Sports can have a person run the gamut of emotions in a short period of time. We can go from angry, to bitter, to sad, to irate, to depressed, to complacent, elated, joyous, gleeful, excited, enthralled, disinterested and shortsighted in one fell swoop depending on the action in the game, and how our teams are doing. Good times and bad, as they used to say on ABC's Wide World of Sports, we feel the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." Too often, we extol the virtues of the victors, and never think to look into what the other side of that coin is. The emptiness, the void, the sinking feeling that leaves the most bitter of tastes in the mouths of many is always overlooked. Today, we look at thirteen such instances.

 1.  1964 Philadelphia Phillies:  With only 12 games left in the 1964 season, the Phillies led the NL by 6½ games. When they got off their flight from L.A. on Sept. 21, fresh off a 3-2 win over the Dodgers, Philadelphia's mayor and thousands of fans greeted the hometown heroes. Later that day, they lost to the Reds, 1-0,  at Shibe Park, with Cincy's only run scoring on a steal of home.

The Phils should have never gotten off the airplane. They lost eight in a row at Shibe, dropping into second place for the first time since July 15, and then departed for St. Louis, where they lost two in a row to the eventual NL champs. That's where the Phils finished the season, tied for second with the Reds, one game behind the Cardinals.

Lots of folks blamed manager Gene Mauch, who overused ace pitchers Jim Bunning and Chris Short in the season's final weeks.

 2.  Jan Van de Velde, 1999 British Open:  Van de Velde, in a bid to become the first Frenchman to win the tourney since 1907, strolled up to the 18th tee at Carnoustie needing only a double-bogey 6 for victory. Disaster followed. Van de Velde triple-bogeyed, then lost in a four-hole playoff to Paul Lawrie, who won despite starting the day a remarkable 10 strokes behind.

Van de Velde, following in the footsteps of Pascal, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Bergson, Simone Weil, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and other great French thinkers, proved remarkably philosophical.

"There are worse things in life," he said. "Some terrible things are happening to other people. This is only a golf tournament. Yes, I blew it on 18. All it proves is I was capable of being three ahead of the best players in the world on 18."

Or, as Pascal wrote, "Man's nature is not always to advance; it has its advances and retreats."

 3.  1992 Houston Oilers:  Just a week removed from throttling the Bills 27-3 in Houston, the Oilers seemed poised to take the two time defending AFC champions out of the playoffs.  Playing without Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and Cornelius Bennett, among others, the Bills fell behind the Oilers 28-3 at halftime of their AFC Wild Card game against the Oilers at Rich Stadium thanks to four Warren Moon TD passes.  When Bubba McDowell returned an interception for a score early in the third quarter to make it 35-3, it seemed as if the lights were  all but turned out on the Bills season.

Someone mentioned to QB Frank Reich something along the lines of "Hey, you've done this before....," referring to his time at Maryland.  So Reich went.  Buffalo would score on a 1 yard run by Kenneth Davis, recover an onside kick, and then score on a pass to Don Beebe.  They would score twice more in the third quarter, on Reich to Andre Reed connections to make it 35-31 after three quarters. 

With just about three minutes remaining, Reich hit Reed for a third score, giving Buffalo a 38-35 lead, and leaving the Oilers in a daze.  Al Del Greco managed to kick a field goal in the dying seconds to force overtime for the shell shocked Oilers, but it was prolonging the inevitable. 

Warren Moon was picked off by Nate Odomes, Steve Christie would boot a 32 yard field goal for the win.  The Bills would go on to the Super Bowl that year and the next, giving them an unprecedented four straight appearances.  The Oilers?  They would make the playoffs in 1993, only to not make the playoffs or exceed the .500 mark again until 1999, when they had left the Astrodome, and the city of Houston, behind.

 4.  1978 Red Sox:  Long after the Curse of the Bambino had been placed, and long before Aaron "F'n" Boone in 2003, there was Bucky Dent and the 1978 Red Sox.  t will be remembered as the Boston Massacre of 1978. On July 19, the Red Sox held an ultra-comfy 14-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East; a late-July crumble reduced the lead to 6½ games on Aug. 1; by mid-September, Boston trailed New York by 3½ games, a remarkable 17½ game reversal.

"It isn't the biggest El Foldo of them all," wrote Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post. "But it's close."

The Red Sox, as you probably know, managed to come back in late September and force a one-game playoff, only to have Dent do them in.  Dent slammed a three run homer off a hanging Mike Torrez breaking ball, erasing a 2-0 Red Sox lead in a game the Yankees would go on to win by a count of 5-4, taking the division, and setting Boston up for heartbreak once again.


 5.  1942 Detroit Red Wings:  Detroit bears the burden of being the first team in major sports history to blow a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series, in 1942. (The Penguins would be the second, collapsing against the Islanders in the 1975 NHL quarterfinals; no team has done it since.)

Though Detroit reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1941, 1942, and 1943, in 1942 the Wings were mediocre, finishing fifth in the regular-season standings with a 19-25-4 record, 15 points behind the second-place Maple Leafs, who'd win it all.

Detroit led the series 3-0, and led in the fourth game 3-2 with 15 minutes left. But the Leafs, with goals by Syl Apps and Nick Metz in the waning minutes, pulled out the win, and eventually came back to tie the series at 3 games apiece.

Detroit then managed to turn victory into defeat in Game 7 at Maple Leafs Garden. They led 1-0 going into the third period, but surrendered three goals in a 10-minute span to lose the game, the series and the Stanley Cup, and win a permanent place in the record books.

 6.  1995 Anaheim Angels:  On July 2, the Angels moved into first place in the AL West, where they'd stay for the next 82 days. By Aug. 3, they'd extended their lead to 11 games over the second-place Rangers and 12 over the Mariners. On Aug. 15, the Angels were 64-38 and looked almost unbeatable, with a 25-8 record since the All-Star break.

Then theskid began. Anaheim lost nine in a row, and were caught by the Mariners on Sept. 20. In just five weeks, Anaheim had blown a 10½-game lead, the fastest fall of that magnitude in modern major-league history.

The Angels managed to hold on for a first-place tie, but lost the one-game playoff in Seattle. They'd gone 14-29 in their final 43 games.

"Every phase of our game was shaken, and your concentration tends to slip when you're not feeling confident," shortstop Gary DiSarcina told the L.A. Times. "We lost that intimidation, that edge, the feeling that we were going to go out and hammer teams ... we lost the feeling of what it's like to win."

 7.  Jana Novotna, Wimbledon 1993:  Charles Bricker of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal called it "a 90-mph free-fall elevator ride from the 40th-floor penthouse to the basement dumpster." Jana Novotna, the eighth seed at Wimbledon in 1993, had an incredible tournament run come to an end in the final set of the finals. She'd lost the first set to Steffi Graf in a tiebreaker, then won the second set 6-1. Novotna was just one point away from leading 5-1 in the third set when her game went AWOL. She lost that sixth game on a double fault, a way-too-long easy overhead, and a misplayed return.

"Her forehand deserted her, then her backhand went, and then she was just a walking bundle of jitters, a total disaster," wrote Filip Bondy in the New York Daily News. "Novotna did not win another game. All those daring, artful moments in the first two sets were squandered."

During the trophy presentation, Novotna broke down in tears, soaking the Duchess of Kent's royal shoulder.


 8.  1969 Chicago Cubs:  In 1969, the Cubs had a substantial lead in the newly created National League East in August, led by All Star Ron Santo and Hall Of Famers Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, and Billy Williams. Ken Holtzman pitched a no-hitter on August 19.

At mid-month they led by 8½ games over the Cardinals and 9½ games over the New York Mets, but they wilted under pressure, lost key games against the Mets (who had lost a record 120 games 7 years earlier), and finished up 8 games out of first at 92-70.

Many superstitious fans attribute this collapse to an incident at Shea Stadium when a fan released a black cat onto the field, thereby cursing the club.  From the 14th of August through the end of the season, the Mets had an amazing 39-11 record, while the Cubs slumped in September, going only 8-17.  The Mets would go on to defeat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, capping the run of the "Amazin' Mets."


 9.  Miami Hurricanes, November 10, 1984:  The Canes bolted out to a 31-0 lead over the Maryland Terrapins behind eventual NFL signal caller Bernie Kosar and company.  Frank Reich, who was replaced as starting QB by Stan Gelbaugh after separating his shoulder during a game with Wake Forest, replaced Gelbaugh at the start of the second half. 

Reich led the Terps to three scoring drives in the third quarter and one early in the fourth, making it a 34-28 game.  Then, Reich hit Tony Hill on a 68 yard scoring pass that bounced off the hands of S Darryl Fullington, giving Maryland the lead they would not relinquish in a stunning 42-40 come from behind win. 

Ironically, it was not the only time Kosar would go down as a college QB to a late rally to a player who would go on to play for the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.  Not even two weeks later, on November 23rd, Doug Flutie hit Gerald Phalen on the final play of the game with a Hail Mary to give Boston College a 47-45 win over the Hurricanes.


10.  2004 Yankees:  For all the times that the Yankees sunk the Red Sox, it was only fitting that turnabout became fair play. 

The Yankees led Boston three games to none in the 2004 ALCS, and led 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth in game four, seemingly ready to close the door on Boston once again.  However, it was not to be this time.  Mariano Rivera had pitched the eighth inning and was gunning for a two inning save.  He walked Kevin Millar leading off the ninth.  Millar was promptly replaced by Dave Roberts.

On Rivera's first pitch to Bill Mueller, Roberts swiped second base.  He would score on a Mueller single, tying the game at 4 and giving the Sox a bit of life.  They would win in the 12th on a walkoff two run homer by David Ortiz. 

Given new life, trailing 3 games to 1 now, Boston seemed like again they would go meekly into the offseason, trailing 4-2 in the eighth inning of game five.  A homer by Ortiz off Tom Gordon made the score 4-3, Millar walked and was replaced by Roberts again.  Trot Nixon singled, sending Roberts to third, and Gordon was replaced by Rivera.   Jason Varitek's sacrifice fly off the ace reliever tied the score and sent this game to extra innings.  Again, Ortiz was the hero, singling home Johnny Damon with two outs in the bottom of the 14th, giving Boston a 5-4 win, and keeping them alive.

After that, it was almost anticlimactic.  Boston won game six on the strength of a four run fourth, and Curt Schilling's gutty pitching performance, as he pitched despite an ankle injury that led to the now famous bloody sock.  Game seven was over early, as Damon drilled a grand slam in the second inning to stake Boston to a 6-0 lead in a game they would win 10-3.  They then would sweep the Cardinals to win their first World Series since 1918, and it was all the sweeter for what they did to the Yankees.


11.  1951 Brooklyn Dodgers:  The Bums, as Dodgers fans called them, completely melted down late in the season.  They led the NL by 13.5 games as late as August 11th, but went into a tailspin while the Giants were scorching.  From that day, the Giants would win 37 of their last 44, including 16 in a row, to force a best of three playoff with the Dodgers for the NL pennant.

The Giants took game one 3-1 at Ebbets Field, as Bobby Thomson drove a two run homer off Ralph Branca.  This was a precursor of things to come.  The Dodgers evened the set at one apiece with a 10-0 drubbing of the Giants at the Polo Grounds.  This set up a classic pitching matchup with Sal Maglie facing Don Newcombe.  The score was 1-1 in the eighth when the Dodgers got three runs off a tiring Maglie.  They took that lead to the ninth, when a gassed Newcombe tried to take himself out of the game.

Alvin Dark singled to lead off the inning.  He went to third on a well placed base hit by Don Mueller, putting runners on the corners and the tying run at the plate with no one out.  Newcombe coaxed Monte Irvin, the NL's RBI leader that year with 121, to pop out, but Whitey Lockhart lashed a double, scoring Dark to make it 4-2.  Mueller broke his ankle on a bad slide into third, and was replaced by pinch runner Clint Hartung.  At this point, Newcombe came out and was replaced by Branca.  Branca, who seemed to thumb his nose at superstitions by wearing number 13, would face Thomson.  On an 0-1 count, Thomson smoked a Branca fastball just over the 315 sign in left field and into the seats, giving the Giants a 5-4 win, the NL pennant, Thomson the "Shot Heard Round the World" and Branca a ignominious place in sports history.


12.  2007 New York Mets:  The Mets seemed to be poised for a great season.  They were defending a division crown, and led the second place Philadelphia Phillies by 7 games with just 17 to go.  What could go wrong?

In a word: everything. 

The Mets would go on to lose 12 of their last 17, while Philadelphia won 13 of 17 to make up 8 games and win the NL East by one over the Mets.  In that stretch, the Mets dropped five of six to the Nationals, were swept by the Phillies, and gave up 7 runs in the first inning of the season finale, an 8-1 defeat at the hands of the Marlins that sealed their fate.  Down the stretch they had games when they scored 6, 7, 8 and 9 runs, only to lose all of them due to inexplicably poor pitching.

13.  Hartford Civic Center, January 18, 1978:  How often do we see an arena get tagged for a collapse?  Just hours after a college basketball game that saw the University of Connecticut Huskies defeat the University of Massachusetts, the weight of the heavy snow from a storm front that had blown through that day collapsed the roof of the Hartford Civic Center.

It was determined that the roof was completely flawed, as it should have been able to withstand 140 pounds of pressure per square foot.  According to research done, the weight of the snow would have only fallen between 66 and 73 pounds of pressure, or well under the danger number.  Still, the roof came crashing down, plummeting 83 feet to the arena floor.  It would be one day shy of two full years for a reopening of the structure, as that took place January 17, 1980.

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