Great WIs in sports.

[Dave]

I love sports. Any way to test yourself, or others, allows for camaraderie. In the past, sport related posts have languished, so I will make this an open discussion. Any moment, any sport. I can make some suggestions.

BOXING:

A young Cassius Clay never has his bicycle stolen, and never starts down the path of a professional fighter. Joe Frazier reigns supreme.

Joe Louis loses the much hyped rematch with Max Schmealing, giving Nazi Germany a propaganda victory, and denying Black Americans a hero.

Do Kou Kim survives the battle with Ray Mancini, which allows the 15 round format to survive.

Major League Baseball:

The sport never becomes huge in Japan.

Jackie Robinson is signed by the Red Sox in 1945, instead of being thrown off the field.

The ball doesn't get by Buckner in '86.

Gridiron Football:

Gale Sayers signs with Kansas City in 1965, leading to the Chiefs winning Superbowl I.

1983 John Elway signs with the Colts.

1983 KC drafts Dan Marino, QB, instead of Todd Blackledge, QB.

1990 Joe Montana elbow not injured, leading to a third and a fourth straight title for the 49er.

Association Football (Soccer)

Pele invests wisely.

David Beckham not marketed to America as the Football equivalent of Jesus H. Christ.

Hockey:

The NHL never outpaces its fangrowth.

No Miracle on Ice 1980.

No Miracle on Ice 1960.

Olympics:

USA does not boycott 1980.

USSR does not boycott 1984.

Jessie Owens tells Hitler "Kiss my Black ass."

[Some Guy From Mars]

BOXING
What If Sugar Ray Leonard was not forced to retire in the early eighties as a result of an eye injury?

NFL
What If Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier did not miss the 1976 AFC Championship game against Oakland due to injuries?

NBA
What If Lakers guards Magic Johnson and Byron Scott did not suffer injuries in the 1989 NBA finals against Detroit?

[mattep74]

Originally Posted by Dave

Olympics:

USA does not boycott 1980.

USSR does not boycott 1984.

There is a great chance that without the boycott in 1980 more cities would have wanted to host the 84 olympics than just LA.

No boycott in these olympics means less medals for Sweden

[MasterCye]

Originally Posted by mattep74

There is a great chance that without the boycott in 1980 more cities would have wanted to host the 84 olympics than just LA.

Sorry, LA had already been chosen to host the games before the boycott in 1980(was awarded the games in 1978).

The reason only LA bid on the games was because of the cost overruns of the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

[Simon Darkshade]

Cricket

Colin Milburn never loses his eye and goes on to a more extended first class career and plays more Tests for England.

Mike Atherton doesn't declare with Graeme Hick on 98 not out at the SCG Test in 94/95.

Aussie Rules Football

John Coleman doesn't injure his knee causing his career to end.

Gary Ablett not played in the reserves in Round 1 1997.

Tony Modra not cut by the Crows in 1998.

The boundary umpire rules that Wayne Harmes was out of bounds when knocking the ball towards Ken Sheldon in the 1979 VFL Grand Final.

[Will Ritson]

RUGBY LEAGUE

The Welsh rugby union clubs switch en-masse to rugby league in 1897 (OTL the English rugby union turned a blind eye to professionalism in Wales)

The puppet Vichy government doesn't ban rugby league in France in 1941 (OTL rugby league was on verge of becoming dominant code in 1930s France. Under the Vichy regime the French rugby union collaborated with the Petain government to outlaw rugby league)

Future WI: England win the 2008 Rugby League World Cup (or is that ASB?)

[kingdobbs]

Originally Posted by Dave

IThe ball doesn't get by Buckner in '86.

The Red Sox fandom gets their sweet relief eighteen years earlier.

Buckner still gets released in '87, plays for the next few years, and retires in 1990, now a real estate developer in Eastern Massachusetts and also owning an auto dealership in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The revelation that Buckner was wearing a Chicago Cubs-branded batting glove underneath his fielding glove never comes to light, and the Cubs curse continues unabated.

In the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, Dave Roberts is caught stealing second base for the first out of the inning. An attempted Red Sox rally is broken, and the Yankees sweep the Red Sox out of the ALCS, and go on to sweep the NL Cardinals for their 27th title.

In the 2007 ALCS, the infamous "Butterfly Game" occurs in a tight game 7 between the Red Sox and Yankees. Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain is distracted by an unusually large infestation of moths (though, at the time, the announcer incorrectly referred to the mass of insects as butterflies) at Fenway, and gives up the vital winning run to the Red Sox, who go on to win the World Series, sweeping the Rockies 4-0.

No Miracle on Ice 1980.

The Soviets handily win the 1980 gold medal with an undefeated run in the medal round. The Soviet dominance of Olympic hockey continues through the 1992 Olympics, in which the Unified Team takes the gold; the 1994 games in Lillehammer feature a weaker Russian team that advances to the medal round but places 4th, ending Russian dominance of international hockey.

Despite the loss, the US still had a chance to medal if they defeated Finland; the 4-2 victory over the Finns gives the US the silver medal.

Coach Herb Brooks still involves himself heavily in US ice hockey, and returns to coaching in 1986, leading the St. Cloud State University Huskies through their Division I transition. Brooks takes the 2000-01 Huskies to their first and only national title, defeating Michigan, Boston College and North Dakota along the way, and retires at the end of the season, passing the reins on to his long-time assistant Craig Dahl. In 2003, when Brooks died in a car accident, the National Hockey Center where the Huskies played was renamed the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

The defeat by the Huskies continues Boston College's own "title curse", now going on to its sixtieth year, though not for lack of trying by the Eagles, who advanced to the national finals in 2006, 2007 and 2008, defeated respectively by Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Notre Dame.

[Ironballs]

Some football ones for you.

Yugoslavian civil war is delayed so no Denmark in Euro 1992.

Spain doesn't boycott their Euro 1960 tie against the USSR.

No hand of God.

Maradona never uses drugs.

[Marius]

Cricket:

WI Mark Waugh had been given out in the Third Test against SA at Adelaide in 1998. Would SA have won the Test and drawn the series?

WI Shane Warne wasn't such a horny b*stard, and could keep his knob in his pants? Would he have become Australia's captain?

WI Allan Donald had heard Lance Klusener's call in the World Cup semi-final in Birmingham in 1999? South Africa would have won the game, but would they have annihilated Pakistan in the final as thoroughly as Australia did?

[Grey Wolf]

Roses And Thorns is now addressing the rosy and thorny issue of alternate venues for Olympic Games in a long-running timeline

We've got Istanbul 1960, and Cairo 1968 in the mix

On a related note, why has New York never hosted a Games ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Milarqui]

In the Euro 1984 final, Arconada stops Platini's shot and eventually Spain wins (in OTL, the ball slipped under Arconada and the goal ended up being the 1-0 in the match).

In the Euro 2000, Raúl scores the penalty kick in the last minute against France and eventually Spain wins.

In the 1994 USA World Cup quarter-final match Italy-Spain, Sandor Puhl isn't blind and concedes Spain a penalty kick after Tasotti elbows Luis Enrique in the nose, making him bleed. Spain goes on to semifinals after winning.

In the 1934 Italy World Cup, Louis Baert annuls Italy's goal which was scored by the Italian team after a hard foul on Ricardo Zamora. Spain wins and win against Czechoslovakia in the final (in OTL, Louis Baert felt pressured by the public and ruled the goal as legal even though it was obvious that the Italians had fouled Zamora, leaving him badly injured. The replay match was then won by the Italians).

In the 2002 South Korea-Japan, the FIFA doesn't put the Egyptian Ghandour as the referee for the quarter-finals match between Spain and South Korea. The match will play more or less as in OTL, but in the extra time the goals Spain scored and Ghandour unjustly annulled are ruled legal and Spain reaches the semifinals.

[Count Dearborn]

The Dodgers never leave Brooklyn.

A Cuban, named Castro, makes it big in baseball.

[SunilTanna]

Scotlands win the Home International Championship and goes to the 1950 World Cup (they came 2nd, qualified for the world cu,p but didn't attend)

Keegan scores against Spain, 1982

Maradona sent off for handball, 1986 Quarter Final against England

1970 If Gordon Banks had played...

1978 "Scotland _ARE_ the greatest football team"

1990 Seaman saves... England win the penalty shoot out

1993 (?) England beat Holland, and qualify for world cup

1996 Seaman saves... England win the penalty shoot out

1998 Beckham not sent off, or Gascoigne not drunk

2006 Michael Owen not injured

[fastmongrel]

What if Ben Cohens toe hadnt touched a white painted blade of grass in the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final. The try would have been given and England who had the best of the play at the time might have gone on to win the cup. It wasnt given and South Africa rightly won.

If England had won it would have been the most amazing turnaround of a team in a world tournament. At the start of the tournament England were a disaster struggling to beat the college boy US Eagles, arguing amongst themselves and having the captain banned for foul play.

[Ironballs]

One I can't believe I didn't think of earlier - No Munich air disaster

[jeff]

BASEBALL:

2003 NLCS: What if Steve f***ing Bartman had kept his damn hands to himself. The Cubs win the game and go on to defeat the Yankees in the World Series 4 games to 2.

[larpsidekick]

Originally Posted by fastmongrel

What if Ben Cohens toe hadnt touched a white painted blade of grass in the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final. The try would have been given and England who had the best of the play at the time might have gone on to win the cup. It wasnt given and South Africa rightly won.

If England had won it would have been the most amazing turnaround of a team in a world tournament. At the start of the tournament England were a disaster struggling to beat the college boy US Eagles, arguing amongst themselves and having the captain banned for foul play.

Mark Cueto - Cohen was 2003. Or England could of had some kind of support runners when Tait made his great break. Not that I'm bitter .

In that vein, WI Ben Kay hadn't dropped the ball with the try line gaping in 2003 - would Jonny (oh Jonny, our hero, etc etc ad nauseum) still be the super hero of English Rugby? Would England have won more without the stupid obsession over his various injuries?

Motor Racing

Schumachers hit and run job on Hill is justly punished, making Damon a two time world champeen. What does it do for the repuation of ol' square jaw?

[Tom Veil]

Originally Posted by Dave

1983 John Elway signs with the Colts.

My favorite of the bunch. I was already boggling over the complex implications that this would have on the next 25 years of NFL games when it hit me ... this means that the Colts stay in Baltimore! Baltimore traded Elway specifically because Elway refused to sign with the Colts -- and he refused because the Colts were well known to have no plan for solving the franchise's mediocracy. When Elway got traded, management realized that they had run out of options and packed up for Indy.

So let's assume that the Colts instead present a plan to financial solvency and long-term competitiveness, anchored by the then-innovative idea of building a new stadium in the Inner Harbor. The stadium opens its doors in 1987, and it's almost a disaster as the NFL players go on strike. When the regulars return, though, Elway leads the Colts to the playoffs. After a first-round win over the wild card Broncos (with only a few insiders who knew about the cancelled trade catching the irony) the Colts lose to the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl and spark a long-dormant rivalry between the neighboring cities.

Indianapolis, meanwhile, maybe never gets an NFL team. Indianapolis was already an odd choice in 1984. Phoenix was already a larger market, and when the Cardinals move in 1988, it had only gotten larger while Indy flatlined. In 1994 anbd 1995, when the LA exodus and NFL expansion happen, Indy is no longer one of the 30 largest metro areas. Clearly, both St. Louis and the Bay Area minus San Francisco are roughly twice as big. What's less clear is whether the other expansion candidates -- Charlotte, Nashville/Memphis, and Jacksonville -- are all better options than Indy. I think Indy probably loses out, but that guess could be wrong -- Indy's population resurgence was happening around then, and Indy is a bit larger than the competitors, although they'll take a huge hit for being seen as being in the "territory" of Chicago and/or Cincy. For sheer amusement value, I'd like to see Indy beat out Jacksonville, so that one could make the bizarre assertion that John Elway cost Jacksonville its franchise.

[fastmongrel]

Originally Posted by larpsidekick

Mark Cueto - Cohen was 2003. Or England could of had some kind of support runners when Tait made his great break. Not that I'm bitter .

In that vein, WI Ben Kay hadn't dropped the ball with the try line gaping in 2003 - would Jonny (oh Jonny, our hero, etc etc ad nauseum) still be the super hero of English Rugby? Would England have won more without the stupid obsession over his various injuries?

Motor Racing

Schumachers hit and run job on Hill is justly punished, making Damon a two time world champeen. What does it do for the repuation of ol' square jaw?

OOOPS sorry meant Cueto before it was edited down to size my post went on for several paragraphs about selection policy and I got my Cohens and Cuetos mixed up. If only Josh Lewsey hadnt been injured I still think he would have scored as for Tait and the England selectors dont get me started or it could go on for a long time

How about the Grand national that never was won by Esha Ness I still have my betting slip for that race

[1940LaSalle]

1948: either Denny Galehouse doesn't get the surprise start, or does significantly better than he did in OTL, and the Red Sox win the single game playoff against Cleveland, setting up the one and only all-Boston World Series.

1968: Johnny Unitas stays healthy all season, leading the Colts against the Jets in the Super Bowl.

1980: Leon Stickle gets his head out of his ass for once in his sorry life and makes the offsides call he blew by twelve feet or more, washing out a key Islanders goal.

1988: an arbiter for the NHL awards Eric Lindros to the New York Rangers, allowing the Philadelphia Flyers to keep Peter Forsberg.