With the Reds postseason ended and people talking about the negatives of this series, I mentioned that I didn't feel as if losing the series this year was all that bad. Our young players got a taste of the postseason and it will IMO make them even hungrier next season.
Which leads me to this, which is the most painful loss you've ever watched?
Mine happened as recently as this past year. The Kentucky-West Virginia game in the Elite Eight.
Two reasons:
1. Living in Parkersburg, having to listen to the WVU fans crow about beating Kentucky only added salt to the wound. In addition, my girlfriend who is a WVU fan (sister goes to Morgantown) watched the game with me that night. Not a pleasant experience.
2. Watching how close the players were and how special this team was, that it ended prematurely. John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins won over the Kentucky fans in just a short period of time and once the game was over, we knew it was the last time we would ever see a special group of talented players.
In a way this loss was similar to the Reds, but different. Similar in that you knew the Reds (and UK) were back in the national spotlight. Different though in that the core pieces of UK's team was gone while the Reds will still field the same team roughly next season.
I don't include the Christian Laettner shot because I wasn't old enough at the time.
Second on my list would be 1999 and the one game playoff with the Mets. Two things stood out to me. One was Sean Casey breaking his bat after striking out in the 9th inning and the other being Rickey Henderson heckling the fans in the OF during the game. I've never wanted to see a player get hit with an object until I saw that. Definitely moved the Mets up the list of teams I cheered against for some time.