Top 7: Most Hyped Returns in Sports

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.

In honor of Brett Favre’s return to Green Bay, this week’s Top 7 looks at the most famous returns by players to cities or sports.  It could be because they are iconic, because they did something to piss the fans off, or a combination of the two.  Either way, it was an extraordinarily hyped return.  This brought up the question as to what would be the biggest possible current situation that could arise?  Pujols back to St. Louis as a visiting player is one.  If Manny ever plays in Boston it would be enormous.  What about all-time?  Number one is probably if Larry Bird had returned to Boston as a visitor.  Elway back to Denver.  Ripken back to Baltimore.  All of them would have approached or exceeded the level of hype for this Sunday’s game, which probably would have cracked the top five of a “what if” scenario.  Onto the list.

7. Vince Carter back to Toronto

After admittedly dogging it for an entire season in order to get traded, followed by becoming good again, Vince Carter isn’t the most well-liked person in Toronto.  When he returns, the Raptor fans do their best Philadelphia impression sans battery throwing.  Carter is like the kid who was amazing in 6th grade basketball but never got any better, but even as a senior in high school people still remember him as great.  He had some of the most ferocious dunks of all-time, and his performance at the McDonald’s All-American game contest in 1995 still ranks as the best series of dunks in a contest ever.  But it has never translated to being a great player.  His skills to good-at-basketball ratio is one of the worst of all-time.

6. A Couple of Cardinals Back to Philly

In late 2002 and 2003, the Cardinals had two of the least popular players in Phillies history.  J.D. Drew chose not to sign with Philadelphia after being drafted, and ended up playing in the Northern League and hitting home runs off of Ila Borders, then signing with the Cards the next year.  Scott Rolen turned down an enormous contract with the Phillies before being traded to the Cards (in a trade that included Placido Polanco).  Phillies fans hated them, but seemed to love being at the games and letting out three years’ worth of boos in three hours.  And you must give them credit for the batteries-at-Drew deal.  Very creative.###MORE###

5. Roger Clemens to Boston

This particular case was a rare one in that later visits were way bigger than the original.  When Clemens first returned to Boston, he was coming off of a 10-13 season and was playing for the Blue Jays.  Sure, he struck out 17 and basically flicked the owners off coming off the mound after striking out 16, but that was nothing compared to what came later.  That’s what two more Cy Youngs and a trade to the freaking Yankees will do.  When he first returned to Boston, he came back as a baseball hero and an icon—most fans sided with him over management.  As a member of the Yankees, he may as well have been Bill Laimbeer.

4. John Rocker to New YorkVery rarely is extra security required at stadiums simply because a certain player is coming there, but that actually happened when Rocker came to New York for the first time after his infamous Sports Illustrated comments.  Sure, it was part media hype that led to the “beefed up” security (I’m pretty sure that the only time “beefed up” is used is when discussing levels of security), but people were legitimately pissed off.  It was like when the WWF tried to raise hype for the Shawn Michaels/Bret Hart match by saying that they had extra security there, but it was actually true.  This leads into…

3. Hulk Hogan to WWE

When Hogan came back, it was part of a pretty lame NWO angle with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.  As soon as Hogan took the mic (he was the third to talk after Nash and Hall), he had to pause because the crowd was going so ballistic.  The crowd didn’t want to see Hogan with Nash and Hall in the NWO, they wanted to see the red-and-yellow Hulk kick out of three Earthquakes and give the legdrop.  It only took a couple of months (and the loudest wrestling crowd of all-time for Hogan/Rock at WrestleMania) before that happened.  You have to love nostalgia.  Actually, if they decided to bring Hogan back at the next pay-per-view, I may watch wrestling again.

2. Brett Favre to Green Bay

For as much crap as everyone gives the insane amount of attention the Favre gets from the media, even the most cynical person has to admit that Sunday’s game is one of the biggest regular season NFL games this decade.  And when Favre’s first game against Green Bay gets the highest cable rating of all-time, it’s hard to deny that there are plenty of people out there who think that the hype is justified (which is kind of scary). 

1. Michael Jordan to the NBAIt’s pretty hard to imagine anything ever topping this.  In 1994, the NHL was on fire, the Rangers were about to win the Stanley Cup, and NHL ’94 was the best video game of the year.  Meanwhile, the O.J. bronco chase got a split-screen with the NBA Finals.  People were (amazingly) even wondering if the NHL could overtake the NBA in popularity.  Had Jordan never retired, this obviously would have not even been a discussion.  It made the second three-year Bulls title run even more enjoyable knowing how lucky we were to be watching it again.  I can never remember a reaction at my high school quite like the day Jordan announced that he was returning.  Someone was waving a Jordan jersey while running down the hallway screaming “He’s back!  He’s back!”  Others cheered as he went by. It was the sports moment that brought more people together than anything non-USA wise because so many casual fans rooted for the Bulls just because of Jordan.

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