Ten Worst Sports Moments in South Florida 2015

In 2015 South Florida sports, it was a year of some good and lots of awfulness. But mostly, lots of awfulness. The football teams continue to wallow in mediocrity, the basketball team got struck by lightning several times, and the baseball team is an absolute travesty. Sure, there were some good things to point to, but honestly, we'd just be kidding ourselves.

2015 sucked for sports.

And what better way to commemorate all the suck than by ranking the worst moments that hit us in the face this year. It's cathartic. And it's also a reminder that things will get better come 2016 and beyond.

They have to.

Here now are 2015's  ten worst moments in sports down here:

10. Dwyane Wade Almost Left the Heat
It's hard to remember looking back, but there was a moment there where it looked like Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade was actually going to not re-sign with Miami and head elsewhere. And while Wade has always made sacrifices with his contract for the benefit of the team, it appeared that he had had enough of that, and was looking to get paid one way or another this summer, roster flexibility be damned. No official report ever surfaced that Wade was eyeing other teams, but Wade himself, along with his family, did very little to squash the rumors that he was headed out of town. In fact, the Wade family only made things worse with cryptic behavior on social media. In the end, Wade re-signed with the Heat and crisis was averted and everything ended up being OK.

But there were a few weeks of legit terror there for Heat fans.

9. Marlins Manager Defends Other Team for Hitting His Players 
The Marlins are awful. Baseball's unwritten rules and code of conduct are awful. Put them together, and it's one perfect storm of awfulness. Back in July, the Marlins were facing the Arizona Diamondbacks when Jose Fernandez accidentally threw an errant pitch at Diamondback's David Peralta's head.  So, in the top of the seventh, Arizona pitcher Dominic Leone intentionally threw a pitch at Marlins batter Christian Yelich in retaliation. Even though the Fernandez pitch was clearly accidental. The benches cleared, players yelled rude things about each other's mothers to one another, and things almost got out of hand. But when Marlins' then-manager Dan Jennings was asked about the way Arizona conducted themselves, he actually defended them. "The Diamondbacks handled it the right way," Jennings said. "It's part of baseball. They hit Yelly in a spot that sent the message; that's part of the game."

And people wonder why baseball is a dying sport.

8. Whatever the Hell This Was by University of Miami Football Players
The University of Miami has been hitting some rough times lately. They're no longer the NFL factory juggernaut that there in the '80s, '90s. and early 2000s. This year, they fired much-beleaguered head coach Al Golden and suffered the worst loss in school history. But perhaps nothing was more unbecoming of the U than when some of the players decided to goof off during a photo shoot and posed for photos that would end up as joke fodder for UM's biggest rivals. So now the U is forever synonymous with Clinton Portis, Sean Taylor, Andre Johnson, Ray Lewis, and a bunch of dudes that re-enacted this scene from Titanic.


7. The Marlins Hired Their General Manager to Be Their Manager After Firing a Perfectly Capable Manager
Of all the Marlins stuff that the Marlins have pulled over the years since Jeffery Loria has owned them, this was arguably the most Marlinsy. Loria never met a major league manager he believes he's smarter than. And when things got off to a shaky start in 2015, he decided to drop the ax on perfectly capable manager Mike Redmond. But because Loria is a toad-faced troglodyte, he had no real plan to replace Redmond. So, he asked the Marlins general manager — a man with zero professional coaching experience — to helm the team. Shockingly, this plan did not end up working out. 


6. The Marlins Had a Rain Delay Inside a Stadium Specifically Built to Avoid Rain Delays
The Miami Marlins and their toad-faced owner fleeced Miami-Dade county taxpayers to build their $515-million stadium in the middle of Little Havana. Their justification for such a hefty price tag was that the ballpark would feature a retractable roof that can open and close within fifteen minutes. The ballpark needs this roof, they said, because South Florida weather can be quite wet in the summer. So they built their stadium and screwed Miami-Dade in the process. And then on Opening Day of this year, the Marlins inexplicably decided not to use this option as a giant dark rain cloud floated above and then weirdly dumped rain onto the field, causing a 16-minute rain delay (about the same time it would have taken to close the roof to avoid said delay). In the end, team president David Samson said the rain cloud caught them off guard. Evidently, $515 million doesn't cover equipping the park with a Doppler radar, or maybe even a weather app for Samson's iPhone.


5. Marlins Players Break Promise to Meet Fans Who Donated to Charity to Hang Out With Them 
Yes, there's a theme here (hint: the Marlins are terrible). In May, the Marlins added to their terribleness and held their annual Fish-N-Chips charity event that promised fans they'd be hobnobbing with players. And then failed to have a single player show up to said event. This even though participants had to pay $175 to attend. Instead, they got to hang out with a bunch of weird mascots. 



4. Former Heat Star Lamar Odom's Overdose
Though he hadn't played for the Miami Heat since 2005, Lamar Odom is still beloved among Heat fans who fell in love with him during his short stint with the team. So it was crushing to all of Heat Nation when news broke that Odom was found unconscious inside a Nevada brothel after reportedly overdosing. At one point, it seemed as if Odom wouldn't survive his ordeal. He eventually came out of his medically induced coma and is currently rehabbing. Odom still has a long way to go, but his near-death experience was definitely one of the darkest moments in Heat history. 


3. Mario Chalmers Traded to the Memphis Grizzlies
In a move many saw coming, but no one quite wanted to admit, Mario Chalmers was shipped to Memphis in an in-season move in order to save the Heat roughly $6 million in luxury-tax payments. That's right. Big Shot Rio. Traded to Memphis for a couple of players and a pocketful of sadness. And while he is playing solid minutes for the Grizzlies and helping them win games, things just don't feel the same. Just look at him. Oh, Rio. You wear all the feels of a Miami Heat fanbase that misses your shenanigans on your face.


2. Cameron Wake Tears Achilles
God hates the Dolphins. Of all the damn players the Dolphins could least afford to lose, they went ahead and lost Cameron Wake — their ferocious pass-rushing quarterback mauling defensive end. Because, God hates the Dolphins. Coming off back-to-back wins that seemed to turn Miami's abysmal season around, the Dolphins traveled to New England to face the hated Patriots. Not only was Miami brought back down to Earth with an epic beatdown at the hands of their dreaded rival, but they lost their best player in the process when Wake tore his Achilles as he rushed Tom Brady. Things went into the shitter soon after, and the Dolphins are, once again, out of the playoff hunt. Yup. God hates the Dolphins.


1. Chris Bosh's Blood Clots
It was the season from hell. The Heat were sideswiped by LeBron James' decision to bolt back to Cleveland, and Miami was left reeling to replace their MVP. Injuries began to pile up. Josh McRoberts was lost for the season with a knee injury. Dwyane Wade's knees began to crumble. And just when it appeared that Pat Riley had fixed things when he traded for point guard Goran Dragic, Chris Bosh suddenly fell ill with a seemingly mysterious ailment. Turns out, that ailment nearly killed him. After a series of tests, Bosh was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs, effectively shutting down his season and suddenly making losing basketball games a trivial thing. Thankfully, he recovered and is back at it, fully healthy, and swishing in his silky smooth shots against the Heat's opponents. But man if that wasn't the cherry on top of the shit cake that was the Heat's 2014-15 season.