Bad Calls--Part II, and the ambler Ramblers...

Bad calls, whoa! Talk about a potential never-ending topic! I have a feeling this is one of those that we are going to keep outdoing ourselves as time passes. Combined, all of us have enough ammunition to write a lenghty book on the subject.

Though it is certainly worthy of blog-related debate and discussion!

I'm still a bit numb from watching Loyola-Chicago get routed at U of San Diego last night, 90-57. I was hoping the Ramblers might put on a better show for me in my first-ever in-person look at the team. Apparently the chance to spend a few days in southern California after weeks of snow, ice, and glum in Chicago made the boys giddy yesterday. I talked to one of the Loyola traveling party last night at the game at halftime (when USD was up 48-23) and he told me he suspected as much, that the team was treating this too much as a vacation, even as the coaches urged them to keep their minds on the business at hand. For some of these kids from Wisconsin and Illinois and Indiana, who may never have been to San Diego, I could imagine that it could be a bit disconcerting. But I never saw the lid on the rim quite like I saw for Loyola last night. Blake Schilb might have endured the worst night of his career, and on at least four of his missed shots I saw balls dip in and out of the basket, or spin velodrome-style around the rim before falling off, like I've almost never seen. The fact he picked up 2 quick fouls and had to sit for a crucial stretch in the first half when the Toreros really hit the gas was another downer. Let's see if they get straightened out for tomorrow night's game at UC Irvine (another family holy war, this time it's Kelly vs. Natalie).

In the coming days, I will spend more time recollecting bad calls, I am sure. As Paul mentioned, many of these will likely be regionalized memories, in my case for games played in the west. And for me, no surprise that many of them will recall USC football nightmares. There are too many to recount, though one that pops right to mind, even more egregious than Charles White's fumble/non-fumble at the '79 Rose Bowl (the only Rose Bowl I ever attended, and that fumble was only in the 2nd Q of the game), was Paul McDonald's fumble/incomplete pass in the waning seconds of the 1978 Notre Dame game. The Irish had roared back, fueled by Joe Montana, for a 25-24 lead in the last minute at the Coliseum, when SC was trying to mount a desperate, last-minute drive to get into FG position. McDonald was belted and the ball came loose, recovered by the Irish, only for the sack and fumble to instead be ruled an incomplete pass by one of the officials (whose name escapes me but likely from the Pac-10). It was a horrible call, I don't think McDonald's arm ever came forward, and certainly not with the ball in it. Wouldn't you know he would complete a couple of passes on the next few plays as time wound down to get SC down there for Frank Jordan to win it with a 38-yard or so FG as the clock expired. After beating Michigan in the White fumble/non-fumble Rose Bowl, Troy went on to share the national title with Bama, which would not have happened had that McDonald play been called correctly. Now, we (or maybe I should just say "I") have to live forever with SC calling itself the national champ of 1978.

In the 1977 USC-UCLA game, there was an egegious pass interference call on DB Johnny Lynn in a similar last-minute SC drive that would lead to another last-second Frank Jordan FG in a 29-27 Trojan win that kept that UCLA team out of the Rose Bowl (and put Warren Moon's Washington in it). That bad call came on 3rd down and put the ball in Bruin territory, and QB Rob Hertel completed the agony with a couple of more completions to set up that FG and break Bruin hearts. That negated a great UCLA rally from 26-10 down late in the 3rd Q. The Trojans would have been looking at 4th and 10 had the ref not thrown that bogus flag on Lynn, and maybe SC would have converted anyway on 4th down, but that one still rankles me to this day.

I'm getting myself mad remembering these SC transgressions, so I'd better swtich teams.

I can see where the missed offside call in 1980 still has Flyers fans steamed. The Denkinger missed call with Orta was the first batter of that inning, it wasn't like it was the last out. Of course, I know it impacted that inning, and a hard-line Cardinal fan at work still curses any word that begins with "D" because it reminds him of Denkinger. But the Cards still had a chance to win THAT game after Denkinger's missed call (hey, it was only a man at first, and no one out), but I'm not sure they ever got another out in that inning. And the Cards have forfeited their right to complain after their no-show, 11-0 loss in Game 7...

As an interesting aside to that Denkinger Game 6, I was in Philadelphia at the time, with Mark, sitting in a parking lot at Villanova, of all places, listening on his car radio before we went into some law school gathering of Caroline's at the school that night. Mark probably remembers it the same way.

Don Chandler's FG that forced OT in the 1965 Western playoff vs. the Colts turns out to be one of the all-time worst calls, though I don't think we realized it at the time. I remember watching that game, though I was only 7, and not recalling any controversy at the time (yes, I do remember some stuff like that from my young sports-watching days!). I don't even think that CBS had the behind-the-goal-post TV camera at the time (remember, we used to watch FGs from the regular sideline cameras), and I don't think they made a deal of it in the LA papers at the time, though they certainly must have in Baltimore. I wasn't even aware of that flub-up until watching an NFL Films retrospective several years later, when it clearly shows that the FG was wide. That was deep into the 4th Q, if I recall, and if the refs don't mess that up, the Pack likely loses that game to Tom Matte's Colts, and we wouldn't be talking about their 3-peat from the mid 60s. Who knows, that could have changed a lot of things the next two years, and football history could have been totally altered (maybe not even a Pack 2-peat...who knows?).

The Ray Sugar Bear Hamilton roughing the passer call on Stabler in '76 (referenced in recent emails) has to be up there, as does that Drew Pearson non-pass interference call the year before, as both of those bad calls were right at the end of those playoff games, and had an enormous amount to do with the outcomes. Both real bad.

The Immaculate Reception play doesn't belong in this discussion, except for the fact they had to go to the telephone (when there was no provision for a replay) while the crowd was worked up into a frenzied lather waiting for the ruling. It was almost as if the refs on the field wanted some confirmation from the press box that what they had seen actually happened. That was almost one of the worst cases of mismanagement in history, had they not called it a TD (as I said before, a riot would have ensued), but they made the proper call.

For the time being, I'll have to leave it at the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal hoop game as the all-time low. For the referee's gross mismanagement of proceedings, nothing comes close, as I hardly recall any game ever ending with such confusion, and that goes for high school sports and below. I don't think any of us have ever seen anything remotely close to that fiasco, before or since, so for now, that one is in a class by itself.

To (maybe) be continued...