Talk About Horrible Ways to Lose

In the last few years, I've had to deal with terrible losses for my sports teams.

For the Denver Broncos, I was in stadium to witness the horrific loss to the 49ers on the last game of the season -- a BAD 49ers team with Alex Smith as QB -- to oust us from the playoffs in Jay Cutler's first (half) season. Not only was the loss horrid, losing a pretty nice lead and losing in overtime, but Darrent Williams was shot and killed that night, too.

That year, the Mets began a little run of mild success. In 2006, we had our best success, running away with the NL East and sweeping the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs. This set up a Cardinals-Mets series to go to the World Series. That series nearly killed me. After winning Game 1, the Mets were stunned in Game 2 when, on the way to victory, Shawn Green misplayed a fly ball that led to Cardinal victory. Then, after falling behind and then coming back in the series, Game 7 was in New York. The game was close, and featured one of THE GREATEST CATCHES I'd ever seen:

Endy Chavez make an absolutely unbelievable catch in the 7th inning to rob Scott Rolen of a home run that would have broken the 1-1 tie. I thought victory would come, but Yadier Molina broke my heart with a 9th inning homer. A killer.

This was nothing, though. In each of the next two seasons, the Mets bungles division leads in the last weeks to miss the playoffs. None was worse then 2007, when the Mets managed to blow a 7.5 game lead with 17 games to go. It was amazing. They lost to the Nationals and Marlins those last two weeks. They didn't even manage to force a 1-game playoff.

Then, in 2007, They blew a 3.5 game lead with just over a week to go. That last faux pas allowed the Phillies to win the division and the World Series. Double doh.

BUT, last night was possibly the worst disaster of them all. The New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes played a Game 7 IN NEW JERSEY. The Devils had a 3-2 lead from about the midway point of the 2nd period on. Martin Brodeur, World's Best Goalie (tm), and the Devils were just 1:20 away now from advancing to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

And then a horrible disaster struck.

Carolina scored to tie the game! With just 1:20 to go! OK, it happens, right? That wasn't the disaster. The disaster is that not 40 seconds later, CAROLINA SCORED AGAIN! Yes, within 40 seconds, the Hurricanes went from ready to pack their bags in a Game 7 loss, to on their way to Washington DC for the 2nd round. An absolute shell shock of a loss -- right their in front of the home fans.

...

I'm not sure what I've done to deserve the hatred of the sports gods, but I'm there.