Tiger Woods, Superbowl XLII Make 2008 the Best Year in Sports Ever

I cried like a baby when Kevin Everett walked out on stage to accept the Jimmy V award at the ESPYs Sunday Night. 

I was at Ralph Wilson stadium on opening day last season when I watched in horror from section 306 as Kevin Everett lay motionless on the turf after making a tackle on special teams. 

At first I thought maybe it was just a stinger and that once it passed he would be able to walk to the sidelines.

Then the stretcher came out and I hoped it was just a precaution.  But as the moments slipped away into more than a twenty minute delay for the Buffalo Bills medical staff to attend to Kevin's injury, I feared the worst.

The players from both teams joined hands and knealt in a prayer circle as the ambulance drove onto the field. When Kevin was lifted into the back of the ambulance and never moved or made an attempt to give the crowd a thumbs up to let us know he was okay, we knew he wasn't okay.

In the days and weeks to follow we learned the extent of Kevin's injury, the heroism of the Bills' medical staff, and the long road to recovery that lay ahead for Kevin.

Seeing Kevin walk out on stage, under his own power, to accept such a prestigeous award has to be the feel good story of the year, if not the millenium.

As if the feel good story of the millenium wasn't enough, the games have been spectacular since the new year. Here are my top 10 games/matches of 2008.

10. On April 17th.....and April 18th the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 2-1 in 22 innings!  It wasn't the longest game ever, but it was the longest game in 15 years.

The game was scoreless for 13 innings until Willy Taveras scored in the top of the 14th inning when Brad Hawpe drew a bases loaded walk off of Kevin Cameron.  After the 14th inning stretch the Padres answered in the bottom half when Kevin Kouzmanoff scored on a Josh Bard single. 

It would only be eight more innings before the game would be over.  Troy Tulowitzki hit an RBI double with two outs in the top of the 22nd inning scoring Willy Taveras from third to give Colorado the lead for good.  

Kip Wells finished off the Padres in the bottom of the inning to pick up the win.  The crowd sang "Take Me out to the Ball Game" as many times as players crossed home plate.  In all, 15 pitchers were used to throw 659 pitches and strike out 37 batters.  The teams stranded 30 runners combined in a game that took 6 hours and 16 minutes to complete.

9. Some people don't care for the all-Williams finals in Grand Slam events, but for me it just doesn't get any better than siblings facing off on the world's biggest stage.  Venus and Serena met for the first time in five years in a Grand Slam finals with Venus edging her sister in straight sets 7-5, 6-4. 

It was the seventh time the two have met in a Grand Slam final, cementing them in history as the greatest sibling rivalry of all time.  From 2001-2003 the sisters met 6 times in 8 finals with Serena besting Venus in 5 of them.

8. The Winter Classic.  Can it be that a regular season hockey game was one of the greatest games of the year?  In the first outdoor NHL game on US soil, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Buffalo Sabres in a shoot out goal by NHL phenom Sidney Crosby.

  Yeah the game was great, but how about the weather?  The NHL couldn't have asked for a better setting than snowy Buffalo on New Year's day as saucer sized snow flakes delayed the game several times while maintenance crews cleared the ice for play.  The snow was piling up so fast I had to shovel my car out to leave the parking lot. 

The NHL experienced a Rennaisance this year beginning with the Winter Classic and ending with Sid the Kid leading his Penguins into a Finals match up with the perennial powerhouse Detroit Redwings.

7. The 2008 NBA Finals revitalized one of the greatest rivalries in sports as the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers sqared off for the tenth time in the finals. 

The Celtics defense smothered the Lakers from game one and Kobe and company never found an answer.  The defining moment in the series came in game four when the Celtics rallied from a 24 point deficit to come back and when the game 97-91. 

The rest of the series was nothing to write home about, but the NBA playoffs were by far the best since the Jordan era with a crop of young players emerging and of course the classic Finals match-up.

6. Who would have thought the first Grand Slam event without Tiger Woods since 1996 would be one for the ages! 

Greg Norman came back from the dead, or close to it--the Senior PGA tour, to lead the Open Championship through 54 holes.  But who could expect the 53 year old to hang on?  Instead, Ireland's Padraig Harrington won his second straight British Open and may just be Tiger's newest rival.

5. The All-Star break....yeah I know, it's the All-Star break.  It's exhibition.  It doesn't mean anything....except home field advantage in the World Series. 

Maybe it was Yankee Stadium, maybe it was Josh Hamilton's 28 home runs in round one of the home run derby. Maybe it was the fact the game went 15 innings and the American League was out of players and Bud Selig was squirming in his seat a la 2002 when the All Star game ended in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings. 

I don't know, to me, the Midsummer classic felt like the first playoff game.

4. Besides the fact that I had Kansas and my girlfriend had Memphis, and the outcome of that game meant which one of us would win the March Madness pool, that game was awesome! 

Chalmers hits a three with 2.1 seconds left to force overtime!  And that was after the Jayhawks came from 16 points down by fouling Memphis in the last two minutes and chipping away at the lead.  Did I mention the championship game went into overtime!?

3. They set up their classic matchup at the French Open when Nadal crushed Federer in straight sets 6-1, 6-3, 6-0. 

It was no surprise Nadal won, he is the best player in the world on clay and Federer has never won the French Open.

What was surprising was how easily he dispensed the world's top ranked player.  But Federer had won five straight Wimbledon titles going into this year's Wimbledon final against Rafael Nadal. 

Rafa carried the momentum from his French Open win winning the first two sets 6-4, 6-4.  Then Roger came back and won the next two sets in a tie break including a fourth set tiebreak where he was down 5-2 to Nadal before coming back to take the set and force a fifth set. 

The match was delayed three times for a total of almost two and a half hours.  The match itself was the longest final in Wimbledon history and lasted 4 hours 48 minutes excluding delays. 

The fifth set went to extra games and Nadal outdueled Roger Federer, finally defeating his rival on the grass at Wimbledon 9-7.  It was an epic battle.  One for the ages.

2. I didn't think Tiger could amaze me any more than he already had. 

Apparently I was wrong. 

Tiger had a partially torn ACL, hairline fractures, tendonitis and a hangnail on his way to a US Open championship.  Oh yeah, and he was coming back from previous knee surgery.  After 54 holes Tiger had the lead so it was a foregone conclusion that he would win, right?

That's what always happens.  But Rocco Mediate wouldn't let it be so easy. 

Tiger had to make a birdie putt on 18 on Sunday to force an 18 hole play-off the following day, only to have to do it all over again to force another play-off!  All the while Tiger gritted his teeth in pain and grimaced as he made his way out of bunkers and around the golf course. 

It's the kind of grittiness I'm used to seeing in a football player, Brett Favre maybe, but a golfer.  I guess that's why Tiger's the best.

1. Surprise, Surprise.  Superbowl XLII was maybe the greatest game I have ever seen. 

I never saw the Miracle on Ice, but I saw the movie, and this game seemed to have that feel.  The underdog is ahead and you keep wondering when the powerhouse undefeated Patriots are going to lay the proverbial smack down, and it never happens. 

Instead we get Peyton's younger brother and David Tyree completing the greatest play, start to finish, ever in a Superbowl, maybe in a professional football game. 

There is no reason Eli should have been able to get out of the pocket. 

There is no reason he should have been able to make that throw and put it where he did.

Tyree had no business catching that ball, and then to have the audacity to hang on to it the way he did, and never let the ball touch the ground so there was no doubt on the replay that it was a catch. 

The Patriots were the biggest favorite in Superbowl history, if not by the point spread, certainly in the minds of Americans.  They were undefeated.  Tom Brady threw 50 TDs.  Undefeated teams aren't supposed to lose in the Superbowl and especially not to a wildcard team.  But they did.

To me 2008 has already been a year to remember despite being just over half over.  We still have the second half of the baseball season, the World Series, the start of the football season, the PGA championship, the US Open of tennis, and the Olympics.  This is going to be the best year ever!