Top 10 Sports "Spoke Too Soon" Moments

Bill Terry

January 24, 1934, 90 years ago: Interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune, Bill Terry, the manager and hard-hitting 1st baseman for the previous year's World Series winners, the New York Giants, says, "Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Chicago will be the teams we'll have to beat. I don't think the Braves will do as well as they did last year."

Asked of his team's local rivals, "Do you fear the Dodgers?" he says, "I was just wondering whether they were still in the league."

In the public mind, this got twisted into, "Brooklyn? Is Brooklyn still in the league?"

At the time, it seemed like a reasonable question. The Dodgers had won the National League Pennant in 1920, and had finished 2nd in 1924. In the 9 seasons since, they had finished an average of 20 games out of 1st place.

The players were called "The Daffiness Boys," and this was also around the time that they began to be called "Dem Bums," and not with affection. Three years later, at a time when there were only eight teams in each League, Brooklyn Eagle sportswriter Bill McCullough wrote, "Overconfidence may cost the Dodgers seventh place."

It was the Great Depression, which compounded the effects of earlier financial issues. Team part-owners Charles Ebbets and Ed McKeever had both died in 1925, a few years after Ebbets had to place his shares of the team with a bank to protect them from being taken in his very messy divorce. So they were bad in the boardroom, too: They couldn't sign good players, and couldn't provide proper upkeep on Ebbets Field. That would change in 1938, when the bank hired Larry MacPhail.

But, in the meantime, there was the very real threat that the Dodgers -- and also the American League's St. Louis Browns -- might well go out of business.

Top 10 Sports "Spoke Too Soon" Moments

Note: I am not including the 2004 American League Championship Series, or Super Bowl LI in 2017. Because, in each case, the New England team cheated.

I know, I know: It has never been proven that the Patriots cheated in Super Bowl LI. But they have forfeited the presumption of innocence.

10. January 24, 1934: "Is Brooklyn still in the League?" Yes, they were. They finished 71-81, 6th place. Not good, but a 6-game improvement over the season before. And in the last 2 games of the season, they beat the Giants. The Giants ended up losing the Pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals by 2 games. Dodger fans never let Giant fans forget this.

Oh, yes: The Dodgers' manager would eventually -- after leaving Brooklyn -- manage his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Casey Stengel.

9. January 21, 1979: Super Bowl XIII. Three years earlier, in the same stadium, the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Pittsburgh Steelers had beaten the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl. Now, they would play each other in the big game again.

Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw had frequently faced accusations of low intelligence. Cowboy All-Pro linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson told the media, "He couldn't spell 'Cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a.'" Henderson also predicted the Cowboys would win, 31-0.

He got the Cowboys' 31 right. What he didn't get right was the Steelers' 0: With Bradshaw throwing 4 touchdown passes, the Steelers won, 35-31. Bradshaw was named the game's Most Valuable Player. He told the press, "Ask Hollywood how dumb I am now."

There are 10 members of that Steeler team in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Bradshaw. There are 6 members of that Cowboy team in the Hall. Henderson is not one of them.

8. October 12, 1978: World Series, Game 2. After losing to the New York Yankees in 6 games in the previous year's Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers thought they were the better team this time. They seemed to prove it, taking the 1st 2 games at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the 2nd when rookie Bob Welch struck Reggie Jackson, the Yankees' "Mr. October," out with the bases loaded and 2 out in the top of the 9th inning.

The Yankees won the next 4 games. In Game 6, with the game pretty much decided, Reggie faced Welch again, and hit a ball that might still be in orbit around the Earth. Neither team won their respective Pennant in 1979 or 1980, but in 1981, the Dodgers finally got some measure of revenge.

7. September 23, 1952: Heavyweight Championship Fight. Jersey Joe Walcott was 38 years old, and for a long time to come he would be the oldest Heavyweight Champion ever. On this night, at Municipal Stadium (later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia, he knocked contender Rocky Marciano down in the 1st round.

But Marciano got up, and stayed toe-to-toe with Walcott until the 13th round, before a short but powerful right hand to the chin, knocked Walcott out. Marciano would retire 4 years later, 49-0 for his career.

6. June 28, 1939: Heavyweight Championship Fight. Tony Galento sure didn't look like a boxing contender. Arthur Mercante, one of boxing's top referees (but not the one for the fight in question), recalled, "He seemed 5-foot-8, whichever way you looked at him." A guy like that had no business getting in the ring with the Heavyweight Champion of the World, especially when it was Joe Louis.

Sure enough, Louis knocked Galento down in the 2nd round at Yankee Stadium. But in the 3rd round, he knocked Louis down. The world was shocked. Louis shook it off, and destroyed Galento in the 4th round.

Even afterward, the newsreel cameras caught Galento saying, "I shoulda knocked him out." In a 1977 interview, Galento finally admitted, "I was never gonna knock him out."

5. October 7, 1977: National League Championship Series, Game 3. The series was tied, 1-1, and the fans at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia had rattled Burt Hooton of the Los Angeles Dodgers so much, he walked 2 runners home in the 1st inning, and had to be taken out.

But for fans of the Philadelphia Phillies, this would be known as Black Friday. With the Phils leading 5-3 in the top of the 9th, needing 1 more out to get within 1 win of the Pennant, they fell apart, and got "help" from a blown call at 1st base by umpire Bruce Froemming, which allowed the tying run to score. They ended up losing, 6-5, and the Dodgers won the Pennant the next day.

That year's American League Championship Series could also qualify: The Kansas City Royals led the New York Yankees 1 game to 0, 2 games to 1, and led 3-1 in the top of the 8th inning of Game 5. But the Yankees came back, and won Game 5, 5-3, and won the Pennant, before beating the Dodgers in the World Series in 6 games.

4. October 19, 2006: National League Championship Series, Game 7. In the top of the 6th inning, the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals were tied, 1-1 at Shea Stadium. Endy Chavez robbed Scott Rolen of a home run with one of the greatest catches anyone had ever seen. Met fans were sure that this catch meant that they were going to win the Pennant.

Just 3 innings later, it was still 1-1, and Yadier Molina hit a home run that gave the Cardinals a 2-1 win and the Pennant. Met fans have had to endure many hard defeats, and this was one of the most crushing of all.

3. January 31, 1988: Super Bowl XXII. The Denver Broncos led the Washington Redskins, 10-0 early in the 2nd quarter. It looked like the Broncos would get their 1st Super Bowl win. It looked like it would be the latest in a string of Super Bowl blowouts.

It was -- the other way. In just 13 minutes, Washington quarterback Doug Williams turned it into a 35-10 Redskin lead. They would win, 42-10. It would take the Broncos another 10 years to win a Super Bowl, after losing their 1st 4 appearances.

2. July 7, 1974: World Cup Final. The Netherlands had dazzled the world with their "Total Football" performance, led by the amazing Johan Cruyff. They got into the Final, but had to play the hosts, West Germany. In the 1st minute of the game, the Dutch were awarded a penalty, and Cruyff converted it.

But the Germans scored twice before the half, and the Dutch came a little unglued. The 2-1 score held, and West Germany won. It seemed grossly unfair that a team that was supremely competent but boring had beaten a team that was wonderful to watch. Well, welcome to the 1970s.

1. October 25, 1986: World Series, Game 6. A home run by Dave Henderson in the top of the 10th inning gave the Boston Red Sox a 5-3 lead over the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. There would, in the end, be 13 separate pitches on which the Sox could have gotten the last out that would have clinched their 1st World Championship in 68 years.

All over New England, people were saying things like, "I've waited my whole life for this!"

According to Dan Shaughnessy, the Boston Globe columnist, in his book The Curse of the Bambino, somebody later calculated that the odds of the Red Sox blowing a 2-run, 2-out, 2-strike lead at that point were 320-1. Three hundred and twenty to one. Think about that for a moment: A baseball regular season lasts 162 games. So if you had those conditions every single game -- 2 outs, 2 strikes on the batter, and you're up by 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, or later -- the odds are that you would win every single game in a season, and nearly every single game in a 2nd season, except for one.

Another source said that the Mets' chances of winning the World Series were:

* 5 percent when the bottom of the 10th began;
* 0.8 percent when they were first down to their last strike;
* 2 percent after Gary Carter's single;
* 5 percent after Kevin Mitchell's single;
* 11 percent after Ray Knight singled home Carter;
* and 35 percent after Bob Stanley's wild pitch tied the game.

And that was before any broadcaster had any reason to mention the name of Bill Buckner.

Red Sox fans would have to wait another 18 years. And then, their team had to cheat.