..according to USA Today.
This list is absolutely horrible. I take offense particularly because this list is supposedly representative of my lifetime. Not to mention it's riddled with stories that are utterly impossible to characterize as "great". To the contrary, some of them are downright sad.
1 Red Sox Win World Series
Give me a fucking break. This was the greatest sports moment of the last 25 years?? I think even Boston cared more when the Sox beat the Yankees in the ALCS to get to the World Series than it did about the actual World Series.
2 Ripken breaks record
Cal Ripken is one of the most overrated players in baseball history. There, I said it.
3 Tiger wins first Masters
Nothing about golf should ever make a list of this sort. If you're making this list for the average American, I'm sorry but you've got to look to basketball, football, and baseball almost exclusively.
4 Villanova upsets Georgetown
Ok, so I don't really remember this cause I was three. But Villanova and Georgetown play in the same conference (not sure this was the case in '84). So is it really that much of an upset? Both relatively little Catholic schools from the same region of the US. The bigger story was that these two teams played in this game. But that alone doesn't get this game onto this list.
5 BALCO-steroids in baseball
Top moment? Greatest story? This moment blows. I think of it more along the lines of.....embarrassing.
6 1998 home run chase
See number 5. The '98 home run chase means nothing. I poop on the 1998 home run chase. I'd especially like to take a dump on Mark McGwire.
7 N.C. State upsets Houston
What? I don't remember this either. I do remember countless rehashes of Jimmy Valvano and his "never give up" speech.....which was touching.
8 Nicklaus, at 46, wins '86 Masters
Nope. Cross this one out. Golf sucks. Some white guy in silly pants beating a group of other white guys in silly pants DOES NOT BELONG ON THIS LIST. Plus, if Julio Franco and Roger Clemens can still play in the majors, it's not really that amazing for a 46 year old to play 18 holes of golf without a coronary.
9 Magic Johnson retires with HIV
In terms of social significance, this is rightfully on the list. Magic's contracting HIV screamed to Americans, perhaps for the second time, that HIV is not an exclusively gay disease and that straight men and women can contract it too from having unprotected sex.
10 Pete Rose banned
Pete Rose is a really ugly dude, no? This is an example of a story people don't really care about but that the media refuses to let die. Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle. Pete Rose is also a huge scumbag. Case closed. Done.
11 Doug Flutie's Hail Mary pass
Finally, a worthy moment! This play was incredible. I watched this entire game on ESPN classic around Christmas. In the context of the rest of the game, which was one for the history books in and of itself, Flutie's Hail Mary pass is all the more more impressive.
12 Dale Earnhardt's death
Sad, but racing is not a sport. Driving cars around in circles doesn't qualify. Nascar is little more than a game with potentially dire consequences.
13 Kirk Gibson walk-off homer
This qualifies. Even if Gibson's celebration as he rounded the bases also qualifies as one of the most obnoxious in the history of sports. If you're gonna pinch hit, may as well hit a walk off dinger in the World Series.
14 U.S. women win '99 World Cup
This one involves women.....so it doesn't qualify. It was cool when that one broad took her shirt of though. I do remember that part. Gender disqualification aside, weren't the U.S women favorites to win the '99 World Cup? So where's the story here?
15 Bill Buckner error
Uuuuhhh, I'll give this one the nod. Even though the error was not made in the clinching game, it was an enormous boner of a play. More sad than great though, no?
16 Christian Laettner jumper sends Duke into '92 NCAA Final Four
I hated Christian Laettner and Duke....but this play and the subsequent celebration were unbelievable!
17 Harding-Kerrigan skating scandal
Yeah right. Not even dignifying this with commentary.
18 Jordan ends first part of NBA career with winning shot vs. Utah
Yes, fantastic moment. Even though at the time, as a Knicks fan living in suburban Chicago, I HATED Michael Jordan.
19 Postponed by earthquake
Yeah, this was significant. Great?
20 Ashe has AIDS
This was very significant too. Up until Ashe had AIDS, it was considered a gay disease.
21 Armstrong wins seven consecutive Tours de France
Even if he was chemically enhanced, which remains to be proven, who cares? Everyone in cycling's on dope. Lance Armstrong came back from cancer!
22 O.J. Simpson trial
This was big in a saddy sad sad way and for a plethora of reasons. I was at a little league BBQ at my coaches house during the chase.
23 '94 World Series canceled
THIS IS HUGE. IF THIS HADN'T HAPPENED, BASEBALL MAY NOT HAVE TURNED A BLIND EYE DURING THE STEROID ERA. BUT IT WAS SO CONCERNED WITH RE-ESTABLISHING A FAN BASE THAT STEROIDS WERE IMPLICITLY ALLOWED.
24 Pervasiveness of ESPN
YES! I FUCKIN LOVE ESPN. CAN YOU IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT IT? OH MY GOD, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT.
25 Gretzky sets NHL scoring record
Who gives a shit about hockey? The answer: No one. Please see the ratings of this year's Stanley Cup Finals if you're looking for proof.
I'm going to have to make my own list...which will probably be just as bad...but for it's own reasons....amongst which will be my transcendent biases. I can guarantee one thing though, it won't be this bottom heavy with things from the first 10 to 15 years of the last 25.
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2 comments:
Yep, lets see your list, tough guy. Keep in mind, USA Today is the cable television news version of a newspaper. Even the curbside boxes are shaped to look like TVs. The thing has to be as broad as possible because its audience is closer to TV than anything in print. That's why its a shitty paper, but you should also keep that in mind - they were trying to have something in there for everyone. Whether Sean likes it or not, tons of people watch golf and more people watch the Daytona 500 than the "Super" bowl. Can't wait to see your list - you weren't planning on leaving the house this weekend, were you? Full disclosure - my list would be entirely made up of Philadelphia sports moments - and it would kick ass.
I should have been clearer in specifying the parts of USA Today list I took issue with because they ran contradictory to the idea of a "great story" or because of my various allegiances. My list, admittedly, will be pock marked with Yankee, Notre Dame football, and New York Giants moments. but it won't masquerade as "the 25 best sports moments in the last 25 years." It's like the dingleberry from USA today just thought of the 25 most covered sports stories of the last 25 years. but that's not what the list claimed to be. and that list isn't interesting.
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