Recent Sports Moments Guaranteed to Brighten Your Day

Sports might just be man’s greatest invention, and if it isn’t the greatest, then it makes a powerful case for being the most entertaining. Some franchises and individual sports organizations may struggle to find an audience, but by and large, the sports universe is remarkably popular, even when the product is subpar.

And how do sports achieve this? Sports make any given moment a potential opportunity to experience any or all emotions; sports are genetically engineered for drama and excitement. Sports create characters out of athletes, coaches, fans and industry personalities—unscripted heroes and villains that rival the greatest of fiction. This is why we watch the games, then watch the highlights on SportsCenter and then go online to read and watch even more.

What makes sports exciting also makes us insane partisans. Winning and losing are the fundamental building blocks of sports. Any given sports moment may be amazing to one person, but it’s also likely a buzzkill to another—a phenomenon that allows cheers and boos to coexist. But, there are those sports moments that even the most hardcore fan would struggle to hate; moments that transcend the sports partisanship.

These are recent sports moments guaranteed to brighten your day!

Baseball Promotion Goes Haywire, Because...Kids

Any plan that hinges on the participation of children is playing with fire, but as long as actual fire isn’t involved, it’s OK to laugh when things begin to go awry. This promotional event, which took place during a West Michigan Whitecaps game last July, attempted to get three kids dressed as home appliances to engage in a footrace. And it went about as well as expected.

2015 Surf City Surf Dog Competition

Happy (I think) dogs white-knuckling surf boards and catching waves. Dogs crashing into the surf, because...they’re dogs.

If the sights and sounds of the annual Surf City Surf Dog competition in Huntington Beach, California are incapable of putting a smile on your face, then it’s time to re-evaluate your life. At a minimum, the mere fact this plethora of awesome is used to raise funds for five different dog-related charities should be enough to brighten your day.

This Forlorn Wisconsin Badgers Fan, Imprisoned in a Teletubby Costume

There’s a good reason the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is known as “March Madness”—the tourney has the uncanny ability to turn joy into despair, and vice versa, in a fraction of a second. No person more effectively embodied this cruel dichotomy in this year’s tournament than the sad Wisconsin Badgers fan dressed as a red Teletubby. In a moment that is simultaneously hilarious, cathartic and weird, the dejected stare of a young man who was starting to regret the decision to wear a Teletubby costume liberates the rest of us.

"Weird Al" Yankovic Nails Coach-Speak Cliches

Considering how many postgame press conferences are held across the spectrum of sports, it’s remarkable that so many words produce so little news. But, this is what the average team hopes to do, because compelling press conferences are often the result of chaos. Coach-speak allows coaches and players to fill the void with meaningless word-chum—squeezing in the occasional nugget of information.

In this great bit, “Weird Al” Yankovic shows that his talent for satire extends beyond songwriting, as he runs the gamut of coach-speak conventions and the “it’s dull” aesthetic. It’s just perfect.

TCU's Trevone Boykin and Abby Faber Share a Moment Before Kickoff

Before each Iowa State Cyclones home game in Des Moines, a “Kid Captain” is selected by Blank Children’s Hospital to join the team captains for the coin-toss; the child and their family receive game tickets, a pregame field pass and jersey.

When Iowa State took on the TCU Horned Frogs in October, seven-year-old “Kid Captain” Abby Faber—diagnosed with cerebral palsy—joined the team captains at midfield as expected. This clip captures the moment TCU star quarterback and Heisman candidate Trevone Boykin approached Faber and kneeled down to share a few words with her. The encounter went viral after Boykin posted a pic on Instagram, leading to a campaign to help raise money for Faber’s medical expenses.

Andrew McCutchen Gives Two Young Fans His Batting Gloves, They Go Bananas

Adulthood comes with a myriad of great benefits, but one aspect of childhood I wish I could have back is the ability to get super-stoked over the sweaty batting gloves of an MLB player. Don’t get me wrong, if Pittsburgh Pirates star Andrew McCutchen trotted over to me and handed me his batting gloves, I would be thrilled. However, look at the unadulterated joy in the faces of these young Pirates fans. You can see tears welling up in their eyes—imagine what that must have felt like.

Vince Wilfork Shows Up at Texans Practice Wearing Overalls, Shirtless

When you’re a sports fan, appreciating the simple things in life is often an impossible task. The satisfaction of winning is frustratingly short-lived, as fresh new questions—about injuries, decision-making or any number of possible anxieties—lead to new concerns about the next game. So, when the opportunity to sit back and watch a very large man strut around in denim overalls, shirtless, comes, you seize it!

Houston Texans defensive tackle Vince Wilfork’s appearance on HBO’s Hard Knocks, when he hovers around practice in overalls and a cowboy hat—sans shirt—is straight up gold. Just take a cue from his teammates.

Knicks Fans Freak Out After New York Drafts Kristaps Porzingis

Fans of New York City’s major sports franchises aren’t known for being patient and slow to express their dissatisfaction. So when the large contingent of New York Knicks fans attending the 2015 NBA draft filled the air with angry, bellowing boos after the team used the No. 4 overall pick on Latvian prospect Kristaps Porzingis, it wasn’t surprising...as much as it seemed unnecessary and a little unhinged. Certainly, the gracious Porzingis did nothing to deserve it.

And for the rest of us, this clip provides the perfect vantage point from which to appreciate the spectacle of a good, old-fashioned Knicks fan freak out, while reflecting on how good things are relative to the gravity of such angst.

USWNT's Carli Lloyd Scores Hat Trick in First 16 Minutes of FIFA WWC Final

After reaching the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final, it didn’t take long for the U.S. Women’s National Team to quell any doubts about their ability to finish the job in their match against Japan. The USWNT dominated Japan from the start, en route to a 7-2 victory—a performance exemplified by midfielder Carli Lloyd’s hat trick in the first 16 minutes.

Winning the World Cup is a feat worth celebrating, but winning it so easily after Lloyd’s amazing outburst of goals is something that deserves to be watched again and again.

Deer Makes Cameo at Children's Soccer Game, Nets Goal

For any sport played outdoors, nature is an unpredictable—often unavoidable—X-factor. When the X-factor happens to be an animal, the resulting mayhem is almost always entertaining, if not hilarious.

In this case, a children’s soccer game was interrupted by a wild deer that wants absolutely nothing to do with any of it. Fueled by terror, this deer tears across the field like a galloping cannonball, but manages to put a ball in the net—essentially proving to be one of the best players on the field.

Some Things Are More Important Than Winning

When I watch these two pee wee football teams in Massachusetts succumb to the siren song of Silento, it gives me hope for the future. There will be plenty of opportunities in the years ahead for football to transform many of these little athletes into true believers in the Church of Lombardi, but let’s just appreciate the fact they seized this particular moment and surrendered to the “Whip/Nae Nae.”

Kingsley Is Here to Brighten Your Day!

Sometimes nothing can brighten your day like a few minutes basking in the sun—thankfully, Partick Thistle F.C. recently unveiled Kingsley, the club’s new mascot. Take a moment and drink in the contorted, frozen grimace of Kingsley, the deranged sun with a unibrow.