Biggest robberies in sports history

Ain't that the truth. Most corrupt sport on the planet.

 

Watching replays - I can understand why/how Joyce missed the call, the ball being caught in the webbing instead of the pocket probably didn't make as big of a sound. But damn.

The Fifth Down is up there.

It's funny. Real Clear Sports had a list of unwritten rules. And like tennis players putting a shot into the net after a bad line call that goes in their favor - I'm surprised there aren't other instances where players "even out the playing field" on their own after a bad call by an official.

 

The flea-kicker ranks up there for me, primarily because I was there that night. A buddy on Facebook made the mistake of bringing up Denkinger, which prompted me to respond with the following:
"The main difference is that the 85 call didn't impact the game's outcome, no matter what these whiny Cardinal fans would have you believe. Denkinger didn't drop the foul pop that Jack Clark did. He didn't have the passed ball that Darrel Porter had. (The foul pop turned into the tying run. The passed ball advanced the runners into scoring position... See More. Orta, who was the batter for the bad call, was thrown out at third on a sac attempt. Never even scored. I hate it when facts get in the way of whiny revisionist history.)

Denkinger didn't hit .185 in the series, nor was he responsible for the Series making it back to KC after the Cardinals won the first two games. Before 1985, guess how many teams won the first two games on the road, only to lose the Series? 0... that's the fucking answer.

Lastly (and most importantly), Denkinger wasn't responsible for the Cardinals laying down and dying in Game 7. But, Cards fans can forget about ALL of that, and stamp their foot about one bad call. And that's why Don Denkinger is really a blessing for Cardinal fans."

Denkinger had as much to do with the Cards losing as Bartman did with the Cubs, which is to say, nothing.

 

I've seen lots of instances where tennis players evened out calls by a clueless chair ump. I covered one professional men's match where the two players were basically ignoring all the line calls and calling their own lines and keeping their own score. The chair ump was utterly confused but from where I was scoring it, the players had it right. Can't remember exactly who was involved although I think one of the players was Lendl.

 

Amen. Even if Steve Bartman didn't lean over for that "foul" ball, Bartman didn't muff the grounder. Alex Gonzalez did. Bartman didn't give up the runs that gave the Marlins the lead. Kerry Wood did.

And when Game 7 came around, the Cubs and their fans were so caught up with the night before and their "defeatist" mindset, Steve Bartman didn't piss away another lead to the Marlins. Mark Prior did.

Similar case: Buckner. The Red Sox had the lead in Game 7 against the Mets. They pissed that one away as well.

Henceforth, since Denkinger is from my hometown, my hatred for the Cards (as a Cubs fan) runs deep.

 

First things first: Jones had no business coming out of the stands to grant the timeout that the Soviets were screaming for. He also presided over a federation that had an idiotic timeout system in place (buzzers? really?), and it was only fitting that the issue should bite him and his organization in the ass.

But the fact of the matter is that, on the "second inbounds play", the clock in the arena read 00:50 instead of 00:03. If the clock's not properly set, how can play begin? The refs fucked it up by letting the Soviets start play, but the clock said 50 seconds remained. They had to blow the play dead once they finally realized that fact.

Now, the involvement of Jones is more than enough reason to consider that result illegitimate. It was a clusterfuck. The IOC should have used the Salt Lake judging scandal as an opening to give the U.S. team a set of matching gold medals. But it's flatly inaccurate to say the Soviets were given as many chances as they needed.

 

The Ireland-France World Cup qualifier was robbery.

 

Absolutely right. Jughead Jones was a total douche. I wonder how much the Soviets paid him. I also concur about the Tuck Rule (disclosure: I'm a Raiders fan). I have one to add, too - the 1997 Missouri-Nebraska game. Receiver catches ball in the end zone when the ball was inadvertently kicked by another Nebraska player. And done as Missouri fans were already starting to tear down the goal post!

 

Hell, just Olympic boxing. Evander Holyfield's disqualification was in the semis (I forget the year) was about as bad as the theft perpetrated against Jones. If I remember correctly, the ref says "stop" once as Holyfield is throwing a punch, then disqualifies him because it connected. Because the other guy was technically knocked out by a blow to the head, he was not allowed to continue, handing the gold to a boxer from the same country as the ref.

(I really need to go look that one up to double-check my facts, but that one was a disgrace).

Edit: Looked it up. My memory wasn't so bad after all. This was in 1984 and the fighter who ended up winning by disqualification was Kevin Barry of New Zealand. The referee in the fight was Gligorije Novicic of Yugoslavia. His bullshit decision handed the gold medal to another Yugoslav, Anton Josipovic. Cheating fucker.

 

Biggest "robbery" is Mike Hampton taking about $30 million from the Braves over the course of two seasons without throwing a pitch.

As for Joyce's blown call, that was terrible and robbed Galarraga his rightful place in history. My wife is a full time professional college basketball and volleyball official. I referee youth soccer. I usually tend to go easy on officials, but there was absolutely no excuse for that (just like the Hand of Frog). It's instances like this where people who are against replay say human error is part of the game. Shouldn't getting it right when you have the ability be a bigger part of the game? This wasn't some fair/foul call in the sixth inning of a 10-run game.

* I just read where MLB declined comment. That makes it 1000X worse. I don't say go back and change anything, but man up and say "we acknowledge the call was blown" or something.

 

It's a baseball game.

 

From MLB.com



"It was the biggest call of my career," an emotional Joyce told reporters, "and I kicked it. I just cost that kid a perfect game."

Joyce, a 22-year veteran umpire, watched the bang-bang play and went with what he felt he saw.

"I really thought he beat the ball," Joyce said. "At that time, I thought he beat the ball."

Replays told otherwise, showing Galarraga's right foot on the bag with the ball in his glove and Donald still lunging for the bag.

The Tigers felt like they had seen it that way from their vantage point, whether on the infield or from the third-base dugout. Replays backed up their story.

"You guys like me all watched the TV and saw the replays," Galarraga said, "and for any pitcher in any league anywhere, that was a perfect game. When you watch the replays, it was totally an out. There's no way he can call that safe. That's what made me sad. I can't help it. I really can't help it."

Once Joyce saw the replay, there wasn't much he could say, either. All he could do was admit that he made a mistake, to admit that umpires are human.

"After I heard from the Tigers, who had obviously seen a replay, I asked the guy in the [video] room to cue up the play as soon as we got in," Joyce said, "and I missed it from here to that wall.

"I had a great angle, and I missed the call."

Joyce felt badly enough about it that, long after the game was over, he asked to meet with Galarraga. It's an incredibly unusual move, but given the circumstances, it was understandable.

Tigers president/general manager Dave Dombrowski brought Galarraga from the home clubhouse into the umpires' room.

"He asked if he could see Armando and I brought Armando in there," Dombrowski said, "and [Joyce] apologized profusely to him and he said he just felt terrible. They hugged each other and Armando said, 'I understand.'

"I feel terrible. I don't know why life works this way, but sometimes life just isn't fair for people. He's a good umpire."

Said Galarraga: "He understands. I give him a lot of credit for coming in and saying, 'Hey, I need to talk to you to say I'm sorry.' That doesn't happen. You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry.' He apologized to me and he felt really bad. He didn't even shower. He was in the same clothes. He gave me a couple hugs.

"I know nobody's perfect. What are you going to do? I was mad in the moment because I was nervous. I didn't know what to do. I was like celebrating. Then I looked at him."

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100602&content_id=10727590&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb