Comebacks that kill your story

[HejiraHenry]

I guess we all have stories like this, so maybe some of you would like to share.

"Our" indoor football team was down by 22 at halftime Saturday night and still down 19 (43-24) as the fourth quarter got rolling. Playoff game, so I started writing the obit.

Then it's 43-31 (spider-sense begins tingling at this point) and, just two minutes later it's 43-38. I quit working on the obit.

The lead changes hands three times before the end, and the home team wins 52-50.

 

[buckweaver]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/34123_mari06.shtml

 

[Screwball]

Jose Canseco's grand slam led the Oakland Athletics to a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

After Dave Stewart held the Dodgers to three runs and six hits over eight innings, Dennis Eckersley worked the ninth for the save.

 

[Dessens71]

An unexpected comeback I can live with, because even though scrapping what you wrote sucks, unexpected comeback gamers are usually easy to write. Lots of easy-to-identify key plays and whatnot.
What I hate, in the example you described, would be if the comeback fizzled late in the fourth quarter and the home team lost by, say, nine. Then what do you do? Stick with the obit or re-write the whole thing?

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I forget which writer back in the '80s announced in the Fenway press box, "No lead is safe in this park, and I don't mean on the damn field!"

 

[gingerbread]

Oct. 17, 2004, sitting in auxiliary press seats in right field at Fenway. It's closing on midnight, have column about Yankees winning the ALCS ready to go. Might have even sent it, can't remember. Everything went black after that.
Totally can't recall the next few days.

 

[slappy4428]

Michigan up 30-13 late in the fourth quarter against Miami, Fla in 1988.
Miami scores 17 points in the last 5:23 to win 31-30. Column was shot to ****...

 

[deskslave]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/34123_mari06.shtml

I love this line:

It was perhaps the worst performance of the year for the best bullpen in the majors.

Dude, they gakked up a 12-run lead. Go ahead and call it the worst. We promise not to judge.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

HOUSTON -- The New York Mets have to look at Mike Scott again, this time from 60 feet 6 inches.

While Scott haunted the Mets from the Houston dugout, Astros left-hander Bob Knepper pitched a complete-game two-hitter, ensuring Houston's three first-inning runs were enough for a 3-0 victory to force Game 7 of the NLCS.

Scott had Houston's only two victories in the series before Wednesday and has allowed New York one run in 18 innings. The Mets were aware of him throughout Knepper's unexpected masterpiece, a performance Scott could top today by frustrating the Mets one more time and sending Houston to its first World Series.

 

[Football_Bat]

Oct. 17, 2004, sitting in auxiliary press seats in right field at Fenway. It's closing on midnight, have column about Yankees winning the ALCS ready to go. Might have even sent it, can't remember. Everything went black after that.
Totally can't recall the next few days.

I'd like to see the faux AP lede somebody submitted a few years ago from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS.

 

[WaylonJennings]

2003 NLCS, Game 6.

 

[GuessWho]

Covered the Buffalo Bills-Houston Oilers playoff game in 1993. That was a ton o' fun. Thank God it was a day game, at least.

 

[Jay Sherman]

Just last night, covering HS baseball. They play 7 inning games. Home team was up 4-2 in the 6th inning, and the reliever had come in to start the sixth and had no trouble with the batters.

Same score in the top of the 7th, the reliever walks the first two batters and lets a pitch hang on the third batter who knocks it out of the park. They win 5-4. Luckily I had the bottom of the 7th to scramble to figure out who I was going to interview on the away team (they had 5 runs on 4 hits...).

It made for an OK story because I asked the kid what it felt like to hit that game winning home run and he goes:
"It was really hot. It's nice to get the win because we were ready to go home."

 

[spinning27]

Anybody who covered the Final Four this year was royally ****ed, and the NCAA didn't much help by setting a 9:20 p.m. Eastern tip-off.

 

[MileHigh]

Game 6, 1985 NLCS.
Game 6, 1985 World Series.
Game 5, 1986 ALCS
Game 6, 1986 World Series.

 

[pressmurphy]

Worked a D-3 national championship game in which the team I was covering squandered about an 18-point lead in the final eight minutes, lost on two FTs with :01 to play, even though half the gym thought the buzzer had already sounded by the time the foul had been committed but couldn't be sure because of crowd noise.

Spent the mandatory cooling-off period arguing with the clock operators, asking them to run the clock down from :03 to :00 so I could determine if they could have possibly heard the buzzer from the scorers table, as they had claimed. Spent 20 minutes cramming in player interviews, waiting out the refs and NCAA site rep for another 10 for their explanation.

Rewrote the top eight inches of the story, tacked on a new lede to the notebook and made the deadline for each by about 30 seconds.

Loved every second of it.

 

[GuessWho]

Anybody who covered the Final Four this year was royally ****ed, and the NCAA didn't much help by setting a 9:20 p.m. Eastern tip-off.

Yup. Strictly for deadline issues, Mario Chalmers wasn't my favorite guy at that moment. And the wireless headaches didn't help.

 

[Screwball]

The SF Chronicle collected and printed several trashed leads from Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, when the Giants needed one victory to win the World Series and led the Angels, 5-0, with eight outs to go:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/11/03/SP110245.DTL&type=printable

 

[RossLT]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/34123_mari06.shtml

I love this line:

It was perhaps the worst performance of the year for the best bullpen in the majors.

Dude, they gakked up a 12-run lead. Go ahead and call it the worst. We promise not to judge.

I like the footnote on the next day's game, how the hell did Paul Abbott go 11-2?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Anybody who covered the Final Four this year was royally ****ed, and the NCAA didn't much help by setting a 9:20 p.m. Eastern tip-off.

The NCAA cares more about whether an athlete was given a free beer in a bar than sportswriters' deadlines.