Worst Refereeing Calls Ever

In honor of several blown calls this college football season, one of which could have "title" implications (I use the word loosely since the BCS is about as legitimate as the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes relationship), I figured I'd list the top 10 or so worst calls of all time, at least the ones I can remember:

10. Oklahoma-Oregon. I remember thinking that Stoops was being whiny when this happened. And when Oklahoma lost to Texas, I was sure that the call (and resulting loss for Oklahoma) was moot. However, here we are with only one undefeated team and a few 1-loss teams fighting for that other spot (namely Michigan, USC, and Florida, though L'ville and Rutty are 1-loss also, and Boise State is 12-0 again). With Texas' loss on Saturday, 10-2 Oklahoma played itself into the Big-12 championship game. If they were 1-loss, they would certainly be in this discussion. I don't think they'd be ahead of Michigan or USC necessarily, but they'd have their argument. Also, impressive for Okla considering they lost their QB and RB for the season, and they're in freaking Oklahoma. Also, can we please get a freaking playoff?

9. Misheard coin flip. Thanksgiving 99, the Lions-Steelers game goes to overtime. Bettis calls Tails, the ref hears Heads. How does this happen? It's not like the ref is trying to discern between "Heads" and "Threads". Seriously? And with the lame NFL sudden death OT, the team who gets the ball first pretty much always wins. If you're bored, you can flip lots of coins here.

8. Gant pushed off first. 1991 World Series I feel like no one else made as big a deal of this, but I really remember this. In Game 1 of the Series between the Twins and Braves, Gant singled, then took a wide turn around first. He returned to first when he saw the relay, but the Twins big fat first baseman (Kent Hrbek) pushed Gant off the bag, then tagged him out! I still don't understand how this worked, and I just looked it up, and I still don't see the justification. Something about momentum. Ridiculous. And that was a great Series, dominated by great pitching (and that Jack Morris-Glavine game 7 1-0 game), so this could have made some difference. Interestingly, this is the exact reason that Mike Sheehy quit little league. Haha.
I have this baseball card by the way. And a signed baseball from when he was with the Cards for a bit.

Oh my god! I'm watching TV, and there's a Lexus commercial (you know, with the red bow on the Lexus they do every Christmastime), and there's two guys on a driveway that are exchanging weird lines (like "someone's been a good boy" "someone certainly has" "someone's getting a good present" "yes someone is"), but I get the distinct impression that the commercial was implying that this was a gay couple! I don't know if I'm misinterpreting this. Can I get a ruling here?

7. In the Crease. I don't really care about hockey, and don't really know many players, but apparently Brett Hull illegally scored a goal for Dallas in the '99 Cup. Think offsides or something. Ok I'm bored. Isn't this girl beautiful?

6. Jeffrey Maier's catch. Actually, this may not have been as significant, since the Yanks won in 5 of the '96 ALCS, but the kid made news. Don't think Jeter needed to pad his postseason stats, but this took a double and turned it into a homer, and the refs didn't call the clear fan interference. Maier looks like a little fat brat here. Haha. Wow! He still looks like a putz. He didn't get drafted though, now he's a consultant for some minor league team. Way to go places, kid.

5. Nebraska Kick. This is the only game on the list I was actually at. 1997, Nebraska-Missouri. Mizzou is on its way to beating Nebraska for the first time in 20 years, and the first time ever beating a #1. Nebraska, down 7, drives down the field. On 3rd and goal with 4 seconds to go, Scott Frost throws a prayer up, it gets deflected, but a Nebraska receiver manages to kick it up to Matt Davidson (impressive but illegally intentional), and Nebraska scores the TD and wins in OT. They end up splitting the title with Michigan that year, and that split title led to the creation of the BCS. So blame that ref.

4. Hand of God. Argentina-England, quarters of the 86 World Cup. I love the fact that in replays, this isn't even close to anything other than blatant. And I love all the subsequent analysis of the play, as if it was possibly in doubt. Mostly I love Maradona's arrogance in calling the goal a "hand of god" in his postgame, and having to convince his teammates to hug him since everyone knew it was illegal, to avoid suspicion.

Is anyone watching Fox right now? Is Joe Buck high? He's waving around a little red cone, he was singing "Ebay" a few minutes ago, and did a Harry Caray impression earlier. I mean, I'm not saying I'm against this, it's pretty funny.

3. Colorado Fifth Down. Freaking Missouri refs. What did Mizzou do to deserve this? At the time, Colorado was just #12, but they went on to win the (split) "National Championship"...sense a theme here? Basically Colorado drove down, ran some plays, spiked, the ball, ran some plays, called a timeout, and somewhere in there the sideline guy didn't flip the down card (I think on the spike). No one noticed until Colorado scored, but no one was willing to do anything about it. Retards.

2. 1985 World Series, Game 6. Cardinals-Royals, separated by 250 miles of I-70. No, stringer, I'm not just biased, this is pretty widely considered one of the worst calls of all time. I only vaguely remember this actual event, but this was our Buckner play, and it wasn't our fault. I grew up with Don Denkinger's name usually tossed about as a profanity, and in the majority of that state he's pretty much held in the same esteem as monkeycum. Holding a 3-2 series lead, and up 1-0 in the 9th, the Cardinals were set to win their second Series in 4 years. Todd Worrell (36 saves as a rookie) was set to close, gets Jorge Orta to ground slowly to Jack Clark, who flips to Worrell, who beats Orta by a step and some. Denkinger blows the call, the Cards mentally unravel, then get blown out in Game 7. Took us another 21 years to get it back and not screw it up.


1. USA-Soviet Basketball. This gets the #1 because of the historical context that transcends sports. 1972 Summer Olympics, Munich, West Germany. Gold medal game. Height of the Cold War. Behind the Iron Curtain, we were apparently facing more than just 12 roided-up dribbling Ivan Dragos. Coached by basketball legend Henry Iba, we rolled through the tourney to the finals. We faced a pretty decent Soviet team...down by 1 with 3 seconds or so to go, Dave Cowens makes 2 free throws, even though a horn went off during his second shot (hooray for neutral West German scoreboard operators!)...the Soviets inbound, time runs out. A ref magically heard them call a timeout. They inbound again, fail to score. America celebrates. Then some FIBA official (who has no real authority in an Olympic game) decides that the commies need another chance (no idea why). They inbound again, score, and celebrate. Rifuckingdiculous. We protested, but FIBA was made up of 5 countries, 3 of which were behind the iron curtain. Guess the result? My favorite part of this is that the American's not only unanimously refused their silver medals, but wrote into their wills that no descendant can ever claim them. If you want to watch a good movie about these Olympics, rent Munich. But it's not really about the Olympics. If you want a feel good basketball story, rent Coach Carter or Glory Road, which I'm fairly certain are the same movie.


Honorable mention to:
Michael Jordan's push off in Game 6 of the 98 Finals (the Bulls would have won anyway), Mizzou-Iowa State last week (4th and 1 game-winning QB sneak disallowed with 20 seconds left, then officials admitted mistake on Tuesday) (ok, I'm admittedly biased by putting that one here, but hasn't Mizzou had enough bad karma?), and this game of Madden two months ago where I was called out of bounds on a Hail Mary TD, challenged, saw I was right, but the call was upheld. Fuckers.