Goat

A person who takes the blame for a faulty outcome. In sports, "the goat" is a label given to the player whose failure cost his team the game, usually at a pivotal point. This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) which in sports refers to the player who consistently finds a way to win for his team. Goat in this sense is short for scapegoat a term taken from Leviticus 16 in the King James Version of the Bible. In that chapter, two goats are chosen on the Day of Atonement: one (the Lord's goat) is sacrificed and its blood used to "cleanse the sanctuary of sins" representing Christ and His atoning sacrifice for humanity, and the other (the scapegoat) has all the sins symbolically placed on its head and released alive into a deserted place far away from the Israelite camp. That goat represents the one to blame for all the sins of humanity, that is, the devil.

Donnie Ray Moore of the California Angels was the goat in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS against the Boston Red Sox when he gave up a home run to Dave Henderson in the top of the 9th inning, a 2-2 pitch that will forever live in infamy!

by morpheus30 June 09, 2017

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