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.