MOST EPIC COLLAPSE: RED SOX 2011 v YANKEES 2004

its gotta be the Sox. teams lose 4 in a row all the time. but what the Sox did was truly incredible

yeah its def more numerically impressive, but 2004 the playoffs the rivalry the 'curse' etc has narrative and gravity on its side

uh, with a 3-0 lead in a PS series, it had never happened! xp

They're not really very comparable, in scope or nature.

yeah i know but still we must decide

btw oops re closing date, epic collapse on my part

xp that's true but in theory the Sox have a 6.25% chance of winning 4 straight (assuming 50/50 for each game)
whereas the Rays playoff odds were 0.1% at the beginning of the month
plus, I think making the playoffs is its own success, whereas the 2011 Sox technically rank among the Astros and Royals of the world

history combined with drama in that particular series gives it to '04. bosox collapsed epically this year but considering another team collapsed in almost the same epic fashion at the same time, it loses its novelty to some degree. plus a torturous collapse while compelling is less so than the reversal of fortune hilarious collapse the yanks accomplished against the red sox, with the last two games in front of their own fans. more impressive too b/c the first 3 games of the series looked incredibly lopsided in the yanks' favor.

Yeah Yankees collapse had never ever happened in what ~100 years of seven game series (and it might not happen for another 100 years.) Heck I'm not even sure the Red Sox collapse was worse than the Braves in their OWN year.

this is not even a question given the magnitude of events in 04

IMO it's just weird variance that a team had never come back from 3-0 before. Even accounting for the 3-0 team being better, I can't see it being any less than a 3-5% shot

psychology

the Sox have a 6.25% chance of winning 4 straight (assuming 50/50 for each game)
whereas the Rays playoff odds were 0.1% at the beginning of the month

seems like we're polling two different interpretation of epic.

infinitesimal probability? Sox
theatrical? Yankees

uh, with a 3-0 lead in a PS series, it had never happened! xp

They're not really very comparable, in scope or nature.

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Thursday, September 29, 2011 10:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

the dr. has spoken

I'd say what happened on Wacky Wednesday was pretty theatrical

i think the Braves imploding too only adds to the Sox collapse.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/hindenburgredsox.jpg

yeah no kidding

you realize that the Braves suffered the biggest collapse in September history until the Sox broke their record 20 minutes later

it's not like these kind of collapses happen all the time or like ever

twice a year iirc

Wednesday night was weird. 04 was almost hard to believe.

Cubs last week of the season collapse in 2004 was quite fugly, kind of the nightcap to the 03 Marlin failure. That team went down far more bitchy than the Sox this year.

the Sox have a 6.25% chance of winning 4 straight (assuming 50/50 for each game)

yeah, but then you have dave roberts stealing second and shit in the ninth inning

i think ppl will remember for longer the yanks alcs collapse purely on narrative but the math and the final day/minutes of the 9/11 sox collapse are much more objectively jaw-dropping, i think - and i'm a yankee fan, i remember that series & it was back when i cared about baseball than i do now, and believe me it sucked. i also think the sox had to suck a lot harder for their collapse; hard to attribute theirs to bad luck or anything

the narrative of the ALCS -- esp being so close to the aaron boone play -- pushes it over the top for me

2004 seemed like more of an 'achievement' by one team than a collapse of the other team but I guess I'm approaching this from the perspective of 'everyone wants the yankees to lose anyway'

yeah the fact that it was one year removed from the aaron boone hr (def in my top 3 sports memories along with freddie mitchell 4th & 26) is def huge

The difference is that I don't think many people really cared outside of Boston/New York in 2004. I mean yeah I wanted the Red Sox to win (hard to imagine there was a time when I didn't find their fan insufferable, but this was before Red Sox fans really knew how to handle winning) but they were both pretty priveledged teams. This one came with soooo much hype (are the 2011 Boston Red Sox the greatest team of all time!?), so much trash talking, bla bla bla, while you got the small-market Rays who seem to game the system so well and are run smarter than any other organization in the league. Regardless of whether or not it was mentioned in public I think it was clear who the 'bad guys' were in that scenario.

def in my top 3 sports memories along with freddie mitchell 4th & 26

lol that is one of my top 3 worst sports memories, just hearing about it makes me mad

yeah i think plenty of ppl cared about it outside of boston/nyy -- which isn't to say that it wasn't more important in that region, but still

i think the hilarity factor was much higher w/the yanks' collapse, i mean even non-baseball fans were lolling @ them as they imploded on a big stage. this boston collapse was more pathetic and sad and a whimpering exit, like "jeez just look at yourselves, you're embarrassing." and also i don't think it ~appealed~ to many people beyond baseball fans.

i had to be very circumspect, as i was living with a yankee fan at the time

i still periodically text a different yankee fan friend with 'by the way, your team blew a 3-0 lead in 2004'

i agree with iatee that '04 seemed like more of a story about the Sox turning their fortunes around and then not looking back. never really thought of it as a Yankee collapse - esp in light of how the Sox rolled over everything afterwards.

also i don't think it ~appealed~ to many people beyond baseball fans.

― omar little, Friday, September 30, 2011 3:13 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i was wondering actually if wed night was going to be a small turning point for baseball in the grand scheme of things. can't remember a night when baseball so thoroughly dominated sports news. even world series games haven't compared imo.

i still periodically text a different yankee fan friend with 'by the way, your team blew a 3-0 lead in 2004'

― mookieproof, Friday, September 30, 2011 2:15 PM (3 minutes ago)

hahaha, excellent work

i think people found the excitement of the finish compelling but i'm not sure they cared about the epicness of the collapse in and of itself as much.

http://www.foxnews.com/images/142075/3_28_redsox_ws8.jpg

xp i certainly don't think 2004 has anything to compare to the sheer spectacle of a few nights ago. outside of maybe some special march madness nights i can't remember a more thrilling hour or so of sports

actually now that i mention it the experience was v march madness-esque, my 'last channel' button was getting a workout

i think if we're talking the entire spectacle i think the other night wins by far in terms of drama and confluence of events but i think in terms of the drama of each team's collapse the yanks was more epic and entertaining. i mean the other night was awesome for so many teams being involved and i think the fact that it was the O's knocking the sox out was particularly awesome.

i loved that too. you'd think the O's were the ones who just made the playoffs!

on wednesday i was most excited by the rays getting in, rather than the sox blowing it.

(no offense to the braves/cards, but i guess i don't think either team is that great and i have historical antipathy towards the braves and tlr, so it didn't really matter to me.)

in 2004 i was most excited by the yanks blowing it because i hate them

At the risk of obviousness, I was going to vote "other" for the '51 Dodgers, but they didn't really collapse--I checked, and they won 30 of their last 50 games. Between 2004 and 2011 it's close, but I'll go with 2011 because to me epic implies some length of time--although I can see where for someone else a playoff series is automatically more epic than anything regular-season--and also because 2011 contained a collapse within a collapse, the final game.

2011: operatic, slowly building to a magnificent crescendo
2004: Ewoks take a hot steaming dump on the buckling Death Star

ha ha hahaomg

"i certainly don't think 2004 has anything to compare to the sheer spectacle of a few nights ago."

Those games were crazy exciting though, problem was that the big Ortiz hits happened at like 2am eastern.

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this is such nonsense and I blame morbs' sock accounts.

http://www.foxnews.com/images/142075/3_28_redsox_ws8.jpg

douchily text narrated and audio bed copyright infringing.. which is why I saved a local copy to .FLV

better than hardcore pornography tho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPNpJX8b-bc

ha hahaha!

to be fair, there are some pretty good fenway youtubes out there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGERG5WoAY4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTRJvfKRRno

lol

btw that verb is "ogles"

Heidi Watney is kind of banging. Forbidden fruit, Monatuges and Capulets, etc. etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-xp9VhFJ70

what? Lakers? http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2011/11/17/heidi_watney_is_leaving_nesn/

her final moment will be with Shaughnessy in the booth for the big prediction?