These are Detroit centric of course. I’d love to hear the worst moments of your sports lives.
1. The last two weeks or so of being a Tigers fan. The way I’m learning about their implosion — by “watching” the pitch by pitch app on MLB.com — is like watching a vice slowly break each of my fingers and voluntarily hitting “resqueeze” after each one.
2. The Lions loss in the NFC Championship game two seasons ago. People kept texting me that they were going to the Super Bowl and could I believe it and no I could not because I knew, I ABSOLUTELY KNEW, that they would blow it. I kept texting them back the same message: “All this does is make the inevitable collapse that much more painful,” and BOY HOWDY WAS I RIGHT. I’m not looking up the details because I just don’t want to. But it was AWFUL. KICK A FIELD GOAL KICK A FIELD GOAL KICK A FIELD GOAL FOR THE LOVE OF PETE KICK A FIELD GOAL.
3. Every year before that of being a Lions fan, but especially, well, no, every year has been pretty much equally bad.
4. The 2006 World Series. How many errors can one set of pitchers make?
5. Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008. The Red Wing were 35 seconds away from winning the Stanley Cup. They gave up the tying goal then lost in triple overtime and I was so jacked up on adrenaline and anger and anxiety that I couldn’t sleep. Honestly I felt foolish. I swore off playoff hockey forever, a promise I kept two nights later when they won the Stanley Cup and I didn’t watch.
6. The Bird Stole the Ball game. This happened in in the NBA playoffs in 1987. I won’t bore you with the details except that my Detroit Pistons were a few seconds from winning a key playoff game. I ran from my bedroom to the living room to celebrate with my dad. It was a very short distance — not even 10 steps. In the time it took me to do that, a catastrophic mistake happened of which I refuse to speak.
My dad had a look of utter disbelief on his face. “I can’t believe they lost,” he croaked out. I was like, WHAT?!?
I have watched 87 billion games with my dad, and that’s the only memorable reaction he has ever had to anything. It’s weird that he watches so much and doesn’t seem invested at all, and I have so many things on my “This is horrible why do I even like sports power rankings” I can’t decide which ones to cut.
I’m my mother’s son, I guess: She couldn’t watch sporting events because she went too crazy. She did laundry instead and peeked at the game as she walked by and would yell and scream at freak out no matter what happened, even if it was a commercial break. ANYWAY: The only bright side is that because I was celebrating, I didn’t actually see the catastrophic mistake.
7. 2014 Men’s World Cup soccer against Portugal. Worst ending since Old Yeller.
Game 163, 2009 Twins-Tigers. At least one writer has called this the greatest game in baseball history and not to cast aspersions but screw that. Semi related: I interviewed former Texas coach Mack Brown about the epic Texas-USC Rose Bowl in 2006. I asked him if, during the game, he appreciated how amazing it was. He said at one point he looked across the field at USC Pete Carroll, and they shared a moment, a look, like, can you believe this? That’s what watching this game was like, until they lost. Then it felt like sharing a moment, a look with someone as they stuff a shiv into your stomach.
As a fellow Michigan transplant, I felt EVERY one of these deep in my soul. Thanks for bringing back the misery I had pushed down until it disappeared… 🤣