Worst game you have covered?

Good gosh, who assigned you to all these games?

 

Sirs, Madames,

Russia 0 Finland 0 in opening-round at the world hockey under-20s. Bad soccer on ice. Both teams had already qualified for the elimination round. The Russians sorta sand-bagged the game. The game was played in the town of Morges (Switzerland) but don't think the atmospherics helped. The rink was open at either end, so the wind blew through there, It was below freezing and damp outside and under the roof. And I was sitting beside Mike Milbury.

YHS, etc

 

I remember covering a high school baseball game this summer. It was raining to begin with, so I was quietly hoping for the game to be called on the mercy rule. During one kid's at-bat, he takes a foul ball to the face (don't ask me how that works out). There's a long delay, but the teams continue to play on. The visiting team has a large advantage against the home team, but it isn't enough to qualify for the mercy rule. I can't even remember how long I was at that game.

 

I once covered a Lincoln High at Verdugo Hills football game in suburban Los Angeles. Game was moved from Lincoln because the field had been condemned. It was played on a field at VH that had been hastily lined and there were no hash marks. Just end zones and sidelines. Truly awful play. And sadly, some Lincoln player got hurt and there was no trainer and they had to put him in the back of an SUV and drive him to the hospital moaning in pain.

 

District girls' basketball tournament game: Home team 62, Out of coverage area visitors 13. Game played at a neutral site 45 minutes away. 35-0 run, 36-3 at halftime, and even the winners couldn't enjoy it much because their player trying to gut it out on a torn ACL (her second in two years) had her knee buckle again.

 

I normally don't mind blowouts either, but a few years back I covered a 50+ to 0 blowout in the first round of the playoffs. Because of the ever-expanding Texas playoff system, this was a couple of small schools, basically a top ten team vs. a team that just landed in the playoffs by default. The bad team never got the ball passed midfield and I think they might have just got over 100 total yards on their last series. Ugly game all around.
But what made it worse...

Because of the amount of teams in the playoffs, this ended up at a small stadium. The main press box was full, so it was me, three radio guys, two team coaches and two stat guys in a room about the size of an average restroom.
Normally I'd sit outside in a situation like this but it was pouring rain, and the game was already delayed, meaning I had to write running anyway. Game ends, and after I get a couple quick quotes, custodian crew is already kicking us out. I didn't have time to argue too much, but I also didn't wanna be climbing fences, maybe even breaking them in pouring rain.
Bad all around experience.

And oh yeah, I also covered a complete season of Baylor football during the Kevin Steele, so pick any game that season. So I think I got this covered.

 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

 

What? Neither team had a trainer and 911 would not answer the call?

 

There are a few scoreless high school soccer games that could take this title for me.

 

I scored one of my son's youth baseball games once; there were 40 walks. The umpire absolutely refused to call a strike (these are 9-10 year olds, mind you).

But for coverage, when I left the Wisconsin State Journal in 1977, my kindly old boss thought it would be fun for me to cover a UW track meet on my last day (seriously, I was a college part-timer, and he thought I'd like that and thought he was doing me a favor).

Well, three things: 1) My going away drunk-a-thon was the night before, and there were some serious hangover issues; 2) the meet was some kind of dual/all-comers deal that was pretty much crap and 3) It was 100 degrees.

This set the bar pretty high for anything to out-awful it through my entire career.

(The Bucs-Chiefs finale in 1979 was 3-0 in a driving rain, but it meant the playoffs for the Bucs, so there's really no way to call that a "worst" anything. Between two 5-10 teams, it would have been horrifying.)

 

Girls hoops, final score: 21-5.

God awful. I was ready to run out on the court and test my luck in the post.

 

Never covered a bad game. Always found something fun or unique about every game.