Best and Worst of Sports in 2007, Part II

Whew! We dug up so many fun items for our end-of-year list that we split it in two. In Part I, we listed the Best first.  Here we’re shaking things up a bit—because shaking invokes “shaken,” which puts us in the mood for NYE martinis—and putting Worst at the head of the line.

WORST

Time and place to throw a yellow flag into the stands: Bart Scott of the Baltimore Ravens has a lock on this one. The Ravens were thisclose to beating the Pats until New England scored a touchdown with less than a minute to go. Scott pitched a fit, got a yellow flag resulting in a 15-yard penalty, threw said flag into the stands, and got his team a second 15-yard penalty as well as a fine. Wicked smaht! 

Disappointment concerning a Hall of Famer shoo-in (Tie): Barry Bonds, of course. Has there ever been a player with such great stats so widely reviled? His indictment for steroid abuse allegations surprised no one, but it did produce a lot of tsk-tsks and water cooler chat about the sport of baseball.  

Disappointment concerning Hall of Famer shoo-in (Tie): On the heels of the Bonds indictment came the Mitchell Report that named names, among which was destined-for-his-own-Cooperstown-plaque Roger Clemens. Clemens denies the steroid abuse allegations, but as with Bonds, the news—true or not—represents a dark day for baseball.

Choice of attire if you’re a personal tennis coach: Speaking of shoo-ins, Claire Lyte is one for this category. As a rule, wearing your 13-year-old pupil’s pink undies is never, ever OK.

Girlfriend, in terms of luck: Dallas Cowboys fans (and some players) definitely do not think Jessica Simpson is QB Tony Romo’s sports muse. His worst career game happened to be the one she attended to pretend to understand football to cheer on her main man.

Behavior off the field: Make no bones about it, this (dis)honor goes to Michael Vick. If you don’t understand all the fuss, do some research on dogfighting. Chances are you’ll not only be appalled, you’ll also wonder why Vick would throw his NFL career and reputation away for the sake of “blood” money.   

BEST

Halloween Costume: No contest. This goes to Detroit Lions QB Jon Kitna and his wife for poking fun at the, um, bare truth regarding defensive coach Joe Cullen’s past indiscretion at Wendy’s.

Comeback: Sure, the New England bias on this blog is no secret. But even some members of Red Sox Nation considered them over-and-out during the playoffs. Winning the World Series? Fahgeddaboutit. Boy, were we smug when all was said and done!

Comeback, honorable mention: Oh, here’s that bias again. The Boston Celtics. They went 24-58 in 2006-2007; this season, they have the best record in the NBA so far at 26-3.

Impressions: Even if you are unfamiliar with the quirks of the world’s best tennis players, you’re likely to enjoy fellow player Novak Djokovic’s impressions (3m, 47s) of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, and Maria Sharapova.  

Girlfriend, in terms of luck: Gisele Bundchen to Tom Brady. See next items for explanation. 

Record-breaking: We plan ahead, we really do. Our plan to break this Best and Worst list into two posts was guided by the outcome of the Pats-Giants game on Saturday. Would our fave football team grab “Best Record” or “Worst Loss Ev-ah”? Luckily, they landed on the BEST list (and we wore our Tom Brady shirt while traveling home from FL yesterday to see how many people would comment. Three!).

Besides going 16-0 (most games won in a season) to become only the fourth undefeated team (the ‘72 Miami Dolphins were the last to do it), the Patriots broke several other regular season records in Saturday’s game: Tom Brady surpassed Petyon Manning for most TD passes thrown (50); Randy Moss moved ahead of Jerry Rice for most TD receptions (23), and the team broke the record held by the 1998 Minnesota Vikings (556) for the most points scored in a season (561). Read here about other records set this season.

Like end-of-year lists? We’ll be back later with more from some of the other bloggers on b5’s Sports Channel!