Top 7: Athletes' Redemptions in the Clutch

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Every week the Top 7 column will be enhanced by the newest addition to the JoeSportsFan Radio Network, Seven Minutes with Jason Major , where our Top 7 guru rants on the current topic, touches on previous lists and also vehemently defends his Cardinals bias … all in around seven minutes.

One of the media’s favorite storylines is (fill in player) can’t come through in the clutch.  Sometimes they’ll even take it a step further and say (said player) will never win a (fill in name of title).  Sometimes they’ll even go further than that and say (said player) can’t win because of (fill in random psychoanalysis that is completely not provable but sure sounds good). 

Once this player comes through in the clutch or wins the title, the same media members will do more psychoanalysis to figure out what finally happened in their head to make them able to win.

Someone will try to connect A-Rod’s World Series title with him getting some kind of secret ooze from Derek Jeter, which is how they won. It will happen.

Once the player has their clutch moment or their title, a new person must come along to take their place, and the cycle repeats endlessly.  Same storyline … they never will win a title, unless they do. Here are the Top 7 guys who got their redemption in the clutch.

7. Barry Bonds

Bonds may be the most notorious under-performer in the playoffs of all-time in baseball, especially since there wasn’t such a massive amount of media around when Ted Williams and Willie Mays were stinking up the playoffs themselves (point being, Bonds wasn’t the first great player who struggled in the postseason). 

Then came the 2002 World Series, where Hulk Bonds hit .471 with a .700 on-base percentage and four homers—including one that went about 7,000 feet. He didn’t win the Series, but it sure wasn’t his fault. 

I’m not too familiar with that series, but I’m sure Giants fans would say it had something to do with Dusty Baker … that seems to always be the culprit with his teams.

6. Tony LaRussa

This spot almost went to Mick Foley for his finally winning the WWF title, then I remembered LaRussa, and it’s always fun to rip on his detractors. 

Mostly due to him not living in St. Louis year-round, there is a small percentage of Cardinals fans who will never accept him, and used to go so far as to say that the Cards would never get to a World Series while he was manager. 

This “faction” even ran a hilarious campaign to try to get him fired prior to the 2004 season, flying a banner over the Cards spring training facilities.

The Cards then won 105 games and went to the World Series, so the theory became “the Cards will never win the World Series with LaRussa as manager.”  Then LaRussa won the World Series with the Cards, and the people immediately tried to disregard it, saying he got lucky. 

So their platform apparently all along was “the Cards will never make the World Series with LaRussa as manager, unless they do, in which case they will never win the World Series … unless they get lucky."

These people have something wrong with them. If you were to make a Venn Diagram of LaRussa haters with 9/11 Truthers and Obama Birthers, they would probably fall in the circle that encompasses all three.

Some of the most insane ones will even disregard his first World Series title with the A’s because of the '89 earthquake in the Bay area. I guess all of the Giants died in the quake and the A’s played nine-on-none baseball. Some will say that they hate LaRussa because of his DUI … OK, fine.  But the fringe nut jobs were there long before that happened.

5. Phil Mickelson

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