The Top Seven Strangest Moments To See in Sports

First of all, happy birthday to Albert Pujols. Second of all, the Top 7 would like to wish all of you a very happy Pujolsmas. Enjoy singing your Pujols carols, and opening your Pujols-related gifts, while carrying on the tradition of reading all of Pujols’s homers from the previous season, and reflecting on what he has meant to your life the past year. Enjoy this festive day.

Regarding the Top 7, this weekend we have a chance to see one of the most unlikely scenarios in sports come to fruition: the Arizona Cardinals in the Superbowl. This particular case spawned the idea for this list, which are the occurrences in sports that would be the strangest to see.

It doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, especially since one of them happened just two months ago, when the Tampa Bay Rays played in the World Series. With that crossed off the list, another joins in. Here it is.

7. BCS ends with non-controversy

I realize that some people swear by college football and will defend it to no end, but for many sports fans it’s hard to get too riled up about a sport where people’s votes help determine a champion (especially in light of entry No. 2 on this list), where the teams that play for the “national title” aren’t necessarily the best two teams, and where a team that doesn’t lose all season is not even considered for the title.  And all of those other bowls just seem like multiple NITs.

6. United States wins World Cup

Nothing would piss the rest of the world off more than the U.S. winning the World Cup.  Too bad it will probably never happen, but if you want to see some interest in soccer in this country, this would sure do it.  Then it would go away a week later, only after a series of 27,000 stories in the media about how the win would ignite huge interest in the sport here.  I also don’t think that you are going to see an influx of swimmers because of Michael Phelps.

5. LA Clippers in the NBA Finals

The most tortuous parts of being a Clippers fan are that you consistently get high draft picks, only to see them destroy a major body part within the first couple of years (or just be horrible at NBA basketball), in addition to that the team actually shows a ray of hope once every couple of years, only to have them return to being even worse than they were previously. 

One of those cycles is happening right now, with the Clips ranked as the worst team in the NBA in ESPN’s Power Rankings (since that is the end-all of all rankings).

4. The McMahons leave WWE-TV

So I hadn’t watched Raw in a long time, and just happened to go to it on Monday night, and who was the first person I see?  Stephanie McMahon, explaining to someone the match that they would have to be in the following week.  The WWE writers recycle more storylines than the people who wrote for Full House. 

Actually, perhaps wrestling should start using Full House storylines.  HHH could drive a car into John Cena’s kitchen while he’s out getting touch-up paint, and they could even bring Joey Gladstone in as a special guest referee.  Wrestling can be entertaining, but when they are still running out the same crap as they did ten years ago, it’s quite hard to win some old fans back.

3. Arizona Cardinals in Superbowl

No NFL team could possibly seem stranger in the Superbowl than the Cardinals.  They seem similar to the Colts team that won a few years ago: everyone talked trash about their defense prior to the playoffs beginning, and then the same defense pulled plays out of nowhere for a couple of weeks in a row. 

If they played this weekend’s game 100 times, the Eagles probably win it 65 times, but the Cardinals definitely have a shot.  Donavon McNabb is due for one of his atrocious-beyond-belief games.

2. Unanimous Baseball Hall of Famer

I know that this has been beaten nearly to death this week, but 28 people did not vote for Rickey Henderson to be in the Hall of Fame.  These people should never be allowed to vote for the Hall of Fame again.  The unanimous Hall of Famer is never going to happen. 

There is always going to be some idiot who makes up some lame excuse as to why the player isn’t a Hall of Famer.  The next “should be unanimous” guy is Greg Maddux—no steroids, unbelievable numbers, unprecedented consistency—and someone is going to not vote for him because of playoff performance.  It will happen. 

It’s just impossible to get 528 people to agree on anything, literally anything.  You would probably get holdouts on a vote as to whether the earth is not flat.  That one lady from The View wasn’t sure, and compared to some baseball writers, the cast of The View are astrophysicists.

1. Cubs Win World Series

I am honestly not trying to take it to Cub fans, but even they have to admit that the strangest scenario in sports would be the Cubs winning it all.  You could actually make a case that the Cubs even being in the World Series should also crack the top seven.  Anytime that one of the most rabid fanbases isn’t truly sure how it would react if the event happened, you know that it would be strange to see. 

Sure, it could happen next year, but this decade in baseball has definitely shown us that everything is totally up for grabs once you get into the playoffs.  It’s basically a 1-in-8 shot for every team that gets in.  Braves fans know this—they got one title out of 14 tries.  Cardinal fans know it: they lost in 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005 before their worst team (by far) got to win it all.  It would be strange to see the Cubs win it all and the reaction would be interesting, but one thing is for sure: some things would burn.

The Top 7 is written by Jason Major. He thinks the ladies from The View should be locked in a kennel for up to six hours every day. Email him at [e-mail].