Pittsburgh is the most stupidly tortured sports city in my lifetime. Or at least since I've been as into sports as I am today. I really started to love sports when the Pens won their 2 Stanley cups in the early 90's; I was 11-ish at the time. Since then my teams have come close, but they always find a way to lose in the most retarded way possible. Well, maybe I shouldn't say retarded, that may be offensive. In the gayest way possible. These are in no particular order by the way.

In 1994 the Steelers had their best team since the 70's. There was no way they weren't going to the Super Bowl, they especially weren't losing to the friggin' San Diego Chargers. Then some nobody tight end who never did anything again in his life, Alfred Pupunu, catches 2 deep touchdown passes and the Chargers beat the Steelers 17-13. San Diego was nice enough to not even show up for the Super Bowl that year. The last play of the game, where a Neil O'Donnell pass to Barry Foster gets batted down while Eric Green needs to be zipped up (Cuz he was so open you see, yeah that was stupid I know), will always be the saddest moment of my sporting fan life.

Okay, second saddest. I already talked about this game in an earlier blog, Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS, Pirates vs. Braves. But I reiterate how the main players in that win for the Braves were semi-nobody Sid Bream and definite nobody Francisco Cabrera. Since then the Pirates have figured every possible way to lose outside of being on the cover of SI. The Braves lost the World Series that year to the Blue Jays four games to two.

In an earlier blog I talked about how the 1992-93 Penguins are probably the best team in any sport not to win a championship. Again there are two prominent nobodies that caused the Penguins to lose. Glen Healey played the series of his, and Patrick Roy's, life against the Penguins and pretty much won the series himself. And the game winning goal in overtime was scored by David Volek, who was so obscure his mother had to be told after the game that he was actually playing in the NHL. The Islanders got blown away by the Canadiens in the very next series. Are you sensing a trend here?

In 1995 the Steelers actually made it to the Super Bowl, only to have Larry Brown be named the MVP of the game for Dallas. No, not "I've coached 75 teams" Larry Brown, but it may as well have been.

Also in 1995 the Penguins had a team that statistically was every bit as good as the 93 team. They lost in the conference that year to the beyond worthless Florida Panthers franchise in the "Year of the Rat". Remember that? I know, I didn't either. The clinching goal was scored by Tom Fitzgerald, or Tim Fitzsimmons, or some such guy, from 75 feet away. They promptly got blown out by the Avalanche in the Stanley Cup finals

The last one that sticks in my craw is the 2001 AFC championship game against the Patriots, although for slightly different reasons. There's pretty much no doubt who the more talented team was and who should have won. Hell, the Patriots shouldn't have even been playing in the game, but that's another story. The Pats scored two special teams touchdowns, both involving nobody-up-to-that-point Troy Brown, but that wasn't the worst part of it. Drew Bledsoe, in probably the only good thing he ever did for the Pats, led a touchdown drive for the only offensive touchdown they'd score all game. Keep in mind that Tom Brady was having by far his worst playoff game, even to this day. The only time that it was good to lose Tom Brady in favor of Drew Bledsoe happened to the Steelers that day. Wrap your head around that one. But at least the Pats were good enough to win the Super Bowl.

Yeah Cleveland is pretty tortured, but at least they can say "Well we lost to Elway  Jordan, and Maddox (okay bad example) in their primes" We here in Pittsburgh have to go with "Um, yeah Francisco Cabrera, David Volek, and Larry Brown beat us.......... *cough*"