Checking into the Heartbreak Hotel

“You're a heartbreaker

Dream maker, love taker

Don't you mess around with me.”

 – Pat Benatar

Nothing can break your heart like a woman. Except sports, which can also snap your anterior cruciate ligament. So as I sit here icing my knee, pondering my upcoming surgery, I find the Detroit Tigers playing the Redsox on TV. The game is in Boston’s Fenway Park and my mind is instantly taken back to last October when the Tigers and Redsox played in the American League Championship Series.

Within nanoseconds of seeing the Tigers in Fenway, I remember Torii Hunter cartwheeling over the right field wall. And David Ortiz rounding the bases.

I grew up watching the Tigers and it has been refreshing to see them become perennial contenders after years of futility. They lost in the World Series back in ’06 and 2012, and last season they had another chance to bring a championship back to Motown for the first time since I was 16.

The Tigers won the first game against Boston in the ALCS and were cruising to victory in game 2 behind Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. I had been watching the action at a nearby restaurant with a buddy. The Tigers were winning 5-1 and Scherzer was cruising. I left for home in the bottom of the eighth and listened on the radio as the Redsox loaded the bases against the Tigers’ bullpen. I arrived home as “closer” Joaquin Benoit entered with two outs to face Ortiz. I texted a buddy back in Michigan, “Tell me that Ortiz isn’t going to hit a grand slam.”

“No way, only in Hollywood,” he wrote back.

Cue the soundtrack from “The Natural” because Ortiz promptly crushed a first-pitch change-up into the Boston bullpen. Hunter flipped over the wall trying to save the day, a Boston police officer became famous, and I threw my cell phone to Pacoima.

It was a heart-breaking loss. It was a defeat that makes my list of most heart-breaking losses (HBL) in my forty years of watching sports. I’m sure there are as many thrilling, come-from-behind victories in my sports-watching past, but I don’t remember those as clearly. It’s the painful ones that stick around to haunt me like the voice of former Celtic broadcaster Johnny Most. Memories of those defeats hurt like a dagger between the ribs. Or like a Robert Horry three-pointer.

A HBL is very easy to define. Obviously, it has to happen to a team you cherish. HBLs have to happen in important games such as the playoffs in baseball and basketball or the NCAA Tourney in college hoops. A top-10 match-up in college football counts as well. It has to happen in a game that was a certain victory. The Michigan basketball team has lost three NCAA Finals. Disappointing, yes. Heart breaking, no.

Sometimes it’s the opponent’s best player who breaks my heart, such as Ortiz against the Tigers, or Larry Bird in 1987. The Pistons were playing the Celtics in their first of five-straight Eastern Conference Finals. Tied at two games each in the Garden, Detroit made a key defensive stop with only seconds left and a one-point lead. I jumped off the couch in celebration, but before I could come down Isaiah Thomas made a lazy pass, Bird stole the ball, and Dennis Johnson made a buzzer-beating layup. The Pistons won game 6 at home before losing game 7 back in Boston leaving me wondering what could have been.

Sometimes the refs play a crucial role in an HBL. In ’88, the Pistons conquered the Celtics and then had the Lakers against the ropes in the finals. Detroit had a 3-2 lead with a chance to clinch with a game-6 win in the Forum. Thomas poured in 25 points in the third quarter on a bum ankle. With a one-point lead and 14 seconds to go, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went up for a baseline sky-hook and was allegedly fouled by Bill Laimbeer. It’s play I’ve called “The Phantom Foul” ever since. Any non-Laker fan knows that it wasn’t a foul. Laimbeer went straight up. Kareem’s move takes him backward and up and over a defender in an arch-like movement. That’s why it’s called a “hook.” Kareem sank both free throws for the win. The Lakers won a close game 7 leaving me waiting for 1989. Yes, I’m still bitter.

And then there’s the time when the winning team comes up with a miracle to smash your heart into 106,427 pieces, which was the attendance in the Big House on September 24, 1994. This one doesn’t need a set up, but just in case: it was No. 7 Colorado vs. No. 4 Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines were coming off a last-second win at No. 5 Notre Dame and had a 26-21 lead with six seconds to go. Colorado QB Kordell Stewart heaved the ball from somewhere past Ypsilanti into a scrum of players at the goal line. It popped up and then dropped into the arms of receiver Michael Westbrook for a touchdown as time expired. I think I lay facedown on the carpet in my living room for an hour after that one.

The 20 years between Kordell’s and Big Papi’s heartbreaks weren’t all trouble-free. In 2005 Robert Horry delivered a sting as painful as that of Bird or Kareem. The Pistons were in overtime against the Spurs in the finals seeking back-to-back titles. The series was knotted at two apiece. Detroit was up by two and needed one last defensive stop to seal the win. With seven seconds to go a wide-open Horry sank a three over Ben Wallace’s afro to end it. San Antonio then won in 7.

The silver lining here is that HBLs are one play, one shot, one call, and one miracle away from being a sweet victory or a possible championship. Only good teams can drive you over the cliff of heartbreak. Bad teams don’t inflict pain.

And for that my heart appreciates the Detroit Lions.