Worst blown call in sports history
- Thread starter Kitaman
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storrsroars
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Hard to argue with that, even in real time.
But there's a reason Jerry Meals is reviled in Pittsburgh.
But there's a reason Jerry Meals is reviled in Pittsburgh.
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I watched that game with my grandsons both huge third generation Tiger fans
He literally stole one of games great achievements a perfect game away with a call that a little league umpire would have gotten correctly
storrsroars
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Anyway, I wanted to include Denkinger's call above as that one basically decided a World Series, but only one vid per post.
www.mlb.com
The '85 World Series call | 01/23/2020
Birds of a Different Game: The '80s Cardinals highlights how Don Denkinger's infamous blown call changed the course of the 1985 World Series
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Feels pretty hard to top this one. If we expanded it to worst officiating performance, I’d have to submit the infamous Livan game in the 1997 NLCS.
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1972 Mens Basketball Olympic Finals. A series of blown calls by the refs and dirty play by the Russians. I, along with the rest of the country, was in disbelief the way the game ended. The USA team members refused their Silver Medal because of the way they were screwed.
1972 mens olympic basketball blown call - Google Search
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Dream Jobbed 2.0
“Most definitely”
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Could pick about 5 from the last UConn football game
Dove
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I think you nailed it with the OP, as I knew you expected to.
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This is the one I immediately thought of but it seems like, with a few years distance, we see calls just as confounding as this on a weekly basis in both college and NFL games.
SubbaBub
Your stupidity is ruining my country.
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That was fixed. The worst blown call was the PI in 2018 NFC Championship Game, Saints v Rams.
A case can also be made for the Immaculate Reception and Maradona's Hand of God in the 1986 World Cup. Both were epically bad per the rules but easily missed in the days before replay, but neither was made at a point in the game where the victimizes team (Saints) were seconds from winning a very important game, not a final, but as close as it gets in US sports.
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The perfect game blown call is horrible. I recall the interview with Jim Joyce after. He was fighting back tears and accepted blame for his bad call.
As a young Yankee hater I remember Reggie Jackson sticking his butt in the way of a throw to first base in the 1977 WS.
That may be second in my book only to the Jeff Maier interference.
Honorable mention goes to every game Angel Hernandez is behind the plate.
As a young Yankee hater I remember Reggie Jackson sticking his butt in the way of a throw to first base in the 1977 WS.
That may be second in my book only to the Jeff Maier interference.
Honorable mention goes to every game Angel Hernandez is behind the plate.
nomar
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Anyway, I wanted to include Denkinger's call above as that one basically decided a World Series, but only one vid per post.
The '85 World Series call | 01/23/2020
Birds of a Different Game: The '80s Cardinals highlights how Don Denkinger's infamous blown call changed the course of the 1985 World Series
This is what immediately came to mind.
The Galarraga one is slightly worse, but World Series > perfect game.
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The tragedy of this one was that replay was widely introduced like a year or two later -- this call would have been trivially overturned and nobody would know or care about the umpire and Galarraga would have his place in history.
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I dunno. The Cardinals still could have lost that game a thousand different ways even if the call wasn't blown. In the other case, the umpire's blown call singularly and decisively nullified a perfect game.
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Is there evidence that the Immaculate Reception was a bad call?
Hand of God was, well, very obviously a handball that was impossible to see in real time.
nomar
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True, of course. I guess I should have written World Series >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Perfect game.
As a fan, how much angrier would you be if that happened to your team in the 9th inning a closeout WS game vs in a regular season game even if, as you point out, there was more direct causal connection between the blown call and the outcome in the latter? Personally, exponentially.
