Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness

Oh. Somehow I knew you were a USA hockey fan. Because ... yeah. Greatest sports upset of all, all, all time.

"Going into the American end again ... Morrow is back there, now Silk, up to Ramsey, we've got 9 seconds ..."

A.

Well, I gotta say as a series this has been incredible to watch (ok really just the las 4 games) I am by no means a Red Sox Fan (Go Marlins!) but I must say watching the most arrogant fans in Baseball lose has been truly awesome.

Paid lip-flappers like Lupica -- the most obnoxious jock-sniffer in the history of journalism, if you don't count George Will -- have a vested interest in magnifying the significance of these things. The plain fact is, win or lose, in 18 months people will be saying, "David Ortiz -- isn't he on the Marlins?"

One dirt-cam doth not a dynasty make.

Always nice to see the Yankees lose, though. And it's becoming a reliable pleasure!

The ALCS has been enjoyable, but nothing compares to the Miracle on Ice.

Who's your daddy? Jim Craig, baby.

Dude, Norb, I really can't agree with you here. Yes, the Yankees/Sox hyperbole has been out of control all year, no doubt about it. But, come on, the first team in MLB history to blow a 3-0 series lead? That is a choke of truly historic proportions. No, it's not the World Series, but this is completely unprecedented.

Much respect from me to Willis Reed, but come on. The guy only scored 4 points in that Game 7, though he did play good D on Wilt. Yes, what he did was very impressive and clearly gave his team a huge boost, but it was Clyde Frazier who led the way with 36 points. Schilling, on the other hand, was dominant on the mound for 7 frickin' innings. What Reed did wasn't as significant as that.

The Miracle on Ice, quite clearly, was the biggest sports story in the US in the past 50 years. Certainly the PTI guys should have kept their hyperbole in the realm of professional sports, with a nod to the Miracle for best overall story. The only slight defense for ranking Yankees/Sox above that is the one-game nature of the Olympics, as anyone who knows anything about hockey knows that a 7 game series between those teams would have ended 4-1 USSR after that first US win. However, the rules are what they are, so yes, '80 US Olympic hockey is still at the top.

But, dude, seriously, let's say someone came to you at the beginning of this season and said, the Yanks and Sox will meet again in the ALCS, the Yanks will take a 3-0 series lead, and the Sox will come back to win in 7. What? That would have been the most insane prediction ever, and yet it happened. Yes, the NLCS has been brilliant, and unfairly overshadowed by a Yankees/Sox obsessed media even when the Yankees were up 3-0. But that series really did turn out to be one for the ages. It could easily be another 100 years before another series unfolds the way that one did.

Haggai: Maybe it's just semantics, but the terms "historic" and "greatest" are not synonymous. Obviously it's never happened before.

As for the Willis Reed thing, once again, Schilling's performance was described as the "guttiest", not "the greatest", by an injured person by the hyperbole-mongers.

As for your final question, I would have stopped you at the point where you describe the Sox-Yankees meeting again in the ALCS (before the 3-0 comeback prediction) and said "Oh terrific. Now I get to be inundated with trite bullshit by national sports shows for several weeks."

Yeah, but guttiest is pretty hard to measure. Is it that clear that Schilling was guttier than Reed? No, but it also isn't clear that Reed was guttier than him. If your point is just that Reed shouldn't be ignored, sure. But does Schilling at least deserve to be right up there? Of course he does.

As for it not being the "greatest" series ever, you're right, but the correct answer there is probably the 1991 World Series. But, most "compelling" series ever? I can agree with that. The fact that we saw something that had never happened before certainly comes into play there.

Norb, I realize as a Houston sports fan you're bitter, (Hell, the cities only Championships in any sport occured because the greatest major sport athlete of my lifetime not named Barry Sanders took a two year sabbatical) but you have to realize that for most of us the joy comes not in the Red Sox win but in the Yankee's loss, this is truly the sinlge greatest moment of sports-related schadenfraude of my lifetime. Oh and gutsiest I'd I'd put either the Byron Leftwich being carried to the Line of Scrimmage with a shattered leg while in college game or the the MJ IV/Flu game at the top, though the multi-sack LT crack-binge performance has to rank somewhere!

Hey Norb--just KILL your TV--then the pain will only be of the self-inflicted kind administered via the internets!

Man, you can just ignore all that BS media hyperbole crap, you know? PTI being a primary example. Don't encourage them, or they'll just keep doing it.

Well, I don't have much to offer here but can we finally agree that there is an EXTREME east-coast bias?
Lupika is about as New York as it comes; Kornheiser isn't far behind. The networks are based in New York and really don't concern themselves with much that is west of New Jersey.
We get this effect in "real" news too. But finally, I would have to say, and you all would agree, that the media deal in the importance of the now. So making Schilling's performance "the greatest since Moses' comeback" is a means to that end.

Dude, Rulon Gardner beat Alexander Frickin' Karelin, fer chrissakes. Undefeated for thirteen years, unscored on for ten. And he did it with just the nominal jingoist display in the background, not the Christ Is Risen and He Smote the Commies soundtrack which will forever mar the memory--not the accomplishment--of the 80 hockey team. Plus, if Disney ever does make his story into a chick flick it won't star Kurt Russell. I'm hoping for Charlize Theron.

DiMaggio's hit streak gets touted as the greatest, most unassailable record of all time, but--as King Kaufman pointed out--if it had been done by Harry Steinfeldt in 1910 it'd be just another curio. Besides, the greatest upset in the history of the universe was Cassius Clay defeating blindness and Sonny Liston February 25, 1964. I thought everybody knew that.

Everyone forgets that Bob Gibson continued pitching a game with a broken leg!!

Everyone forgets that Doc Ellis pitched a no-hitter on LSD (Even Doc forgets most of it).

Huge upset by current standards.

what about the time those angels from heaven played for tony danza? would that be the holiest performance of all time?

Slagging on "Donnie baseball" doesn't impress me. Sure he had only a handful of great years-- but so did Koufax. Mattingly was a leader, played the game honorably and was the greatest fielding 1st baseman of all time. His HOF votes are well-earned and are not due to his play in a major market. I think you're just pissed his facial hair didn't qualify as a "porn-stache". (My favorite disAstro is Louisianan JR Richard, possibly the hardest thrower of all time.)

I've never felt more pride in country than when Eruzione scored in Lake Placid. A personal Olympic memory I treasure is seeing Texan Michael Johnson run the 200m in 19.32-- we may never see that performance surpassed.

Flutie to Gerard Phelan capped a great win in Miami.

What else? Oh yeah, the biggest (HW) boxing upset of all time was Buster Douglas over Tyson.

Norb, I realize as a Houston sports fan you're bitter, (Hell, the cities only Championships in any sport occured because the greatest major sport athlete of my lifetime not named Barry Sanders took a two year sabbatical)

I'm confused, why would Wayne Gretzky taking a sabbatical have anything to with the Rockets' championships?

I hereby declare this series to have been the most important in sports history, as I, the Lord God Almighty, personally held Curt Schilling's ruptured tendon sheath together between my almighty fingertips, and was responsible for the reversed calls, and blew Jorge Posada's home run back into the park with a flare of my Neavenly Nostrils, and sent the Holy Ghost to whisper "You Suck" into the ears of Kevin Brown and Javier Vasquez before each pitch.

Why? I had big money riding on this one.

(Hell, the cities only Championships in any sport occured because the greatest major sport athlete of my lifetime not named Barry Sanders took a two year sabbatical)

Actually, there were a couple that occurred because the greatest major sport athlete of your lifetime not named Joe Montana came out of retirement and played for the Houston Aeros of the WHA.

1960(?)
Yes.

The greatest comeback of all time was when GWBush defeated AlGore, what was it, 5-4 or 8-1 or sumpen like dat! Talk about extra innings, his freakin' brother, Jebster, almost blew the whole game. Had to bring in the one of the greatest relievers of all time, Jimbo Baker, the best bullshit hurler since RMNixon. Jimbo was as smooth as the silk suits he wore to the game. And don't forget Joey Lieberman who blew the freakin save in the grapefruit league. He wasn't ready for the majors.