Biggest robberies in sports history

Two pages and no one mentions the "Immaculate Reception?" If you listen to the Raiders, every Steeler did something illegal on the play. Frenchy touched the ball. McClackin clipped. Bradshaw was down. Harris dropped the ball. The entire line was offsides. Joe Greene waved his penis at Madden. Myron Cope shot Jack Tatum with a blow dart. The cops told the refs to allow the touchdown.

 

The Pine Tar Game.

Brett had an illegal bat. He uses it to hit the homer. Martin points it out. Umps measure it, then McClelland calls Brett out. Brett goes insane, Yanks win.

Only Lee McFail overturns the call because he cites 'The spirit of the rule'. What kind of crap is that? If the bat is illegal, it's illegal.

And I concur on Roy Jones Jr. I remember the SI article the week after, where one of the judges who voted against him admitted that Jones had dominated and thought the other four judges were going to vote for him, so he voted for the Korean guy so that the host country wouldn't be embarrassed by a 5-0 decision.

 

The Roy Jones decision was the worst one I have seen in 30+ years of watching boxing. By the end it seemed Jones's punches were the only thing keeping the South Korean upright.

It wasn't at the same level of his screwjob against Chavez, but Whitaker got royally fucked in his title fight against Jose Luis Ramirez setting off a memorable in-ring explosion from Capt. Lou Duva.

I remember the Holyfield Olympic DQ well. That's always a dodgy area of amateur boxing, the barking of commands rather than actually separating the fighters. Holyfield was a monster in LA, he KO'd every guy he fought, very rare in the Olympics.

 

And it looked like Harris was out of bounds.

Karma is a bitch, Tatum. That's what you get for trying to kill a guy on the last play of the game.

 

Not the greatest screw job, but should go in the top 10. The penalty on the Ismail run back in the 1991 Orange Bowl gave Colorado the national title...of course, that was the same year as the Mizzou game. Do they get joined at the hip?

 

That was a horrible clip call.

No Cleveland fans are mentioning a Game Seven strike zone?

 

Tim McClelland calling Matt Holliday safe in the '07 playoffs was one that I'm surprised doesn't get mentioned more often. He was out by a country mile.

Bernie Carbo getting called out in the 1970 World Series isn't far behind, as is Reggie Jackson's hip check in the '78 WS.

 

Rasslin' too. There is a "sport" that really needs to examine its officiating and add replay too!

 

I think the Bartman game will always be special because it happened during a special, booming time for baseball. With the Cubs and Red Sox surging, a lot of casual fans were hooked that post season. The Bartman game and the Yankess win over the Red Sox were on back to back nights. It was epic and only rivaled by the next year when the Sox came back from 3 down to beat the Yankees courtesy of David Ortiz's walk-off home runs.

Of course everyone is sick of the Red Sox now. But not back in 2003, 2004. That Bartman week was an epic week of baseball.

 

This is why I will never leave SportsJournalists.com.

 

2002 NBA Western Conference Finals
Roy Jones Jr. in the Olympics
1972 Olympic basketball finals