COSELLOUT: Still Tellin’ It Like It Is

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.

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 9^th 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 10^th 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. 

[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.