To be a sports fan that came of age in the DMV is to be a connoisseur of horrendous defeats, unless you were one of those obnoxious kids that jumped on the Cowboys or [insert random successful team] bandwagon. If you were one of the loyalists, you know that losing comes in many flavors - to quote Newman, it is a dazzling array of textures and moments.
Tonight seems like a good occasion to look back on some especially memorable sports catastrophes in recent years:
May 13, 2009: Caps flame out in spectacular Game 7 loss to Penguins
Trying to decide on the most epic Caps playoff collapse is like trying to pick your favorite Beatles song, but this one really stuck with me for some reason. The sudden emergence of the Caps in the previous year had everyone in a tizzy. I have to admit, their emergence as a seemingly legit force was a breath of fresh air in the room full of stale farts that D.C. sports seemed to be trapped in. They had lost to the Flyers the previous year, but his time around they were supposed to be more "seasoned". Unfortunately whatever seasoning they received clearly did not last through the 7 games series against Pittsburgh. Needless to say, after this humiliating 6-2 loss I was all like "Nice try!" when the Caps tried to lure me in the next year before losing to the 8th seeded Canadiens.
Mar. 21 2010: Korie Lucious ends Maryland's season
Terp fans haven't had many opportunities to enjoy March Madness in the past decade. This was the perhaps the most promising year since they won it all in 2002. A senior laden team ran up against the Michigan State team in the second round, fell behind early, then battled back. In the last hectic seconds, Greivis Vasquez put the Terps up 1, only to see mediocre guard Korie Lucious hit a three at the buzzer. At least this didn't up being Gary Williams' last tournament game! Oh wait..
November 15, 2010: The Monday Night Massacre
What beleaguered Skins fan can forget this night? Hyped up all week as Donovan McNabb vs his former team and Mike Vick, this game can be best described as a buzz saw running into a pile of horse manure. One second thought, that may a bit harsh to horse manure, which is probably of much higher quality and utility than the pile of feces named Albert Haynesworth that showed up that night. You might remember Fat Albert eschewing traditional football activities like "running" and "trying" in favor of crawling around on the ground like a beached orca trying to navigate a minefield during one redzone play. I'm as big a fan of playing Nightcrawlers as anyone, but that just was not the time and place. The final score was 100-28, or something like that. If you're a Skins fan and you actually watched that whole game, you are not me.
October 12, 2012
The O's and Nats both playing elimination game 5's on the same day? What could go wrong?? I was a big Orioles fan as a kid. I have to credit Jeffrey Maier and Armando Benitez for playing integral roles in my development as a sports pessimist. This years series was like a walk down memory lane, seeing how it all started to go wrong. The icing on the cake was watching 46,000 virginal Nats fan witness one of the most horrific playoff collapses in recent memory.
To be continued, for a long time
Friday, October 12, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
It seemed like a lifetime ago. Four years. Plenty of time for friends to move across the continent, for careers to sharpen into focus, and for youth to yield to wisdom. The memory of that fateful day on the river had been worn down into an inconspicuous nub, much like a rock eroded by the merciless pounding of whitewater currents. But some memories never fade completely.
The cool ocean breeze comforted him. The presence of the ocean was a balm to old wounds. Whenever his mind wandered back towards that fateful day, he thought of the blue Pacific and its calm waters. No storms roiled his senses, not in this corner of the world. But on the rare occasions that hard rain fell from the sky, he made sure to avoid all bodies of water. Thankfully today was another bright sunny day.
A fantastic tale of riverine adventure. A lazy drift down subdued waters abruptly interrupted by an apocalyptic tempest. A boy and his pals on a careless weekend jaunt caught off guard by the storm of the century - one minute lolling in dead water, the next being tossed to all corners of the seven seas. These were stories that belonged in a children's book, he told himself. These kinds of stories were boxed away and stored in a musty corner of the basement in his childhood home, next to Huckleberry Finn and Ralph and the Motorcycle.
In an instant, the sun was extinguished. The dragonflies and lightning bugs, pleasant adornments of an idyllic summer afternoon just a moment ago, now seemed like menacing harbingers of the furious wrath of Poseidon. With a terrifying roar the heavens opened their ponderous gates. Screams pierced the wind-whipped air as panicked kayakers paddled desperately towards shore. Angry rain shelled the hapless adventurers while bowel-shaking thunder blasted and shook their plastic yellow vessels. It was as if the atmosphere had been invaded by malevolent alien electrical entities and earth was fighting back with all the elements it could throw at the sky. The churning water turned blood red, and the wails grew more distant. He looked around frantically for any signs of his companions. At the far end of the horizon, he saw Naz sinking into the depths with paddles flailing, and then he was gone. At the other end he saw Jon battling frantically against the current to save Andy, until both were swallowed up by the watery demons. He drew in a last breath before surrendering to the storm.
He woke up covered in sweat. It had been four years. Not long enough.
Happy 7/20!
The cool ocean breeze comforted him. The presence of the ocean was a balm to old wounds. Whenever his mind wandered back towards that fateful day, he thought of the blue Pacific and its calm waters. No storms roiled his senses, not in this corner of the world. But on the rare occasions that hard rain fell from the sky, he made sure to avoid all bodies of water. Thankfully today was another bright sunny day.
A fantastic tale of riverine adventure. A lazy drift down subdued waters abruptly interrupted by an apocalyptic tempest. A boy and his pals on a careless weekend jaunt caught off guard by the storm of the century - one minute lolling in dead water, the next being tossed to all corners of the seven seas. These were stories that belonged in a children's book, he told himself. These kinds of stories were boxed away and stored in a musty corner of the basement in his childhood home, next to Huckleberry Finn and Ralph and the Motorcycle.
In an instant, the sun was extinguished. The dragonflies and lightning bugs, pleasant adornments of an idyllic summer afternoon just a moment ago, now seemed like menacing harbingers of the furious wrath of Poseidon. With a terrifying roar the heavens opened their ponderous gates. Screams pierced the wind-whipped air as panicked kayakers paddled desperately towards shore. Angry rain shelled the hapless adventurers while bowel-shaking thunder blasted and shook their plastic yellow vessels. It was as if the atmosphere had been invaded by malevolent alien electrical entities and earth was fighting back with all the elements it could throw at the sky. The churning water turned blood red, and the wails grew more distant. He looked around frantically for any signs of his companions. At the far end of the horizon, he saw Naz sinking into the depths with paddles flailing, and then he was gone. At the other end he saw Jon battling frantically against the current to save Andy, until both were swallowed up by the watery demons. He drew in a last breath before surrendering to the storm.
He woke up covered in sweat. It had been four years. Not long enough.
Happy 7/20!
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