December 24, 2010

The Agony of Defeat:
Joe Posnanski puts together a list of 32 agonizing endings in sport, with some criteria:


2. The ending must inspire some feeling of sheepishness in the victor. Don't get me wrong: The feeling doesn't have to be remorse or even sympathy. But at the very least there has to be some kind of "I cannot believe that we got away with that" emotion.


posted by grum@work to general at 08:56 AM - 8 comments

...so you might actually believe that the worst ending in the history of sports happened to your team, perhaps when you were at an impressionable age...

I was at that impressionable age when I watched Chris Webber call the timeout in the college championship game when Michigan had no timeouts. I sunk to my knees uttering "No, no, no..." and watched the game end following Webber's technical.

I don't know how many times I uttered "stupid" the rest of the day. It was all a big fog.

posted by roberts at 11:19 AM on December 24, 2010

If you ever find yourself in Chapel Hill, you should probably stay away from Time Out on Franklin Street, roberts. Of course, you'll be missing out on one of the greatest chicken biscuits you'll ever have the pleasure of eating, but a giant, wall-sized photo of Chris Webber calling the infamous time out greets you as you walk into the place.

posted by NoMich at 11:35 AM on December 24, 2010

1997 Hungarian Grand Prix.

posted by Drood at 03:38 PM on December 24, 2010

This. And a longer look at Greg Norman getting the rough end of such results.

posted by JJ at 07:22 AM on December 25, 2010

I had not previously read about he '97 Hungarian Grand Prix, but that reading about it now, jeez, a washer?

posted by Joey Michaels at 11:56 AM on December 25, 2010

While Greg Norman has had an amazing career (two majors), the other 28 top 10 finishes in the majors (including 8 second place finishes) and his dramatic losses have hinted that he's been a bit through a bit of bad luck.

posted by grum@work at 12:53 PM on December 25, 2010

Or, that he was a bit of a bottler. Not wanting to be cruel (I was always a fan and still am), but while some of his losses were undeniably cruel, most of them were self-inflicted. I'd argue that even '96 was his own failure rather than the cruelty of sport. According to his caddy, he said as they were waling up 17 "Well, I guess it's better to be lucky than good, eh?" and his caddy replied "I'd just like to caddy for someone with a bit of heart..."

posted by JJ at 09:54 AM on December 26, 2010

That Devon Loch one puzzled me for awhile. At first glance, I thought it looked like he just took a flying leap on purpose to slide on his belly for awhile, like maybe he had an itch or something. It almost looked playful.

posted by evixir at 09:01 PM on December 28, 2010

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