1. New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox (Baseball, 2004)
Most Red Sox supporters were of the idea that they’d never see a World Series championship, especially after the stomach blow of the 1986 World Series. When the New York Yankees grabbed a 3-0 lead in the 2004 American League Championship Series, Boston supporters merely wrote it up as yet another disappointment, while Yankee fans were anticipating on lifting yet another flag.
when then came Game 4, when Dave Roberts left his imprint in baseball mythology, unleashing what would become the greatest spectacular collapse in baseball history.
The steal by Roberts started the rally that would not only give the Sox a victory in Game Four, but would begin a snowball effect that resulted in four straight wins, including a decimation at Yankee Stadium in which Boston jumped out to a 6-0 lead after two innings and never looked back, on their way to an eventual World Series championship.
So, although the Sox have had some epic meltdowns of their own throughout the years, at least Boston supporters may take heart in the idea that they assisted their hated rivals execute possibly the greatest choke job in sports history. Before 2004, no baseball club that led a series 3-0 has ever lost a seven-game series. The Yankees remain the only ones to achieve so.
2. Boston Red Sox versus New York Mets (Baseball, 1986)
Even though they’ve had some fantastic success over the past decade, it’s no secret that the Boston Red Sox laboured as one of the most cursed clubs, with one of the most tormented fan bases, in all of professional sports for almost a century. Perhaps nothing represented the pain Red Sox fans felt quite like Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, best known as the Bill Buckner game or, if you’re Bill Simmons, just “THAT GAME.”
Of course, blaming Buckner only tells half of the tale of what transpired in that spectacular breakdown of a last inning for the Sox. Sure, the only thing anybody remembers is Buckner’s awful blunder, but what much fewer recall is that closer Bob Stanley threw a wild pitch that enabled the tying run to score from third. That was also the second run of the inning, as the Sox had entered the bottom of the 10th with a 5-3 lead.
Ultimately, Mookie Wilson’s sluggish grounder got past Buckner, and enabled the winning run to score, and the Mets went on to win Game 7 and the series. Buckner’s blunder was only one of many things that went tragically wrong in that fateful 10th inning but hey, at least he got to redeem himself in a great episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last year.
3. Jean van de Velde versus. The 18th Hole (Golf, 1999)
Before the 1999 Open Championship (or British Open, so as not to confuse everyone), no one had ever actually heard of Jean van de Velde. He was an unheralded pro golfer from France, who surged to a commanding lead in the final round of the Open in 1999, and went to the 18th tee requiring only a double bogey six, on a par-four closing hole, to win the major, which would have made him the first Frenchman to do so since 1907.
At that point, you simply play it safe and go for the par, right? There’s no reason to take any risks that things could go bad. Well, that’s not what Van de Velde believed, and he elected to hit his driver, since he had birdied the hole twice earlier throughout the course of the tournament.
Naturally, that was the first of many blunders he made on the hole, as he drove the ball recklessly off of the tee and, rather than playing it safe with his second shot, attempted to go for the green. You can probably predict how well it turned out for him. Five strokes later, he had triple-bogeyed the hole, and eventually lost the Open in a three-way playoff with Justin Leonard and Paul Lawrie. But hey, on the plus side,
he’s no longer an unknown golfer. Now he’s the textbook instance of boneheaded decision-making at the worst possible moment.
4. Houston Oilers vs. Buffalo Bills (Football, 1992)
For most professional football teams, if they find themselves ahead by 32 points in the third quarter of an NFL playoff game, they’re usually feeling fairly certain that they’re going to go on to the next round. That’s particularly true when the opposing team’s future Hall of Fame quarterback, in this instance Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills, has been forced to the bench with an injury. Of course, the Houston Oilers surely didn’t bank on Frank Reich, who had a reputation of rallying teams to miraculous comebacks.
While a backup quarterback at Maryland, Reich came over with his Terps down 31-0 in the first half, and guided the team to a 42-40 victory against Miami, so it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that he was able to do the same for the Bills. Reich led the Bills to 35 unanswered points as Buffalo grabbed a 38-35 lead and, although the Oilers got their fans’ spirits up by taking the game to OT, the Bills would triumph on a Steve Christie field goal. We only hope that Houston supporters take consolation in the fact that the Bills went on to get absolutely demolished by the Cowboys in the Super Bowl.
5. Greg Norman vs. The Masters (Golf, 1996)
Chances are quite strong that, if you begin the final round of a golf event enjoying a six-stroke lead, you have to like your prospects of winning such tournament. Greg Norman certainly woke up on Sunday of the 1996 Masters feeling very confident for just this reason, since he found himself with a score of 13 under par, while the next closest challenger, Nick Faldo, was lying at seven under.
What transpired in the fourth and final round of the Masters will live on in infamy, and has permanently stained Norman’s otherwise-stellar career. After shooting an incredible 63 in the first round, followed by good rounds of 69 and 71, Norman was on the brink of becoming a wire-to-wire leader and Masters winner. It seemed like it would be an incredible butt-stomping, and that’s really what it turned out to be. Except Norman was the one being pounded.
The Aussie fired a 78 in the final round, while Faldo recorded a 67 as the distance between the two shifted by a startling 11 strokes, with Norman going from leading by six strokes to finally losing by five. But hey, at least he produces fairly nice wine, right?