(8) December 28, 2008: Detroit Lions finish 0-16
And the Dan Orlovsky, Rod Marinelli-led juggernaut found its final resting place.
The expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers went winless in a 14-game season, so they're not the first champions of futility, but with two more cracks at getting in the win column, and a league which parades the mantra of "parity" at every dogleg, this was a terrible team with terrible fortune.
(7) June 26, 2008: 4th seeded Fresno State wins College World Series
Between Utah and George Mason, I pick neither as the decade's college underdog. How many championships did they win?
Fresno entered the NCAA baseball tournament unranked and with a 37-27 record. Qualifying only because they won the WAC tournament, the Bulldogs knocked off No. 2 North Carolina, No. 3 Arizona State, No. 6 Rice, and No. 8 Georgia en route to the title.
This is like a 12-seed winning the NCAA basketball Final Four. And Mason was an 11-seed. Just reaching the semifinals? BORING!
(6) March 19, 2005: Blake Hoffarber hits buzzer-beater while flat on his ass to win the Minnesota state basketball title
There might be stranger shots to win basketball games. But the odds of swishing a basket while sprawled on the ground?
When it comes to game-winners, one will presumably not be using ideal mechanics. But quite often they know how far they have to push it.
However! When you're on your back, that's another six or seven feet you have to launch the arc. I hope kids around the nation practiced that shot in their driveway, and soiled their shirts in the process.
Hoffarber wasn't done. Three years later, while playing for Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals:
Standing upright. He practically cheated.
(5) October 17, 2001: Barry Bonds hits his 73rd home run
This may go up there with DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, batting .400, or throwing a no-hitter on LSD, as a record marked by the sign of the times. Between 1998 and 2001, there were six players who knocked 63 or more home runs (Sammy Sosa three times, Mark McGwire twice, and Bonds). Since then, there were only seven occurrences of 50 or more taters, with Ryan Howard getting as high as 58 in 2006.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Heloise
Good article Matt. But today, I think, Tiger Woods was just name athlete of the decade and you don't have him on your list. They listed the also-rans but Tiger won the lion's share of the votes. Perhaps he is in a sports class all to himself. But either you missed something or I missed something since you don't mention (at least) that he is the first billionaire "ball" player, or that he quadrupuled the purse for golf or that the ratings plummet when he no play? Hmmm. Just askin'
2 - Heloise
In case you missed it:
"Tiger Woods is in the news again, but mercifully, it's for something positive and sports related: the world's No. 1 ranked golfer and recent tabloid celebrity has been named the "AP Athlete of the Decade."
A whopping 56 PGA Tour victories, including 12 major victories, over the last 10 years apparently outweighed any negative press sent his way over the past three weeks, as Woods received 56 of the 142 votes cast by AP member editors since last month." it's from Golf something or other
3 - roger nowosielski
No mention of Roger Federer either, the tennis machine.
4 - Matthew T. Sussman
My apologies for not making it clear in the headline that this list is about unrepeatable accomplishments. I should've capitalized it. UNREPEATABLE.
Forbes: "MJ should hit the $1 billion mark in career earnings in the next four to five years."
And yes, Roger Federerererererer is good too. Are we just naming really good athletes now? Sidney Crosby! Ronaldo! Kyle Farnsworth!
5 - Heloise
Matt, I hate to argue, I am right on this one. You said "this decade" and MJ may not get the 1 billion mark until next decade? No, we are not naming just really good athletes. As much as I hate to say it "Tiger reinvented golf" for non whites! Do I need to capitlize REINVENT? LOL
6 - roger nowosielski
But there was Mark Fidrych, aka The Bird.
7 - doug m
No, you missed it. Someone will be named athlete of the decade next decade. And Tiger didn't reinvent golf. He uses a club to put a ball in a hole just like everyone else, and now it's possible he used performance enhancers.
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
"Matt, I hate to argue, I am right on this one"
You're actually wrong.
"You said "this decade" and MJ may not get the 1 billion mark until next decade?"
Next decade qualifies as a point in the time-space continuum. I looked it up.
"As much as I hate to say it "Tiger reinvented golf" for non whites!"
You could argue that happened back in the 90s and spilled over into the Aughts.
9 - Heloise
Matt, Matt, your logic is so thin you could thread a needle with it.
10 - Heloise
He reinvented golf on a cultural continuum. Spin that.
11 - Tony
Who would have thought a piece like this would get so heated. You can put "unrepeatable events" in big, bold letters, repeatidly state it as the point of the list, and still some won't get it.
But here I think you missed it buddy. I really doubt will ever see anyone blow up their career the way Tigers Woods has. More girls coming out every day and now his doc is busted for roids. Pretty bad.
12 - Tony
The irony being that reason is the only way Tiger makes this list and it is thin at best. Just to clarify for everyone who found this piece challenging. Nice work here Matt.
13 - Tony
I have to take issue with the Randy Johnson pick at number one. Dave Winfield got one with a warmup throw in the 80s. The Johnson thing was freaky but some other things on your list were much weirder. And how could you mention 0-16 and Dan without a nod to the run out of the back on the endzone.
14 - Heloise
Nice try Tony. Okay I'll bite. He's the biggest phenom in sports since the Olympics. But wait, wait I got it: What other billionaire athlete of the decade/century (in any sport) who started the sport at age 4 on TV--will make ALL the tabloid covers and MSM mention every day running for a month! And not be seen in public for that same time period? Damn I'm good.
BTW Lebron is a god.
15 - FCEtier
I'm with you on the App State win over Big Blue and the exploding bird.
16 - Heloise
Breaking sports news: Chris Henry of Bengals "fighting for his life" after fighting with his gf. He fell off a moving truck! WTF
17 - Matthew T. Sussman
Oh my.
Well, ya got me. Tiger Woods revolutionized golf. I won't dispute this. But does it fit on this list?
(a) Not that it matters, but I don't know the exact moment it happened. I was going for moments on which the pinnacle was finally reached for the first and (probably) only time, but if it was anything, it was his Masters win in 1997, when he became the first African-American to win a major championship. But it's moot because...
(b) ...he was not the first person to revolutionize golf. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, sure. You can go all the way back to Francis Ouimet in 1913, who broke socioeconomic barriers to win the U.S. Open as an amateur. Now, will anyone ever re-revolutionize the sport specifically for minorities? (And where are they, by the way? Not a single other black golfer was on the PGA Tour last year.)
(c) If you're talking about somebody exposed to the world at two years old (or younger) and went onto become a superstar athlete ... well, nowadays with YouTube, that's almost certainly going to be duplicated.
And Tony, time will tell if Tiger can recover from this. He probably will. Look at Kobe Bryant and the rape/adultery. Muhammad Ali and his anti-war stance getting him banned from the ring. So far all that's been damaged is his image and (slightly) his pocketbook. The only criminal damage he's done is some points on his license.
I'm not sure about Winfield's bird incident. Because he was arrested for intentionally hitting it (!?), I'm going to assume the bird was standing perfectly still. A perpendicular moving target has a higher degree of WTFness.
18 - Ruvy
Tiger Woods was named "athlete of the decade" because of his skill with the wood - between his legs.
19 - Matthew T. Sussman
Pow! Golf sex metaphor. Pick it up.
Shaft.
20 - brad laidman
remembered this too - but obviously didn't have the video greatness of the johnson one
On August 4, 1983, Dave Winfield and the Yankees were playing against the Blue Jays in Toronto. Winfield had a great game, driving in two runs as the Yankees won 3-1. Unfortunately, he was arrested after the game. In the middle of the fifth, Winfield finished his warmups and tossed the ball to a batboy. The ball hit a seagull on the head, killing the bird, and Winfield was charged with cruelty to animals.
"They say he hit the gull on purpose," said Yanks manager Billy Martin "They wouldn't say that if they'd seen the throws he'd been making all year. It's the first time he's hit the cutoff man."
The charges were dropped the next day.
21 - ebooker
Ricky Craven = Greatest Maine Athlete of All-Time.
(Him & Cindy Blodgett..)
22 - Mark Saleski
I really doubt will ever see anyone blow up their career the way Tigers Woods has.
yeah? you just watch sussman after his pulitzer.
23 - STM
Matt, the headline should have read: the Decade's 9 unrepeatable AMERICAN sporting moments (which most people outside the US have never heard of), and A Mad Frenchman's Moment of Lunacy.
It's a big, wide, sporting world out there and most of us outside America wouldn't have a clue about the other stuff because it mostly doesn't rate a mention outside the US.
I can, however, think of one moment that certainly trumps most of these you've listed: England five-eighth Jonny Wilkinson's extra-time drop goal in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final at Stadium Australia in Sydney with just 21 seconds left of the normal extra-time period and before the game went into sudden-death extra time.
Despite having won two World Cups previously, Australia were the underdogs in the game even before the 80,000 home crowd.
Against the might of the England forwards, Australia somehow managed to stay well in the game, using their quick backs for go-forward and Australia five-eighth Elton Flatley booted a controversial penalty in the last kick of normal time to lock the scores at 14-14 on the hooter.
Neither side were able to convert any points throughout the first 19-minutes of extra time, until Wilkinson stood off the back of the ruck about 30 metres from the Australian goal line, took a whippy pass from the halfback and hoisted a pinpoint drop-goal that sailed straight through the posts and sealed the game with 20 seconds remaining.
In the process, he broke my heart and that of 20 million of my countrymen, but the game was a corker that thrilled hundreds of millions of rugby fans around the world who watched it live. I doubt there has been a World Cup final as exciting.
So come on Matt, this is an international site now ... if you're going to do THE definitive list, don't disappoint us: do your homework - it's not all about America, mate :)
Oh, yeah, then there was the fourth cricket Test against South Africa at the ...
24 - Johnny
Yay STM. Agree about being American only list. I read half the items and went wtf because I hadn't even heard of these people or events.
Rugby's a real man's game. No need to cover yourself with a ton of padding like some prissy.
25 - zingzing
"Rugby's a real man's game. No need to cover yourself with a ton of padding like some prissy."
you've never heard of calcio fiorentino, i assume. makes rugby look like a game for little girls.
"England five-eighth Jonny Wilkinson's extra-time drop goal"
biddle boo-wha?