It's match point; bottom of the ninth; fourth and goal; last second, down by two. The handlers are screaming from the corner, the ball's in the rough on 18, they're pounding down the stretch and the goalie's been pulled. Your beers are drained, your chips are gone, you're glued to the tube, ready for the one big moment and -- sprooownnnkkk!!! -- the power goes out! Bozo! You forgot to pay the bill! You're not only the weakest link, you're the dimmest geek, the sad loser who single-handedly punked the biggest game of the year. Goodbye!

Choke or circumstance? That is the question. If Clutch is the Sweet Smell of Success under the burden of Great Expectations, the humiliating flip side is Choke. But which came first? Did we win or they lose? Did Bobby Thomson steal a sign or did Ralph Branca groove a pitch? Did Scott Norwood blow the Super Bowl or did Marv Levy fail to get him in position to not blow it? Did the U.S. hockey team play like heroes in Lake Placid or did the Soviets, who'd whipped our lads 10-3 just days before, show their choking red butts when it counted? Do you believe in miracles? No, Al, we believe that was the most overhyped, fake-spontaneous, exclamatory bullroar in broadcasting history. And we believe in CHOKING!

Of course, different chokes for different folks. For all the poetic drama of our national pastime, gagging on the diamond is difficult to assess -- despite what Bucknerologists would tell us. Thomson's famous Shot Heard 'Round the World was more logically another of those moments in a sport characterized by unfair caprice and divine -- if not dumb -- luck.

Baseball, after all, is a game where a winning jack is just the most comprehensible example of your garden-variety Clutch/Choke marriage. You might think Messrs. Sosa and McGwire's race to 70 was all skill. But Big Mac himself will tell you fate rules:

"Hitters are on a different level when it comes to clutch, because they rely on somebody else." Think of it this way -- how many times can you make that blind turn before somebody comes the other way?

As for the victims of diamond vicissitudes, go tell it on the, uh, hill. After Joe Carter parked one on Mitch Williams to win a Series, Williams was driven from Philly and, soon, from the sport. After Dave Henderson took Donnie Moore deep to win the '86 ALCS, the pitcher soon took his own life.

Such cautionary tales explain why it's impossible to demystify the choke. So, too, the eerie convergence of Branca, who threw the Dodgers' most infamous pitch, and Mike Torrez, who 27 years later threw the Red Sox's same: Both not only live in White Plains, N.Y., they pray at the same church -- Our Lady of Sorrows. If the two play golf, you know they're giving each other every putt inside 25 feet.

And now to Bill Buckner. If a dictionary described "choke artist" as "anybody who, expected to perform as a professional in a huge moment with a nation watching, lets a barely batted ball a fifth-grader could catch roll through his legs to lose a game and, ultimately, a world championship ..." you could paste Billy Buck's photo right there. Here's why: Although he'd been pulled for a defensive replacement in the final innings of games toward the end of that season, the story goes that Buckner made manager John McNamara leave him in so he could be on the field when the Red Sox defeated the Mets. Pride goeth before the flub.

Moments like Buckner's make the case that it's only a Choke if it's an Occasion. Casey himself wouldn't be himself if he hadn't been at bat in the big game for Mudville. Norwood's miss is more infamous than Gary Anderson's for the Vikings in '98 (though Anderson was a better kicker with an easier kick) because Norwood's gaffe cost his team the Big One rather than denying them a chance at it.

Likewise, shouldn't there be a rule that says "the bigger the throat, the better the choke"? The Braves, for example, have to be way ahead of the Bills on the all-time Gag List. Atlanta was supposed to dominate the '90s. The Bills, dynastically speaking, were Canisius. Can entire teams even be painted with the choke brush? Most team chokes are really the last gurgles of a coaching gack. Mike Dunleavy, come on down! Up 15 points on the Lakers in the fourth quarter of the seventh game last spring -- and you lose!? How about a timeout, a technical or picking a fight with Dyan Cannon?

In hindsight -- or even in real time, from the cheap seats -- the path to infamy seems avoidable. Seems, but isn't, because if the road signs were clearly lit, we'd see why Barry Bonds can't hit in October. Or why Debi Thomas couldn't tell her skates from her tush in Calgary. Or why Fred Brown and Chris Webber went brain-dead in the most significant ticks of their college careers. Do the sporting gods avenge surliness? If only. The reason is more secular: Not even the most gifted are immune from simple human emotion -- fear, panic -- when it reaches up to grab (clutch) their throat (choke) at the most flashbulb-popping times.

How else to explain that even the undeserving are smitten? John Elway choked plenty before clutching. And now there's Elway Redux: Peyton Manning, who never beat Florida and has yet to win an NFL playoff game. Most sorrowfully, there was Skip Dillard, nicknamed "Money" for his foul shooting -- until the '81 NCAAs, when he missed one. The No.1 Blue Demons were upset, and a devastated Dillard turned to crime, winding up in prison.

No, the choker-prince need not be an athlete of such stature that even a few people at the local truck stop or country club have heard of him. Jean Van De Velde, who splashed away the British Open at Carnoustie in '99, was no Arnold Palmer, who did virtually the same thing at the '66 U.S. Open. Yet Van De Velde's collapse is a choke of legendary proportions (and if you know to whom he handed the Jug, you win a year's supply of that astringent fruit, genus Aronia, the chokeberry). But as charming as Van the Man was in defeat -- "Ze people, zey must understand, I must play zis way," he said (or something like that) in explaining his full-bore finish -- it's hard to bear him any how-could-you-blow-that? hostility.

Not so for Greg Norman, who's bumbled his way to more fab homes, toys and straw hats than any of us could choke a stick at. The Chark exemplifies the difference between non-gags and gags, and how the former add up to create the latter. Losing the Masters when a guy chips in during a playoff is not choking. Losing the PGA when a guy holes out from the sand on 18 is not choking. Losing another Masters you led by six on Sunday? That's not choking. That's Entertainment.

Probably because it's so individual, surely because it's more universal -- who among us has not blown a three-footer with clubhouse drinks on the line? -- the golf choke is easy to get a bead on. Likewise the tennis equivalent. John McEnroe gagged miserably in his one chance at winning the French Open, giving up a two-set, one-break lead in '84 to underdog Ivan Lendl. Fifteen years later, unseeded Andrei Medvedev jumped to a 6-1, 6-2 lead over Andre Agassi. Medvedev lost too. But only because Agassi, who had started to fold, straightened himself out again. You see, tennis is sports' leading choke enabler -- and enemy. The game's time span lets cream rise, or curdle, as its length sees fit. Recently, Ags lost in the first round of the Italian Open to Alex Calatrava (who?) in two sets. Now, if it had been best of five ...

The choke champ of the modern era may well be a tennis player: Jana Novotna. Surely, her only major triumph, Wimbledon '98, did little to erase her nightmares at that venue. After which one did she famously cry on the duchess's shoulder? The '93 final, when she was within a point of leading Steffi Graf 5-1 in the third and then forgot how to serve? Or '97, when she was a point from leading Martina Hingis 3-0 in the third? Whatever, the All England Club was hardly choke zero for Jana. In the third round of the '95 French, she had six match points for a 6-7, 6-4, 6-0 win over unseeded Chanda Rubin, and lost. "I didn't feel I had the match under control," she said later.

Not under control? At 5-0, 40-0 in the final set? Precisely, says the athlete's mind, always aware of that evil monster lying in wait, the one called Choke. Another tennis pro, Vitas Gerulaitis, had the best perspective on the crazy imbalances of sport. After losing to Jimmy Connors 16 times in a row, he finally upset the feisty lefty.

"Nobody," he said, "beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 straight."

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This article appears in the May 28 issue of ESPN The Magazine.