Lawrence Tynes appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman on Wednesday.

 

All game I had been rooting for the Green Bay Packers… rooting for Brett Favre’s career story book ending… and rooting for “The Unforgiven” script where the old veteran gunslinger takes on one more duel with the unbeatable Tom Brady and the Pats. But when Giants place kicker Lawrence Tynes lined up for that field goal attempt in overtime of the Packers-Giants playoff game, I had clearly turned into a Giants fan… or more specifically a Tynes fan… but most accurately, a fan who was rooting against his potential impending doom: Being Bucknerized – the very worst social stigma in sports.

You can take ‘roids, snort coke, drive drunk, shoot guns, beat wives, bet on games, or kill dogs (okay – bad example), and redemption is usually a few apologies or wins  away. And during this same time Bill Buckner is exiled to Idaho, Steve Bartman enrolls into a witness protection program, and Donnie Moore’s career and life are taken away[1].  Being Bucknerized is serious business. But there will be no life sentence of public humiliation for Lawrence Tynes as he was luckily granted and succeeded in his 3rd chance to win the game, alter the course of his career, and probably his life. In between sending a thank you note to Brett Favre, Tynes was able to joke about it all on David Letterman pondering during the game: “What’s it going to be like when I live in Green Bay”. All jokes aside, there is a very cruel and arbitrary nature to the world of sports scapegoatism.

 
Sport best scapegoat example? Bill Buckner himself, of course. And while it became gospel that Buckner’s infamous 10th inning error in Game 6 cost the Red Sox the 1986 World Series, the reality was far more complex. Even had he made the play, there are questions about whether the speedy Mookie Wilson would have still been safe. Even had Mookie been thrown out, the Red Sox STILL could have lost that game since it was ALREADY TIED before the error. And we conveniently forget that the Red Sox were up three runs before losing Game 7 (Buckner also had 2 hits).  There were a whole series of events that would have altered Buckner’s error to an afterthought. So when the Red Sox won the World Series 18 years later in 2004 and a sign said “Bill Buckner: We Forgive You”, he had the only proper and sensible response: “Fuck You” (I’m paraphrasing). More specifically, he said:

“I feel like the guy who got put away for a crime he didn’t commit, and then the DNA evidence comes back 30 years later and the guy gets out of jail. What do you say for the 30 years he spent suffering? I don’t feel like I’ve committed a crime."

But it wasn’t just the fans who incarcerated Buckner, it was the media who acted as prosecution and deliberately withheld evidence for 18 years. Every baseball playoffs we would see 3576 replays of the ball going between Buckner’s legs. Context be damned. Sports has always been TV’s greatest reality show, and the drama was just too good to pass up. What is the biggest factor in being Bucknerized? Having bad luck and even worse friends. Don’t believe me? Check out what are our picks for each sport’s (the big 3) greatest scapegoat moments. Like Tynes smiling and joking on David Letterman, the final conclusions are examples in the absurdity of sports scapegoatism.

 

 

Jerome Bettis: One arm. One freakin’ arm is all that separates the fates of Bill Buckner from Jerome Bettis. There is no person in my life who has done as much for me as Pittsburgh Steeler teammate Ben Roethlisberger has done for Jerome Bettis. Big Ben’s season-saving, off-balance, one-armed tackle of Nick Harper after the normally sure-handed Bettis fumbled the ball in the playoffs against the Indianapolis Colts changed the course of sports scapegoat history. Rest of Script: Bettis, a future hall-of-famer playing in his final season went on to win the Super Bowl in his hometown of Detroit after being granted an official "Jerome Bettis Week" by the mayor.  Since then the hero signed on as an NFL broadcaster for NBC, also hosts his own radio show, was cast in a series of commercials, wrote TWO books, and opened up the "Jerome Bettis’ Grille 36" to boot.  …That runored “Boston Buckner Bar” idea didn’t fare quite as well.

Baseball’s Buckner Squared?: Is it possible to mess up twice as bad as Buckner? Yes. In the 2001 World Series, Arizona DiamondBacks pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim gave up game-tying home runs with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning in SUCCESSIVE games to Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius in the most unlikeliest events in sports scapegoat history. Why do we rarely see “the Kim replays” come playoff time relative to Buckner? Because of friends like Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling for starters. And because in Game 7 of that same series, Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in baseball playoff history (0.77 ERA), lost his only playoff game in his entire career while registering the greatest save in sports scapegoat history. …Where are they now? After being traded a few times (including the Red Sox), Kim was last seen pitching for the Florida Marlins on September 28 collecting his 10th win of the season against the New York …Mets.  Ironically, by losing this pivotal game, the Mets became the first team in the Major League history to lead the second-place team in the division by seven games with 17 games remaining and blow the lead before the end of the season. In addition to assisting the Phillies into first p[lace, this game helped Kim's former team Arizona Diamondbacks clinch a ticket to the postseason on the same night. 

The Biggest Mistake in Boston Post-Season History?: Forget Buckner, try Bill RUSSELL. That’s right, sport history’s greatest winner of them all barely escaped a gaffe that would have lived in scapegoat infamy. And if it can happen to "Mr. Ten Rings", it could happen to anybody. The Celtics were playing Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers in Game 7 of the 1965 NBA Finals. The Celtics were leading 110-109 with only 5 seconds left and they HAD POSSESSION. Russell, looking to inbound the ball, throws it over Chet Walker’s head but it hits a wire that was used to stabilize backboards in those days. The ball bounced off the court creating what could have possibly been NBA history’s “Turnover Heard Round the World”. Russell then “dropped to one knee pounding the floor with his fist in frustration, and shouting, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, it’s their ball!’[2] In the huddle, Russell told his teammates: “I blew it. Somebody bail me out. I don’t want to be wearing these horns”. What happened next? “Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over!… It’s all over!… Havlicek stole the ball!… Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!…” …These would go down as the most famous words in the legendary broadcasting career of Johnny Most. But what would have been Most’s signature call had the 76ers scored the Game 7 winner? You have probably never heard it. It came just moments earlier as the frenzied announcer screamed into his microphone: “He hit the wire! He hit the wire! By God. He hit the wire!”

 

 

[1]  In the 1986 playoffs California Angels relief pitcher Donnie Moore gave up a home run to Dave Henderson before being one strike away from going to the Worls Series. While their is no way of making a direct causal relationship to his suicide two years later, it is safe to say that it was a pivotal moment in a downward spiral that included a decline to his pitching career and a myriad of off-field problems.

[2] Pg 248 of John Taylor’s “The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball”