ESPN ESPY Awards 2011: Pulse of the Sports World Checked at ESPY's

The sports world is an ongoing saga that gets bookmarked with the various seasons that pass. The ESPY's offer insight into the year that was in sports, and there is no better way to check the pulse of an ever changing sports world. 

The most wide-ranging award show in the sports world takes place in full Wednesday evening. The venue and clientele descending upon Hollywood would make you think a grand premier was to take place. 

The Nokia Theatre will instead make way for the best and brightest from the world of sports. Giants of the pitch, field, diamond and so on will gather for a night of celebration and acknowledgement. 

A full 12 months have passed since the last ESPY's. It goes without saying that the world of sports we live in has changed. 

In some regards, it was for better; in others, it was for worse. Regardless, the shape and scope with which we view athletes has been inextricably changed because of moments we will never forget. 

So the ESPY's may be about awards, but it is also about so much more. Each iteration tells its own tale. Each year is a chapter in the book we can't stand to put down. 

Take a look at past winners if you need convincing. 

In 1994, Barry Bonds won the award for best male athlete. His name is vacant in subsequent years. The absence tells a tale of how one man can be so exalted one second, and hidden away the next. 

Tiger Woods is the most decorated recipient. He won the same award five times, the last in 2008. After that year, how we look at the best athlete to ever swing a golf club was changed forever. 

A look at the winner of the Best Moment category is a true measure of how momentous an occasion really was. 

Sometimes ESPN gets it correct, and sometimes the passing years fade the memory beyond repair. The first winner was Bonds' 71st home run. That has been tarnished by hearsay and assumptions on the cleanliness of the times.

Others, like Brett Favre's momentous game played after his father passed may once again live in our hearts as it did in 2003. We will only need a few more years to get the taste of the last couple of years out of our mouths.

The Outstanding Team Award reads like a list of memories than it does a specific team. The 2003 Angels coming from behind to give the city their first ever title, the 2008 Boston Celtics returning the franchise back to the rightful place in glory, the 1999 Women's US Soccer team are all examples.  

They are not just teams: they are moments in time that helped shape what I consider important regarding this sports world. 

I will be watching the ESPY's, not to see who wins, but who we currently value. It is an interesting experiment into how this ever changing landscape treats the winners and losers of Wednesday's event. 

The ESPY's are here once again to give you the cliff notes version on the past year in the world of sport. Watching it is like a highlight capsule of the moments that made me smile. 

Tomorrow night, I will be in my chair, remembering and smiling.