Unluckiest Man in Baseball History

[Phantom Dreamer]

Greg Halman, killed by his own brother. Maybe he could have developed into a 4th OF type.

[JR Hart]

The 85 Cardinals bad call (only known because of TV) and 72 Olympic team are nowhere near the same thing. After the Orta call, The Cardinals suffered a passed ball by Darrell Porter to set up 2nd and 3rd, and a 2 out 2 RBI single by Dane Iorg. That was followed by a tanking and one a total unprofessional embarrassment by the Cardinals in game 7. Not even the same. The Cardinals lost it in game 7 and were a disgrace. Sorry, Cardinal fans, it happened.

[Bothrops Atrox]

The 85 Cardinals bad call (only known because of TV) and 72 Olympic team are nowhere near the same thing. After the Orta call, The Cardinals suffered a passed ball by Darrell Porter to set up 2nd and 3rd, and a 2 out 2 RBI single by Dane Iorg. That was followed by a tanking and one a total unprofessional embarrassment by the Cardinals in game 7. Not even the same. The Cardinals lost it in game 7 and were a disgrace. Sorry, Cardinal fans, it happened.

Only two Cardinal fans in this conversation. Herr asked with much joking not to bring up the play, and I mentioned that the call changed KC win expectancy from 8% to 34%. Not sure which Cardinals fans you are referring to, but nobody here is solely blaming the call for the series loss.

Unless pheasant is a big Cardinal fan, but that would be news to me.

[JR Hart]

Only two Cardinal fans in this conversation. Herr asked with much joking not to bring up the play, and I mentioned that the call changed KC win expectancy from 8% to 34%. Not sure which Cardinals fans you are referring to, but nobody here is solely blaming the call for the series loss.

Unless pheasant is a big Cardinal fan, but that would be news to me.

This was the post that I was referring to:

What if the umps blow a call in the 7th game as well preventing the Cardinals from winning it all? Seems to me the Cardinals did what was necessary to win but the umps gave the lesser more chances to win. Sort of like the US Olympic basketball team against the Russians or do you think that it also holds true that if the US team was the better team they would have won that game as well?

[Bothrops Atrox]

This was the post that I was referring to:

Okay, but Ubi is a Cubs fan. You said "Sorry Cardinal's fans, it happened." That is what got me confused.

[JR Hart]

Okay, but Ubi is a Cubs fan. You said "Sorry Cardinal's fans, it happened." That is what got me confused.

No problem I was for the Cards in 1985, as I never root for the American League. I grew with a Cardinal fan father, who lived and died with Harry Carey's broadcasts, in the 1960s.

[Herr28]

Only two Cardinal fans in this conversation. Herr asked with much joking not to bring up the play, and I mentioned that the call changed KC win expectancy from 8% to 34%. Not sure which Cardinals fans you are referring to, but nobody here is solely blaming the call for the series loss.

Unless pheasant is a big Cardinal fan, but that would be news to me.

The whole thing was ugly. And Don Denkinger, as many may not know, was behind the mask the next day. Tudor thought Denkinger was giving calls to the Royals and completely blew his stack. Whitey thought the same, and he had a MUCH shorter fuse than did John Tudor. He was gone. Joaquin Andujar - the Cardinals other 21 game winner, but a guy who was falling apart after his 20th win that season - who had NO fuse at all, came on and he was gone rather quickly. All with Denkinger behind the plate, continuing the stench from the night before.

No, I don't blame Don Denkinger - or any one person - for that horrible collapse on the cusp of another title. Nor do I think he deserved the treatment he got from the nation's "smartest and nicest" fans, including tons of hate mail and death threats. That is absolutely disgusting, and I can't believe some people are so stupid as to take a game, even a World Series game, that seriously as to warrant terrorizing a man and his wife for years after the fact. Umpiring is not easy. I think he must have been blind to have missed the call, but still it happens. The meltdown that followed is the same thing we have seen in other Series games, players get rattled in those situations and it apparently takes then a while to get their stuff together. I don't blame them either.

I have no idea how Denkinger was calling the pitches in Game 7 behind the plate. Apparently, it didn't matter. None of the Cardinals thought they should have had to be there that day, because of that man. I read that they were very upset when they found out he was going to be behind the plate that day, but the umpire crew chief wouldn't switch up the order, it was Denkinger's day to call balls and strikes. John Tudor lived in the black, with his 75-80 mph changeup, which was his #1 pitch. If he thought the ump that screwed them the night before wasn't calling his pitch, I can see how the team blew up. It doesn't excuse their actions at all. I still find the whole thing reprehensible, and a terrible ending to the most exciting season of Cardinals baseball I have ever seen.

I would rather they just lost the damn thing by themselves, without umpire interference. Then it would be OK, and no one would ever talk about them again. They would just be another 100 win team that lost a World Series to an underdog. Not a bunch of guys that saw they got screwed from a title one night, and still had that chip on their shoulder the next day. Then the red flag was being waved in their faces, and they lost their minds, and the fans lost our season.

[Dude Paskert]

Mike Reiser, Pete's older brother. He signed a contract with the Yankees out of high school, but caught scarlet fever and died.

I'm amazed that I've never heard of Mike Reiser before...my dad caught scarlet fever as a kid and lost the hearing in one ear as a result. I believe that he told me that he missed something like half a school year from the illness, but his mother told the school she would pull him out to work if he was forced to repeat a grade and he advanced normally.

[Dude Paskert]

The whole thing was ugly. And Don Denkinger, as many may not know, was behind the mask the next day. Tudor thought Denkinger was giving calls to the Royals and completely blew his stack. Whitey thought the same, and he had a MUCH shorter fuse than did John Tudor. He was gone. Joaquin Andujar - the Cardinals other 21 game winner, but a guy who was falling apart after his 20th win that season - who had NO fuse at all, came on and he was gone rather quickly. All with Denkinger behind the plate, continuing the stench from the night before.

No, I don't blame Don Denkinger - or any one person - for that horrible collapse on the cusp of another title. Nor do I think he deserved the treatment he got from the nation's "smartest and nicest" fans, including tons of hate mail and death threats. That is absolutely disgusting, and I can't believe some people are so stupid as to take a game, even a World Series game, that seriously as to warrant terrorizing a man and his wife for years after the fact. Umpiring is not easy. I think he must have been blind to have missed the call, but still it happens. The meltdown that followed is the same thing we have seen in other Series games, players get rattled in those situations and it apparently takes then a while to get their stuff together. I don't blame them either.

I have no idea how Denkinger was calling the pitches in Game 7 behind the plate. Apparently, it didn't matter. None of the Cardinals thought they should have had to be there that day, because of that man. I read that they were very upset when they found out he was going to be behind the plate that day, but the umpire crew chief wouldn't switch up the order, it was Denkinger's day to call balls and strikes. John Tudor lived in the black, with his 75-80 mph changeup, which was his #1 pitch. If he thought the ump that screwed them the night before wasn't calling his pitch, I can see how the team blew up. It doesn't excuse their actions at all. I still find the whole thing reprehensible, and a terrible ending to the most exciting season of Cardinals baseball I have ever seen.

I would rather they just lost the damn thing by themselves, without umpire interference. Then it would be OK, and no one would ever talk about them again. They would just be another 100 win team that lost a World Series to an underdog. Not a bunch of guys that saw they got screwed from a title one night, and still had that chip on their shoulder the next day. Then the red flag was being waved in their faces, and they lost their minds, and the fans lost our season.

I was in school in StL at the time and followed the WS closely. My best friend was a solid Roahls fan from the Columbia, MO area (he said the Cards were not popular there because StL was viewed as the snobbish "big city" there, while KC was more their style) and I was a Cubs fan still smarting from the '84 disaster, so I was rooting against the Cards. But, it was bad to see them lose that way...the call just didn't seem like a big deal when it happened, and the Clark/Porter dropped popup seemed more egregious to me. The StL papers were just burning over the call the next day, and it really seemed to take on a life of its own.

[JBSptfn]

What about David Clyde? Wasn't his career ruined when the Rangers brought him up too soon out of high school 40 years ago?

[Steven Gallanter]

Off the top of my head, the unluckiest guys were:

Lyman Bostock- gunman mistook him for man dating his former girlfriend
Lou Gehrig
Christy Mathewson-freak accident with poisonous gas sealed his fate
Herb Score-freak accident effective ends his greatness
Ray Chapman-freak accident kills him
JR Richard-phenomenal stuff, yet freak stroke takes away his career. Was very similar to R. Johnson
Jackie Robinson--tremendous stress of breaking the color barrier and the immense discrimination that he faced killed him at a young age.

J.R. Richard was exactly on the cusp of greatness after quite a few years of getting better and better. YouTube has the ESPN piece on Richard. The events that transpired after Richard's stroke compounded his misfortune.