1) Chris Scott, Warwickshire v Durham, 3 June 1994
Brian Lara strolled out the crease at Edgbaston on Friday 3 June 1994 with six centuries in his previous seven first-class innings. Earlier in the summer he had relentlessly compiled 375 against England in Antigua to beat Garry Sobers’ record of 365 for the highest Test innings. To say he was in decent nick was to somewhat understate the matter.
He hadn’t been Warwickshire’s first choice as an overseas player that season – that honour had fallen to the tricksy Indian medium-pacer Manoj Prabhakar – but an injury had ruled him out and Lara in. It proved an immediately good decision, with scores of new members signing up for season tickets. On the field, it was an even better call. Lara hit 147 against Glamorgan in his first match, 106 and 120 against Leicester, 136 against Somerset and then 140 against Middlesex.
When Durham rolled up to Edgbaston, they won the toss and thought they’d best keep Lara out of the middle, so batted first on a perfect track, making 556 for eight declared. They then got stuck into the Warwickshire order.
The opener Dominic Ostler was caught behind on his eighth delivery, bringing Lara to the crease at eight for one – but something was up. The man who had batted like a prince all summer appeared suddenly to be in the scratchiest of form – his coach, Bob Woolmer, said he had “looked shocking by his standards, not moving well at all”. Lara nurdled and nudged his way to 12 before Anderson Cummins bowled him round his legs … off a no ball. Six runs later, he should have been out again.
Simon Brown, one of the gaggle of ill-fated medium fast left-armers England would experiment with and discard in the mid ‘90s, lured him into a nick. Behind the stumps, the keeper Chris Scott put him down.
“I suppose he’ll get a hundred now,” sighed Scott. He would – and not just one of them. Shane Warne dropping Kevin Pietersen during his Oval joyride in 2005 may have cost Australia the Ashes and Herschelle Gibbs dropping Steve Waugh at the World Cup in 1999 may have cost South Africa the tournament – but Scott’s drop remains the most expensive: Lara went on to score 501, the highest first-class innings in history.
2) Fred Snodgrass, Game 8 of the World Series, 16 October 1912
The 1912 World Series had been an argumentative affair, riddled with ugly rumours of betting and match-fixing. The Boston Red Sox were 1-0 up, having beaten the New York Giants in the first game at the Polo Grounds, thanks to their star pitcher Smokey Joe Wood “throwing so hard, I thought my arm would fly right off my body”.
However, on the next day during Game 2 at Boston’s Fenway Park, the controversy began. The scores were tied at the end of the ninth inning before, at the top of the 10th, the New York Giants’ Freddie Merle got home to give the visitors a 6-5 lead. But nine decent pitches away from levelling the series, the Giants blew it, thanks to a combination of bad fielding and bad umpiring, allowing Boston to level the game at 6-6. With darkness falling fast (no ground had lights until 1935 and Fenway Park would not get them until 1947) and the scores still level at the bottom of the 11th, the game was declared a tie. The players were furious – one or other side stood to earn a bonus from a win but a tie earned them nothing.
The series continued, with the Giants levelling it 1-1 in Game 3, before the Red Sox opened a 3-1 lead going into what could have been a decisive Game 6 in the best-of-seven series – but then something odd happened.
The Red Sox owner, Jimmy McAleer, insisted the run-of-the-mill pitcher Buck O’Brien start over the hotshot Smokey Joe, much against the wishes of the Boston manager, Jake Stahl. No one told O’Brien about it until the morning of the game – an issue since he had gone out boozing in Manhattan the night before. Bleary-eyed and hungover, he gave up five runs in the first inning and the Giants cruised to a 5-2 win. Angry Red Sox fans were certain something was afoot, speculating that McAleer had insisted on the weaker pitcher in order to prolong the series and boost Fenway Park gate receipts.
Smokey Joe was restored as the starting pitcher for Game 7 but fared worse than O’Brien, giving up six runs in the first inning. New York hammered Boston, winning 11-4, tying the series at 3-3 and sending it into a deciding eighth game. Boston had fielded so sloppily, and Smokey Joe had pitched so badly, that the increasingly furious fans suspected that the Boston players, still angry over the missing win bonus from Game 2, had bet on New York to win and then deliberately thrown the game in an attempt to make up for their lost earnings.
Game 8 began on 16 October 1912 in front of a half-empty Fenway Park, the angry fans keeping clear. It was tight – 1-1 at the bottom of the ninth. In the 10th inning New York got home for a run, meaning they needed only three outs to win the World Series and so seal a remarkable comeback from 3-1 down.
It was the bottom of the 10th when the Red Sox’s pinch hitter Clyde Engel stepped up to the plate. He swung lazily at a fly ball, popping it up to right-centre field. Dreamily it floated towards Fred Snodgrass, who was standing underneath, with glove gaping. In the ball went, nestling softly against the leather … and then out it came again, down into the dirt. Engel scuttled to second base, Snodgrass was furious. The next play, Harry Hooper smashed a ball to deep centre and although Snodgrass took a remarkable running catch the damage was already done – Engel advanced to third. The pitcher Christy Mathewson walked the next batter before two singles won Boston the game and the World Series.
Snodgrass would never live it down. “I just dropped the darn thing,” he told the press time and time again but his drop would forever more be known as the $30,000 muff, a reference to the money his error had cost the Giants. The Red Sox would go on to their most successful period, winning the World Series again in 1915, 1916 and 1918. Snodgrass, though – who was never blamed by the Giants, in fact, the manager, John McGraw, put his salary up by $1,000 – retired in 1916. He went on to have a long and successful career as a banker and was such a pillar of the community in his home of Oxnard, California, that he was voted mayor. However, on his death in 1974, 62 years after his famous drop, none of his subsequent achievements mattered a jot: he was still remembered for only one thing. As the New York Times headline put it: “Fred Snodgrass, 86, Dead; Ball Player Muffed 1912 Fly.”
3) Stevie Johnson, Buffalo Bills v Pittsburgh Steelers, 28 November 2010
Perhaps spurred by righteous anger, Buffalo Bills were on a charge against Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. The Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison had just struck the Bills’ quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick on the chin with his helmet, sending Fitzpatrick woozily to the floor. Buffalo were 0-13 down at that point, deep in the third quarter, but that moment changed the game. The fired up Bills came back to level the game at 13-13, then took it into overtime with the score 16-16.
Pittsburgh were the AFC’s hottest side that season, and would eventually go on to to be runners-up in the Super Bowl. They were a big scalp and Buffalo, angry at Harrison’s treatment of Fitzpatrick, wanted them badly.
With time ticking away, and the match still tied, Fitzpatrick picked out receiver Stevie Johnson (wearing unlucky 13) in the endzone with an immaculate 40-yard missile. Catch it, and Johnson would almost certainly have won the game. “He’s got Johnson!” yells the commentator. But Johnson didn’t have it. “Oh he dropped the ball! That would have been the game winner!” Minutes later the Steelers kicked a 41-yard field goal to consign Buffalo to a 19-16 defeat.
Johnson was inconsolable. “I had the game in my hands and then dropped it. I’ll never get over it. Ever,” he said post-game. He was at first apologetic. But then he thought about it. Perhaps, it wasn’t his fault. Perhaps, it was someone else’s. Perhaps divine intervention slipped that ball between his fingers. And so he blamed God. On Twitter.
“I praise you 24/7!!!!!,” he ranted to the heavens (and to his amused social media followers). “And this is how you do me!!!!! You expect me to learn from this??? How???!!! I’ll never forget this!! Ever!!!” He was careful though not to anger him upstairs too much though, adding finally: “Thx Tho…”
4) Juan Manuel Leguizamón, London Irish v Wasps, 18 March 2007
There were 23,000 fans packed inside the Madejski Stadium, a then record crowd for the Premiership. It was 18 March, the day after St Patrick’s Day, and London Irish’s crowd were still in the mood. The Exiles were in the midst of a hot streak – wins over Bristol, Newcastle Falcons, Sale Sharks and Bath had given them hopes of a top-four finish – but Wasps too, were in that same hunt and travelled to Reading having lost one in six. It was a derby of sorts: two (then) supposedly London clubs, but both exiled to the home counties, creating a Bucks/Berks rivalry.
With the scores level at 13 apiece Steffon Armitage was subbed in the 52nd minute, which is when the Argentinian back rower Juan Manuel Leguizamón came on to make his starring role. In the 67th minute, with the game still tied and tight as hell, the No8 was put clean through by the centre Seilala Mapusua. Leguizamón sprinted to the line from 20 yards out, entirely unopposed and set to score the match-winning try. Perhaps buoyed by the raucous home support, perhaps simply caught up in the moment, he launched himself high into the air, a flamboyant swallow dive to release the pent-up tension of the match. Only he didn’t entirely have hold of the ball.
There is a perfect moment on the reverse angle replay as he reaches the zenith of his dive. It’s precisely then that the ball slips from his grasp, his face goes from triumph to panic, and then he lands in an embarrassed heap on the floor, a mouthful of mud his only consolation. “The most tragic of tangos …” states the commentary.
Leguizamón was lucky, however. A Riki Flutey penalty six minutes from time earned Irish a 16-13 win. Asked if the No8 would be getting the drinks in to apologise, the London Irish forwards coach Toby Booth wryly replied: “as long as he isn’t carrying them.”
5) Ilse Dörffeldt, Olympics, 4x100m women’s relay, 9 August 1936
Team GB know all to well how hard it is to get a baton around 400m of track. The USA team, too, have had their fair share of troubles – the worst of which (if you don’t count their London disqualification following Tyson Gay’s steroid use) culminated in a frankly hilarious performance in Beijing. It started when they ordered the wrong bibs and had to scrawl USA in what appeared to be marker pen on blank ones – the ink running blotchily down their fronts in the China rain – and ended with both the men’s and women’s 4x100m team being disqualified for dropping their batons, the tink, tink, tink sound of them hitting the track haunting them ever since.
But neither the British nor American teams has had to face down an angry Führer following a dropped baton blunder. Germany’s 1936 4x100m women’s team was by far the favourite for the final having already set the world record. They were helped in this by the fact that Käthe Krauss – running the second leg – was strongly rumoured to be, and very much looked like, a man. Still, the Germans weren’t the only ones at it – the American anchor, Helen Stephens, was also alleged to be a man and had to prove otherwise, while the Polish sprinter Stefania Walasiewiczowna (known as Stella Walsh) and the German high jumper Dora Ratjen were both later found to have male genitalia.
Hitler had taken a keen interest in the women’s sprints. He had, in fact, subjected Stephens to a personal examination following her world record-breaking win in the women’s 100m race – she recalled he started to “hug me, pinch me and squeeze me to see if I was real” – and the dictator was especially keen for his German women to beat the Americans in the 4x100m sprint.
After a false start in lane three, the race got under way, Hitler leaping out of his seat to cheer Germany on. Emmy Albus, running the first leg, opened a commanding lead for Germany before handing over to Krauss who flashed through the field. By the time Krauss handed over to Marie Dollinger on the third leg, Germany were streets ahead of the Americans. But then disaster struck: the final handover between Dollinger and Ilse Dörffeldt was disastrous, the baton dropping to the ground and the field rushing past as she turned to pick it up. Stephens came home first for a USA gold (in 46.9sec, well behind Germany’s best of 46.4sec), followed by Britain’s Eileen Hiscock and Canada’s Dorothy Brookshaw.
Hitler was livid and immediately summoned the German team to his private enclosure in the stadium. Nervous and fearful, they met him but found he had calmed down sufficiently to commiserate with them and blame the poor changeover for their defeat. Hermann Göring, in an effort to further sympathise with the distraught relay team, invited them to a garden party to cheer them up.
6) Essam El-Hadary, African Confederations Cup semi-final first leg, 4 November 2012
In the dying minutes of the first leg of their 2012 African Confederations Cup semi-final, Sudan’s Al Merreikh were drawing 1-1 away from home against Congo’s AC Leopards. With seven minutes left to play Al Merreikh’s goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, capped 143 times by Egypt, made a simple enough catch from a high ball into the box. Happy to run the clock down, and equally happy to take a 1-1 scoreline into the second leg at home, he bounced the ball a couple of times on his own goalline.
Whether it was the sight of the Leopards midfielder Arouna Dramé approaching or something else – Stevie Johnson’s vengeful god from above? – but the hapless stopper managed to then drop a ball that he himself had bounced about six inches off the ground. Dramé applied the finish, Leopards won 2-1 then saw out the second leg 0-0 before going on to win the Cup for the first time in their history. Oops.
