Best and Worst Days of Your Life as a Sports Fan

[holeplug]

Best: The last time a Philly team won a title I wasn't even born so I don't have one yet

Worst:
1993 WS - Wild Thing to Joe Carter
Eagles & Bucs NFC Championship - 2nd of the 3 straight but by far the worst of them.

[DyessMan89]

Best-

* Steelers making the Superbowl in 1995/1996 ... they got there by defeating Harbaugh (sp?) and the Colts in the AFC Championship game.

Worst-

* Losing in the superbowl the next game.

[BigD226]

Best:


Honorable mentions


and



Worst:

[PhatTBoll]

Worst:
Notre Dame vs. Boston College, 1993. I'm 13 and I'm going to my first college football game, at ND stadium, no less. The week before I had watched as Notre Dame beat Florida State in a great game that came down to the final seconds. I sit in the freezing cold and watch Glenn Foley put on a clinic for 3 and a half quarters before the Irish come back from a 3-touchdown gap and actually take the lead. Then, the ugliest made FG ever, game over, 41-39. I met Dick Vitale in my hotel lobby after that game and he was just as devastated as I was.

Best:
Hopefully it hasn't happened yet, since if Peyton can ever get over the hump against the Pats that will be the best.
As it stands, the best was probably watching David Robinson go out as a champ. Couldn't have happened to a better guy.

[cognito20]

Excellent thread so far.

OK, since my allegiances may seem a little mixed in what follows, here's the teams I support: MLB - Toronto Blue Jays (grandparents live in Lewiston, NY and they were the only team I saw play live as a kid), NFL - Buffalo Bills (same), NHL - Buffalo Sabres, don't really follow any one team in the NBA, college basketball and football - Syracuse (grew up and currently live in upstate New York), club soccer - Arsenal (England) (started following it on when ESPN used to show FA Cup and League matches in the mid-1980s, and it's progressed to the point where it's probably now my favorite sport to watch), international soccer - England, international cricket and rugby - Australia (lived in Adelaide, and became a fan of both sports while I was there) I'll deal with the "bests" here and post the "worsts" in a separate message.

BEST:
1. 1992 World Series, Game 6 - Mike Timlin beats the bunting Otis Nixon to first, and the Blue Jays are World Champions for the first time. This, to me, meant more than the Carter HR in '93 because, living in Yankee-fan-country, I finally had something to shove in the face of all the pinstripe-heads with their "Blow Jays" comments. In 1993, we were defending our title, so the pressure was off a bit, plus even if Carter doesn't hit that HR and the Jays lose Game 6, I don't think there's any way the Phillies could have beaten a rested Juan Guzman for all the marbles at SkyDome the next night.

2. SU's 2003 NCAA basketball title. Being the typical fatalistic SU fan, I knew that Michael Lee 3-pointer was seeing nothing but the bottom of the net....until Warrick flew in from out of somewhere in Slidell and ensured that it saw nothing but a fan in the fifth row. We're going to be living off those memories in upstate New York for a long time, and no one on that team is ever going to have to buy their own drinks in a Syracuse bar for the rest of their lives. I'm surprised they haven't put up a Our Carmelo Anthony of Lourdes church or something yet near Carousel Center Mall or something. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

3. Liverpool 0 Arsenal 2, Anfield, Liverpool, May 26, 1989. I didn't see it live, because even on pay-per-view you couldn't get English league soccer live on TV in the USA then (I watched the game on extreme tape-delay when it was replayed on ESPN that summer), but it was this game more than any other that made me a soccer, and Arsenal, fan. Final day of the season...Arsenal, which had had as much as a 19-point lead over Liverpool only 3 months earlier (in the days of 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw), stumbled and bumbled their way through the latter half of the season until they ended up with one game left (which had been rescheduled from earlier because of the Hillsborough disaster IIRC), away versus their rivals from Liverpool, needing to not only win at Anfield for the first time since 1974 but to do so by 2 goals in order to salvage the title, which would otherwise have gone to Liverpool for the 18th time. In the 52nd minute, Arsenal's Alan Smith redirected a Winterburn free kick into the Liverpool goal to give us a 1-0 lead, but the score stayed at 1-0 until 2 minutes into injury time. The Liverpool fans are already celebrating, singing "Champions, Champions". Lee Dixon sends a desperation long ball down to Smith. Smith sends it into the path of Michael Thomas who breaks past the last defender and bears down on the Liverpool goal with the championship of England on the line. TV commentator Brian Moore screams "It's up for grabs now!!!!" Thomas flicks the ball past Liverpool goalie Bruce Grobelaar. He's won the title for Arsenal with literally the last kick of the season. Thomas turns a somersault as he is buried under a pile of teammates. Anfield goes -completely- silent, except in the visiting fans' end where there's absolute pandemonium.

Any knee-jerk American fan who says that "soccer is boring" obviously never saw that game.

4. The tied Cricket World Cup semifinal, Australia vs. South Africa (Australia advances to final on higher Super Six position and higher net run-rate), Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, June 17, 1999. Probably the greatest one-day international cricket match ever played. South Africa needs only 1 run off 4 balls to advance to a well-deserved World Cup Final vs. Pakistan. Tournament MVP Lance Klusener mishits the ball, the Australians roll the ball to wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist, who runs out Allan Donald to miraculously advance Australia to the World Cup Final (which they destroyed Pakistan in 3 days later).

5. 1990 AFC Championship Game - Buffalo 51, LA Raiders 3. The most lopsided conference title game in history, where my favorite team annihilates perhaps my least favorite franchise in all of sports (with the possible exception of Tottenham Hotspur or the Italian national soccer team - more on them next) to advance to its first-ever Super Bowl in front of 80,000+ celebrating fans at Rich Stadium. Ranks higher than the 41-38 comeback vs. Houston because 1) I always kind of liked the Oilers, and felt a little bad for them, though not much, and 2) that Super Bowl run, as a wild card, was a bit of a surprise...that team had underachieved a bit all year and I frankly didn't expect much out of them come playoff time.

6. South Korea 2, Italy 1 (after extra time) - 2002 World Cup, Second Round. Makes the list not because I necessarily love the team that won (although the Koreans were probably my third-favorite team at WC 2002 after England and the USA), but because I truly hate the team that lost. It really made my entire month to listen to the simpering Italian players, fans and media whine and complain that they were "robbed" of their shot at the World Cup (although the Spanish fans had a legitimate complaint vs. Korea in the quarterfinal; they lost after a penalty shootout after a grossly-underqualified-to-work-a-World-Cup linesman denied two perfectly good Spanish goals for nonexistent offsides, one of which would have won the game in regulation, and the other of which would have been a winning golden goal in extra time) when Totti was quite correctly sent off for a second bookable offense near the end of regulation. Hey, Italy, here's what -really- happened. You got an early goal, and then sat back and played your boring, negative, predictable crapenaccio, excuse me, catenaccio style, putting the entire population of Rome and Naples back in your penalty area and clearing the ball for 80 minutes, and when the Koreans broke through and tied it late, you didn't know what to do. You choked. Choked choked choked, with 70,000 red-shirted chanting Koreans screaming in your faces.

Worsts coming up next post.

[cognito20]

OK, now for the worsts.

1. Brett Hull's "goal" to win the Stanley Cup for Dallas over the Sabres. He was planted DIRECTLY in the center of Hasek's crease when that puck went in the net. We were probably not winning that series anyway unless we got a lucky goal in OT (Dallas was dominating the play at that point) to win Game 6 and Hasek just took over Game 7, but if we're going to lose the Stanley Cup, I would prefer to lose it on a -legitimate- goal, one within the rules of hockey.

2. Buffalo's first and fourth SB losses (vs. Giants and second Dallas loss). Versus the Redskins and in the first Cowboys game, we were never really in it....while those games hurt, they didn't hurt as much since we lost to obviously superior teams. The Cowboys the second time hurt more, since although they were also the better team that year, we led 13-6 at the half and were outplaying them until after halftime, when we just fell apart. That was a bit of a tease. The one that kills me is XXV, versus the Giants, the first one. My father and brothers are all Giants fans, and even THEY admit Buffalo was the better of those two teams. If they play 10 times, Buffalo wins 7 or 8, the Giants win 2 or 3 close games, and Buffalo just blows them completely off the field 3 or 4 times. Look at it this way....the Giants, the NFC Champions, COMPLETELY executed their game plan in that game. They did EVERYTHING that they set out to do. They STILL lose if that Norwood kick is a few more feet to the left. If the Giants make ANY mistakes in that game, Buffalo is all over them like white on rice. (Although that game was played very well on -both- sides of the ball...it is one of the few SBs where -both- teams played very well. In fact, IIRC, it was the only Super Bowl where neither team turned the ball over.) The difference was that that was as well as the Giants could play. The Bills had another gear, but except for Thomas they never stepped up into it and that cost them their best chance at winning a Super Bowl. Losing to an obviously-inferior team on one of the 2 occasions out of 10 where they could beat us hurt.

3. The "Music City" "Miracle", where the Titans win on Frank Wycheck's forward pass on the kickoff. You'll notice that I didn't say "lateral". That's because it wasn't one.

4. Brazil 2, England 1, 2002 World Cup Quarterfinal. With all due apologies to the other 6 teams left at that point, the team that won this game was winning the World Cup, and just about every soccer fan knew it. England takes the lead in the first half on a beautiful Michael Owen chip over Marcos, and they seem to be holding Brazil in check rather easily. Then Beckham tries to get cute with the ball rather than just putting it safely into touch, which leads to the Brazilian equalizer, followed by that heartbreaking Ronaldinho free kick where Seaman was hanging out somewhere near Sakhalin Island rather than on his line where he belonged. England has some hope when Ronaldinho is sent off shortly after his goal, but the heat wears on them so much that it looks like it's ENGLAND playing with 10 men, not Brazil. Game over. England doesn't win the World Cup. Again.

5. Keith F'ing Smart. Although I should also add "Derrick F'ing Coleman" to that, since the inability to make one simple free throw in the last 5 minutes of a national title game is inexcusable. He hits his foul shots and Smart can start shooting from Lake Charles and it won't matter because we would've been so far ahead that one shot wouldn't have killed us.

I've had SU-haters pick on me because of the 2005 loss to Vermont, but that doesn't bother me much because that Vermont team was the best team to come out of the America East Conference in at least 20 years, at least since the Reggie Lewis/Jim Calhoun Northeastern teams. They were on the fringes of the Top 25 all year long, and would've been ON the list all year if they played in anything resembling a real conference. I think they may have snuck on a few times anyway. Not to mention that Cowperwaite kid they had is one tall walking bitch of a basketball player. Not only does that Vermont loss not bother me as much as it might, I kind of had a premonition it was going to happen anyway, since they're exactly the type of team Syracuse tends not to match up well with anyway....a Princeton-type, disciplined, smart team that may not be all that athletic but doesn't ever beat themselves.

6. 1985 AL Championship Series, Game 7. Dan Quisenberry closes out the Blue Jays in Toronto to start a long train of heartbreaks for the Jays (in their first playoff appearance, where they had a 3-1 lead with the last 2 games at home) that will not end until that night in Atlanta 7 years later. One of the 2 years, along with 1987 (losing their last 7 to let Detroit slip by them at the wire), where the Blue Jays were almost certainly, in truth, the best team in baseball but let an inferior team get one step ahead of them at exactly the wrong moment.

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But NHL hockey is my favorite sport

[/ QUOTE ]

You should be killed.

[/ QUOTE ]

STFU moran.

Lawrence

[Jules22]

best: close tie between syracuse orangemen bringing home boeheims title (with a little help from carmelo heh) and the packers winning the super bowl

absolute worst: game 6 of the 2002 world series or game 4 of the lakers/kings conference finals with the horry dagger

my teams are the orange, packers, kings, and sf giants

[Jules22]

[ QUOTE ]
Best day: Seattle Mariners, Game 5, 1995. Edgar Martinez ropes a double down the line in extra innings, and the stadium erupts with euphoria.

Worst day: I don't know, but I guess it's when Matt Hasselbeck got picked off by a GB CB in OT two years ago knocking the Seahawks out of the playoffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

that was al harris (sorry im a packers fan)

[Dominic]

Best:

Angels win the World Series

Bills beat the Dolphins on opening day of 1980 season after going 0-for the 70s against them.

Bills crush the Raiders to make it to their first Super Bowl.

WORST:

Bills, Norwood, "wide right."