It was Richard Johnson for sure. Just nothing a defender can do in that position, no man's land. Play back for the pass, player runs for big yards. Play up for the run, player tosses it over your head for big yards. Its like the football version of a 3-on-1 fast break. The play call and circumstance against that D just favored the offense. He happened to make the worser of the choices there. In truth he should have had help on that play.
I can't seem to find anything that says this ever happened, but I thought I remember the Astros needing to win one game to get a wild card around 1995 and the last game of the season they were down by one run and Luis Gonzales fouled off what seemed like 30 pitches before finally striking out. I looked on baseball reference and it says the won the last two games of the 95 season so no idea where that memory came from.
Gonzo had been traded earlier that year to the Cubs and it so happened that we were down 1 game going into a four game series with the Cubbies at Wrigley. A truly epic series as every game came down to the final at bat. We lost the first two and I think you're thinking about Game 2 where Gonzo won that game in extra innings for the Cubs after a long at bat. We came back and won the last two but so did the Rockies so we came up 1 game short. Fustrating parts of that series is we had leads going into the Cubs final at bat each game and blew the first two and the Giants got up 8-2 on the Rockies the last game of the year and we feel down 6-1 but we came back and won yet the Rockies did the same.
Ah ok, that would explain why I couldn't find Gonzo in the box score (I was only looking at the Astros side). Maybe Gonzales did strike out to end that last game then, but it was with the Cubs. No idea how that got jumbled in my mind, lol.
Game 6 of the 86 NLCS was definitely a tough one, but so was Game 3. Another 9th inning meltdown by Dave Smith. I can also remember losing Game 5 of the NLCS in 1980 and taking one of my model airplanes out into the street and smashing it with a hammer. That the first time in my sports-watching life that I was really invested in a team that lost a tough one.
