Up in the air, junior birdman

As I'm sure most of you are aware, I'm a pretty big statistical geek in a trivial sense, so when Tyler posted his list of airports he'd passed through, I was compelled to follow. Below the list, with explanations, organized by airport code rather than date since my chronology is occasionally a trifle fuzzy.

AKL - Auckland. This was the airport into which we flew on the People to People New Zealand trip in 2000, as well as out of again on the way to Australia.

ALB - Albany, NY. This one I would never have remembered/known on my own, but my mom informed me that when I was a little kid - really little, like in the early 80s - we would fly into Albany to visit her family in upstate New York.

ATL - Atlanta. I've connected here a couple times, including on the way to the Super Bowl in 1997 and on the way back from San Francisco this summer. This was also the airport we flew into and out of for the quiz bowl HSNCT in 2000.

AUS - Austin, TX. Flew into here for TRASHionals in 2006.

BNE - Brisbane, Australia. We flew from Auckland to Brisbane to start the Australia leg of the aforementioned 2000 student ambassador trip.

BOS - Boston's Logan Airport. I was here for TRASHionals 2003 and I think that's it.

CCS - Caracas, Venezuela. In third grade, we went down to Caracas on a business trip of my dad's that he added some pleasure days to so it could be a family vacation. The first couple days we stayed in a large, swanky European-style hotel. Then when the business part stopped applying and the hotel wasn't comped, we had to switch to a lesser establishment in downtown Caracas where the water in the whole neighborhood stopped running after the first night. Sweet.

CLE - Cleveland. I think I've changed planes here a couple times. I'm pretty sure one was when my sister and I flew sans parents to Arizona to visit my grandparents, and we had a layover in Cleveland on the way back. I definitely stopped here on the convoluted trip back from the Super Bowl in 1997.

CLT - Charlotte, NC. We stopped here at least once on the way to England - US Air had a big hub in Charlotte (I suppose they probably still do) and so we had to fly down before we could fly back up and over.

CMH - Columbus, OH. Another layover-only destination, part of the trip back from quiz bowl ICT in 2003 in Los Angeles.

CPT - Cape Town, South Africa. Another People to People trip, this one in 1997. See Johannesburg.

DCA - Washington DC National. Some call it Reagan; I prefer not to. This is now my second "home" airport; I flew out of here as recently as Sunday.

DEN - Denver. Had at least two Phoenix-bound layovers here in the late 90s, including one where we ended up having to stay in a hotel overnight before catching our flight onward. I remember seeing the video for "...Baby One More Time" for the first time in the hotel room and thinking Britney Spears was super hot, so that should tell you just how long ago this was.

DFW - Dallas/Fort Worth. I think I passed through here just twice, to and from the Alamo Bowl in 2000. We connected to San Antonio from here.

EWR - Newark, NJ. Quite obviously, this was my home airport growing up. Virtually every trip I took over an almost 15-year period originated from this airport, with only two or three exceptions.

IAD - Washington DC Dulles. I believe it was in 2004 when I flew into this one instead of National on the way to see my parents, but it's been DCA ever since.

IAH - Houston. This was the first connection, pre-Cleveland, on the way back from Super Bowl XXXI in 1997.

JFK - JFK, of course, in New York. This was the origination point for I believe two international trips, to Caracas and London with People to People in 1996. I think the South Africa trip started in Newark, though I'm not 100%. My mom might remember.

JNB - Johannesburg, South Africa. We flew into here for the 1997 South Africa trip with People to People. After making our way across the country by bus, we flew out of Cape Town back to Johannesburg, and then out. I guess Cape Town's airport just wasn't big enough for that kind of international flight.

LAX - Los Angeles. Prominent as this airport is, I think I've only included it on three trips, and then one of those was a stopover. In 1992, the family took a trip to California which landed here (and we also flew out of here to go up the coast); in 2000, I had to stop here on the way to New Zealand and from Australia; and in 2003 we flew into and out of here for the ICT at UCLA.

LGW - London Gatwick. I believe it was our first trip to London, in November 1993, where we landed at this one instead of Heathrow. My recollection is that it was way in the middle of nowhere and required a substantial journey on British Rail to get into the city (as opposed to Heathrow, which is on the Underground).

LHR - London Heathrow. The airport for the other two England trips, in 1994 and 1996.

MDW - Chicago Midway. I'm pretty sure I've only used this airport twice, at least since coming out here in 2000. Once for the 2001 Carleton Undergrad Tournament (pre-renovation) and once to fly ATA to Boston for 2003 TRASHionals (post-renovation). I also drove down once with Drew to pick up Karen on her return from somewhere (presumably Islip), but that doesn't count.

MOB - Mobile, AL. Possibly the smallest airport on the list; my recollection is it only had a handful of gates. Also, we flew a commuter jet in from Atlanta and a prop plane out to Houston. This is what happens when you get last-second tickets to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the flights into that airport are jammed up.

MSP - Minneapolis/St. Paul. We flew into and out of here for the Carleton tournament in 2001. Looking back it seems like a real waste of funds, but that's what A-status and having Dan Hirt as your treasurer get you.

MSY - New Orleans. Despite the Mobile fiasco, I did end up getting to the New Orleans airport when Alma and I flew down there in 2006.

OAK - Oakland, CA. Back-to-back convention-related stops. Alma and I used this as our destination on the way to San Francisco back in August since flights were cheaper than to SFO.

ORD - Chicago O'Hare. Well, naturally. Even before I lived out here I had already been through O'Hare many a time between 1986 and 1994, when we made frequent visits to my dad's family (although a good portion of those trips were for a while made by train). Of course now it's my home airport and my departure point in just about every case.

PHL - Philadelphia. We used this as our departure point on the way to Phoenix once, during the period where we had the townhouse in Blue Bell, PA.

PHX - Phoenix. Probably flew into and out of here roughly a dozen times between 1994 and 2000, visiting my grandparents. Since graduating high school, I haven't been down there, however. I've been talking with my parents and grandparents about a possible trip out in early 2008.

RAI - Praia, Cape Verde. This has to be the oddest one on the list, and in fact I challenge anyone to top it in the comments. We had a brief layover in Cape Verde on the way back from South Africa in 1997; there's a picture of me in front of a sign in the airport somewhere, although honestly the pictures from that trip capture me in my most awkward moments of late-stage puberty, so it's not like I'm going to show them to you. At any rate, we're talking about a country that had been independent for just 22 years when I stopped there, that has a population of less than half a million, and has a total land area in the whole archipelago of 1,556 square miles, smaller than Delaware. Praia is located on the island of São Tiago, which at 383 square miles is about 40% the size of Cook County. So, yeah. Pretty interesting one, I think. Sadly, all I got to see was the inside of the airport.

SAT - San Antonio. Probably the second-smallest airport on the list besides Mobile, although Albany can't have been that big (I just don't remember) and I recall the Praia airport being pretty small (but I'm thinking now it must have been larger to accommodate the transatlantic flights stopping to fuel there). We flew into here (through DFW) for the Alamo Bowl in 2000.

SFO - San Francisco. We flew back to New Jersey from here at the end of our California trip in 1992.

SJC - San Jose, CA. We flew from LAX up to here for the second, northern leg of the 1992 California trip. It was at an amusement park in Santa Cruz that I went on what I think was my only roller coaster ever; it was a water coaster that really did no rolling to speak of, it just went up, drove around, and then plunged down into some water. On the way down my hand slipped on the wet railing and I went face first into the padded front, bending the frame of my pre-spring-hinges glasses out of shape. We had to find an optician in San Francisco to give me a temporary fix, which was just a little black rubber band around the top of the stem. Stories are fun! Anyway, maybe that's one of the reasons I don't go on roller coasters.

SLC - Salt Lake City. We flew through here on the way to Oakland in August. Salt Lake City is exactly as boring from the sky as you'd think, though the lake is pretty neat.

SYD - Sydney, Australia. We end the list with one of the more exotic entries. I actually only passed through this airport once, as the entry point into Australia was Brisbane. After making our way down the coasts of Queensland and New South Wales, we spent a couple days in Sydney before flying back to LAX at the conclusion of the 2000 trip.

So that's my list. I count 36 airports, 27 domestic and 9 international. A fairly respectable list, I think, given that I'm only 25. All are welcome to post their lists in the comments (except of course Tyler - well, he's welcome to, it just seems redundant). I'd be interested to see how readers of this blog (all four of you) are represented on this front.

The spirit of giving

For those of you not lucky enough to be at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night, NPR actually did a live webcast of the show, which is now archived on their website. Check it out. I think if you listen really, really closely, you can hear me singing along from the balcony.*








*no you can't

It came out magical

I came out to DC for the weekend because my sister got my dad tickets for the New Pornographers concert as a belated Fathers' Day present and I'm the other NPs fan in the family, so it made the most sense for me to go with him. It was pretty awesome, as I imagine readers who have been to past shows of theirs (and I know at least one of you has) would be aware. My ears are ringing just a bit. Your set list (broken down by album as I remember very little of the actual order aside from where noted):

Mass Romantic
Mass Romantic
The Slow Descent into Alcoholism (encore; final song)
Jackie (encore)

Electric Version
The Electric Version
From Blown Speakers (encore)
The Laws Have Changed
The New Face of Zero and One (false start; encore)
Testament to Youth in Verse

Twin Cinema
Twin Cinema
The Bones of an Idol (encore)
Use It
The Bleeding Heart Show (final pre-encore song)
Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
Sing Me Spanish Techno

Challengers
My Rights Versus Yours
All the Old Showstoppers
Challengers
Myriad Harbour
All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth (opener)
Unguided
Go Places
Adventures in Solitude
The Spirit of Giving

22 songs is a pretty solid set and, for that matter, a pretty good chunk of the band's entire catalog, which only spans 51 official album tracks. And they were all awesome. I'm usually not a huge proponent of live shows because songs often sound so different than they do on the album, but this was a case where the songs were all well-executed while at the same time having a definite energy that differentiated them from their studio brethren. It was wholly enjoyable. I might have liked to have been able to see the stage better, but we showed up at 10 as the second opening act was wrapping up (doors opened at 8 but the NPs part of the show didn't start for fully three hours, so we said "Screw that" and headed over late), so I can't be surprised that it was already crowded. (There were certainly people who showed up even later than we did.)

So yeah. Not a whole lot else to say, I guess - it was a great show, and while the airfare made it a pretty expensive one, I'd still say it was pretty close to worth it.

Old!

Happy birthday to my sister, who makes me feel incredibly old by turning 21 today. I know it's been a while since I was 21, but to think that it's fully four years behind me is a little crazy.

For the record: a present is on its way shortly.

You just don't get it, do you, Volume II

I'm old enough to remember when Suzyn Waldman was nothing more than the Yankees beat reporter for WFAN. Since then she's gone on to bigger things, but she's always stuck to the Yankees beat. Some would argue too much.

After Waldman's description of Roger Clemens' return to the Yankees this year as one of the most dramatic things she had ever seen (because what's more dramatic than a washed-up multi-millionaire cashing in mercenarily one last time?), few would have thought she could be more embarrassing on the air. But if you didn't think so, you would be wrong.

Following the Yankees' loss the other night, Waldman cried on air. That's right. Cried. A professional broadcaster cried for no other reason than that the team she covers lost a playoff series and the coach might not come back as a result. A particularly amusing take on the issue (if the name "Chris Crocker" means anything to you) is here.

Some might have called this embarrassing. Some might have said it set back female reporters twenty years. Waldman said... people criticizing her are sexist!

"This one's getting me angry, because I don't play this card a lot, but this is as sexist as it gets," the Yankees' radio analyst said yesterday.

You're kidding me, right? This is the exact opposite of sexism. People who think that there should be no restrictions in the genders of sports reporters are bothered by this because it invites sexism. Sports reporters should not be crying because the teams they cover lose. It's unprofessional. And because Waldman is a woman, it invites the ridicule of people who actually are sexist and don't think women should be in the booth. Suzyn Waldman: you don't get it.

What's that? You want to embarrass yourself further? You'd like to pull the card of a terrible disease?

"The idea that I can't choke up because a man I went through cancer with 11 years ago is going to lose his job and I was describing his coaches crying? It's absolutely ludicrous."

Fun fact: talking about crying makes you cry. It's kind of like yawning. That's just science, people. Look it up. Also: I certainly don't want to diminish the battle with cancer, especially since someone very close to me went through it, but the mere fact that Waldman and Torre had different types of cancer at the same time? I'm not sure that gives them some super-special bond. Especially since Waldman notionally has journalistic objectivity. Also also? 11 years ago. Also also also? While I suppose technically Torre may "lose his job," he's not getting fired. He's not going to get a new contract. Maybe. It's not even official. Come on.

Whither A-Rod?

[I debated whether or not to post this in the Cubs blog, since it's all about baseball and the word "Cubs" will appear again in this post. But ultimately I do try to keep that blog Cubs-related, and anyway I don't think you can reasonably expect to totally avoid sports if you're reading my blog. I kinda like sports.]

Now that the elimination of the Yankees has almost entirely wiped away the depression I was feeling post-NLDS, it's time to start thinking about certain possibilities for next year. In particular, it's time to start wondering about the fate of the game's most productive soon-to-be-free-agent-maybe, Alex Rodriguez. The body of the Yankee "dynasty" is still warm, but with Joe Torre apparently about to succumb to George Steinbrenner's win-or-you're-fired ultimatum (although it's a little odd to see everyone reporting this as "Torre to be fired!" when in fact his contract is up at the end of this season and he simply won't be renewed), it may be time to discuss the inheritance. The question, naturally, is: who's going to "inherit" A-Rod?

Noted horse's ass Scott Boras hasn't yet convinced A-Rod to opt out of the remaining three years on his contract, but one gets the feeling that the Yankees will have to offer a pretty hefty contract extension - something along the lines of five or six years at maybe $150-$175 million total - for Boras not to push Rodriguez to test the market, especially when he seems to have convinced himself that he can land A-Rod a contract worth $30 million a year for perhaps as many as ten years. (Personally I think Boras is deluding himself here; Rodriguez's contract with the Rangers, worth a "mere" $25 million per, was such an albatross that even the Yankees insisted on the Rangers covering a good 28% of it in the trade that sent A-Rod to New York. Why would anyone sign him for more money than that, especially now that he's already in his early 30s? Even if we accept Boras' contention that A-Rod is a super athlete who can play well into his 40s and at a productive level, it's hard to imagine any franchise making that kind of long-term gamble, even those with the payrolls to afford A-Rod in the first place. Would you want to be paying anyone $25 million at the age of 42?)

So: where might A-Rod end up? Based on payrolls alone, I think there are only a few real possibilities.

Angels: 4 to 1
Playing in a sizable (if unexcitable) market in Los Angeles, the Angels have the pockets to spend for A-Rod and an owner in Arte Moreno who has indicated a desire to land a big-name free agent. The story on the Angels has for years been that they need another big bat to complement and/or protect Vlad Guerrero, who himself is not getting any younger; A-Rod would certainly do that. Third base and short were both occupied by good players (Chone Figgins, Orlando Cabrera) in 2007, but no one who couldn't be moved for a guy who just had perhaps the best season by an American Leaguer since Ted Williams in 1949. Anaheim is also a perennial contender in the West and would be willing and able to add payroll around him; surely A-Rod won't make the Texas mistake twice.

Mets: 6 to 1
The Mets already have an awful lot of money tied up in big boppers, but they play in New York and seem to have their finger on the pulse of every big free agent deal. There's just one problem with the Mets, or more accurately two problems: David Wright and Jose Reyes. The media is already trying to sell a Reyes-to-Twins-for-Santana deal, however, so the shortstop's days with the Mets may not be that much longer. It would give A-Rod a chance to prove he could win in New York without having to deal with the Yankee "mystique" hanging over his head constantly. The only question is, are the Mets going to have the pitching to be serious contenders, or would it just be this year's Yankees - a Murderer's Row lineup submarined by awful pitching - all over again?

Dodgers: 15 to 1
The Dodgers already have a lot of money tied up in Rafael Furcal at short (snicker), but A-Rod could keep playing third and Nomar could either depart or move to first while James Loney is shipped out in a bid to get Johan Santana. My only question here is, do the Dodgers have the payroll to go after Santana and A-Rod? And even if they do, would they really want to tie up that much in two players? By 2009 they'd probably be paying them $45 million a year. Not that that's not a great start to a team.

Cubs: 50 to 1
With all due respect to Ryan Theriot, the Cubs' shortstop position would be right there for the taking should they attempt to bring A-Rod to town. The presence of Lou Piniella is certainly a point in the Cubs' favor - and in fact it's the key one that has led the Cubs to be the #1 fill-in-the-blank for people doing the whole "talk about where A-Rod will be next year" routine in various humorous sports blogs like Deadspin - but the up-in-the-air ownership situation is a strike against this happening. It's also unclear whether a new owner would be interested in committing that kind of money to one player, especially with some of the contracts already on the books.

Red Sox: 500 to 1
While Johnny Damon felt no guilt about skipping Boston for the Yankees, I get the feeling Red Sox management knows their fanbase well enough that they wouldn't want to bring A-Rod to town at this point (hello, ball-slapping incident from the 2004 ALCS), nor would the fans want him - plus after the J.D. Drew fiasco, is another high-priced Boras client really going to be Boston's next move? A-Rod could take over third from Mike Lowell, who seems like his career rejuvenation is a product of Fenway Park and not much else, and/or would be an upgrade from the disappointing Julio Lugo (although then what do you do with him?), but the fact that the aborted A-Rod trade in the winter of 2003 led indirectly to the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series won't be lost on the Boston faithful. (By the way, remember Steinbrenner's unbelievably arrogant, douchebag remark about how John Henry hadn't done enough for Boston's fans in failing to see the A-Rod trade to completion, allowing the Yankees to swoop in and get it done? How stupid does that look now that the Sox won the World Series that same year and the Yankee fans are ready to chase A-Rod out of town after a few early exits?)

Giants: 5,000 to 1
I've heard San Francisco bandied about as one possible destination. But do you really want to follow the act that is Barry Bonds? Also, I'm unconvinced that SF could afford A-Rod and still be able to build around him, which they'd need to do since the core of the team now is ancient. And I don't see A-Rod heading for another fixer-upper. Again, Texas taught him a lesson: don't sign anywhere just for the money. With that in mind...

Yankees: OFF
The odds for this could be anywhere from 1:1 to 10,000:1. I'm not really sure. It depends on A-Rod's mindset regarding how he's been treated in New York. He's paid lip service to the idea of being committed to winning a World Series in NY, but a large portion of the media and fans there seem to have convinced themselves that A-Rod is a big playoff choker who won't ever lead New York to the glory that Jeter did. (Never mind that the far bigger problem of the last four years has been pitching - the ERA of the Yankees' staff has been over five in three of their last four playoff series - or that Jeter vanished in the '04 ALCS as well as this year's Division Series.) If you're A-Rod, do you want to stick around for that? He seems to want to be loved and I'm not sure Yankees fans are ever really going to want to accept him, even if the Yankees do win a World Series with him.

At the same time, A-Rod is surely aware of the way history will perceive a guy who played for (at least) four different teams and bounced around. Five full years in Seattle, three in Texas, four in New York... what logo would appear on his Hall of Fame cap? Staying in New York long-term would at least settle that debate, and he could keep taking shots at the playoffs. On the other hand, if he re-ups and has another bad October, it might get too stifling, even for him. And does New York even offer the best chance to win right away? With Torre gone and a pitching staff being rebuilt from the ground up, it's possible the Yankees' next serious title bid is a handful of years away. He can probably wait, but how will those years change the public perception of him?

If A-Rod opts out and leaves New York, he runs the risk of being branded with the mark of coward; another athlete dogged with the shame of failing under the country's brightest lights. But if he stays there and doesn't succeed, virtually the same thing happens. By contrast, if he goes somewhere where the pressure to win isn't quite as ludicrous, and gets over the hump there, I think people will forget about the fact that he couldn't win in New York, and assign the blame where it's really due - to that horrendous pitching staff. (The Yankees didn't finish higher than sixth in league ERA from 2004 to 2007, and that's just the regular season where it's easier to get away with it.)

Wherever A-Rod does end up, hopefully it's away from the Yankees and their fans, who don't deserve him. He's a great player who has had a handful of bad series; he's only played 39 postseason games total, less than a third the total of Derek Jeter, whose supposedly super-clutch postseason stats merely reflect his regular season statistics, which happen to be pretty good. A-Rod's postseason stats don't match his regular season stats right now, but we're talking a pretty small sample size - 39 games? That's a six-week slump, hardly unheard of. If the Yankee fans are dumb enough to run a .300/40/120 guy - and often better than those numbers - out of town because of a couple bad playoff series, they deserve to see him go off and win a title with the Mets or Angels or Dodgers. It'd only be fitting.

I do think there's a good chance A-Rod ends up back on the Yankees, though. Boras will have some idea before he tells A-Rod to opt out if there's any team that's going to pay more than $25 million a year; when there's not, Boras will work on extension talks with the Yankees, who have said they won't negotiate if Boras has A-Rod opt out of the current deal. Is there a chance someone throws 27 or 28 per year on the table? Sure. I think it's unlikely, though.

You just don't get it, do you

"Ten years ago, someone would never get fired for their blog. This is such a sign of the times."

That is because ten years ago, 15 people had blogs and Google didn't exist yet.

If you're going to use your blog to complain about your workplace in detail, including specific personal attacks on your coworkers, maybe you don't want to also have pictures of yourself on your site, you unfathomably stupid person.

In other news, Harriet Welsch feels that ten years ago, someone would never get ostracized for keeping a notebook that bad-mouthed all of their classmates, then having them find and read it.

A losing proposition

I've been a little down on Bill Simmons lately, as you may have noticed, but his "Levels of Losing" column - originally written some five years ago - remains a pretty accurate summation of the many different varieties of heartbreak sports fans can go through. He updated it the other day to include the Mets' collapse down the stretch, and it made me wonder just how many of the levels - of which there are now 16 - I'd personally experienced in a way that affected me at all. With any luck, a summation of all the ways I've been smacked around by sports over the years will provide some sort of exorcism of my demons prior to the playoffs this year - I find myself having difficulty getting as excited for the Cubs as I should, because half of me is deathly afraid that they'll find ever more creative ways to rip my heart out - but if they do win, how can I enjoy it as much if I was sitting there the whole time expecting them to lose? So maybe if I get all this down, I can relax a bit and try to actually enjoy their time in the playoffs, hopefully for the next month. So, here goes.

Level XVI: The Princeton Principle
Simmons' definition: "When a Cinderella team hangs tough against a heavy favorite, but the favorite somehow prevails in the end (like Princeton almost toppling Georgetown in the '89 NCAAs). ... This one stings because you had low expectations, but those gritty underdogs raised your hopes."
Personal memory: I don't think this has ever happened to a team I had a year-long stake in, but I've jumped on the wagons of several #16 seeds in the NCAA tournament, only to be crushed when they inevitably couldn't seal the deal. The Holy Cross team that led Kansas for much of the way in 2002 is probably the archetypal example of this.

Level XV: The Achilles' Heel
Simmons' definition: "This defeat transcends the actual game, because it revealed something larger about your team, a fatal flaw exposed for everyone to see. ... Flare guns are fired, red flags are raised, doubt seeps into your team. ... Usually the beginning of the end. (You don't fully comprehend this until you're reflecting back on it.)"
Personal memory: It's hard to argue that the Bears' Achilles' heel of Rex Grossman was only exposed in the Super Bowl last year, but after Rex's woeful second half of the season, he had a couple decent playoff games and everyone talked themselves back into his abilities. Naturally, Grossman wilted in the spotlight; while his 20-for-28, 165 yards doesn't look bad on paper, it's the two interceptions - one returned for a TD in the fourth quarter to ice the Colts' win - that really hurt. He also fumbled the ball twice, losing one, and managed to lead just a single touchdown drive.

Level XIV: The Alpha Dog
Simmons' definition: "It might have been a devastating loss, but at least you could take solace that a superior player made the difference in the end. ... Unfortunately, he wasn't playing for your team. ... You feel more helpless here than anything."
Personal memory: Simmons' key example here is Michael Jordan in the '97 and '98 Finals against Utah, though of course those were good memories for me. Going the other way, I might look at any game in the 1998 NLDS - the Cubs didn't play badly at all, but the hitters just had a very difficult time against the Smoltz-Glavine-Maddux trifecta, scoring four runs in the three games. All told, the Cubs had a .220 OBP in the series.

Level XIII: The Rabbit's Foot
Simmons' definition: "Now we're starting to get into "Outright Painful" territory. ... This applies to those frustrating games and/or series in which every single break seemingly goes against your team. ... Unbelievably frustrating."
Personal memory: The 1997 NHL playoffs second round, where the Devils were the #1 seed but lost to the fifth-seeded (and hated rival) Rangers in five games thanks to a perfect storm of bad breaks and multiple disallowed goals.

Level XII: The Sudden Death
Simmons' definition: "Is there another fan experience quite like overtime hockey, when every slap shot, breakaway and centering pass might spell doom, and losing feels 10 times worse than winning feels good (if that makes sense)?"
Personal memory: Though this was far too devastating to rank as low as Level XII (and I'll probably call it up again later), the most obvious example of this is Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, with Stephane Matteau's OT goal eliminating the Devils. I still refuse to watch or listen to coverage of the end of that game.

Level XI: Dead Man Walking
Simmons' definition: "Applies to any playoff series in which your team remains "alive," but they just suffered a loss so catastrophic and so harrowing that there's no possible way they can bounce back. ... Especially disheartening because you wave the white flag mentally, but there's a tiny part of you still holding out hope for a miraculous momentum change. ... So you've given up, but you're still getting hurt, if that makes sense."
Personal memory: Obviously, Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS (Simmons' personal selection is Game 7 of the 1986 WS, which is basically the same thing).

Level X: The Monkey Wrench
Simmons' definition: "Any situation in which either (A) the manager/coach of your team made an idiotic game decision or (B) a referee/umpire robbed your team of impending victory. ... The Monkey Wrench Game gains steam as the days and months roll along."
Personal memory: The one that bothered me the most was Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS, when Rich Garcia killed the Orioles by inexplicably allowing Derek Jeter's home run, pulled over the fence by noted piece of shit Jeffrey Maier. This only intensified for me the next day as the local papers effectively gloated over the Yankees having gotten away with one, including the headline so annoying I still remember it word-for-word, "Kid who saved Yanks is toast of Old Tappan." Fuck everyone in Old Tappan. The two red cards in the U.S.-Italy game in the 2006 World Cup qualify for a mention here as well, although since the U.S. didn't actually lose that game, it's an imperfect example.

Level IX: The Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking
Simmons' definition: "Sometimes you can tell right away when it isn't your team's day. ... And that's the worst part, not just the epiphany but everything that follows -- every botched play; every turnover; every instance where someone on your team quits; every "deer in the headlights" look; every time an announcer says, "They can't get anything going"; every shot of the opponents celebrating; every time you look at the score and think to yourself, "Well, if we score here and force a turnover, maybe we'll get some momentum," but you know it's not going to happen, because you're already 30 points down. ... You just want it to end, and it won't end."
Personal memory: The 2000 Alamo Bowl - won by Nebraska over Northwestern 66-17, setting a record for points scored by a winning team in a bowl - comes to mind. This one was all the worse because I was in San Antonio for the game, meaning I didn't have the option of just turning the TV off. And although butt-kickings are a little less dramatic when 3-0 is a huge blowout, the Czechs' 3-0 win over the U.S. to open the 2006 World Cup deserves a mention.

Level VIII: The "This Can't Be Happening"
Simmons' definition: "The sibling of the Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking. ... You're supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. ... Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, "Oh, my God, this can't be happening.""
Personal memory: The game in 2000 where Northwestern went to Iowa fresh off the dramatic win over Michigan and stumbled to a 27-17 loss that cost us the Rose Bowl (and landed us in the Nebraska ass-kicking of the Alamo). The 3-1 United States loss to Poland in the 2002 World Cup rates up there as well.

Level VII: The Drive-By Shooting
Simmons' definition: "A first cousin of The "This Can't Be Happening" Game, we created this one four weeks ago to describe any college football upset in which a 30-point underdog shocks a top-5 team in front of 108,000 of its fans and kills its title hopes before Labor Day."
Personal memory: Simmons states that this can only happen in college football, and from an American standpoint he's right. But this definition applies pretty well to Cup games in soccer (particularly in the large European leagues), where a tiny team from the lower divisions can rise up and knock off a Premiership side - which from a scale perspective is really much more impressive than Michigan losing to the D-I-AA champion. Manchester City's losses to Doncaster in 2005 and Chesterfield in 2006 in early rounds of the Carling Cup are both games that absolutely killed me.

Level VI: The Broken Axle
Simmons' definition: "When the wheels come flying off in a big game, leading to a complete collapse down the stretch. ... This one works best for basketball, like Game 3 of the Celtics-Nets series in 2002, or Game 7 of the Blazers-Lakers series in 2000."
Personal memory: In games 3 and 6 of the 2007 Eastern Conference semifinals, the Bulls took significant halftime leads only to fall apart under Detroit's second-half runs. If not for those two games, the Bulls might have made the Finals.

Level V: The Role Reversal
Simmons' definition: "Any rivalry in which one team dominated another team for an extended period of time, then the perennial loser improbably turned the tables."
Personal memory: Not sure I have one here. I think this was created almost exclusively for the 2004 ALCS and the 2007 AFC title game. The best I can do from a losing standpoint is probably the Bulls after the dynasty split up, where they were trying to rebuild with Tim Floyd coaching and they were just awful every year, leading to every team in the league stomping all over them, probably with some delight after the Jordan-led Bulls had lost a total of 43 games in the previous three seasons. There isn't a single game you can peg this one to, of course. If Mexico ever wins on American soil in soccer again, that would qualify.

Level IV: The Guillotine
Simmons' definition: "This one combines the devastation of The Broken Axle Game with sweeping bitterness and hostility. ... Your team's hanging tough (hell, they might even be winning), but you can feel the inevitable breakdown coming, and you keep waiting for the guillotine to drop, and you just know it's coming -- you know it -- and when it finally comes, you're angry that it happened and you're angry at yourself for contributing to the debilitating karma."
Personal memory: The U.S.'s game against Ghana in the 2006 World Cup.

Level III: The Stomach Punch
Simmons' definition: "Now we've moved into rarefied territory, any roller-coaster game that ends with (A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play or (B) one of your guys failing in the clutch. ... Usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all. ... Always haunting, sometimes scarring."
Personal memory: Beyond any doubt, Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS fits this to a T. The Man City loss to Doncaster - which went to penalties, leading to the Doncaster substitute keeper saving everything that came at him - is a less painful but not much less appropriate example.

Level II: The Goose/Maverick Tailspin
Simmons' definition: "Cruising happily through the baseball regular season, a potential playoff team suddenly and inexplicably goes into a tailspin, can't bounce out of it and ends up crashing for the season. ... [It] could last for two weeks, four weeks, maybe even two months, but as long as it's happening, you feel like your entire world is collapsing. It's like an ongoing Stomach Punch Game."
Personal memory: Obviously this one is also pretty narrow. I've been fortunate enough to avoid this level of collapse - although the Cubs' closing 1-5 stretch to blow the wild card in 2004 was kind of a mini-version of this - but just talk Cubs baseball with my dad for a while to get a sense of how this kind of thing (from 1969) can render someone permanently bitter.

Level I: That Game
Simmons' definition: "Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. ... One of a kind. ... Given the circumstances and the history involved here, maybe the most catastrophic sports loss of our lifetime."
Personal memory: Obviously Simmons is biased on this one, since he intended Level I to be reserved exclusively for that particular game. Needless to say, Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS is maybe half a rung behind Game 6 of the '86 WS on the ladder, and only because it happened a round earlier. If the Cubs had blown a game like that five outs shy of their first World Series title in 95 years - not 68, Red Sox fans, 95 - it would have been even more devastating than it already was, which was pretty devastating - so devastating, in fact, that I think it would actually have passed Game 6 of the '86 World Series for sheer heartbreak.