Oh the humanity! - More woe in the world of sports.

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen in politics or sport is to be the pre-ordained winner. It happened to Thomas Dewey in 1948, to my beloved 2007 New York Mets and now to the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team of 2007 who were eliminated from the Rugby World Cup in a quarterfinals match Sunday against France 20-18. The word everywhere in the rugby world was that this was going to be their year for winning the cup. Not being sufficiently rugby wise I accepted this as gospel and that victory would be a sure thing. Now Monday has been a day of much wailing and gnashing teeth. There is a lot of anger at Coach Graham Henry and calls for his sacking. Threats have been posted on websites calling for the head of the English referee for missing a forward pass (not allowed in rugby) by the French team that resulted in their scoring a critical try (like a touchdown – but 4 points). New Zealand has invested much of its national pride in the All Blacks. 1905, the year the team went on a northern hemisphere tour and lost only to Wales is considered a year of historical note in Michael King’s, History of New Zealand and this is also mentioned in official immigration guides on life in New Zealand. New Zealand last won the cup in 1989 and apparently has had victory snatched from them by Australia and the U.K. in World Cups since then. Those prior cup defeats constitute serious choking in the media and despite the build up of this year’s team there was much discussion of the ABs being lost in the wilderness all these past years. One sportswriter here in the New Zealand Dominion Post newspaper was sufficiently knowledgeable of American baseball and wrote a few weeks ago of the 86 year "curse of the Bambino" that afflicted the Boston Red Sox until 2004 and he mentioned a celebrated ailing Bosox fan who held on to life just until Boston defeated St. Louis to win the Series for the first time since 1918. Probably a better example would have been the Chicago Cubs who were swept in their series this past weekend with the Arizona Diamondbacks and failed to advance to the National League Championship series. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the last time the benighted Cubs won the World Series. Kind of keeps the All Black’s World Cup losing streak in perspective.