Ten moments when Kansas City sports broke our hearts (grab the Advil for this one)
Last week, The Star published a compilation of the top 25 plays and moments in Kansas City sports history. From our top choice — the Chiefs’ first touchdown in Super Bowl IV, on a play famously dubbed “65 Toss Power Trap” — to No. 25, each provided an overwhelmingly positive outcome for area teams and fans.
Home runs, touchdowns, big shots in basketball, Tom Watson’s chip to win a U.S. Open ... these were the sports moments most widely celebrated in Kansas City.
We stayed away from the flip side of the coin last week, but KC sports have seen plenty of heartache, too. A bad pitch, unfortunate bounce, poor decision or simple misfortune, we’ve also felt our share of pain.
Here, together, let’s face those demons.
These moments, selected with the help of several longtime Kansas City sports observers, aren’t getting equal time: This list is 10 as opposed to 25. And compiling them actually reminded us how good we’ve had it recently, with a Super Bowl championship, World Series title and MLS crown won by KC teams in just the past seven years.
Perhaps the memories of those moments will soften the blow as we recall some brutal daggers.
In order of worst to first, here we go.
1. The Lin Elliott Game
The Chiefs entered the AFC Playoffs as the top seed for the first time, and expectations soared. They were an eight-point favorite as quarterbacks Steve Bono and Indianapolis’ Jim Harbaugh squared off Jan. 7, 1996.
But this game came down to a kicker.
In a 10-7 Colts victory, the Chiefs’ Lin Elliott missed a 35-yard field goal just before halftime, a 39-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter and a pulled 42-yarder off the frozen turf on KC’s final snap. Some other Chiefs, especially on offense, didn’t step up, either — Bono was benched for Rich Gannon, for instance.
But there’s a reason this is called The Lin Elliott Game, and it gets the vote here as the most painful loss in our city’s history.
“I feel sorry for everybody in this organization,” Elliott said after the game that day. “I tried. Maybe I’m not good enough, but I tried.”
2. Royals heartbreak
Best team in Royals history? Maybe their 1977 squad. They finished with the best regular-season record in baseball (102-60) and were driven by the motivation of the previous year’s heartbreak exit against the Yankees. But more on Chris Chambliss later.
As the fifth and deciding game of the American League Championship Series at Kauffman Stadium reached the ninth inning on Oct. 9, 1977, the Royals were ready to party. They were leading New York 3-2 when starter Dennis Leonard was summoned to open the final frame. But the Yankees were ready, too, scoring three runs off three KC pitchers.
The image of Freddie Patek sitting in the dugout, head down, said it all.
3. More Chiefs sorrow
A game’s narrative is constructed bit by bit, play by play. Time and circumstance magnify the moments.
Jan Stenerud didn’t lose the Chiefs’ Dec, 25, 1971 NFL playoff game against the Miami Dolphins by missing a 31-yard field goal with 35 seconds in regulation. But he could’ve won it. And in a 2011 NFL Films broadcast, Stenerud said that, with a good snap and hold, he would have made that kick 49 out of 50 times.
The first home playoff game in Chiefs history, the final game played at Municipal Stadium before the Chiefs moved to Arrowhead, the longest game in NFL history (still) at 82 minutes, 40 seconds … it all conspired to spell the end of a glorious Chiefs era with a 27-24 overtime loss.
4. Luck of(f) the bounce
When the Chiefs overcame a 24-point playoff deficit to beat Houston Texas in January, we wondered about the greatest NFL playoff deficits ever overcome. That Chiefs-Texans outcome ranked fourth.
The Chiefs also make an appearance at No. 2 on that list, but not in a good way.
Andy Reid’s first Chiefs team led the Colts by 28 points in the third quarter at Indianapolis on Jan. 4, 2014. But back roared Indy. One of the Colts’ touchdowns came when Chiefs safety Eric Berry laid a perfect lick on Donald Thomas near the goal line, knocking loose the ball. But Colts QB Andrew Luck recovered and dove into the end zone, and Indy went on to win 45-44.
Similar karma struck the Chiefs in the 2017 playoffs when Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota caught his own deflected pass and ran in for a score as Tennessee overcame a 21-3 halftime deficit to prevail 22-21.
5. The Fifth Down Game
Can you imagine if Twitter had been around for Colorado’s 33-31 win over Missouri on Oct. 6, 1990? Thousands would’ve noticed the Buffaloes had been granted an extra down and the game would’ve been halted, right?
What happened instead will forever haunt Tigers Nation. After CU quarterback Charles Johnson was stopped short of the goal line on the game’s final play, joyous MU fans rushed Faurot Field to tear down a goalpost in celebration of the Tigers’ second straight victory over a ranked team ... only to watch in horror as officials erroneously awarded the Buffs another crack at the end zone. Colorado scored to win on a fifth down.
Colorado would go on to win seven straight and claim a share of the national title. Mizzou would finish 4-7. The argument about whether that outcome is legit lives on today between Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, then an MU assistant, and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, a CU running back at the time.
The Tigers have had their share of forehead-slapping finishes. High on the heartache scale is UCLA’s Tyus Edney covering the length of the floor in the final 4.8 seconds to top Mizzou in the 1995 NCAA Tournament, and MU’s “Flea-Kicker” home football loss to Nebraska in 1997 — a kicked ball in the end zone resulted in a Huskers TD that sent the game to overtime.
6. The Farokhmanesh dagger vs. KU
Kansas, the overall favorite in the 2010 NCAA Tournament, had struggled all day in the Jayhawks’ second-round game against Northern Iowa on March 20, 2010. Then KU cut the deficit to one, and a defensive stop would give the Jayhawks the ball with a chance to do no worse than tie.
Not only did KU not get the stop, Northern Iowa’s Ali Farokhmanesh buried a three early in the shot clock ... and down went the Jayhawks, 69-67.
Taking the bad with the good, tourney heartbreak is no stranger to Kansas, one of college basketball’s blueblood programs. But losses to the likes of UTEP (1992), Rhode Island (1998) and VCU (2011) didn’t come with a shot that remains staple on highlight reels of March Madness upsets.
7. K-State fumbles it away
Few gut-punching defeats could sting as much as Kansas State’s 36-33 overtime loss to Texas A&M in the Dec. 5, 1998 Big 12 title game.
The Wildcats, 17-point favorites that day, arrived with an 11-0 record and No. 1 ranking in the coaches’ poll. A victory would send them to the first BCS Championship Game.
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But as the Cats were protecting an eight-point lead with three minutes to go, star KSU quarterback Michael Bishop lost a fumble. The Aggies pulled even, Bishop’s Hail Mary on the final snap came up one yard short and A&M won the game on Sirr Parker TD reception on third and 17.
8. Chambliss walks off Royals
The Royals’ first playoff experience went to the ninth inning. They were tied 6-6 on Oct. 14, 1976 thanks to George Brett’s three-run homer in the eighth.
But on the first pitch of the final frame, thrown by KC’s Mark Littell after a delay called so stadium officials could clear fan-thrown debris from the Yankee Stadium turf, Chambliss homered off the right-center wall. The crowd engulfed him and he didn’t touch home plate after touring the bases.
The Royals went on to drop two more championship series (see above, 1977) to the Yanks before turning the tables in 1980.
9. ‘Would have been a helluva story’
KC golf legend Tom Watson took the sports world on a wonderful ride during the 2009 British Open. At 59, he needed only to par the final hole at Turnberry to become the oldest man in history to win a major.
But his approach on No. 18 went off the back of the green. Watson, bidding for this sixth British Open title and ninth major, settled for bogey and lost a four-hole playoff to Stewart Cink.
“This ain’t a funeral, you know,” Watson said later. “(But) it would have been a helluva story, wouldn’t it?”
10. MLS knockout
Rarely before had Kansas City been this stoked for a soccer game.
Patrick Mahomes led a Chiefs delegation to Children’s Mercy Park for Major League Soccer’s Western Conference final. Sporting KC was the top seed and took a 1-0 lead into halftime against the fifth-seeded Portland Timbers.
But a second-half meltdown left Sporting, which was making its deepest playoff push since winning the MLS Cup championship here five years prior, on the wrong side of a 3-2 outcome.
“It will take a while to get over this,” captain Matt Besler said.
Pete Grathoff contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 12:37 PM.