infinite improbability

Bests and Worsts of '04: Best in Sports

You have my worst of list, now here's the best of edition. This is only half serious, as some of the things will show. However, I am 100% serious for what I put at #1, since well, it's my best of list and I can put things wherever I want to, and for me this was the best sports moment of '04.
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10) Freddy Adu: Freddy Adu turning pro at 14 is the best thing that could have happened to MLS--if only for a few short moments, the country was actually paying attention to American professional soccer. In the process, he became the youngest athlete in a team sport to be on a championship team in the modern era. Pretty impressive.

9) Iraqi Soccer Team: You've gotta have at least one heartwarming story on a top ten list, and this is it. The Iraqi's Olympic run, when nobody expected them to be any sort of contender speaks to the power of playing for national pride, and like the Croatian soccer team making a run to the quarterfinals of the 1998 World Cup while the country was trying to rebuild after years of devastating civil war, you have a team playing better than it really should have because they aren't just playing for themselves, they are representing the hopes of a nation.

8) Lance Armstrong goes for 6: To win the Tour de France once is an impressive feat, but to do it 6 times in a row and to do it so convincingly, that's a class of it's own.

7) Yankees Lose: I really don't like the Yankees, and for them to lose in the worst collapse in recent memory, and to do it against the Red Sox, well, that warms my Yankee hating heart.

6) Maria Sharapova wins Wimbledon: Stop the presses! A blond Russian who can actually play tennis!

5) Pistons win: Everybody wrote them off as dead after they blew game 2 ("nobody can win three straight against the Lakers even if it is at home, and if they have to go back to LA, they're gone," the conventional wisdom said), but when it's a good team vs. a collection of feuding superstars, playing as a team will win out. It's a lesson Kobe apparently still hasn't learned.

4) Yankees Lose: Oh, yeah, did I tell you, the Yankees lost? It was a beautiful collapse. That's what they get for trying to make the poor Devil Rays forfeit because Hurricane Frances kept them stuck in Florida. A team with that little compassion deserves everything they get.

3) Peyton Manning breaks Marino's single season TD record: I'll admit it, I'm not a fan of Peyton Manning, but even I have to admit that what he did during the regular season was pretty darn impressive. Now, the only question is whether he can carry the team in the big games, he hasn't yet, but this looks like it could be his year.

2) "Curse" Reversed: 86 years is a long time to go between championships, but to turn it around in one of the greatest comebacks ever, and to do it against the Yankees takes it to a new level. I'm only a casual baseball fan, but game 4 against the Yankees had me glued to the TV. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that one of the reasons that I'm glad they won is that now they're just another team and I can hate them like I wanted to before but felt to guilty to do.

1) Lightning Win the Stanley Cup: Who would have thought that in the year when every football team in Florida heads south, that it's the hockey team that rises to the top? Being there when the Lightning won, celebrating on the plaza with thousands of other people is something that I still can't quite find words to describe. I think it was better than the Superbowl because that game was played on the other side of the continent, but this was at home in our building with all of us there to celebrate. I'm so glad that I sprung for a ticket to game 1 of the finals, to be there for the first ever Stanley Cup finals game, I said for years that if they ever made it to the Stanley Cup, I would be there no matter what it took and it actually happened.

Posted by kathryn at Enero 3, 2005 04:21 AM | TrackBack