![“YOU BUCKNERED ME!” Yari shouts at Larry after he — you guessed it — misplays a gently-approaching grounder. “YOU [EXPLETIVE] BUCKNERED IT! WHY IS BUCKNER ON MY TEAM?” The epithets were scripted, but that recent episode of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm hinged on the kind of history you wished came from an HBO writer’s meeting.
It’s never good when your last name becomes an action verb. It’s even worse when it might eventually get Roget-ed into a synonym for failure. Because of one ill-fated Saturday night in 1986, Bill Buckner’s entire career has been abridged to a single play, that “little roller up along first” that somehow evaded every stitch of his outstretched glove. What could he do afterwards except drop his slender shoulders and watch, as the ball taunted his ruined ankles and slowly rolled into the collective psyche of an entire generation of Series-starved New Englanders?
This week for NBC Sports, we talk scapegoats, from Billy Buck to Steve Bartman to Ralph Branca. I wonder why a certain Yankees reliever didn’t endure an offseason of misery after he carded a Game 7 Series loss and throw down some ground rules before we christen the Next Great American Goat.
Click HERE for the rest.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsnu8thOQW1qzvotao1_1280.png)
“YOU BUCKNERED ME!” Yari shouts at Larry after he — you guessed it — misplays a gently-approaching grounder. “YOU [EXPLETIVE] BUCKNERED IT! WHY IS BUCKNER ON MY TEAM?” The epithets were scripted, but that recent episode of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm hinged on the kind of history you wished came from an HBO writer’s meeting.
It’s never good when your last name becomes an action verb. It’s even worse when it might eventually get Roget-ed into a synonym for failure. Because of one ill-fated Saturday night in 1986, Bill Buckner’s entire career has been abridged to a single play, that “little roller up along first” that somehow evaded every stitch of his outstretched glove. What could he do afterwards except drop his slender shoulders and watch, as the ball taunted his ruined ankles and slowly rolled into the collective psyche of an entire generation of Series-starved New Englanders?
This week for NBC Sports, we talk scapegoats, from Billy Buck to Steve Bartman to Ralph Branca. I wonder why a certain Yankees reliever didn’t endure an offseason of misery after he carded a Game 7 Series loss and throw down some ground rules before we christen the Next Great American Goat.
Click HERE for the rest.
