Well I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys and my pride

Tattoo parlour’s warm and so I huddle there inside

The grinding of the buzz saw - “whatchu want that thing to say?”

Just don't misspell her name, buddy. She's the one that got away

 - Tom Waits

It is said that for every great comeback victory there is an equal or greater choke. And as great as Miami’s comeback was in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, San Antonio sure blew it. I don’t know that a team has ever been so close to winning an NBA title, only to let it slip away like that. The crowd was being cordoned off; the trophy was being readied for presentation; Commissioner David Stern was probably preparing his speech. But missed free throws, missed rebounds and curious substitutions came back to hurt the Spurs. This was not like any other defeat they will have suffered before. This was crushing. Devastating. You just don’t recover from a loss like that, not ever, least of all not in two days’ time for a Game 7. A game like that can haunts you with a lifetime of regret, of bitterness. In some ways, the narrow losses mean more than the victories. Like a tattoo you wished you never got, it both scars you and it defines you. The San Antonio Spurs are not alone.

Here are five of the biggest chokes of all time:

Game 6 – 2011 World Series Texas Rangers 7 St Louis Cardinals 5 with one out bottom of the ninth

Texas had never (and spoiler alert: still haven’t) won a world series. Up until a year beforehand they had never even won a postseason series. But here they were two outs away from the championship. Albert Pujols started the rally with a double and Lance Berkman drew a walk, but then the next hitter struck out. One more out. Texas closer Neftali Feliz had David Freese down a ball and two strikes – just ONE STRIKE from the title! – but Freese crushed a 98mph fastball over the head of the right fielder Nelson Cruz for a triple to tie the game and take it to extra innings. If Cruz had been standing at regular outfield depth, he would have caught it, but he was playing up to deny the lobbed base hit.

Then in extras, Texas’ Josh Hamilton, a former MVP, smoked one deep to centre field and the Rangers were up by two once more. It was such a perfect ending for Hamilton, who had recovered from drug and alcohol issues early in his career to become a poster boy for baseball. The only problem was: it wasn’t quite the end. Berkman tied the game with a single in the bottom of the tenth (on a 2-2 count – ONE STRIKE AWAY AGAIN!), and David Freese obliterated the next pitch to win the game with a walk-off homer in the eleventh. No team had ever had come back from ninth AND tenth innings deficits in a World Series game before. Only two men, before Freese and Berkman (the latter who now plays for Texas), had ever hit game tying hits one out from WS elimination.

St Louis won Game 7 by 6 runs to 2. 

Everyone who’s ever missed in a penalty shoot-out in a final

Is there a crueller way to decide a match than the penalty shoot-out? Roberto Baggio would tell you not. The poor guy missed the deciding penalty for Italy in the 1994 World Cup and was haunted by it for the rest of his career. 120 minutes of deadlocked football and it all comes down to one 12 yard penalty. It’s easier for the goalkeepers – no one expects them to save it. But for Baggio, Franco Baresi, Daniele Massaro, Marcio Santos and David Trezeguet (the five men who have missed in World Cup final shoot outs), it was a different story. Santos’ team won, so he was excused. Trezeguet scored the golden goal to win the EUROs in 2000, so maybe he doesn’t feel quite so bad. Anyway, his final (2006) was overshadowed by Zidane’s infamous act of boofhead-ery (literally). The 1976 EUROs were also decided by penalties, with Czechoslovakia topping West Germany. But since neither of those countries even exists anymore, who really cares? (And I needn't even mention the many club cups ended on penalties too - John Terry 2008 anyone?)

1996 Masters – Greg Norman leads by 6 strokes on the final day

Greg Norman had never won the masters and he never would. He came runner up three times though, none closer than in 1996. He entered playing good golf too, having won the Doral-Ryder Open (though he did miss the cut in his final warm up competition), and he took his good form into The Masters with a course record 63 for the first round. He then continued to dominate, leading outright for the first three days’ play, before an outrageous meltdown from The Great White Shark in the fourth and final round. With a six shot lead, the Aussie bogeyed nine through eleven, and dropped it in the drink on the twelfth, giving Nick Faldo the lead. He almost landed a perfect chip shot to stay in contention, but he hooked his tee shot on the sixteenth to blow it once and for all. Only Rory McIlroy’s recent blowout, shooting 80 in the final round in 2011, and Ken Venturi, way back in 1956, who had an identically scored finish, losing by one stroke, could compare to this almighty choke. Stormin’ Norman eventually lost by 5 shots to Faldo.

Superbowl XXV 1991 - Buffalo Bills down by one with eight seconds left and a kick to win it

Kickers have an interesting time in the NFL. They do nothing until a field goal needs kicking or a touchdown converting, upon when they step up and slot it. But sometimes they can miss. Just like penalty shoot-out failures, a crucial field goal miss can define a career. But unlike Baggio and company, kickers don’t actually do anything else, so if they cannot perform their one task under pressure, and there can be a LOT of pressure, they may not get another chance. Scott Norwood sure knows this. With eight seconds to go in the Superbowl, Buffalo trail the New York Giants 20-19. Norwood lines up to kick a 47 yard field goal to win it all, and… he shanks it. It was a tough kick, six yards beyond his longest that year, but the occasion was too big for such a gaffe. Norwood played one more season before being replaced as Buffalo kicker. Soon after, he was selling insurance for a living.

Norwood’s story was parodied in Jim Carrey’s classic Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (the man’s best comedic work if you ask me) with the fictional story of Ray Finkle who missed the winning field goal in Superbowl XVII (which Miami did play, but actually lost by 10, so no such game winner could have existed). Finkle became an icon of hate in his home town and was driven insane with rage, blaming QB Dan Marino for not placing the ball “laces out” for the kick. Movie spoilers aside, the Buffalo Bills would make the next three Superbowls. And they would lose them all comfortably. Norwood’s kick coined the term “wide right” which has become a regular point of reference for commentators in the US.

1986 World Series – Boston Red Sox 5 New York Mets 3 with two outs in the bottom of the tenth

Bill Buckner. A famous name in sports. Not for his batting title in 1980, or his all-star career, but for one isolated moment of blunder. The greatest error in the history of baseball. Maybe in the history of sports. Let us set the scene:

The Boston Red Sox were, at this time, 69 years into the 86 year Curse of the Bambino (86 years, 1986! - Not that the originators of the curse could have presciently intuited the Red Sox’s 2003 curse-breaking championship). Basically, like the Chicago Cubs to this day, the Red Sox were famous for finding ways to lose. Up 3-2 in the World Series, needing one last win to seal it, Boston took a 2 run lead in extra innings against the Mets. Two quick fly balls had Boston a single, measly out away from baseball superiority. Then the rally began. The next hitter singled to keep the game alive. Kevin Mitchell came in to pinch hit (folklore says he had returned to the clubhouse to book his flight home the next day) and he singled also. Two on two out. Follow that with another single (naturally, it came a strike away from Red Sox victory) and it’s a one run game, tying run on third. In comes veteran relief pitcher Bob Stanley, and he gets within a strike of victory also, but then throws a wild pitch allowing Mitchell to tie the score. The winning run is on second. This is when Buckner did what he did.

The hitter, Mookie Wilson, steps back up after the wild pitch and fouls a couple off. He makes fair contact with the next pitch, though: a slow dribbler towards first base. The runner heads rounds third and heads for home. Bill Buckner is at first, about to unwittingly design his lasting legacy. He steps in to make the play, but the ball bobbles and bounces off his glove, through his legs, and the winning run scores. The New York Mets won Game 7 two days later.

Despite the three hits that innings or the wild pitch that tied it, Buckner became the scapegoat for a frustrated fanbase struggling to cope with the greatest choke anyone had ever seen. He was cut a year later, after endless heckles from both home and opposition fans. He received death threats and was the butt of sports jokes for years. Eventually he was welcomed back to the Red Sox, where he retired, an all is forgiven now. The curse is lifted. But nobody knows the price of a championship error better than Bill Buckner, except maybe Steve Bartman, but that’s a story for another day.

  - Wildcard