So it appears we’ve got some jolly ole’ “Top #” lists going on over here. As Dolan mentions, nice way to fill up space. We here at HJE have been hard at work in matching Al’s noble cause by providing what we feel is a noble cause of our own. Part of being a Cub fan is suffering through the humiliation of consistent and embarrasing failure. And don’t the professionals say that talking about your pain helps you cope with the it? No? Well to hell with it. We’re still rolling out our own lists this offseason anyways, the first one being this one here, when our favorite relief pitchers continued to swipe defeat from the jaws of victory. Thanks in advance to many Sons of Jim Essian who Shoutboxed some ideas. So, without further ado…

That Dave Smith. Boy that guy was something else, wasn’t he? Part of the evidence used against Jim Frey in getting rid of Frey as General Manager at the conclusion of the 1991 season was the wheelbarrow of money that Frey gave to the over-the-hill Smith to pitch in 1991. Smith pitched, all right. Just not well. At all. Cub fans will remember Smith’s Bataan Death Week in the early going in 1991. They’re taking up the first three sports here, but feel free to arrange these nightmares in whatever order suits you. They all sucked, but I’m doing it chronologically.

#20) Let’s start with April 19th. The Cubs, after a 1-3 start to the season reel off 6 wins in a row, the sixth being the first of a four-gamer at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, against the NL East-defending Pirates. The Cubs’ hot streak gets cooled, however, as they only manage one hit through seven innings on this day. Thanks, in part, to the always-helpful Stan Belinda, however, the Cubs rally in the ninth, when His Awesomeness himself, Andre Dawson, belts a two-out grand slam to put the Cubs up 4-3. Take that, Bobbys Bonds and Bonilla. We comin’ for you. Enter. Dave Smith. D’OH.

After a blowout loss the next day, the once high-flying Cubs look to settle for a split on Sunday, #19) and carry a 5-run lead into the eighth. By the ninth, the lead was down to one and coming on to protect it was…Dave Smith, whose inability to retire perennial bench coach Gary Varsho led to Cub fans later being subjected to another Dawson grand slam that was wiped out–this time Heath Slocumb and Mike Bielecki combined to serve up a six-spot in the bottom of the 11th for the one-run loss.

But wait–Dave Smith was not done. The Cubs next travelled to St. Louis from Pittsburgh, their once-promising start hitting some bad mojo in Steel City and the Cubs hoping to lick their wounds in Busch. #18) Good plan at first, when the team again carried a lead into the later innings in the first game of the series. With one out in the ninth and Petie Guerrerro on first base, however, Felix Jose–about whom Harry admitted he always wanted to call “Jose Felix”–stepped into a Smith turdball and launched it over the wall in right. Game. Set. Match. 1991 was now officially over. Thanks, Dave, and thanks Jim Frey, you senile dumbass.

Ahh, Mel Rojas. What a pitcher. There’s no need to detail Rojas’ sorry excuse for a closer, a la Dave Smith in 1991, mainly because Smith’s demonstration of awfullness was so swift and quick compared to that of Rojas. Because the Cubs were so awful in 1997, Rojas really didn’t make his presence felt early on, except for when he entered a game and promptly pulled his groin when the Cubs finally had a chance to end their season-opening 14-game losing streak. Rojas would go on to blow several games for the Cubs during his short stint here, so you can take your pick. (#17 My pick is a game in early June, when Rojas felt like letting the Philadelphia fans cheer for their team for a change when he served up a game-tying three-run shot to young Mike Lieberthal in an eventual 9-8 loss.

#16) Opening Day, 1996. Colder than a witch’s taint. At least we’re going to go home winners. Oh wait–did you say “Doug Jones” is coming in to pitch? Thanks, Doug. We still went home happy that day, but not until Gracie singled home a run in the 10th after Jones coughed it up in the 9th. Blown games on opening Day make Baby Jebus cry. But at least the Cubs came back to win.

#15) Sadly, the same cannot be said for Opening Day 2005, when LaTroy Hawkins, who will, assuredly, be mentioned further down this list, more than once, in fact, came into the game to close out the Milwaukee Brewers and get everyone in from the cold. Instead, he pulled a “LaTroy” and the Cubs later lost.

Hope was already lost in 2006 when the crosstown Sox came to town in early July. We were just waiting for the end of the season to arrive, so Dusty’s reign of terror would finally come to an end. We were also enjoying another workmanlike outing by Greg Maddux, who stood in line to get the victory. Instead, #14) HJE favorite Ryan Dempster, after retiring the first two hitters in the 9th inning of a 1-run game, fudged a bouncer back to the mound, walked a hitter, and then served up a lead-changing homerun to Public Asshole #1 AJ Pierzynski, who was able to exact revenge for the sucker punch that brain-dead Michael Barrett had given him 6 weeks earlier at Sox Park. There are, floating somewhere on these here interwebs, pictures of yours truly donning a brown paper bag over his head in angry, drunken protest at the 12-year long Andy MacPhail Impotence Tour, the paper bag being placed over my head immediately after Pierzynski’s shot. The whole 2006 season was a depressing tale, and this game was close to, if not actually, the nadir.

2004 was so freaking painful and, to be sure, there are a few more blown games from that disappointing season further down this list, but checking in as a 1-2 punch at #13) is the Regular Joe Borowski/LaFirestarter routine which helped make Rob Mackowiak a household name in Chicago Cub households for all the wrong reasons. I know it’s two blown saves, but it was on the same day so it shares a spot.

By July 2004, the Cubs’ hands were getting familiar with their collective throats. Any hopes they had of hunting down St. Louis for a repeat of the NL Central #12) pretty much died when the 104-pound So Taguchi took Corky McFarsnworth yard to the tune of approximately 700 feet, and Hawkins came in to finish the job in the 9th.

Latroy’s madcap antics continued in 2005. #11) Who here can forget his hilarious “Curley Neal On The Pitchers Mound” routine where he surprised himself by catching a line drive, and proceeded to bring the tying run home when he artfully managed to deflect the baseball into the stands–off of Jose Offerman’s head.

Remember that douchebag who tried hitching his “It’s Gonna Happen” star to the wagon that was the Cubs’ middling success last season? Yeah I don’t either. Anyway, that guy was actually pretty cool once, when he had finally decided he had had enough of Randy Myers blowing games down the stretch in his final season as a Cub, and was thus prompted into action #10) when erstwhile journeyman James Mouton took Myers deep in one of craziest pennant race games in what passed for a “pennant race” in the strange, strike-shortened 1995 campaign. Luckily for the team, the Cubs came back to win this game and stay alive for two more days.

The 1989 Cubs managed to hang on to first place from August first through the end of the season. Their lead, however, was put in danger, (#9 and the Cardinals closed to within one-half game on September 8th after tallying 9 runs in the 7th and 8th innings to stun the Cubs 11-8.

2001. The year Don Baylor didn’t suck as Cubs manager, well at least until he decided to continue pressing his luck by #8) going with the fossilized remains of Jeff Fassero long after Fassero had exhausted himself by at least keeping the team in contention from the start. San Diego. That big turd Ryan Klesko. Bad times.

#7) ’69 Cubs, barely hanging on, trying to hold back those obnoxious young upstarts from new York, and Willie Stargell greets the pedestrians on Sheffield Avenue with a big goddamn “No effing way”.

As if Tom Gordon’ implosion (further down this list) didn’t dash the chances of the the 2001 Cubs enough is, the team was to come back after a week off of play after the September 11th attacks and promptly #6) repeated the painful history from two weeks earlier, except replace Miami with “Cincinnati”, Gordon with “Kyle Farnsworth”, Preston Wilson with “Brady Clark” and opposite field home run to “opposite field flair”. Everything else–that whole come-from-behind-on-the-final-swing-nut-crushing-blown-save part which is really where this list is headed? That’s the same.

#5) On September 29th, 2004, Dusty’s collection of misguided and concentration-challenged malcontents still found themselves–in spite of their own best efforts at self-sabotage and Baker’s own obliviousness–tied for the Wildcard lead with five home games to go when they set out to play the lowly Reds later that day. They had it in the bag until LaTroy–by this point, it could be said, rather predictably–retired the first two hitters before letting the immortal D’Angelo Jimenez rattle one around the corner before Austiin kEARns knotted up the game with a double. While it was not as painful as #1 on this list, which happened only 3 days earlier, it was the final nail in the coffin for the 2004 team (AKA “The greatest Cubs team on paper since the 1930′s”), as well as any conceivable defense for Dusty Baker’s legitmacy as some sort of sage baseball mind.

The guy who was supposed to pick up the slack for Jeff Fassero during the aforementioned 2001 season, the guy for whom Fassero had thrown the bullpen on his back and kept the team alive while he nursed himself back, Tom Gordon, well he blew some tough, important games himself for the Cubs that season, but #4) he outdid himself after Labor Day in 2001, when he allowed Preston Wilson to take him yard the opposite way in a two-out come-from-behind, lead-changing, walkoff loss for the Cubs.

#3) The only thing that keeps ’89 Cub Les Lancaster from #1 on this here list is the fact that his blown save didn’t happen at the end of the game. Still, when your team scraps its way to a 1-run lead on the road in the 7th inning of an LCS series that’t tied 1-1, the least you can do is remember the count.

In the “I Still Can’t Believe They Made the Playoffs After Such A Horrifying Loss Even Though I Know They Still Made The Playoffs And Brant Brown Is Still A Goat Even Though They Still Made The Playoffs” department is this game at #2). Yes, the Cubs still made the playoffs-or, rather backed in–but Brant Brown’s drop in the early-autumn afternoon sun in old Milwaukee County Stadium will always feel like one of the darkest moments in the Cubs fan collective memory, even though the team sucked and was the least deserving of all their playoff teams and went out proved it when they got quickly swept out by Atlanta a week later. That’s the kind of power that places this blown save so high.

#1) Blame Dusty for misusing him or blame LaTroy himself for simply not, for some strange reason, possessing the ability to close out games. It doesn’t matter, and both of those knuckleheads will just probably blame the racist fans for whatever reason. And it didn’t help that Mr. Clown himself–Ryan Dempster, walked two-banjo hittings schlubs who are nowhere near a major league roster today, but Clemente High School product and fat Met Victor Diaz taking Hawkins deep at Shea is clearly the worst blown save in modern Cubs history. It switly ended whatever the Dusty Baker Era was supposed to become, leaving the team a confused, insecure pile of wasted expectations that tarnished several careers and led to the Cubs entering their 1,456th rebuilding plan since WWII.