Last week, Star sports staffers answered burning sports questions β from the best place to see a game to the one sporting event they canβt live without.
Star readers chimed in too, emailing their answers to sports@tucson.com. Here are excerpts of their responses. (Some have been edited for brevity, clarity and to match Star style).
Todayβs question: Whatβs the most heartbreaking game youβve ever seen?
FILE β In this March 28, 1992, file photo, Dukeβs Christian Laettner runs down the court after making the last-second winning shot to defeat Kentucky in the East Regional final NCAA college basketball game in Philadelphia. The All-American ended one of the greatest college basketball games ever with a turnaround jumper at the overtime buzzer, giving defending national champion Duke a 104-103 victory over Kentucky and a fifth straight trip to the Final Four. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)
Duke-Kentucky Elite 8 game in 1992. I was a Duke fan all the way, but couldnβt help but feel bad for UK the way it ended. Classic game.
Tim White
The 1980 playoff game between the Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders. QB Brian Sipe leads the Browns into a winning field-goal position but then throws an interception with less than a minute to play. βRed Right 88β will always be a play etched into my memory. βThe Kardiac Kidsβ had a lot going for them but blew this game.
Aaron Thomas
Easy: The Dodgers swept the Yankees in 1963 World Series. I was in the fourth grade at the time and the Dodger fans in New York were still had a strong presence, and I remember (thinking), βHow could the Yankees lose four straight to these guys?β The trash-talking was by the minute. I had relatives who lived in Brooklyn, we had family friends who were Dodger fans β God, it was awful β to this day when they show clips of the β63 series, I cringe. Still scarred!
Bill Leith
The 1989 Anderson (bleeping) Hunt game is absolutely a Top 5 most heartbreaking game. But somewhere in there is the Arizona-Illinois basketball game, played in Chicago with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Arizona had the game well in hand, and found a way to choke it away eventually losing in OT, I believe, to the-top ranked Illini. I donβt think Lute (Olson) ever got over that and in many ways the program hasnβt been the same since.
Mike Turner
Jean Van de Velde watched the British Open slip from his grasp when he triple-bogeyed the 18th hole at Carnoustie, Scotland, and went on to lose in a three-man playoff.
Not a game of a team, but it was heartbreaking to watch French golfer Jean Van de Velde step up to the 18th tee on the final round of the 1999 Open at Carnoustie with a three-stroke lead and proceed to get a triple-bogey and eventually lose it in a three-way playoff. It was a comedy of errors that was not funny but very painful to watch.
Melba Cope
Sept. 20, 1964. The Philadelphia Phillies lose eight consecutive games to give baseballβs National League pennant to St. Louis by one game. Jack Sheerin
Jack Sheerin
The most heartbreaking game I watched was the fifth game of the 1984 National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. After many years of not making the playoffs, the Cubs were on the brink of finally making it to the World Series.
The San Diego Padres captured the NL pennant over the Cubs in 1984. Steve Garvey, upper left, was the seriesβ MVP.
It was a best-of-five series and the Cubs won the first two games needing just one more win to advance to the World Series. The Cubs promptly lost the next two games, making this series come down to a final fifth game. Losing that fifth game and coming so close to getting to the World Series was absolutely heartbreaking.
Howard Pastko
The most heartbreaking loss ever at least in the history of Arizona basketball is concerned has to be the Elite 8 meltdown against Illinois on March 26, 2005. Arizona led by 14 with about three minutes to play and was certainly destined for a Final Four. I seemed to remember Channing Fryeβs inability to inbounds the ball, and Arizona lost in OT 80-79.
Allan Schwartz
