003, perhaps?) and THEN he put up a horrific 2-18 in Game 7, and the Knicks haven't had a real chance to win a title since (don't tell me they could've beat the Spurs in '99, Chris Dudley & the Miracles had already used up their magic by then.)
Dammit, O.J., wrap it up! I know how much this low-speed chase makes it look like you didn't do it, but Ewing's going to the line and it's a 2-point game!
#3. 2002 Final Four, Kansas Jayhawks vs. Maryland Terrapins
This was my favorite KU team of all time. Hinrich, Langford, Boschee, Collison, Gooden, Miles, etc. etc. I was absolutely in love with this team. They didn't necessarily choke or anything (though they certainly didn't play awesome) they just lost to the one team that could really match up with them that year, Maryland. This was the real national championship game, the other semifinal of Indiana vs. Oklahoma was a joke.
Here's a picture of Roy shortly after the 2002 Final Four loss. I'm sorry, what's that? You say that's from the 2008 Final Four? Wait a minute....doesn't he coach North Carolina now? Does he know he's wearing a KU sticker? Weird.....
#2. 2003 ALCS, Game 7, Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
The leaving Pedro in for too long/Aaron Boone home run game. Just a nightmare on so many levels. I was completely jaded by this point, following the previous events of 2003 (see #1) and was basically counting down the minutes until the Sox blew it, and when Boone connected, I was out the door by the time the ball landed in the seats. I hit rock-bottom as a sports fan that night. I basically trashed the Culligan parking lot in a alcohol-fueled display of destruction, and woke up the next morning in my boxers, one sock and one shoe, and Red Sox hat, with a hammer still in hand. Needless to say I didn't make it to Marketing class that day. Fundy is a Cubs fan, and after they blew their NLCS against the Marlins, we both agreed to boycott, even SportsCenter, and to this day, neither one of us has seen a single highlight of the 2003 World Series (except for the shot of Josh Beckett recording the final out, which is inevitable since he came to Boston and I watch him pitch every time he's televised.) However, the events of this year made 2004 all the more sweet.
I'm already downstairs beating street signs with a hammer by this point. Eat me.
2003 National Championship Game, Kansas Jayhawks vs. Syracuse Orangemen
Never before in my life had I been so confident going into a big game. Never in my life will I be that confident again. This game scarred me for years...until April 7, 2008, to be exact. KU had just got done INNIHILATING Dwayne Wade and Marquette in the semifinal, and were about to play a Syracuse team that should've lost in the 2nd round, and was surely maxed out by now. Then Jerry McNamara had the game of his life, and KU couldn't make a free throw, and Carmelo started playing like he should've joined LeBron in skipping college and going straight to the NBA, and KU still couldn't make a free throw, and then they make their obligatory run to suck everyone back in, and then Hakim Warrick blocks Michael Lee's shot, Hinrich and Collison graduate, Roy bolts for North Carolina, and that's that.
Good lord. Lee could've been sitting on Manute Bol's shoulders and still not gotten that shot off.
Feel free to leave your toughest losses in the comments, except for Yankee fans. Tough losses don't affect you because you don't have a soul.
