What's the Single Worst Call You've Ever Seen?

Look, the point is - as Starman so elegantly calls him - that Pencil Dick had absolutely no reason to be on the floor sticking his shit-stained fingers in front of the clock operators. None. He fucked up beyond fucking up. Plus, I read in an article once that Pencil Dick had a strained relationship with USA Basketball (which he admitted also to).

Also, why was the assistant Soviet coach not assessed a technical foul for stepping onto the court?

As for McMillen backing off, he has essentially said that things were so screwed up by that time he feared that if he didn't back up he would be issued a technical foul. Was the referee telling him to back up? No. Do I blame McMillen for thinking that and thus backing up? Hell no.

The fairest thing to have done, when it was all said and done, was to wipe out Collins' second free throw, allow the Soviets a timeout and let Collins shoot his second free throw again. But timeout calls are missed all the time, probably even more so in those days.

 

This. The most bizarre thing was this FIBA guy who comes marching out of the stands in the middle of the mess and decides that he's gonna take over for the refs. And I understand it's the same guy who'd previously commented that he thought the American domination was bad for the game, and he'd like to see someone else win for a change. So, when there's finally a chance of that happening at the end of the Olympic Gold Medal game, guess who comes marching out of the stands ordering the Soviets be given three more seconds? Yeah, a wee bit suspicious.

Amidst BTE's spirited defense, I don't believe he acknowledged the fact that this guy had no authority to be out there. Indeed, I believe he even later admitted he had no such authority.

To clarify, the ref actually did order McMillan to back off. You can see for yourself at about the 8:00 mark of this video:

Which, again, made no sense. There was no reason under the rules why he shouldn't have allowed to play the baseline.

 

Absolutely. That would have been the 100 percent correct decision.

But the decision that WAS made, in fact, FAVORED the U.S., because it didn't force Collins to make that FT again.

Imagine the shitstorm had Collins missed the subsequent second FT. We would be hearing 40 years of "They took U.S. points off the scoreboard and made him shoot twice!" crying.

Hard to defend what he did (and he did admit his lack of authority) . . . other than to offer this: Up to that point you had officials that could not communicate with players and coaches, scorekeepers who could not award timeouts properly or reset clocks properly, and a mass of confusion. It did not appear possible that things were going to get settled to everyone's understanding.

What he did . . . was cut through the confusion, order the clock reset properly, order in ball inbounded at the proper time, and have the final 3 seconds played as they should have been played. Somebody else should have been doing all that, obviously. But who?

I guess the question comes down to this:

In the fifth down Colorado game, would it have been better to have the NCAA President come down and point out that Colorado can't run this play? Or should "legal" incompetence rule the day?

Tough call. People are going to scream no matter what. But is it better to be illegally correct . . . or to be legally incorrect?

He motioned to back off, THEN he pointed at the line, then RAISED HIS ARM as if to show the plane not to cross. Which appears to mean, "Do not cross this plane." McMillen could have walked right back to the line. He chose not to, amid the confusion for fear of getting a technical.

It was a MISUNDERSTANDING, one of about a thousand.

As a sidelight, in a documentary many years later Tom Henderson is questioning why Tom Burleson was not used to defend Belov. Henderson did not know --- and apparently still does not know --- that Iba suspended Burleson for that game. How is that possible?

 

Kelly Leak was safe

 

Deion Sanders was out.

'92 World Series.

 

Or maybe Collins makes the free throw again. Or maybe he misses and the USA wins in overtime.

 

Yeah, he probably would have made it. Those were damn clutch shots.

And yeah, the U.S. probably would have won had it gone to OT.

But you never know.

 

FWIW, that Burleson suspension was just more evidence of what an out of touch dinosaur Iba was. Iba suspended him for the awful sin of his fiancee visiting him at the Olympic Village. When you read these stories about what a sex-fest the Olympic Village has become today, hard to imagine we lost our big man from that gold medal game merely because he saw the woman he was engaged to.

 

A Pop Warner game where a kid grabbed a kid by the facemask and spun him a full turn and the referee claimed he didn't see it, just 10 yards away and watching the ball carrier escape to the outside of this incident.

 

Jeremy Giambi was safe.

 

Filed in the high school category:
My freshman or sophomore year in high school. Varsity conference baseball game on the road.
A little information on the field in question is needed. The field was square, with home at the bottom corner and center at the top. The corners were short (maybe 250) and center at least 400 away. It was wedged between two farm fields, with the fence being barbed wire overgrown with grass to the point where you couldn't see the barbe wire.
(As an aside, the same field had lights in the past, but school officials had removed them a couple years before this game. That opened up the playing area a bit since the three light poles had been IN the outfield.)
One of our guys hits a deep shot to left center and, because of the angle of the umpires in relation to the outfielders chasing the ball, they hesitate between calling it a homer or a double. Meanwhile, the hitter has stopped at second and is standing on the base.
A few moments later, one of the umpires signals home run and our guy trots home.
Opposing team then appeals him not touching second and he's called out. Remember, this was the base he was standing on whle the umpires figured out if it was homer or double.