Open Thread & Sports Posted by JP Stormcrow, 23 Mar 2007 02:35 pm

Open Thread (#1)

A Fan’s Note - March Madness and the Agony of Defeat

By JP Stormcrow

[Very Late Update 04/07/07: An MB post at Pandagon on Chocolate Jesus reminded me that I forgot to put on the list:  October 12, 1980 - Philadelphia 8 Houston 7 (10 innings)]

[Update 3/25/07: Ignore the anxiety-ridden shell who wrote this thread Intro. It is a beautiful spring day, my teams have passed the “Humiliation Barrier” (see comment #30 here, - comment linking roolz!) and maybe, just maybe, a third-rate burglarly has come to light to semi-save us all.]

Please use this thread to discuss the tournament, your bracket, sports in general, or anything else the MOJ you desires. Reading Exley’s A Fan’s Notes and Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. recommended, but not required. And in the spirit of those books (as well as my considered reaction to the trials and tribulations of “my” teams in the tournament) let me say this: Let no one deceive you, there is no symmetry or balance in sports fandom. The badness of a bad loss is to the goodness of a good win as the GNF is to a nice spring day. To wit:

November 22, 1969 Michigan 24 Ohio State 12
January 1, 1971 Stanford 27 Ohio State 17
April 3, 1983 - NC State 54 Houston 52
Apri 1 1985 - Villanova 66 Georgetown 64
October 26, 1986 - New York Mets 6 Boston 5
January 11, 1987 - Denver 23 Cleveland 20 (The Drive)
January 17, 1988 - Denver 38 Cleveland 33 (The Fumble)
October 14, 1992 - Atlanta 3 Pittsburgh 2 (The Slide)
May 14, 1993 - New York Islanders 4 Pittsburgh 3 (I can’t complain about this one given 1991 and 1992, but sometimes I still do.)
October 26, 1997 - Florida 3 Cleveland 2
October 14, 2003 - Florida 8 Chicago Cubs 3

I pity the fool who could contrive to be deeply invested on the wrong side of each of the games above (well, not really true for the Cubs, but it was such an epic loss that I had to include it on the list.)

This is an Open Thread, so have at it, but I would love to see some rants, ravings and howlings arising (maybe this very weekend) from the unhealed sports wounds of the truly demented amongst us. [And you know who you are - locked in your room for the 2nd half of an Ohio State-Michigan game, with your Mother knocking on the door every 10 minutes saying “Just thought I’d let you know that they’re still losing and your children think you are acting like an asshole.” (ha, ha, just joking on that last bit, my your mother would never call meyou an asshole, … ha, ha …. *sob*)]

But on reflection, since the Pens have never been eliminated from the playoffs on a Game 7 overtime Chuck BednarikDarius Kasparaitis goal, I guess life’s been good to me so far.

Trackbacks

  1. 1. What Would Hawthorne Say About This?

Responses to “Open Thread (#1)”

  1. on 23 Mar 2007 at 3:36 pm 1. spyder said …

    Post Traumatic Sports Loss Disorder??? PTSLD???

    Digging deep into the memory custerfluck i can recall a few. Houston Cougars with Elvin Hayes defeating UCLA in 1968 the “game of the century” when Alcindor’s (Jabbar) cornea was scratched. Relieved only by the positively horrendous destruction of Houston in Pauley Pavilion in the semi-final game at the hands of a healthy Lew and team. Then the deeply sad loss of the 88-0 Walton-led Bruin team to Notre Dame by one point in 1974. I have hated ND ever since, and i used to root for them every year to beat USC, hehehe.

    The 1950s LA Rams were heartbreakers, getting into the playoffs and championship games several times, but only winning one. The Cleveland Browns had our number in that era before Vince and the Pack. Lou Groza particularly put a nasty kick right in the gut of a young boy.

    I had always liked the Dodgers, so when they moved to LA my little chunk of heaven expanded, only to be crushed by the car accident from hell: Roy Campanella paralyzed. They still had great teams, but the core of those 50’s teams didn’t stay long into the 60’s, save for those two pitchers. Once they faltered it was almost never the same again.

    I can’t even talk about the Lakers, the highs have never been as high as the lows were low.

  2. on 23 Mar 2007 at 3:50 pm 2. christian h. said …

    I came to the US, and to Chicago, in ‘99. One year post-Jordan. I stupidly arrived on the North side and became a Cubs fan (I listened to baseball on the radio before I ever saw a game - weird experience). I’m also a Northwestern guy, which forces me to follow sports like women’s college lacrosse… and I totally agree - a win isn’t half as satisfying as a loss is devastating (well, a loss like the Cubs-Marlins game anyway).

  3. on 23 Mar 2007 at 4:07 pm 3. Dr. Free-Ride said …

    The quarter I used to compose my NCAA bracket (by coin toss, see) turns out to know absolutely nothing about college basketball.

    Are any of you watching the games in this tournament? Who do you like for the Final Four?

    For that matter, if you were to recreate the Fantastic Four using any superheroes you liked, who would you draft?

  4. on 23 Mar 2007 at 4:32 pm 4. JP Stormcrow said …

    LA Rams ….The Cleveland Browns had our number in that era

    Yes, it was quite the drama between those two teams, especially since the Rams started in Cleveland before moving to LA in 1946 (after winning the NFL championship in 1945). In 1950, the first year for Cleveland in the NFL (after moving from the All-America Conference along with the 49ers) the Browns beat the Rams 30-28 in the championship.

  5. on 23 Mar 2007 at 5:17 pm 5. JP Stormcrow said …

    Spyder,

    I enjoyed the example of negative sports energy in your bookend comment to your post. “Sports energy” really is a tangible thing (as is the incredible institutionalization of sports over the past 80 years or so) and it continues as one of the few reliable goads to civic unrest.

    Dr F-R. (re: Spring Science Showdown), I am sure I speak for us all, when I say that we don’t really go for running gags and in-jokes. Nonetheless, I was following along but have boycotted it since the creepy Invertebrate over Vertebrate result. There was something a little slimy about that one.

  6. on 23 Mar 2007 at 5:37 pm 6. christian h. said …

    but have boycotted it since the creepy Invertebrate over Vertebrate result. There was something a little slimy about that one.

    Yeah, I know what you mean. Plus, “logic” has two teams competing. Something is very fishy here - I think some illegal science betting racket is going on.

  7. on 23 Mar 2007 at 5:45 pm 7. Dr. Free-Ride said …

    I am shocked — shocked! — to discover that scientists might be involved in making bets on the basis of probabilities.

    Still, the Kuhn vs. Theory match (which I’m scheduled to host) may turn out to be a nail-biter.

  8. on 23 Mar 2007 at 6:27 pm 8. peter ramus said …

    Damn, Dr. Free-Ride, that first round Orbit bracket action was intense!

    Sorry to see the Quaternions bow out so early, but Vitale’s commentary was just capital, as always.

  9. on 23 Mar 2007 at 6:58 pm 9. The Constructivist said …

    Talk about your basket-ball all you want, but don’t miss my not-quite-live-blogging the final rounds of the PGA and LPGA tune-up-tournaments before the majors on my Monday, your Sunday. Oh, and Doc FR how does it feel to be approvingly cited by a certain Daily Disher?

  10. on 23 Mar 2007 at 7:00 pm 10. The Constructivist said …

    Oh, and JP, add any or all of the Bills’ Super Bowl losses to the list at your pleasure.

  11. on 23 Mar 2007 at 7:18 pm 11. Dr. Free-Ride said …

    How to feel? On a good day, I’m really ambivalent about Sullivan, but he’s got traffic.

    Would it have killed him, though, to mention the name of the “new blog” or the pseudonym of the post author?

    (D’ya think Sullivan is a crypto-Bérubé fan?)

  12. on 23 Mar 2007 at 7:33 pm 12. Heraclitus (Jeff) said …

    It’s hardly a surprise that Sullivan would be afraid of acknowledging the WAAGNFNP, but why couldn’t he at least give the blogger’s name? But what was really weird was that his “money quote” didn’t include a single bit of the argument. Bizarre.

    Of the losses listed above, I think the two worst have to be The Fumble and the ‘97 series. But then I am from Ohio.

  13. on 23 Mar 2007 at 7:44 pm 13. JP Stormcrow said …

    Oh, and JP, add any or all of the Bills’ Super Bowl losses to the list at your pleasure.

    Ah, but see to really count the team that loses needs to be better….. For instance in 1990 (I think) the Browns beat a clearly better Bills team enroute to the Browns third AFC Championship loss to Denver. (But which I did not put on my list, since the Browns deserved that defeat - but you “should” count the loss in the prior game.) Those are the “rules” for my list at least, you of course are free to construct your own list.

    And if you do one for Buffalo as a whole, you should start with the 2001 Eastern Conference semis, where a superior Sabres team did lose to the Pens on the game 7 overtime Kasparaitis goal I allude to. (And the Pens then went on to stink it up against NJ in the Finals just to rub it in.)

  14. on 23 Mar 2007 at 8:21 pm 14. JP Stormcrow said …

    Wow, someone just logged a 1678-word reply to Dr F-R’s post. (Not that I’m counting - I was just so floored that I cut and pasted it into Word to get the count. The original post is still in the lead by ~400 words.)

    Oh, that reminds me Dr. Free-Ride, you recall that by contract you have until tomorrow evening to respond and elaborate on any and all points raised in comments to your post (and you look to be a bit off the pace.) There are unspecified, yet severe punishments, for non-compliance.

    I won’t be around tomorrow to keep you on task, as I will be participating in the fiction that walking around a campus and having someone show you the library is a valuable exercise in choosing among colleges. [Nor can I cheer on my bracket - which has all 8 in the Elite 8 correct. Not bragging, just saying …]

    Of the losses listed above, I think the two worst have to be The Fumble and the ‘97 series.

    I count The Drive as worse. If there is no Fumble, Cleveland only ties, which puts them in the same position they were in at the end of The Drive the year before. And I have full Northeast Ohio sports confidence that they would have blown it in overtime. By ‘97 I was an old hand. I went up to bed when it went to extra innings (after making myself hoarse by yelling “Mike Jackson” at the TV - Mesa had been looking shaky.)

    Need 1400 more words.

  15. on 23 Mar 2007 at 10:29 pm 15. Ben Alpers said …

    Some particularly awful losses from my past…

    I’m just too young to remember the immaculate reception, so the most painful football losses of my youth were three later AFC Championship games…

    Dec. 29, 1974: Steelers 24, Raiders 13
    Jan. 4, 1976: Steelers 16, Raiders 10
    Jan 1, 1978: Broncos 20, Raiders 17

    When Davis started threatening to move the team south, my football loyalties switched across the Bay, and I’ve never looked back. The pleasure-to-pain ratio of the next two decades of Niner fandom was, admittedly, pretty high, but there were moments like…

    Jan 20, 1991: Giants 15, Niners 13 (thanks to Craig’s fumble)

    And nothing in football quite compares to…

    October 15, 1988: Dodgers 5 A’s 4 (and let it be noted that I detested the film The Natural before this game. You can only imagine my feelings about it now.)

    Though coming pretty close were..

    ALDS, Game 3, 2000: Yankees 1, A’s 0 (Slide, Jeremy F’n Giambi! Christ I hate Jeter!!!!)

    ALDS, Game 3, 2002: Red Sox 3, A’s 1 (more baserunning clusterfucks cost A’s potential clinching game of a series that they go on to blow)

    I could, of course, go on in this mode for much longer, but I’ll add just one more, an unusual one:

    March 29, 1986: Michigan St. 6, Harvard 5 (NCAA Div I Hockey Championship)

    Harvard had beaten the #1 ranked University of Denver Pioneers in the semi-finals and they came painfully close to winning their first NCAA title that night in Providence (I was in attendance). They were a great team throughout my college years; that was my senior year. They finally won a national title three years later, in overtime over Minnesota. But I wasn’t there (though I found a bar in Princeton, NJ, willing to put it on the tube), and the memory is a lot weaker than of this painful loss.

    Now I’ll stop.

  16. on 23 Mar 2007 at 11:21 pm 16. The Constructivist said …

    OK, this is real obscure, but my senior year in college the Hamilton men’s basketball team was undefeated, but not allowed to go to the Div. III NCAA’s because of conference rules at the time. We ended up playing Potsdam in the ECAC Championship game and lost when a reserve guard scored something like 30 points on us. Rumor had it we would have had a split-cover in Sports Illustrated with UNLV if we had won. Worst sporting loss of my life. And I was only the manager of the team….

  17. on 23 Mar 2007 at 11:25 pm 17. The Constructivist said …

    JP, I was foolish enough to be happy the Giants beat the Bills (because I was a huge Joe Morris fan), but you’re right that some of the losses after that just got ridiculous. My best friend’s wife is a rabid Cowboys fan and they always hosted Super Bowls in grad school; by halftime that one year I was playing darts in the other room with her husband but not out of earshot. Still, the current team makes me nostalgic for the early ’90s….

    And yes, if I cared about hockey, various Sabres losses would be higher up there.

  18. on 24 Mar 2007 at 1:37 am 18. JP.Stormcrow said …

    October 15, 1988: Dodgers 5 A’s 4

    Ben, this one is semi on my list as well, both through the Denis Eckersley -Cleveland conection and irrational hatred for the Dodgers (and you are right it was just too freaking “perfect” in that “George Will beauty and purity of the game” makes you want to puke kind of way.) I also felt for Eckersley a few years later against the Reds. He really deserved a better postseason fate.

    And obscure works well too. I can still get some heat behind Columbus East over Barberton in the Ohio High School Boys Basketball Championship from many years ago and Peters Twp. over Fox Chapel For the WPIAL (Western PA) soccer championship via a penalty-kick shootout more recently.

    Everyone should just let it all come out - its therapeutic.

  19. on 24 Mar 2007 at 5:01 am 19. christian h. said …

    Northwestern - Bowling Green 2001. The year before, NU had won a share of the Big Ten title and they returned almost all starters. They won an improbable game early in the 2001 season over Michigan State (the teams traded 3 touchdowns - 2 for NU, one for MSU - in the last minute). By the time they played Bowling Green later in the season, they were already fading because of awful defense. They led throughout the game, but BGSU came back, scored a touchdown very late - after an NU fumble, of course - and decided to go for 2 and the win as NU’s defense sucked so much. They made it, of course. How embarrassing is that?

    Generally speaking, though, being an NU fan has its perks - any wins by the football or basketball teams are a bonus. I was at the basketball game where they beat Indiana for the first time in 12 years. One of the better nights in my life. (Sorry. Positive stories are off topic. It won’t happen again.)

  20. on 24 Mar 2007 at 6:36 am 20. Charles said …

    I am a Vikings fan, have been since about 1968, and thus take a back seat to no one in suffering from PTSLD. DREW PEARSON PUSHED OFF, DAMMIT!! (game-winning catch in 1975 NFC Championship game).

  21. on 24 Mar 2007 at 6:52 am 21. peter ramus said …

    Witnessing your team lose can be very deflating. From Tobias Luetke’s Too-biased, a visual taunt offered by an Argentine condom manufacturer in the run-up to a recent Brazil vs. Argentina match:

    …answered, following Brazil’s victory, by this rejoinder from Brazil’s Football organization:

  22. on 24 Mar 2007 at 6:56 am 22. peter ramus said …

    Awaiting moderation sucks. Just saying.

  23. on 24 Mar 2007 at 8:17 am 23. christian h. said …

    Awaiting moderation sucks. Just saying.

    True. But you should see the absolutely disgusting spam comments we have been receiving at one time. Sorry about the delay - make some allowance for it being Saturday.

  24. on 24 Mar 2007 at 9:15 am 24. Oaktown Girl said …

    peter - what christian said. But thanks for those great soccer posters. (By the way, those images are being hosted “off site”, right?)

    I’m going to have to be gone the rest of the day and much of the evening. But let me just second most of what Ben Alpers has said about his darkest days in sports fandom regarding the A’s and Raiders. I will elaborate my tears on the subject when I return.

  25. on 24 Mar 2007 at 9:31 am 25. spyder said …

    Jan 20, 1991: Giants 15, Niners 13 (thanks to Craig’s fumble)

    I was just thinking about this one as well. Especially after the 12-03-1990 Monday night game when the Niners defeated the Giants. I remember that mostly because it was a huge game, and also the night of a Grateful Dead show at the Oakland Arena. At one moment in the first set, during a quiet part of a song, there was this gyanormous cheer from the audience. Looking out towards them we realized that the advent of Watchmans, had revolutionized multi-tasking during concerts. There were hundreds and hundreds of people watching the game. The second set was necessarily delayed until the end of the game to facilitate a more attentive relationship with the audience. But then, oh that loss in January, what a heartbreaker.

    On an obscure note of sports heartbreaks, the travails of Shirley Babashof rank right up there. One of the “greatest-ever” of US Olympic swimmers, it took six different East German women to keep her from winning gold medals in two Olympics (she ended her career with six silvers and three relay golds, still one for the records). She swam across every freestyle distance from the 100 to the 800, and was the best the US had in that generation–the female Marc Spitz. We now know that her claims of being defeated by East German steroid use were in fact true.

    Other quickies: the “Catch” for Dallas fans, the “Immaculate Reception” for us Raider fans, the Bill Mazeroski homerun for Yankee fans, etc..

  26. on 24 Mar 2007 at 3:25 pm 26. hi ho said …

    What is this?

  27. on 24 Mar 2007 at 4:34 pm 27. christian h. said …

    You guys always submit comments needing moderation in the one hour I use to shop, or eat. Damn. What this is is Bérubé’s admission that he’s a closet 24 fan. Outrageous!

  28. on 24 Mar 2007 at 10:29 pm 28. Oaktown Girl said …

    Ah - a lovely photo from our Minister of Visual Propaganda. Thank you, hi ho.

    christian - I have a friend who always times her calls for when I’ve just left the house, or when I’m least able to talk on the phone. It’s an art, I tell you.

    It’s very late out here, so most of you will be reading this in the morning. So here’s a little something to start your day (because your Minister of Justice is always and ever looking out for you) - a low-brow joke I heard on The Showbiz Show (Comedy Central) that made me laugh:

    For the first time ever last week, Jeopardy ended in a 3-way tie. Mathematicians calculated that the odds of it happening are one in 25 million, which, coincidentally are the same odds of a Jeopardy contestant being involved in a 3-way.

    Good Morning, GNF-er’s!

  29. on 24 Mar 2007 at 10:31 pm 29. The Constructivist said …

    I think it’s more X-Files–pointing at where the truth is to be found. Wait–is that a miraculous appearance of a Virgin Mary-shaped tumor on that alien baby’s face?!

  30. on 25 Mar 2007 at 6:19 am 30. JP Stormcrow said …

    (Sorry. Positive stories are off topic. It won’t happen again.)

    No, no, no. This is an Open Thread, positive away to your heart’s content, what would ever have made you think I preferred people to focus on the negative ….

    And actually for now I am pretty relaxed, it’s a beautiful spring day here, Pitt had their usual can’t get past Round of 32, but at least did so in an unremarkabe fashion to a superior team. And Ohio State has at least met minimum expectations (very close twice there), and barring some in-game collapse or humiliation in the Final 4, look like they will not inflict any permanent psychological damage.

    And this is where I should admit the possibly surprising fact that I don’t actually like or follow Ohio State basketball that much. I am just fine when they labor away as a mid-tier team in the Big Ten, it is only when they emerge with a team with expectations like this year, that they trigger a tribal regional anti-humiliation reflex in me. [And which actually extends to the whole Big 10 (what’s in a number) - and has been sorely tested the last 2 years in the tournament with 0 teams past the 2nd round last year and inches away from it this year save for the Buckeye’s semi-miraculous comeback against Xavier. For instance this same stupid conference/regional allegiance (and I did not even go to a Western Conference Big 10 college.) made me take to the heart the fricking Minnesota Gopher’s choke-for-the-ages this past bowl season.]

  31. on 25 Mar 2007 at 6:19 am 31. JP Stormcrow said …

    What is this?

    New Jersey?

  32. on 25 Mar 2007 at 6:56 am 32. hi ho, hi ho said …

    Reviewing the valliant forces of the WAAGNFNP Militia, Disco Queens, and Inspired Mollusc Brigade:

  33. on 25 Mar 2007 at 9:41 am 33. Kenn said …

    Hi. Oaktown Girl asked me to post a heads-up here about some upcoming site maintenance and a brief outage. I’ll be doing some work that will take the site offline early in the day Monday. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes, give or take a bit.

  34. on 25 Mar 2007 at 3:43 pm 34. Oaktown Girl said …

    I don’t actually like or follow Ohio State basketball…it is only when they emerge with a team with expectations like this year, that they trigger a tribal regional anti-humiliation reflex in me.

    Agreed. Regional tribalism is why I’m cheering for the Pac 10 teams even tho I cheer against them when they’re playing my team (Cal). But with Oregon out, I think I’m down to just UCLA now.

    I know said I’d elaborate on my lowest sports fandom moments, but I can’t. Not really. Just too painful. So I’ll be lazy and invite everyone to see see Ben’s comment above.
    I will only say this: of all the dark days, the very darkest one was indeed the A’s crushing loss to the Dodgers on that home run by he-who-shant-be-named-by-me. Ever. I could not believe the sun came up the next day.

    Not quite as dark but the most maddening was Jeremy Giambi’s non-slide. Worse, it unfolded literally before my eyes. Through my friend, I had seats right on the third base line, first deck. So close, it would have been a short leap to run onto the field and slap the shit out him. Which I almost did.

    Oh, and that Raider loss to Denver in 1978 - if only we’d had instant replay review back then. Hmmm…well, I guess I did manage to elaborate a little. But now I’m all worked up and mad. I think I’ll go join 3Tops in the Special Projects office and debrief somebody.

  35. on 26 Mar 2007 at 11:56 pm 35. john in california said …

    jumped over fron Hullabaloo - I like your blog - thanks - also, you are now the second person I have ever heard mention, let alone praise, the Universal Baseball ass. It floors me when I talk to an english dept. academic who is not familiar w/ this great book, especially as it is as much about the process of creation, its loneliness and costs as it is about an obsessive personality and the crazyness of fandom.

  36. on 27 Mar 2007 at 12:17 am 36. JP Stormcrow said …

    I like your blog

    Thanks, it is a group effort, just launched. Read the About for some background.

    Yes, when I got Universal Baseball Ass’n. I was thinking it was something quite different, but liked what it was, it spoke to some dark places in us all. I liked his method of telling his boss he quit “look up horse x in race y” in his fantasy horseracing game in his desk - horse is named “Up Ziff’s Ass”.

    And if you like UBA, check out Exley, quite different, but yet another skillful exploration of the dark side of fandom and life.